Latest / Left of the Projector / Contact (1997) with Christopher Bell

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Contact (1997) with Christopher Bell · Left of the Projector

• 0:17
  Track 1: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host Evan,
• 0:21
  Track 1: back again with another film discussion from the left.
• 0:24
  Track 1: You can follow the show at leftoftheprojector.com. Many of you may remember Carl Sagan.
• 0:30
  Track 1: He devoted his life to astronomy, planets, and had numerous contributions to
• 0:34
  Track 1: what we know about places like Venus.
• 0:37
  Track 1: And lastly, most relevant for today's episode, the potential of the existence
• 0:41
  Track 1: of life on other planets.
• 0:43
  Track 1: In 1985, he penned the book Contact, which was made into the film Up for Discussion
• 0:48
  Track 1: Today, 12 Years Later, by the same name, directed by Robert Zemeckis.
• 0:53
  Track 1: It stars Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, John Hurt, and Angela Bassett.
• 0:58
  Track 1: With me to explore the unknown this week, I have Christopher Bell,
• 1:01
  Track 1: filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, director, and you may know him from several
• 1:04
  Track 1: shows on Means TV, The Winds That
• 1:07
  Track 1: Scatter, and Miss Me Yet. Thank you for joining me today, Christopher.
• 1:10
  Track 2: Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
• 1:12
  Track 1: Of course. And I mentioned a couple of those shows, I guess,
• 1:15
  Track 1: before we dive in, I want to maybe maybe people who don't even know about those
• 1:20
  Track 1: shows or or other things or if you have any other projects that you might want
• 1:24
  Track 1: to to plug here at the top.
• 1:26
  Track 2: Okay yeah um you have a few things
• 1:28
  Track 2: on means tv i have a uh series called
• 1:31
  Track 2: miss me yet which is an archival documentary following um
• 1:35
  Track 2: the george w bush admin during and
• 1:38
  Track 2: after and um i also have a
• 1:41
  Track 2: short archival doc that i did with abby martin
• 1:44
  Track 2: called attention shoppers which is
• 1:47
  Track 2: kind of a video essay about um things like
• 1:50
  Track 2: operation gladio and um the
• 1:53
  Track 2: like basically um strategy of
• 1:56
  Track 2: tension against the left parties in uh europe and elsewhere um and that's about
• 2:03
  Track 2: it you can find me on vimeo i have a link tree and you can see all my films
• 2:07
  Track 2: that way and i do recommend becoming a member of means tv we're a leftist streaming koa and um,
• 2:14
  Track 2: Every one of your dollars that you put in with your subscription, we put back in.
• 2:20
  Track 2: We produce material, different shows, movies, short documentaries,
• 2:26
  Track 2: animations, what have you.
• 2:29
  Track 2: So we don't do ads. We are subscriber supported.
• 2:35
  Track 2: And use subscriber code Chris Bell and you'll get a little percentage off.
• 2:40
  Track 2: Chris Bell, all caps, one word, I believe.
• 2:42
  Track 1: Yeah, I'll throw the link tree, your link tree, and maybe a link to Means TV
• 2:46
  Track 1: to subscribe for anyone out there who isn't a subscriber.
• 2:50
  Track 1: But as I mentioned before, we are discussing the film Contact.
• 2:55
  Track 1: And, you know, usually when I have someone on, I will send a list of,
• 2:59
  Track 1: you know, my undone films that I haven't done yet on the show.
• 3:02
  Track 1: And you picked a couple but the one that we landed on was contact and i'm curious
• 3:07
  Track 1: why you chose it and you know after watching it you know i guess just your overall impressions.
• 3:14
  Track 2: The only reason i chose it uh from the list was because of the what i think
• 3:20
  Track 2: is famous uh mirror shot the one take uh jenna malone running up the steps facing
• 3:27
  Track 2: the camera and then her hand dips in But all of a sudden,
• 3:31
  Track 2: it's a mirror. So you see her opening.
• 3:33
  Track 2: It's like this crazy trick shot that I saw a number of years ago, was really blown away.
• 3:42
  Track 2: And then it took me forever. And I saw it on the list. I was like,
• 3:44
  Track 2: oh, this is a good excuse to see it. I've shown various people this shot.
• 3:49
  Track 2: I've shown my wife, and she was freaking out.
• 3:51
  Track 2: We're trying to write something about that involves mirrors.
• 3:55
  Track 2: So this was like a thing like oh my god you've never seen this like you should see this.
• 4:00
  Track 2: And then i saw it on the list and that was like an excuse to
• 4:03
  Track 2: finally watch it growing up the only
• 4:06
  Track 2: the cover looked kind of boring it didn't seem
• 4:09
  Track 2: like anything that was interest me and
• 4:12
  Track 2: i honestly think i only found out kind of kind
• 4:15
  Track 2: of recently that it was um robert damekis it was
• 4:18
  Track 2: really just the mirror shot it was something that popped up
• 4:21
  Track 2: on uh probably twitter and that's
• 4:25
  Track 2: how i first saw it so yeah it was just an excuse to
• 4:28
  Track 2: watch it and i did like it
• 4:31
  Track 2: at the end you know i did uh enjoy
• 4:35
  Track 2: the movie as a whole i didn't love it i think a
• 4:38
  Track 2: lot of people that i've read reviews
• 4:41
  Track 2: from or i talked to friends about it they seem a lot more into it
• 4:44
  Track 2: than i was but i liked it it's a weird thing because I was it's a long movie
• 4:50
  Track 2: and I was pretty engaged during it you know there's nothing boring it kind of
• 4:55
  Track 2: it sounds like it could be boring but there's something to it that keeps it
• 4:59
  Track 2: kind of moving along very well and,
• 5:03
  Track 2: um i do have a lot of things that i can pick and be like oh yeah that part was
• 5:08
  Track 2: kind of cool that part was kind of interesting which is more than i could say
• 5:11
  Track 2: for most movies you know so i would say i liked it i didn't i didn't love it
• 5:16
  Track 2: that could change as we talk that's kind of how these things happen yeah.
• 5:20
  Track 1: No that's that's definitely true and as uh as like a backdrop it's funny you
• 5:25
  Track 1: mentioned the poster being kind of boring i remember i actually saw this in
• 5:31
  Track 1: the theater when i was i don't know, like 13 or 14, something like that.
• 5:35
  Track 1: And I remember also feeling like it was really long, but I was also never bored,
• 5:42
  Track 1: which could easily have happened given, you know, my age and kind of the,
• 5:45
  Track 1: it is a little bit slow moving.
• 5:47
  Track 1: It's kind of, I don't want to call it a slow burn, but sort of like it,
• 5:50
  Track 1: like it has a really good payoff.
• 5:51
  Track 1: And so I think I have that like memory, memory hole, this movie as a movie that I really enjoy.
• 5:57
  Track 1: So maybe I like it more than, you know than uh
• 6:00
  Track 1: than i should like it somehow in a weird way but it
• 6:03
  Track 1: was it wasn't even like it did pretty well in the box house i
• 6:06
  Track 1: didn't mention it was the budget was 90 million which is fairly hefty for a
• 6:10
  Track 1: film you know late 90s and it made 171 million which you know it did almost
• 6:15
  Track 1: double its money so that's not bad but i don't think it was necessarily the
• 6:18
  Track 1: hit that they were hoping for especially given zemeckis's history of like having
• 6:22
  Track 1: forrest gump a couple years before this and of course,
• 6:25
  Track 1: you know, the Back to the Future franchise, but I think overall, I'm a fan of the movie.
• 6:32
  Track 1: I feel like I didn't maybe, you know, part of it is like a nostalgia thing, which I
• 6:37
  Track 1: I think I do want to mention too, as I don't know what other,
• 6:40
  Track 1: you know, Zemeckis films you've seen, is he really is into like that whole nostalgia
• 6:46
  Track 1: concept in a lot of his movies, especially Back to the Future,
• 6:49
  Track 1: Forrest Gump, some other ones.
• 6:52
  Track 1: And this film doesn't really have that. Well, maybe I should ask you,
• 6:55
  Track 1: like, do you think this film like uses the idea of nostalgia?
• 6:58
  Track 1: So the opening sort of beginning of this film is, you know, Dr.
• 7:04
  Track 1: Ellie Arroway played by Jodie Foster, and then you kind of have her go back
• 7:08
  Track 1: in time to as a child, you know, how she kind of got and there's some shots
• 7:12
  Track 1: back and forth throughout it.
• 7:13
  Track 1: So do you think it like hits the nostalgia button in this or no?
• 7:19
  Track 2: No, not really. No. I think that there are things that are tied to her past, such as her parents.
• 7:28
  Track 2: And then we see her as a kid doing the like a ham radio and being like,
• 7:34
  Track 2: oh, I reached, you know, this state or whatever.
• 7:38
  Track 2: But that's all kind of tied
• 7:41
  Track 2: to just her curious nature so there's not
• 7:44
  Track 2: really a lot going on with you know
• 7:47
  Track 2: they're not really i can't remember if they're in
• 7:51
  Track 2: a suburban area or if they're more rural
• 7:54
  Track 2: but there's not really a lot of nostalgia for childhood specifically it's mostly
• 8:00
  Track 2: connecting her to being like oh she always had this like childlike wonder i
• 8:05
  Track 2: guess and she carried that over into her adulthood profession but she.
• 8:12
  Track 2: I kind of don't think so. I don't think it deals with nostalgia.
• 8:15
  Track 2: But in a way, it has, you know, maybe the way you can look at him doing it is
• 8:21
  Track 2: that he has a kind of maybe naive
• 8:23
  Track 2: or pure, however you want to look at his perspective some of the time.
• 8:28
  Track 2: And maybe that leads into
• 8:31
  Track 2: this movie of being like the curiousness and the wonder and the determination
• 8:38
  Track 2: that we should keep exploring and try to grasp onto things that are not easily attainable,
• 8:50
  Track 2: such as life on other planets.
• 8:52
  Track 2: It's however little, whatever little trickle you can get, like,
• 8:55
  Track 2: oh, I'm going to tap into that and we're going to take forever.
• 8:58
  Track 2: And it might lead to something about it might not.
• 9:00
  Track 2: And maybe that's wrapped up in his same perspective that he uses throughout,
• 9:06
  Track 2: which I don't know, again, might be naive or naivete or something like that.
• 9:11
  Track 1: Yeah, I wrote in my notes as I was watching the beginning part with her going
• 9:14
  Track 1: back, I wrote, you used the word wonder. I wrote just like kind of a child,
• 9:17
  Track 1: like a child sense of wonder.
• 9:20
  Track 1: And it just kind of stayed with her for her whole life where she always had
• 9:23
  Track 1: this kind of ambition to just, you know, first it was someplace that was in Florida.
• 9:28
  Track 1: And then obviously looking for extraterrestrials on, you know,
• 9:31
  Track 1: light years away is, you know, quite the difference as far as looking for something
• 9:35
  Track 1: further away. But I also didn't think it really hit any kind of nostalgia.
• 9:41
  Track 1: I just saw it as, you know, she took what she knew as a child and is just kind
• 9:45
  Track 1: of taking it to the next kind of, well, out of the most logical step.
• 9:50
  Track 1: I mean, not necessarily every kid who plays with a ham radio then works for
• 9:53
  Track 1: like the SETI, you know, and is looking for extraterrestrial life.
• 9:57
  Track 1: But that was kind of her trajectory. and um
• 10:00
  Track 1: one thing i did want to mention before we get even
• 10:03
  Track 1: further into the film is i did at the top said this
• 10:05
  Track 1: is based on a book by carl sagan and there's just like a few so i posted online
• 10:11
  Track 1: the other day like what people like people's memories of the film and a few
• 10:15
  Track 1: people said that they didn't like it because the book was a lot better and i
• 10:19
  Track 1: in full disclosure have not read the book but i wanted to just point out a few
• 10:22
  Track 1: differences in the book versus the film that.
• 10:26
  Track 1: Maybe may or not be relevant i think when we were talking beforehand he
• 10:29
  Track 1: thought that the book some of those plot points sounded like pretty interesting and
• 10:33
  Track 1: i think the one that's the two that stick out to me one is that in the film
• 10:37
  Track 1: it's only jody foster that later you know takes this potential journey to uh
• 10:42
  Track 1: you know another uh another galaxy or another planet and in the in the book
• 10:48
  Track 1: there's actually five different scientists from different,
• 10:51
  Track 1: countries and cultures, which kind of makes it not just about a single person.
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  Track 1: I can understand why, you know,
• 10:57
  Track 1: they made that choice to just have Jodie Foster, the American who goes.
• 11:00
  Track 1: And then the second one, which is interesting, is that it took place during
• 11:03
  Track 1: the Cold War because it was written in 1985.
• 11:07
  Track 1: And because of that, there was this kind of pact between the United States and
• 11:11
  Track 1: the Soviet Union to actually work together as opposed to, you know,
• 11:15
  Track 1: having this, you know, this Cold War and nuclear arms race and all that.
• 11:20
  Track 1: So they kind of completely put that aside and were able to work together.
• 11:23
  Track 1: And it made sense, again, not to include that because the film came out six
• 11:27
  Track 1: years after the Cold War had officially ended, the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
• 11:32
  Track 1: So those two things would have been super interesting. I mean,
• 11:36
  Track 1: they could have certainly written the movie as if it took place in the 80s, but I don't know.
• 11:41
  Track 1: I'm curious what that film would have looked like.
• 11:44
  Track 2: Yeah, it kind of, I don't know. It kind of sounds like the book is cooler,
• 11:47
  Track 2: but um i've never read any of his stuff
• 11:50
  Track 2: i don't know what prose is like so maybe like it's
• 11:52
  Track 2: probably not i was gonna say it's like oh it could be dog
• 11:55
  Track 2: shit it's probably not like he's probably like uh famously like
• 11:59
  Track 2: a probably a decent writer i'd say um but i kind of i'll say this i like that
• 12:04
  Track 2: they're different enough to both exist you know yeah it's like they sound different
• 12:09
  Track 2: enough and what i could say is like the changes sound more movie like for better
• 12:15
  Track 2: or worse where It's like, oh, we're going to cram it all into one character,
• 12:18
  Track 2: you know, like strip stuff away and then just, you know, keeping it more contemporary
• 12:23
  Track 2: versus dealing with the Soviet Union.
• 12:26
  Track 2: They don't really shy away from politics necessarily.
• 12:31
  Track 2: But in terms of international politics, they don't really get too deep into that.
• 12:37
  Track 1: Yeah, they yeah, we will get to probably some of those things in not too long.
• 12:42
  Track 1: In fact, I think some of the, you know, early political kind of components are
• 12:47
  Track 1: pretty early in the film.
• 12:49
  Track 1: But the, you know, the big one, like the big kind of theme that I noticed,
• 12:54
  Track 1: especially early on in the film, is sort of like the idea that science is this public good.
• 13:00
  Track 1: You know, probably as most people know, many, you know, big inventions and breakthroughs
• 13:07
  Track 1: were funded through, you know, government spending, you know, in real life.
• 13:10
  Track 1: And many of those then become owned by corporations to use them as profit.
• 13:16
  Track 1: And one of the early moments in this film is that Jodie Foster's character is
• 13:21
  Track 1: in Puerto Rico. She's been funded to utilize a large, you know,
• 13:26
  Track 1: satellite there to communicate with, not satellite, uh, yeah, um,
• 13:31
  Track 1: not satellite um what word am i looking for is.
• 13:35
  Track 2: It not a satellite.
• 13:35
  Track 1: I guess it is a satellite right yeah okay i don't know why i have
• 13:38
  Track 1: for some reason had a had like am i am i saying i
• 13:40
  Track 1: don't know what it would be yeah satellite right so uh so i guess it's just
• 13:44
  Track 1: not a satellite doesn't orbit just uh yeah so they see good there she's in puerto
• 13:47
  Track 1: rico she's using this satellite with her team to sort of scan different regions
• 13:52
  Track 1: of deep space to you know look for extraterrestrials and she has her her boss
• 13:57
  Track 1: kind of comes down, who's sort of the one funding this project.
• 14:00
  Track 1: And in a very early scene, they sort of have this sort of argument amongst,
• 14:04
  Track 1: you know, several other people, including Jodie Foster, is that he believes
• 14:08
  Track 1: that it's better to use, you know,
• 14:11
  Track 1: these funding for these kind of projects should, you know, yield results and
• 14:15
  Track 1: sort of profit, you know, where the people, the taxpayer are spending all this
• 14:18
  Track 1: money, they should, you know, get something from them.
• 14:21
  Track 1: And, you know, the idea that we should only pursue scientific endeavors,
• 14:24
  Track 1: you know, when it's profitable.
• 14:26
  Track 1: And I think it's, I would imagine that this would probably be something that
• 14:30
  Track 1: would be on Carl Sagan's mind as, you know, as a scientist and a,
• 14:33
  Track 1: you know, person probably having to deal with funding for all kinds of things.
• 14:37
  Track 1: But to me, it was a pretty, you know, in your face kind of thing.
• 14:42
  Track 1: And Zemeckis politics can kind of lean a little bit more liberal,
• 14:46
  Track 1: even sometimes conservative in some other films so this was like a you know
• 14:51
  Track 1: pretty overtly saying i would hope that people watching this would think like
• 14:55
  Track 1: i agree with jodie foster here and not her uh her boss.
• 14:59
  Track 2: Yeah i think it's pretty explicit especially because he ends up being like um
• 15:04
  Track 2: you know not a terrible guy like kind of a good guy but a um like a clout chaser
• 15:10
  Track 2: or a ladder climber kind of thing um which i think goes hand in hand with,
• 15:17
  Track 2: him wanting to turn a profit or whatever.
• 15:20
  Track 2: It's like that individualist motivation.
• 15:23
  Track 2: One thing that I'm kind of curious about is that this part is the first time we see,
• 15:31
  Track 2: the character as an adult judy foster and then
• 15:34
  Track 2: there's like another time jump why do we have the the time jumps like why is
• 15:40
  Track 2: this not i was kind of confused about this like she gets she loses the job and
• 15:45
  Track 2: then has to find another job so then there's a little time jump like a few years
• 15:49
  Track 2: later like why did we need that that was kind of strange why have.
• 15:54
  Track 1: The like poor like the scene you know the portions in Puerto Rico and then jumping
• 15:59
  Track 1: where she's then kind of hunting for, I guess the next thing is she's hunting for, you know,
• 16:05
  Track 1: uh, funding from people all around the, you know, the country and the world.
• 16:10
  Track 1: Is that what you mean? Like why skip between those two?
• 16:12
  Track 2: Yeah. Like, so she ends up having a job that is at a private company.
• 16:16
  Track 2: Like, is that the next time jump is now she has a new job and it's like at a private company.
• 16:21
  Track 1: Yeah. So the, yeah, so I think,
• 16:24
  Track 1: so the guy, the the person i was referring to the kind of is kind of
• 16:27
  Track 1: in that profit motive his character is played by tom
• 16:30
  Track 1: scarrett his um the uh his david drumlin is the character's name and he's like
• 16:36
  Track 1: i guess either funding or like the leader of the the company that she's working
• 16:41
  Track 1: for and then i mean i guess the only thing i can think of is but in that time
• 16:46
  Track 1: period when she's in puerto rico is when she,
• 16:49
  Track 1: meets big Matthew McConaughey and I guess they like they
• 16:52
  Track 1: sleep together and he seems like really into her
• 16:54
  Track 1: but she's sort of like you know I you know
• 16:57
  Track 1: doesn't seem to want to be tied down and then they jump ahead
• 17:00
  Track 1: to where she's looking at I guess the only thing I could think of is I
• 17:03
  Track 1: don't know needing to be like this period when she's sort
• 17:06
  Track 1: of well I'm trying to think about this I mean
• 17:09
  Track 1: I guess the I guess to like connect the two is she's she
• 17:13
  Track 1: loses her funding from this from the original um you
• 17:16
  Track 1: know drumlin and then has to kind of beg in a sense from different other funders
• 17:23
  Track 1: i guess it's kind of like immediately saying that the only way to fund science
• 17:28
  Track 1: is looking at like the billionaires and these corporate groups is that the government
• 17:32
  Track 1: or whatever isn't really interested in funding these kind of endeavors yeah.
• 17:36
  Track 2: That's what i kind of keep coming to you You know, when I'm thinking about this,
• 17:42
  Track 2: like from the lefty angle, but then also I'm just like, well, is that not true?
• 17:48
  Track 2: Like in the world we live in, you know, if you need money to do it,
• 17:53
  Track 2: like, would you then be trying to convince the really rich people with such
• 17:58
  Track 2: hubris to fund these things, you know?
• 18:02
  Track 2: So I get kind of caught up in that and just being like, is it saying that private
• 18:06
  Track 2: enterprise is the way to go or is it being very, very realist about it?
• 18:10
  Track 1: Yeah, no, that's interesting. I actually could, you could probably make the
• 18:14
  Track 1: argument that it's saying the only real way to fund what I guess they would consider, like,
• 18:21
  Track 1: fringe scientific exploration is through private funding, and that, you know,
• 18:28
  Track 1: obviously we know what happens later in the film is that they do discover something,
• 18:32
  Track 1: you know, from far away, and that leads us into sort of the second half of the film.
• 18:36
  Track 1: But I don't know, just given like sort of what I know about Roger Zemeckis,
• 18:40
  Track 1: I don't know how it was depicted in the book.
• 18:42
  Track 1: It might have been slightly different, but it does lead me to think that he's
• 18:46
  Track 1: saying that the only way to really fund science is through billionaires and
• 18:51
  Track 1: that's the right way to do it.
• 18:53
  Track 2: Yeah, it's tricky. It's very tricky.
• 19:23
  Track 1: We see him on a plane, and then later we see him on a space station.
• 19:29
  Track 1: And he gives her the money, and they're able to go to the very large array,
• 19:33
  Track 1: which people may know of in New Mexico, which I think is something like,
• 19:36
  Track 1: I don't know how many satellites they have there, but it's a lot of them.
• 19:40
  Track 1: And she's able to continue her research and start to look at furthering her
• 19:47
  Track 1: sciences. And I don't know.
• 19:51
  Track 1: Yeah, I'm now a little bit stuck on it. I think I think it's saying that that's the way to do it.
• 19:55
  Track 1: And like he's and what's interesting is I think the government owns these these this very large array.
• 20:01
  Track 1: And so they're essentially leasing them from the government when the government
• 20:04
  Track 1: could simply just give them the time.
• 20:08
  Track 1: Why need to why is why should the you know, they have to pay to use this public good in a sense.
• 20:14
  Track 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't like making declarations like this, but I kind of think
• 20:21
  Track 2: we're thinking you and I are thinking. more into it than they did.
• 20:23
  Track 1: Oh yeah certainly just.
• 20:26
  Track 2: In the way that like oh okay so it's incoherent uh you know of course you know
• 20:31
  Track 2: that's uh par for the course with um stuff like this.
• 20:35
  Track 1: Yeah that's uh for yeah for listeners of the show
• 20:37
  Track 1: we certainly are you know looking deeper into the
• 20:41
  Track 1: political you know aspects of
• 20:44
  Track 1: films that probably you know i don't know how deeply robert zemeckis was you
• 20:48
  Track 1: know considering these things but i mean i think in some sense i like to say
• 20:51
  Track 1: a lot on the show is that like just the personal politics and the climate of
• 20:55
  Track 1: the time in the 90s you know when he's making the film whether he intended to
• 20:59
  Track 1: or not like has implications for you know what he's,
• 21:04
  Track 1: saying in it even if he didn't mean to or wasn't
• 21:07
  Track 1: you know would never admit to saying them but this
• 21:10
  Track 1: is where we end up you know this is where i feel like the the film
• 21:13
  Track 1: like it's a it's a little bit slow in the beginning kind of the back and
• 21:15
  Track 1: forth and then this is sort of where it gets going where
• 21:19
  Track 1: they now have discovered a signal containing prime numbers from a star vega
• 21:24
  Track 1: which i think was 12 light years away somewhere i wrote how very far from from
• 21:30
  Track 1: earth and part of what makes this part really cool i think is the the uh the
• 21:35
  Track 1: score and the you know the composition of like the,
• 21:39
  Track 1: sound of what it sounded like to hear the the
• 21:42
  Track 1: signal from far away it's sort of like this i don't know
• 21:45
  Track 1: how to describe like the synthy effect of it just kind of is like constantly
• 21:50
  Track 1: playing i think probably for the next 30 minutes on and off of the film and
• 21:54
  Track 1: it just kind of gets you really hooked or if you were already kind of hooked
• 21:58
  Track 1: in that first 30 40 minutes i don't know maybe i'm bringing too much into that no.
• 22:04
  Track 2: That was really cool i mean i really appreciate it to
• 22:06
  Track 2: the um the way they slowly built that
• 22:10
  Track 2: up it's like oh you hear it and then they're able to uncover like
• 22:13
  Track 2: another thing there's like these little moments of
• 22:16
  Track 2: problem solving where they like inch closer and closer to
• 22:20
  Track 2: you know deciphering what
• 22:22
  Track 2: this thing is and that was a lot of fun and I'm
• 22:25
  Track 2: actually curious how long that process is and how much that helped along the
• 22:32
  Track 2: movie being as long as it is feeling like there's crazy momentum when it's like
• 22:38
  Track 2: they're able to kind of have this longish sequence of just.
• 22:44
  Track 2: Minute problem solving where someone's like oh pull it
• 22:46
  Track 2: up on here like pull it up in here and i'm like oh we're deciphering
• 22:50
  Track 2: like we got another layer like here's another layer it's very i don't know that's
• 22:54
  Track 2: not something movies really kind of spend a lot of time on it's very subtle
• 22:58
  Track 2: in a way where they're being like let's look at the sound wave now let's look
• 23:03
  Track 2: at the sound wave that's below it and like what it reveals and it's like oh
• 23:06
  Track 2: it's actually a picture let's look at the picture it's quite interesting yeah.
• 23:09
  Track 1: I i think honestly i don't mean i didn't clock it when it was on but from the
• 23:13
  Track 1: moment where she's sort of sitting on her truck,
• 23:16
  Track 1: hearing the signal for the first time into when the government swoops in to
• 23:20
  Track 1: have these national security fears and James Wood's character comes in as the
• 23:26
  Track 1: head of national security and all of that.
• 23:29
  Track 1: I mean, that had to have been at least 20 to 30 minutes and it almost kind of goes by in like a blip.
• 23:35
  Track 1: I feel like that's one of the few, one of the several very exciting parts,
• 23:40
  Track 1: but of very, as you said, like very simple, tiny, monotonous, like minute things.
• 23:46
  Track 1: Like you're saying, all these like analog, you know, this is the late nineties,
• 23:49
  Track 1: you know, we don't have all these digital fancy gadgets and,
• 23:53
  Track 1: you know, they're connecting TVs using like RCA cables and, you know,
• 23:57
  Track 1: these things that, you know, people probably don't even,
• 23:59
  Track 1: you know, think of anymore now where you could just,
• 24:01
  Track 1: you know, connect it to some streaming something and you could then,
• 24:05
  Track 1: you know, easily connect it,
• 24:06
  Track 1: but they're connect, you know, talking with radios and the whole thing.
• 24:09
  Track 1: Like I found that also very, you know it's very compelling that part like i
• 24:13
  Track 1: think one of the which we'll get to later when they you know actually build
• 24:17
  Track 1: the machine is like one of the most uh exciting parts.
• 24:21
  Track 2: Yeah it's funny too how much how all of those little developments propel it
• 24:27
  Track 2: along using all of the analog equipment too it's hard to be like like i want
• 24:32
  Track 2: to say this should not be that interesting but it is they're able to do it everyone's
• 24:36
  Track 2: really excited you're feeling the passion and then i think james woods comes in and,
• 24:41
  Track 2: you know, he's great at playing a dickhead for, I don't know why, but, uh,
• 24:46
  Track 2: yeah, but, um, you really are into it because you can kind of see,
• 24:51
  Track 2: like, you know, you're watching a movie and you get the premise you're already
• 24:54
  Track 2: absorbed in at this point, but you can see the thing where it's like,
• 24:58
  Track 2: okay, so she hears this little noise. What's the big deal?
• 25:01
  Track 2: But you really get caught up in the passion and the way that they're trying
• 25:06
  Track 2: to figure this thing out and then how it keeps kind of escalating.
• 25:10
  Track 2: Again, like there's no there's no threat of death or anything.
• 25:13
  Track 2: It's not really an easy thing to make super compelling, but they managed to really well.
• 25:19
  Track 1: It is true. Like I feel, I think when I was watching it, I'm,
• 25:22
  Track 1: did I write this note down? I was trying to figure out,
• 25:26
  Track 1: about how long the film is before, you know, I think it's a good hour,
• 25:32
  Track 1: hour and 20 minutes, or even longer, I think, before they actually built,
• 25:37
  Track 1: you know, really, you like really know what's going on.
• 25:39
  Track 1: Because at this point, you see they've found this source, they find a video
• 25:43
  Track 1: signal embedded in it, which turns out to be Adolf Hitler's address for the 1936 Summer Olympics.
• 25:51
  Track 1: And like, I also kind of like the James Wood being like, oh, what is,
• 25:54
  Track 1: like, are they fascists trying to like kill us you know all this thing he's
• 25:57
  Track 1: like no that's actually just the very first you know thing
• 26:00
  Track 1: that was ever broadcast live on tv and so them sending
• 26:03
  Track 1: it back is meaningful and you know it's like these
• 26:06
  Track 1: of course the u.s government you know defense is
• 26:10
  Track 1: uh jumping to conclusions of like yeah they're gonna like aliens are
• 26:13
  Track 1: gonna bomb us or something ridiculous and of course you know that's not the
• 26:16
  Track 1: case they're just sending this signal and then they slowly peel back the onion
• 26:21
  Track 1: and they have the you know was it 10 000 pages or you know some astronomical
• 26:26
  Track 1: number or 63 000 pages of encoded data within it and that they have to decode.
• 26:32
  Track 2: Yeah more um peeling of the onion uh for this like little mystery box i have to say though.
• 26:40
  Track 2: The reveal like i
• 26:42
  Track 2: kind of clocked it it does like look like a swastika it's
• 26:46
  Track 2: upside down or something and super close and it's like
• 26:49
  Track 2: that looks bad you know and
• 26:51
  Track 2: then they'll they'll zoom out and they and they do it it's pretty chilling like
• 26:54
  Track 2: just to be like holy shit like that's literally uh
• 26:58
  Track 2: that's the guy and that's the symbol and that's that's the bad thing and it's
• 27:02
  Track 2: kind of unsettling to be like okay so in the movie alien sent this image that
• 27:09
  Track 2: is loaded to put it lightly uh true yes with a lot of bad,
• 27:15
  Track 2: negative meaning and emotion.
• 27:17
  Track 2: And then there's the back and forth. And it's like, why would they send this?
• 27:21
  Track 2: And it's one of the first things to get that far, which I kind of they spent
• 27:27
  Track 2: a little more time on just kind of dealing with, what does it mean that this
• 27:31
  Track 2: was the thing that is the first thing that somebody saw?
• 27:34
  Track 2: They don't know what it means, but what does it mean to us that it's our first,
• 27:39
  Track 2: like, hello, this is the first thing nobody knows anything about us,
• 27:44
  Track 2: but this is what they see.
• 27:45
  Track 2: And I kind of wish that idea was...
• 27:48
  Track 2: In an already very long movie i wish it was kind of uh
• 27:51
  Track 2: dealt with yeah um i think there's some kind of potential there to dig in a
• 27:56
  Track 2: little deeper but you know it's fine but cracking the code and stuff that's
• 28:00
  Track 2: fun and it keeps us moving along but um i do wish he kind of dug into that a
• 28:07
  Track 2: little deeper and had them kind of wrestle with that.
• 28:09
  Track 1: Yeah one one of the things too as part of like the
• 28:12
  Track 1: what this is like maybe like the one
• 28:15
  Track 1: of the controversial i i say that like very
• 28:18
  Track 1: lightly not really that deeply controversial is part of like
• 28:21
  Track 1: the reveal and like the u.s government and you know
• 28:24
  Track 1: announcing all of this is they have an address by bill
• 28:27
  Track 1: clinton which is he was not in the
• 28:29
  Track 1: movie they didn't do anything this was based on a like
• 28:33
  Track 1: discovery of a uh meteorite in antarctica
• 28:36
  Track 1: and they were able to clip in this address
• 28:39
  Track 1: by bill clinton and apparently they like sent
• 28:42
  Track 1: the white house like the script ahead of time like this is
• 28:45
  Track 1: what we're going to do like if you have any issues with it and then after they
• 28:48
  Track 1: released the movie the white house is like mad about it you know him being used
• 28:52
  Track 1: in the film and they actually never did anything about it they just kind of
• 28:56
  Track 1: i don't know maybe bill clinton saw the movie and didn't like it or something
• 28:58
  Track 1: and he's like oh you should send a national you know a nasty letter to warner
• 29:03
  Track 1: brothers about this but And that's like,
• 29:05
  Track 1: in a way, it's like the trademark, I think, from a lot of, especially Forrest
• 29:09
  Track 1: Gump, I think, is like the number one film where Zemeckis uses, you know,
• 29:14
  Track 1: overlaying, you know, the actors with the, you know, president or something like that.
• 29:20
  Track 1: And I actually kind of like the way they built out and sort of took it from, you know,
• 29:25
  Track 1: she's hearing this sound on her headphones in the desert to now the president
• 29:30
  Track 1: of the United States, an actual clip from Clinton is playing and telling everyone what's going on.
• 29:35
  Track 1: Like they do a good job of taking it from like this.
• 29:39
  Track 1: Like who should actually care about this little sound? Like,
• 29:42
  Track 1: oh, what does it actually mean to the president is now addressing like the world?
• 29:46
  Track 1: I could for world building, I guess you could say.
• 29:48
  Track 2: Yeah, I thought that was quite interesting. And I was actually curious.
• 29:51
  Track 2: Like I knew they didn't get him to do it.
• 29:53
  Track 2: But I was like, what was he really talking about? Because it fits so well.
• 29:57
  Track 2: And it's from such a long time ago. It's like you can kind of tell when they
• 30:01
  Track 2: put like Tom Skerritt in a photo with Bill Clinton. You're like, oh, that's fake. OK.
• 30:05
  Track 2: But this one was quite interesting. And it's tough, too.
• 30:09
  Track 2: But again, because they're not, they don't really have political minds like
• 30:14
  Track 2: us, but then they do stuff like this. And it's like, well, now I'm thinking about it again.
• 30:17
  Track 2: What would the government do? Like, how would they act?
• 30:21
  Track 2: And is this how they would act? Or is this just Zemeckis' weird,
• 30:25
  Track 2: like, liberal perspective?
• 30:26
  Track 2: Like, what would we do? Kind of to go back to, there's that thing with sci-fi,
• 30:31
  Track 2: or how people talk about aliens, where everyone's thinking that if aliens came,
• 30:37
  Track 2: they would kill us immediately.
• 30:38
  Track 2: Or use the planet for energy it
• 30:41
  Track 2: has to be that and then as you
• 30:44
  Track 2: kind of get a little older you read a little
• 30:46
  Track 2: bit you talk to more people you're like oh no that's just because
• 30:50
  Track 2: we're american that's what we do and that's why that's the perception of aliens
• 30:54
  Track 2: we're like um was we're projecting that onto them and um you kind of get a little
• 31:01
  Track 2: bit of that in the movie too like politically when uh like like you said james
• 31:06
  Track 2: woods is like oh so they're fascists they're going to kill us.
• 31:08
  Track 2: And they kind of deal with that a little bit, which was interesting.
• 31:12
  Track 2: And I do think that would happen.
• 31:14
  Track 2: Of course, I think it would probably be consensus, political consensus at this
• 31:19
  Track 2: point that they would think.
• 31:20
  Track 2: And I'm also curious what he... So Carl Sagan wrote this in the 80s and then
• 31:25
  Track 2: Zemeckis is writing it now.
• 31:26
  Track 2: So what did they think about the Star Wars program and having satellites up,
• 31:31
  Track 2: like militarized space and stuff like that? That doesn't really come up, doesn't it?
• 31:36
  Track 1: No. Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know enough about Carl Sagan's sort of,
• 31:42
  Track 1: political beliefs in the sense of like, you know, I know, like I know a little
• 31:46
  Track 1: bit about sort of his scientific background, but I wonder,
• 31:49
  Track 1: I know that he has said that he doesn't really believe in God,
• 31:53
  Track 1: which we will definitely get to for anyone who's seen contact this thing.
• 31:57
  Track 1: Like, oh, there's like the whole God thing going on.
• 31:59
  Track 1: We'll get to that pretty soon. I think as Matthew McConaughey comes back in.
• 32:03
  Track 1: But I don't know. It's interesting how that plays in.
• 32:07
  Track 1: But I definitely do agree that it's sort of a very, it's definitely a sort of
• 32:11
  Track 1: a liberal perspective on kind of what the U.S. would actually do.
• 32:15
  Track 1: And like just thinking in my head, like what would, if this were to actually
• 32:18
  Track 1: happen, we were to get this signal and the U.S. were to,
• 32:21
  Track 1: You know, I almost, by broadcasting it and making some of the information available,
• 32:27
  Track 1: they're sort of looking to the
• 32:29
  Track 1: scientific community and the international community for, like, support.
• 32:33
  Track 1: Whereas I don't know if the U.S. would actually do that.
• 32:36
  Track 1: Like, would they just keep this to themselves and try and, you know, decode it?
• 32:40
  Track 1: Or I don't know. I just, I know too much about what the United States has done
• 32:45
  Track 1: in their history to believe that they would do this as, like,
• 32:48
  Track 1: the goodness of their own heart or something. I don't know.
• 32:50
  Track 2: Yeah, that's what's really tough with a movie like this, especially when they
• 32:54
  Track 2: start being like, yeah, we're going to use the actual president.
• 32:56
  Track 2: So you start thinking of like the Clinton administration and how would they act?
• 33:00
  Track 2: And you start thinking about, you know, before him, it was like H.W.
• 33:06
  Track 2: Bush and Reagan, like, how would they act?
• 33:07
  Track 2: You start thinking about all these things and all these things that they leave
• 33:10
  Track 2: out, which, again, we're talking a book and we talked about the changes.
• 33:15
  Track 2: So they made changes to the movie, which are more movie ish.
• 33:21
  Track 2: And at the end of the day, a lot of the simplifications or the liberal naivete
• 33:28
  Track 2: of politics could just be this has to be a movie like we're already going on so long.
• 33:34
  Track 2: Like, how far do you want us to
• 33:37
  Track 2: get into? You know, how much other country stuff do you want to deal with?
• 33:42
  Track 2: How much are people going to believe that this is a thing?
• 33:46
  Track 2: Like, it's strange that that's not a bigger part of the plot, like the people.
• 33:50
  Track 2: It is interesting. They do have people believe in different things.
• 33:54
  Track 2: And that'll come into play later when they actually like build the contraption
• 33:59
  Track 2: to go visit. But for a brief period, it's very symbolic, and different groups
• 34:06
  Track 2: are reading different things into it.
• 34:08
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 34:09
  Track 2: But...
• 34:10
  Track 2: I'm not sure if, I mean, that would be my thought now, is that how many people,
• 34:16
  Track 2: if this happened today, how many people would actually believe that it happened?
• 34:20
  Track 1: That's a good point. Yeah, people are very untrusting of the U.S.
• 34:25
  Track 1: Government, even people who may generally support it and whatnot. I don't know.
• 34:31
  Track 1: I would think, yeah, I think most people would probably be pretty skeptical
• 34:36
  Track 1: of it. Whereas we'll get to very shortly, as you said, like there's,
• 34:40
  Track 1: well, maybe I'll just, maybe I'll just, we'll just get to that point.
• 34:43
  Track 1: So part of the, like the discover, as we mentioned, there's these thousands
• 34:46
  Track 1: of pages of documents and they're kind of now trying to figure out how to decipher
• 34:50
  Track 1: them and they can't make heads or tail because none of them,
• 34:53
  Track 1: none of the two pages sort of match another page.
• 34:55
  Track 1: They can't really fit next to each other. And then we get this kind of weird
• 34:59
  Track 1: scene where Jodie Foster's character is invited to this plane tarmac where the billionaire S.R.
• 35:10
  Track 1: Haddon, again, John Hurt, invites her in to his plane.
• 35:13
  Track 1: It's also kind of weird, but I guess he's a weird billionaire.
• 35:16
  Track 1: It kind of makes sense. And he starts basically saying, yeah,
• 35:20
  Track 1: I've discovered the secret.
• 35:22
  Track 1: These are actually 3D images, and each three pages connect.
• 35:26
  Track 1: And then there's this, the key is now uncovered, and now you can figure out what's going on.
• 35:31
  Track 1: And immediately, like, you're basically cut to the point where now they've discovered
• 35:35
  Track 1: that these are schematics for this gigantic machine that they now believe could
• 35:41
  Track 1: be used to perhaps send someone to Vega in some way that they're kind of unsure of.
• 35:47
  Track 1: And then they have, like, this sort of—they go back to—.
• 35:52
  Track 1: Like I think there was in the White House a few times and then they have this
• 35:55
  Track 1: gigantic sort of atmosphere that kind of looks like a music festival where there's
• 35:59
  Track 1: just thousands of people partying
• 36:01
  Track 1: and wearing alien paraphernalia and then fundamentalist Christians.
• 36:06
  Track 1: And so there you finally get the people who are like, oh, this is great.
• 36:09
  Track 1: Let's meet the aliens. And then some people that are saying like this is a hoax
• 36:13
  Track 1: or this is anti, you know, anti-God or whatever.
• 36:16
  Track 1: And like building, I think, a good – it's building like the second half of the
• 36:21
  Track 1: film, I guess. if you will.
• 36:22
  Track 2: And uh you're introduced to um was it jake bucey oh.
• 36:27
  Track 1: Yeah you're right.
• 36:28
  Track 2: It was jake.
• 36:28
  Track 1: Bucey i forgot.
• 36:29
  Track 2: Yeah kid kid bucey is um the leader of uh i guess the most important antagonist uh group in a way what.
• 36:38
  Track 1: Are they called their religious group i feel like i wrote it down but i don't
• 36:43
  Track 1: know what it was called but yeah you're right he's like a a preacher of some
• 36:46
  Track 1: kind like uh you know end of days kind of thing.
• 36:48
  Track 2: Yeah and i i remember kind of clocking that
• 36:51
  Track 2: as being probably something i would have liked
• 36:54
  Track 2: to had spend more time on again too but it's um all of these different groups
• 37:00
  Track 2: seeing different things in this discovery and kind of using it to their advantage
• 37:05
  Track 2: like finding meaning in it gathering people around their version of the idea
• 37:11
  Track 2: which was quite interesting,
• 37:13
  Track 2: but I think they mostly stick to the faith angle.
• 37:18
  Track 2: I don't know, God specifically,
• 37:22
  Track 2: Or just like faith and belief, right?
• 37:25
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 37:25
  Track 2: Like how much does God play into it? The specific God.
• 37:30
  Track 1: Yeah, I guess it's not like a specific God, but in a way.
• 37:33
  Track 1: So even like right before that, I don't know if you probably noticed,
• 37:36
  Track 1: is that like Rob Lowe plays this like conservative, I don't know if he was a
• 37:42
  Track 1: politician or just part of a conservative, you know, think tank or something.
• 37:46
  Track 1: But he's involved in these conversations as they're kind of like deciding what to do.
• 37:51
  Track 1: And that's kind of when Matthew McConaughey re-enters the film.
• 37:54
  Track 1: And we know from the beginning when he is first introduced that he's sort of
• 37:58
  Track 1: a pastor and has sort of written books about, you know, faith and,
• 38:02
  Track 1: you know, technology and science and all these things.
• 38:05
  Track 1: And I guess I immediately wrote down sort of like the idea of science versus
• 38:10
  Track 1: God, but I guess it's, you could argue that it's just simply faith in something,
• 38:16
  Track 1: you know, greater than us.
• 38:18
  Track 1: I mean, you don't necessarily have to say God, you know, it's,
• 38:22
  Track 1: I guess it's pretty clear that they're Christians and like, you know,
• 38:24
  Track 1: there's no like a Muslim or like Jewish representation here.
• 38:28
  Track 1: It's really just specifically Christian. And I guess with Busey,
• 38:33
  Track 1: it's made it seem, makes it seem like it's very sort of like culty and end of
• 38:38
  Track 1: the world, you know, technology bad, science bad.
• 38:41
  Track 1: It's corrupting, you know, people because we're looking to, we're looking beyond
• 38:46
  Track 1: ourselves when we should just be looking towards faith in God.
• 38:50
  Track 1: I know i i it i'm i'm curious like
• 38:53
  Track 1: to like parse out a little bit of the like the science versus god which i think
• 38:57
  Track 1: is when you like look up this film and you look at even the wikipedia page like
• 39:00
  Track 1: that is one of the sort of the main areas that's kind of brought up so i don't
• 39:05
  Track 1: know what you made of it here and like how they kind of introduce it and yeah i don't know.
• 39:11
  Track 2: Yeah i mean they take it they have interesting discussions that i think are pretty compelling and,
• 39:17
  Track 2: about um like jodie foster is
• 39:21
  Track 2: always kind of pushing back on what he says and
• 39:24
  Track 2: you know young hot mcconaughey is um
• 39:27
  Track 2: able to kind of he's very persuasive in
• 39:30
  Track 2: his uh mcconaughey way but that is um very
• 39:34
  Track 2: adult and sincere and serious conversations what's
• 39:38
  Track 2: weird to me is that i don't i don't know if i ever really believed
• 39:42
  Track 2: like she believes in science and i get that but the whole thing about faith
• 39:47
  Track 2: is that not just tied to her wonder and her constant like grasping and yearning
• 39:52
  Track 2: for this unknowable thing like she always had that right so yeah does she not
• 39:57
  Track 2: just put that together in her head and and that's why i don't know well.
• 40:01
  Track 1: And part of this too is like what's happening simultaneously is they're deciding
• 40:05
  Track 1: to build the machine and they're also gonna have basically i don't want to call
• 40:09
  Track 1: it a committee to decide who the representative is which they really only show the two people.
• 40:17
  Track 1: It's, you know, Jodie Foster's character and Tom Skerritt's character are really
• 40:21
  Track 1: the two competing people.
• 40:23
  Track 1: They don't even show, like, there's no non-American person, you know,
• 40:27
  Track 1: just these two people, two scientists.
• 40:30
  Track 1: And as part of the committee, Matthew McConaughey is on the committee to help,
• 40:35
  Track 1: you know, decide who's going to go or vote internally about it.
• 40:38
  Track 1: And like the big sort of, you know, reveal before she's not selected is that
• 40:44
  Track 1: he asked if she believes in God.
• 40:46
  Track 1: So he is clearly like trying to inject God into it.
• 40:51
  Track 1: And his sort of explanation as to why he does that, he says,
• 40:54
  Track 1: you know, 90% or higher of the world believes in God. So how can we,
• 41:01
  Track 1: you know, select someone who doesn't have that same belief?
• 41:05
  Track 1: And it's, I don't really know what to make of it other than.
• 41:10
  Track 1: I don't ever even really get the sense that Matthew Haneke is like a religious person.
• 41:16
  Track 1: He kind of feels kind of like a TV evangelist in a way.
• 41:22
  Track 1: He's like an author of sort of like popular Christian, you know, book kind of thing.
• 41:28
  Track 1: What's the name of his book? I had it in my notes. It was called Losing Faith.
• 41:32
  Track 1: I guess like the idea that people are losing faith and turning to science.
• 41:37
  Track 1: It's kind of weird. I mean, I could see like Carl Sagan when he's thinking about
• 41:40
  Track 1: this, maybe saying, you know,
• 41:42
  Track 1: the thing that the challenge for him in looking at God,
• 41:46
  Track 1: maybe he faced that kind of, you know, pushback in his, what he was doing as
• 41:50
  Track 1: a scientist of saying like, oh, why would you want to like look at,
• 41:54
  Track 1: you know, the existence of extraterrestrials when like, we don't even know how
• 41:58
  Track 1: our universe was created.
• 42:00
  Track 1: And we believe that God did that. I don't know. Kind of all over the place.
• 42:05
  Track 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's a little peculiar because I do remember and I remember enjoying
• 42:10
  Track 2: their conversations together.
• 42:12
  Track 2: They kind of go back and forth. But the more I think about it,
• 42:15
  Track 2: the more I'm just like, she had all this stuff.
• 42:18
  Track 2: And I guess maybe she just identified it as science and, you know,
• 42:23
  Track 2: her quest for knowledge.
• 42:25
  Track 2: But I didn't really see it as very different.
• 42:28
  Track 2: And maybe that's part of it is Makane is helping her like kind of connect the two.
• 42:33
  Track 2: Um but it's also hard to see him as anything other than just like a hippie kind
• 42:40
  Track 2: of soulful guy but i mean right off the bat he's just like oh yeah i'm a preacher but uh i gotta have sex,
• 42:49
  Track 2: that's what makes me different you know yeah it's like okay it's.
• 42:52
  Track 1: Interesting i would have like i was thinking about this too is like if they
• 42:56
  Track 1: didn't cast matthew mcconaughey and instead had i i don't I wasn't even like
• 43:01
  Track 1: thinking about like who would be instead of him.
• 43:03
  Track 1: But if it hadn't been him, like would he still come off as that same,
• 43:08
  Track 1: I mean, maybe it just doesn't work without that kind of like slightly sleazy
• 43:13
  Track 1: kind of, you know, kind of rub to him, you know, I don't know.
• 43:18
  Track 2: Yeah. I mean, I think they're trying to make.
• 43:21
  Track 1: Alluring you know and i think maybe.
• 43:24
  Track 2: That works like the kind of sex appeal i mean he's not a romantic interest in the book is that correct.
• 43:29
  Track 1: Correct there isn't one because there's all the scientists so in the book i
• 43:34
  Track 1: think i i didn't mention this the in the film he is a preacher and not a love
• 43:39
  Track 1: interest and he's not even like the foil if you will the villain whereas in
• 43:44
  Track 1: this you could say he's kind of a foil.
• 43:46
  Track 2: Yeah yeah and maybe that's partly zemeckis saying like ooh, the appeal of religion draws you in.
• 43:55
  Track 2: But I wouldn't say he's against it. I don't think that's what the perspective is. Yeah, I don't know.
• 44:00
  Track 1: And one of the things, too, that I think that they do, they're also,
• 44:03
  Track 1: we mentioned, like, the Clinton part.
• 44:05
  Track 1: There's a few other points in the film, which I like this just in,
• 44:09
  Track 1: like, especially in, like, horror movies when they use, when they sort of have
• 44:12
  Track 1: a telecast going on in the background and they cut in and out of some of the lines.
• 44:16
  Track 1: And he's on, like, a talk show. I think it's actually Larry King talking about his book.
• 44:21
  Track 1: And I think he makes something how, I think one of the quotes was,
• 44:24
  Track 1: he says, are we fundamentally happier because of science and technology?
• 44:29
  Track 1: And I think that's actually maybe more of an interesting question than the idea
• 44:33
  Track 1: of like the science versus God.
• 44:35
  Track 1: And granted, this is in 1997. We don't have like Facebook and smartphones and
• 44:40
  Track 1: TikTok and, you know, all these things that, you know, you could argue and go,
• 44:45
  Track 1: you can have a, you know, write books.
• 44:47
  Track 1: Some people have written books about whether these things are good for society
• 44:50
  Track 1: or not. But it's actually like an interesting point to me of,
• 44:54
  Track 1: you know, yes, you could say like these sciences and technologies do advance what we can do.
• 45:00
  Track 1: But in the same time, they're also like distractions for, you know,
• 45:04
  Track 1: the average person as well.
• 45:06
  Track 1: Not to say they're not like good distractions or bad distractions.
• 45:08
  Track 1: They're not here as like saying we shouldn't have, you know,
• 45:12
  Track 1: smartphones and the Internet and all that.
• 45:14
  Track 2: Yeah, that's an interesting line, too. And I think it's most resonant because...
• 45:21
  Track 2: I guess part of the argument is like, why are we doing this?
• 45:25
  Track 2: And I think fundamentally, we've all had, it's like people interact with one
• 45:31
  Track 2: another since the beginning.
• 45:33
  Track 2: Communities, families, friends,
• 45:35
  Track 2: like some form of that, just love and experiencing love and leisure.
• 45:39
  Track 2: And everything else clouds that. It's like, oh, our modern era,
• 45:42
  Track 2: we're so advanced. And it's like, well, what do you want to do?
• 45:45
  Track 2: You want to be with the people you love.
• 45:46
  Track 2: That's like very common. But one thing that is just like, well,
• 45:50
  Track 2: you need a place to protect yourself from the elements and you need food.
• 45:54
  Track 2: And how are you going to get the food?
• 45:56
  Track 2: Who's going to grow it? Who's going to hunt for it? Who's going to gather,
• 46:00
  Track 2: cultivate it? Like, those are the problems.
• 46:02
  Track 2: So when we're talking about like, oh, technology, like, does it make it make us happier?
• 46:07
  Track 2: Those are the things it needs to cover. And going to space is not doing that.
• 46:12
  Track 2: Right you know so that's an interesting thing
• 46:15
  Track 2: that they kind of touch on which is a good point and
• 46:17
  Track 2: i think to like some version of this movie
• 46:21
  Track 2: that's not like the exact point but i sort
• 46:24
  Track 2: of said it before is that it feels very adult in which we're here and all these
• 46:30
  Track 2: characters are having conversations talking about big questions which this version
• 46:37
  Track 2: of filmmaking like big hollywood filmmaking does not normally do.
• 46:41
  Track 2: So you got to give kudos to that, even if, as I said, they're not always,
• 46:45
  Track 2: you know, personal preference going down roads that I want.
• 46:49
  Track 2: Like, never are they asking why are we,
• 46:53
  Track 2: This is something I wrestle with, too, because I think space is cool.
• 46:55
  Track 2: I think it's very interesting.
• 46:57
  Track 2: But if we're not taking care of people on the planet, there's still a lot of poverty exploitation.
• 47:05
  Track 2: People don't have food. People don't have health care. These things exist and
• 47:09
  Track 2: we're not giving it to certain people. Why are we going to space? You know?
• 47:13
  Track 1: Yeah i.
• 47:14
  Track 2: Hate to say it but that is a thing that i wonder about and um they're not really
• 47:19
  Track 2: asking that question fully but he does touch on that and they do highlight it
• 47:23
  Track 2: it's in the movie so it means something you know.
• 47:25
  Track 1: Yeah it's.
• 47:26
  Track 2: Something that's on his mind.
• 47:27
  Track 1: But i mean i think the way that they kind of touch on it though i mean is sort
• 47:31
  Track 1: of like if you're watching this from the perspective of like oh yeah like you
• 47:35
  Track 1: know we got to go to space it's so cool which you know arguably it is like cool
• 47:39
  Track 1: the machine that they build and everything.
• 47:41
  Track 1: But the way that they sort of look at this other side of like,
• 47:44
  Track 1: oh, you know, science, technology, like, doesn't really make us happier and
• 47:48
  Track 1: all that is sort of like seen, you know, in a slight way as like a negative.
• 47:51
  Track 1: Like you're watching that almost meant to think like, oh, this,
• 47:55
  Track 1: you know, idiot is saying we shouldn't, you know, explore and all of that.
• 47:59
  Track 1: But what we find out later is that the machine costs nearly a trillion dollars
• 48:03
  Track 1: or no, I think it's for both of them because they build one and then it's destroyed
• 48:08
  Track 1: and they have to build another one. It's like almost a trillion dollars.
• 48:10
  Track 1: For a trillion dollars, they could have solved world hunger.
• 48:14
  Track 1: Housed every person and gotten everyone, you know, food and not just in the
• 48:17
  Track 1: United States, like probably in many countries where poverty is even worse than
• 48:22
  Track 1: the United States, like India, for example.
• 48:24
  Track 1: So the priority is clearly not on people.
• 48:29
  Track 1: It's simply, you know, exploration. But at the same time, one other thing that
• 48:33
  Track 1: I think is worth mentioning,
• 48:35
  Track 1: and they only kind of like slide this in is they
• 48:37
  Track 1: talk about how the way that they were
• 48:40
  Track 1: able to build the machine is basically using government
• 48:43
  Track 1: contractors a lot of these like they they sell some of the
• 48:46
  Track 1: technology i think to like the japanese and japanese contractors to then build
• 48:51
  Track 1: it so they're they're actually profiting in some way off of the technology that's
• 48:56
  Track 1: being built in this where in you could look at a sequel of this in the future
• 49:01
  Track 1: of okay well now that these private companies have this technology,
• 49:04
  Track 1: maybe they'll start building their own private machines and doing their own
• 49:07
  Track 1: research on it, you know, for profit.
• 49:10
  Track 1: You know, you could pay, Elon Musk could pay to drop himself into the machine. I don't know.
• 49:15
  Track 1: I'm just thinking like they're not doing this really for the goodness of their
• 49:19
  Track 1: own heart, even if that's kind of the, you know, the implication, I think.
• 49:25
  Track 2: Yeah, that was, he's really interesting.
• 49:28
  Track 2: I think we talked about this a little before, like they have a billionaire come,
• 49:32
  Track 2: he helps solve the, he helps solve problems, deus ex machina,
• 49:37
  Track 2: which again feels weird when we're talking about like, oh, it's not the government
• 49:42
  Track 2: that works, it's private enterprise.
• 49:45
  Track 2: But then again, it's like, well, yeah, you can solve problems really easily if you're rich.
• 49:52
  Track 1: That's true. Yeah, right. Exactly.
• 49:54
  Track 2: So can I knock you for putting that in your movie? Like, no, I guess not.
• 50:00
  Track 2: There's definitely more interesting ways to go about it. Like,
• 50:02
  Track 2: for instance, he solves, he's like, oh, it's three dimensional code.
• 50:07
  Track 2: That's how it works. I mean, he must employ people under him.
• 50:11
  Track 2: Maybe you can see that as like a collective effort.
• 50:13
  Track 2: And you don't really see that. It's like he tells her to do it.
• 50:16
  Track 2: And it's like, oh, yeah, cool.
• 50:17
  Track 2: So that's how it works, you know? So there's ways to make it something along
• 50:22
  Track 2: more of how we see the world.
• 50:24
  Track 1: But the implication, though, is that he himself did that, right?
• 50:27
  Track 1: Kind of like the billionaire guy was really smart, and he was able to figure
• 50:30
  Track 1: out the code of these 63,000 documents.
• 50:33
  Track 2: Yeah, I think implication is the right word.
• 50:38
  Track 2: They don't really say it, but it's like it kind of does feel like that's what
• 50:42
  Track 2: it is. Like it's not mentioned at all.
• 50:44
  Track 2: Like he figured it out. Yeah, that's tough. It's like how much of this like
• 50:48
  Track 2: conforms to the story structure, like the script structure, what a movie has
• 50:55
  Track 2: to feel like, how much of this is Zemeckis' actual perspective.
• 50:58
  Track 2: And then how much of this is just like, oh, I'm an American and I grew up and
• 51:02
  Track 2: this is how I see things. And it's matter of fact to me, it's like ordinary.
• 51:05
  Track 1: Yeah, I think that's a lot of it for sure. And yeah, I mean,
• 51:08
  Track 1: like just in general too, I mean, the book sounded far less like American,
• 51:13
  Track 1: you know, perspective Eurocentric with like a five different scientists from
• 51:18
  Track 1: different places going.
• 51:19
  Track 1: Whereas this again, yeah, I mean, I get it. It's a movie made by Warner Brothers,
• 51:22
  Track 1: you know, in the United States.
• 51:24
  Track 1: And that's, you know, how it is. uh so
• 51:27
  Track 1: you know we have yeah so that's
• 51:31
  Track 1: you know that's what it is and the this is kind
• 51:33
  Track 1: of so you mentioned the uh the young the little bucey here we only kind of get
• 51:39
  Track 1: a glimpse of a couple shots kind of like you know very kind of with his long
• 51:43
  Track 1: white kind of blondish hair and then as they're preparing to use the machine
• 51:48
  Track 1: in cape canaveral to you know test it you know drummond is up drummond up there,
• 51:53
  Track 1: you know, checking it out and.
• 51:56
  Track 1: Jody foster notices that he's there and like remembers that
• 51:59
  Track 1: this guy is this you know christian fundamentalist type
• 52:02
  Track 1: and then he has a bomb and he
• 52:05
  Track 1: blows himself up destroying the machine of course killing you
• 52:09
  Track 1: know his character um tom scarrett's character and uh you kind of at that point
• 52:14
  Track 1: are like oh well this sucks like they're never going to actually do it you know
• 52:17
  Track 1: what's going to happen and then of course we find out and one of also my favorite
• 52:22
  Track 1: lines maybe from the movie is when And the eccentric billionaire says,
• 52:27
  Track 1: like, you know, why build one when you can build two for twice the price?
• 52:30
  Track 1: And it turns out there's like a secret second machine in, you know,
• 52:33
  Track 1: on an island in Japan, which they make like seem like very like spooky when
• 52:38
  Track 1: they go there on a like the rocky ship.
• 52:41
  Track 1: Like they really make it seem like very mystical, which I guess kind of plays
• 52:44
  Track 1: into the last, you know, half hour or so of the movie, which I do also really
• 52:49
  Track 1: appreciate that she's on the ship.
• 52:50
  Track 1: And everything seems mysterious and ominous that works for me.
• 52:58
  Track 2: Yeah, that's really interesting. I just want to get to that part when she's,
• 53:07
  Track 2: in the alien planet. That's like...
• 53:11
  Track 1: That's basically right after this. They decide to now, they're going to send
• 53:14
  Track 1: her and they're testing it. They're getting ready.
• 53:17
  Track 1: She's in a little I don't know, the ball or whatever you would want to call
• 53:20
  Track 1: it, the little piece that's dropping through the pod, I guess,
• 53:24
  Track 1: that's dropping through.
• 53:26
  Track 1: And as they're seeing it, like watching her do it, her headset,
• 53:30
  Track 1: it starts like malfunction and they can't actually see anymore.
• 53:33
  Track 1: And they're kind of going now
• 53:35
  Track 1: kind of back and forth, which you can maybe argue is kind of like this,
• 53:38
  Track 1: you know, what we actually know and what we don't know is she's now seeing like
• 53:42
  Track 1: a literal portal opening up and she drops through and we get about,
• 53:48
  Track 1: I guess it's about 20 minutes of, you know, she's going through the wormhole and ends up,
• 53:52
  Track 1: on vega or you know in some version of of
• 53:55
  Track 1: it in her mind anyway where she meets her father or
• 53:59
  Track 1: she realizes like a you know construction of a memory in her brain of her father
• 54:03
  Track 1: and pensacola which you mentioned earlier in the the start where that was one
• 54:07
  Track 1: of the first places she reaches in the ham radio and starts talking to her her
• 54:13
  Track 1: father asking questions and like i Like this is like the,
• 54:17
  Track 1: you know, this is the, the apex of the, of the, of the kind of the, the film.
• 54:21
  Track 2: Very uniquely Zemeckis. It doesn't look like it just looks slightly off, you know,
• 54:28
  Track 2: it's, he doesn't go wild, but it has this really weird uncanny feeling,
• 54:34
  Track 2: which is kind of funny because it, it is almost reminiscent of what he would
• 54:37
  Track 2: end up doing for years afterwards with like Polar Express and stuff like that,
• 54:42
  Track 2: where it's just like, people give him such a hard time.
• 54:45
  Track 2: It's like, why are you doing this? And he kind of does it in this in a way like
• 54:49
  Track 2: things feel slightly off, but slightly also like you do get the feel of comfort and pleasantness.
• 54:58
  Track 2: And it just adds a little like the slightest bit of oddness to what is essentially
• 55:06
  Track 2: a very peaceful moment where it's like, oh, I'm talking to my dad who died,
• 55:10
  Track 2: but it's not really my dad.
• 55:11
  Track 2: Also, this is the only thing I've ever wanted in my entire life.
• 55:15
  Track 2: And, you know, is this real?
• 55:17
  Track 2: Am I like, I have to believe it's real. It's a very interesting sequence and
• 55:23
  Track 2: nothing really looks like it.
• 55:25
  Track 2: And when I say that, it's almost indistinguishable.
• 55:29
  Track 2: Like you can't really point out how it doesn't look crazy. There's nothing super weird about it.
• 55:35
  Track 2: It's just weird enough, which makes it even weirder. where it's like,
• 55:38
  Track 2: I think you just like, it's like he did a slider, like there's a slider and it's on normal.
• 55:42
  Track 2: And he just did it like a little bit. And it's like, oh, I, I,
• 55:45
  Track 2: feel a little off right now.
• 55:47
  Track 1: It's kind of true though like i it somehow fits with
• 55:51
  Track 1: like the mood of the film if it had been like too off
• 55:55
  Track 1: the wall it would have been so different than the first at
• 55:58
  Track 1: this point like two hours or two hours and 10 minutes that
• 56:01
  Track 1: it's like it's it feels very like i got this weird
• 56:04
  Track 1: i even think i'm trying to remember it seemed
• 56:07
  Track 1: like because it was florida maybe i'm remembering wrong
• 56:10
  Track 1: it sounded almost like the the soundtrack or like
• 56:13
  Track 1: the sound effects in the background almost sounded just kind of
• 56:16
  Track 1: like you know uh the ocean because
• 56:18
  Track 1: they're right by the beach and it's like very pleasant i.
• 56:21
  Track 1: Think maybe you said the word pleasant it just feels just
• 56:25
  Track 1: peaceful yes it feels very it
• 56:27
  Track 1: feels very much like that where you don't like it's weird
• 56:31
  Track 1: but like it's sort of supposed to be weird
• 56:34
  Track 1: and like the the the you know the alien
• 56:37
  Track 1: or you know the this advanced civilization basically
• 56:41
  Track 1: tells her like you know we thought this would be easier for
• 56:44
  Track 1: you than if you saw you know
• 56:46
  Track 1: what we actually you know look like or because
• 56:49
  Track 1: we never really we don't know what they look like she doesn't even ask like that's
• 56:53
  Track 1: kind of like the one thing about alien films too you said it's always like
• 56:55
  Track 1: oh they're coming to destroy earth and take our resources
• 56:59
  Track 1: it's always often thought of as like you know the little green man or
• 57:02
  Track 1: you know kind of like the i guess there's
• 57:04
  Track 1: different versions of it but that was kind of like the initial idea of
• 57:07
  Track 1: of an alien where this they could be you know whatever it could just be sort
• 57:11
  Track 1: of a mist it could be a you know it's kind of left up to you to just kind of
• 57:16
  Track 1: envision it and instead it's just taken through like the human form i don't
• 57:22
  Track 1: know i don't know what to maybe make of that maybe it's maybe i'm making too much of it no.
• 57:25
  Track 2: I think he's leaning towards heaven i think there's like a good argument that
• 57:30
  Track 2: that's what he's going for and because it was never going to be like alien or
• 57:35
  Track 2: aliens or whatever there's like totally different movies like very dark and
• 57:38
  Track 2: it's horror action obviously wasn't going to do that.
• 57:41
  Track 1: Right but.
• 57:42
  Track 2: He was leaning and less star trekkie people in makeup and stuff like that and
• 57:49
  Track 2: because of the subject matter what we're dealing with in the movie it was going
• 57:53
  Track 2: to be more like heaven and it couldn't be that's not really his thing to do.
• 57:57
  Track 1: Yeah but it.
• 57:59
  Track 2: Couldn't be obvious with like our
• 58:02
  Track 2: obvious conception of heaven it's like clouds and then
• 58:05
  Track 2: there's god he's got a long beard and wasn't going
• 58:08
  Track 2: to do that but if you read about people experiencing the afterlife or whatever
• 58:16
  Track 2: like what does it feel like and that's what this kind of felt like to me where
• 58:20
  Track 2: it was we're reconstructing this so you don't so you can understand it so you don't
• 58:26
  Track 2: feel too alarmed and it's going to look like someone you love.
• 58:30
  Track 2: And it's going to feel, it's kind of like a dream. Like I had a dream.
• 58:34
  Track 2: I had a dream. I had two crazy dreams last night where I met my uncle who's
• 58:41
  Track 2: still alive, but my uncle is very, he's in his sixties and he's,
• 58:45
  Track 2: um, non-functional autistic.
• 58:48
  Track 2: And he was just not that industry.
• 58:51
  Track 2: And I was talking to him and he was, and he was speaking.
• 58:54
  Track 2: He can't speak. He's basically nonverbal, but he was speaking in my dream and
• 58:58
  Track 2: I knew it was him. Why? How did I know? I just knew.
• 59:01
  Track 2: And then I had another dream where I saw my old dog that I had for almost 20
• 59:10
  Track 2: years. He's been gone for maybe 10.
• 59:13
  Track 2: And I was aware that I was seeing him, that I had lost him.
• 59:18
  Track 2: And I was just like, oh, thanks for visiting me. He was really good to see you.
• 59:22
  Track 2: And I woke up, I don't know, maybe because I knew we were talking today.
• 59:26
  Track 2: I had those dreams, but I woke up and I was like, that was so profound. That was so meaningful.
• 59:30
  Track 2: And I think that's very much what he was going for, like a dream kind of thing
• 59:37
  Track 2: where so many things, I know he's explaining to her, nobody explains things when I'm dreaming,
• 59:43
  Track 2: but you know, and I think that's the closest thing where like things feel real,
• 59:47
  Track 2: but you start to know that it's a dream.
• 59:49
  Track 2: Things are slightly off, someone looks a little different.
• 59:51
  Track 2: And you're like, oh, but this is very serene. This is probably what that kind
• 59:56
  Track 2: of consciousness feels like.
• 59:58
  Track 2: Because she also doesn't, we don't know, people don't know if she actually traveled anywhere.
• 1:00:04
  Track 2: It's like, they don't think she did. So is it another plane?
• 1:00:08
  Track 2: And the closest we have to experiencing that is probably dreams.
• 1:00:13
  Track 2: And dreams are not this crazy, like, oh my God, acid trip.
• 1:00:17
  Track 2: It's something very normal, but it's like the off and
• 1:00:20
  Track 2: you go in and out of being like aware that you're
• 1:00:22
  Track 2: dreaming or aware that you're like in control of your body
• 1:00:25
  Track 2: like i don't know what your dreams are like but sometimes i'm able
• 1:00:29
  Track 2: to fully do stuff but then sometimes it's like i'm just the pov camera and i'm
• 1:00:35
  Track 2: going along like i'm on rails like a video game but then i can talk or it's
• 1:00:40
  Track 2: very weird and that's what it very much i think that was i would say that was
• 1:00:44
  Track 2: his inspiration for this alien world which is quite interesting.
• 1:00:47
  Track 2: And that leads into the whole discussion with the religion and the faith and stuff like that.
• 1:00:52
  Track 1: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I actually hadn't, I mean,
• 1:00:55
  Track 1: I hadn't really connected it to the idea of a dream. I did,
• 1:01:00
  Track 1: think that it could be sort of like the idea of heaven, especially as you said,
• 1:01:04
  Track 1: it's the conversations earlier between like, you know, she, you know,
• 1:01:08
  Track 1: she basically doesn't believe in God because she can't quantify that.
• 1:01:12
  Track 1: She can't scientifically prove he exists where, you know, Matthew McConaughey
• 1:01:17
  Track 1: is like, well, don't you believe it?
• 1:01:19
  Track 1: You still seem to believe in this higher power that created the universe.
• 1:01:23
  Track 1: Like, why can't it be, you know, just because I call it God and you call it,
• 1:01:27
  Track 1: you know, science or unexplainable or whatever, like doesn't mean they're not somewhat compatible.
• 1:01:32
  Track 1: And I guess this is like the manifestation. I think what's so interesting too,
• 1:01:36
  Track 1: is when she comes back and they don't believe her, she's like at a hearing,
• 1:01:39
  Track 1: you know, in Congress or whatever, and they're asking her, you know,
• 1:01:42
  Track 1: to explain it and she can't.
• 1:01:43
  Track 1: And it's like the script is completely flipped because she's telling them that
• 1:01:47
  Track 1: she believes that even though her scientific brain cannot find any proof and
• 1:01:52
  Track 1: give them any proof because the camera she had just static on it.
• 1:01:55
  Track 1: And so it's like, it's like this very, you know, you know, this,
• 1:01:59
  Track 1: it's like kind of flipping, you know, what she believed before.
• 1:02:03
  Track 1: And it's almost like now she is
• 1:02:04
  Track 1: now believing in God, even if she doesn't want to call it that, I guess.
• 1:02:10
  Track 2: Yeah. Which I guess is the fundamental argument or is the main argument for
• 1:02:14
  Track 2: the main argument of the movie and probably the book or whatever.
• 1:02:19
  Track 2: It's like, it's the same thing, you know, you
• 1:02:21
  Track 2: call it god and she's very and
• 1:02:25
  Track 2: i guess that was kind of what i was wrestling with
• 1:02:28
  Track 2: before too where i'm like but you
• 1:02:32
  Track 2: basically believe all this stuff but you're saying
• 1:02:35
  Track 2: like oh in your dialogue you're like i can't quantify it
• 1:02:38
  Track 2: or whatever but then every moment she's not talking to
• 1:02:40
  Track 2: him it's like oh but you believe like you're chasing this thing
• 1:02:43
  Track 2: you don't know what it is but you think it's worth doing and then
• 1:02:46
  Track 2: you later in the movie have this experience that is
• 1:02:49
  Track 2: very much like heaven and you can't prove it but you
• 1:02:52
  Track 2: know you experienced it and the way they
• 1:02:55
  Track 2: both talk about all of these things and it's like
• 1:02:58
  Track 2: it's just a different word for the same thing if this weird like consciousness
• 1:03:02
  Track 2: this experience you're talking about the same thing you're calling it god you're
• 1:03:06
  Track 2: calling it heaven you're calling it like an alien world or you know i was there
• 1:03:10
  Track 2: but i wasn't there and it's like this is the same thing you guys are talking about the same thing um,
• 1:03:18
  Track 2: And I don't know.
• 1:03:19
  Track 1: The one other thing that like the, like just to tie up, like sort of the very,
• 1:03:22
  Track 1: this is like basically the end of the film that I think is interesting.
• 1:03:25
  Track 1: And they kind of leave it in this weird, as they're just, as she's being kind
• 1:03:29
  Track 1: of grilled by, uh, James Woods about this.
• 1:03:34
  Track 1: He also then kind of gives her this scenario where this was all like actually
• 1:03:40
  Track 1: a hoax and that this eccentric billionaire played by John Hurt actually orchestrated
• 1:03:45
  Track 1: the whole thing where he made it seem like the, the, this,
• 1:03:49
  Track 1: was coming from vega and that you know he was
• 1:03:52
  Track 1: the one who designed the whole thing and none of this came
• 1:03:55
  Track 1: from you know outer space and they just you wanted someone to
• 1:03:58
  Track 1: build this trillion dollar machine and she doesn't
• 1:04:00
  Track 1: really maybe accept that at least they know she doesn't like admit
• 1:04:03
  Track 1: to accepting that she still believes that she had heard this
• 1:04:07
  Track 1: signal but then like sort of the very last scene
• 1:04:10
  Track 1: which is with uh um uh angela
• 1:04:13
  Track 1: bassett and james woods they described that
• 1:04:17
  Track 1: the cassette tape or the videotape had
• 1:04:20
  Track 1: 18 hours of static on it which would have been the
• 1:04:23
  Track 1: exact number of seconds or hours
• 1:04:26
  Track 1: versus the time difference between vega and there
• 1:04:29
  Track 1: based on how far she would have had to travel and it
• 1:04:32
  Track 1: was only like a second on earth would have been 18 hours there and
• 1:04:35
  Track 1: so it kind of leaves it open to say like oh well maybe
• 1:04:38
  Track 1: she did you know make this journey and maybe the signal
• 1:04:42
  Track 1: did come from outer space and it's like left again up to you know the the viewer
• 1:04:45
  Track 1: again to say like you know do you believe in you know the the science aspect
• 1:04:51
  Track 1: of it this is actually a real thing or do you believe maybe in the the god aspect
• 1:04:55
  Track 1: of it so it's kind of again dropping it on your lap to say we don't know and you don't either yeah.
• 1:05:01
  Track 2: Yeah and that's the kind of thing too where it's you're never gonna get concrete evidence.
• 1:05:07
  Track 1: Right for.
• 1:05:08
  Track 2: Something like that there's always going to be like they kind of leave it in
• 1:05:12
  Track 2: a loop and i i think they end up landing on I mean, you're watching the movie.
• 1:05:16
  Track 2: You think it happened, right? They're not trying to convince us.
• 1:05:19
  Track 2: But I think they kind of place those things in there to have it be like,
• 1:05:24
  Track 2: well, there's always going to be like this many people who don't believe in it.
• 1:05:28
  Track 2: And then there's going to be another thing that kind of like trickles and makes
• 1:05:34
  Track 2: certain other people think about that.
• 1:05:36
  Track 2: And then I think about, too, the alien dad of them just being like,
• 1:05:41
  Track 2: oh, we're starting small and we're like, you have to go and we're like dropping these little.
• 1:05:46
  Track 2: You know, so maybe that's it of it just being like, we're dropping little hints
• 1:05:50
  Track 2: because this is how we have to do it.
• 1:05:54
  Track 1: Yeah, it's too much to handle if, you know, they just showed up here,
• 1:06:01
  Track 1: you know, they know the way that probably humans would react to something like that.
• 1:06:06
  Track 1: But they must also at the same time, assuming that, you know,
• 1:06:09
  Track 1: it is real, is they must also realize that people are not going to believe her,
• 1:06:13
  Track 1: you know, right? They're not going to just believe that this person took this
• 1:06:16
  Track 1: trip, even though there's no evidence of it.
• 1:06:18
  Track 1: And, yeah, it's, I remember watching it for the first time.
• 1:06:22
  Track 1: And this is a film I've seen, you know, not always in full, like it would be
• 1:06:26
  Track 1: on TV or something or watch it.
• 1:06:28
  Track 1: And I always found like that last 20 or 30 minutes also just like very compelling,
• 1:06:33
  Track 1: even though all it is is like her being grilled in Congress.
• 1:06:36
  Track 1: And then just kind of leaving you with that kind of cliffhanger of,
• 1:06:39
  Track 1: you know, did it or didn't happen.
• 1:06:40
  Track 1: And it just kind of like gives you that, I don't know, like that sort of warm
• 1:06:44
  Track 1: and fuzzy in a way, at least for me, kind of at the end of just,
• 1:06:47
  Track 1: oh, maybe, maybe there is something more, but, you know, you don't know yet.
• 1:06:53
  Track 2: So, yeah. Yeah. And then at the end, she's kind of teaching the next generation
• 1:06:58
  Track 2: to kind of continue the project further.
• 1:07:00
  Track 1: Right. Right.
• 1:07:02
  Track 2: Which is kind of nice.
• 1:07:03
  Track 1: Yeah. I don't, I don't know if she ends up with Matthew McConaughey.
• 1:07:06
  Track 1: I think they, they showed them like leaving together, like at one point,
• 1:07:08
  Track 1: but I don't know if she ends up with it.
• 1:07:10
  Track 1: Not that that, you know, really is integral to it, but it would sort of make
• 1:07:14
  Track 1: a little bit of sense if they do, because they kind of can reconcile their kind
• 1:07:19
  Track 1: of difference of faith in some way, you know, at the end, even though they have, like you said,
• 1:07:23
  Track 1: he may call it God and she may call it, you know, science.
• 1:07:27
  Track 1: But at the end of the day, they kind of have the same belief.
• 1:07:30
  Track 2: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's implied that they're together, but I think the last
• 1:07:33
  Track 2: shot is her by herself, like on the desert plains or whatever.
• 1:07:40
  Track 2: And then there's the starry sky, which again reminds me, I wanted to briefly
• 1:07:45
  Track 2: go back to the beginning of the film, uh, because the opening shot is a very long.
• 1:07:51
  Track 1: I wrote that too. It was like three minutes and 10 seconds.
• 1:07:54
  Track 2: Yeah. Uh, single take through the cosmos. And I think a full minute doesn't
• 1:08:00
  Track 2: have audio. Like it's, yeah, I think you're right.
• 1:08:03
  Track 1: There is a chunk of just like visually taking you through.
• 1:08:08
  Track 2: Yeah. And it only starts to get audio as you get closer to earth.
• 1:08:12
  Track 2: I think there's like a little bit, but the audio comes in and then you're into,
• 1:08:15
  Track 2: um, you're through, uh, is it Jenna Malone or Jodie Foster?
• 1:08:20
  Track 2: I don't remember who they start with. um but
• 1:08:24
  Track 2: the character like you end up going through her
• 1:08:27
  Track 2: eye and then you're in the movie the movie begins
• 1:08:30
  Track 2: um but uh yeah
• 1:08:33
  Track 2: mostly silent opening of you just of the camera just traveling through space
• 1:08:37
  Track 2: incredibly audacious way to open a movie um very very impressed and i would
• 1:08:44
  Track 2: say i was like pretty floored by that it reminded me of um twin peaks the return very famous,
• 1:08:52
  Track 2: some atom bomb sequence where I was I remember I
• 1:08:55
  Track 2: was stoned when I saw that but I remember standing up
• 1:08:59
  Track 2: and moving closer to the tv and then looking back at
• 1:09:01
  Track 2: my wife and I was like I can't believe they're doing this this is an insane
• 1:09:06
  Track 2: thing to put on tv this is I can't believe it and I had the same feeling where
• 1:09:10
  Track 2: I was like people this is a major movie and people were just like in the theater
• 1:09:14
  Track 2: sitting there for three minutes 10 seconds yeah that's a long.
• 1:09:19
  Track 1: It's a very long opening.
• 1:09:20
  Track 2: Very crazy he.
• 1:09:22
  Track 1: Had final cut on the movie which is part of the deal of him willing to direct
• 1:09:26
  Track 1: the film so i wonder also too if he was like i bet if the film studio has something
• 1:09:32
  Track 1: to do with it they probably would have been like no no we're not we're not opening
• 1:09:34
  Track 1: the film with this long month you know not montage is the wrong word this long shot but he's like.
• 1:09:39
  Track 2: Nope that's.
• 1:09:40
  Track 1: You know maybe that was also part of the conversation with um i don't know,
• 1:09:45
  Track 1: But yeah, I was impressed by it. It's funny you mentioned Twin Peaks.
• 1:09:49
  Track 1: I'm wearing a, you probably can't see it. I'm wearing a Twin Peaks shirt.
• 1:09:52
  Track 2: Oh, nice. Yeah, I think I saw it. It's the, yeah, Red Room.
• 1:09:57
  Track 2: Yeah, so considering that I wanted to watch this because of the mirror trick
• 1:10:02
  Track 2: shot, it was a very cool way to open the movie.
• 1:10:05
  Track 2: I was like, oh, wow, this is gonna deliver.
• 1:10:10
  Track 2: And it's not that the movie looks bad, but they don't really
• 1:10:13
  Track 2: do anything else close to those two shots like there's some cool stuff here
• 1:10:18
  Track 2: and there that i like that i think um was even a little outside the box but
• 1:10:23
  Track 2: i think those are the two primary like brother uh we're going for it weird thing
• 1:10:29
  Track 2: we're gonna do yeah mostly does not do stuff like that.
• 1:10:32
  Track 1: Yeah the rest of the like the cinematography isn't really i would say anything,
• 1:10:38
  Track 1: particularly you know special or that stuck out to me but.
• 1:10:41
  Track 2: It's cool it's moving yeah there's a lot of like uh
• 1:10:45
  Track 2: frames within frames like the matthew mcconaughey
• 1:10:48
  Track 2: thing is interesting too because that's on
• 1:10:51
  Track 2: a tv that i think her co-workers are watching so
• 1:10:54
  Track 2: it's kind of pulling out and we're seeing them and he's playing
• 1:10:58
  Track 2: in the background so there's a lot of interesting framing it's not
• 1:11:01
  Track 2: that interesting compared to these two
• 1:11:04
  Track 2: insane things to do um and
• 1:11:08
  Track 2: it certainly looks better than modern studio filmmaking
• 1:11:12
  Track 2: for sure there's a lot more going on but um yeah if you're if you're expecting
• 1:11:16
  Track 2: a lot more stuff like the uh running up the stair to the mirror shot you're
• 1:11:21
  Track 2: not going to get it um which i kind of was you know after that one shot i was
• 1:11:25
  Track 2: i did the opening shot and being like oh my god is this like going to be slow
• 1:11:28
  Track 2: cinema this is crazy like i never thought it could be like this i.
• 1:11:32
  Track 1: Mean partly it's like almost a i don't want to say it's like setting you
• 1:11:35
  Track 1: up for what is a two hour 30
• 1:11:38
  Track 1: minute film which is you know it's a that's a pretty hefty film
• 1:11:42
  Track 1: on kind of i don't want to call it like a i don't mean this in a
• 1:11:44
  Track 1: derogatory sense like a thin plot but it's not like there's not or not a lot
• 1:11:49
  Track 1: of action you know it's it's more of a you know it's a sci-fi drama i guess
• 1:11:54
  Track 1: you could say you know but more on the drama but some on the sci-fi in in the
• 1:11:59
  Track 1: sense there's no like yeah i don't know kind of.
• 1:12:02
  Track 2: Like bookends like.
• 1:12:03
  Track 1: At the beginning and the.
• 1:12:04
  Track 2: End with.
• 1:12:05
  Track 1: The big kind of you know the wormhole part also is pretty cool and i think there's
• 1:12:08
  Track 1: a moment where she sort of like stops and she thinks she's gone through and
• 1:12:12
  Track 1: she can see what seems like a civilization and thinks she stopped and then just
• 1:12:15
  Track 1: keeps sending her through like that's also i thought was pretty cool.
• 1:12:18
  Track 2: Yeah,
• 1:12:19
  Track 2: Yeah, it's a good way to set the tone and rhythm of the movie,
• 1:12:26
  Track 2: like a very long movie of just being like, okay, here's, we're settling in and
• 1:12:30
  Track 2: you're going to literally experience through her eye the wonder and vastness of space.
• 1:12:37
  Track 2: So it's definitely pretty effective in doing that.
• 1:12:40
  Track 1: Yeah. I don't know. Was there anything that we missed or do you have any last thoughts on contact?
• 1:12:47
  Track 2: Not really. I just wanted to bring up those thoughts.
• 1:12:50
  Track 1: Yeah, for anyone who wants to watch it, she definitely, well,
• 1:12:53
  Track 1: sometimes I don't always ask this at the end, but I think you at the top kind
• 1:12:56
  Track 1: of said your, you know, what you thought of the film.
• 1:12:58
  Track 1: Like, would you, if someone listened to all this and maybe hasn't seen it and
• 1:13:01
  Track 1: wants to watch it, would you encourage someone you'd like recommend to watch this film?
• 1:13:06
  Track 2: Yeah, I mean, I also said at the front that I liked it, but I didn't love it.
• 1:13:11
  Track 2: And a lot of people that I spoke to seemed to be really into it.
• 1:13:14
  Track 2: And I was like, but we're going to talk about it, right?
• 1:13:16
  Track 2: So I'm probably going to warm up to it. and that did in fact happen,
• 1:13:21
  Track 2: so yeah I would recommend it it's quite interesting so long as you know what
• 1:13:26
  Track 2: you're getting into it's a movie from the late 90s with all that entails,
• 1:13:31
  Track 2: and it is two and a half hours so make time for
• 1:13:34
  Track 2: it but yeah it's good and I think it is asking questions that you don't hear
• 1:13:40
  Track 2: about you don't hear dealt with in movies that of this stature kind of deal
• 1:13:48
  Track 2: with you know so with all that said i would i would probably recommend it yeah for sure i.
• 1:13:53
  Track 1: Definitely would as well i mean this i mean again this is also kind
• 1:13:55
  Track 1: of has a you know i had seen it before and i feel like it was always a film
• 1:14:00
  Track 1: but yeah sometimes those two and a half hour movies when you recommend to people
• 1:14:04
  Track 1: like oh it's a little long for you know i you know i i can i can appreciate
• 1:14:08
  Track 1: that you know uh but i i too would would uh encourage people to check it out.
• 1:14:13
  Track 1: I mean, especially, too, if you like some of, you know, with Roger Zemeckis sort of has...
• 1:14:19
  Track 1: We don't need to litigate his entire career, but he sort of has some ups and
• 1:14:23
  Track 1: I guess you could say downs as far as some of his films are concerned.
• 1:14:26
  Track 1: But I would say this one is near to the top as far as his catalog goes.
• 1:14:32
  Track 2: Yeah i don't think you should be afraid in walking
• 1:14:35
  Track 2: away from it you know i don't think it's one of those things
• 1:14:38
  Track 2: that you watch some two three
• 1:14:41
  Track 2: four or five hour movies and they really do compound
• 1:14:45
  Track 2: and you want to see it as close to a one
• 1:14:48
  Track 2: sitting as you can but considering how kind of i don't know if leisurely is
• 1:14:52
  Track 2: the white is the right word um but just the way the rhythm and tempo is if you're
• 1:14:58
  Track 2: just like ah i need a little break and pick it up the next day don't be afraid
• 1:15:03
  Track 2: to do that yeah it's uh it's a mean it's a harmless movie yeah.
• 1:15:07
  Track 1: Yeah yeah it's not yeah it's not like you're not watching like an andre tarkovsky
• 1:15:10
  Track 1: film or like you want to just you know sit your phone in the other room or whatever
• 1:15:15
  Track 1: and go through it or something it's you know low lower stakes perhaps in some.
• 1:15:19
  Track 2: Sense yeah yeah it's not like uh yeah tarkovsky
• 1:15:23
  Track 2: would be like life-changing that would be one where it's just like
• 1:15:26
  Track 2: no you need to you gotta do that like you can't walk
• 1:15:29
  Track 2: away but this one is like it's not gonna really ask too much of you in that
• 1:15:33
  Track 2: sense it does uh it does what it does well but um if you're holding back because
• 1:15:38
  Track 2: it's too long i think like you know i watched like maybe half of it and yeah
• 1:15:42
  Track 2: you know there's different little segments where you're like i'm gonna pull
• 1:15:44
  Track 2: out i'm gonna pull out for a little bit have dinner you know feel free definitely,
• 1:15:49
  Track 2: come and go as you please christopher.
• 1:15:51
  Track 1: Thank you again for uh for coming on left the projector Sure. It's been a pleasure.
• 1:15:54
  Track 2: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 1:15:56
  Track 1: Of course. And you can, again, check out Christopher's work in the notes for his content on Means TV.
• 1:16:03
  Track 1: And we will catch you next time.