Contact (1997)

In director Robert Zemeckis' and Warner Bros' space exploration and sci-fi drama, based on scientist Carl Sagan's 1985 best selling novel (that was first written as a movie script), it told about the hunt for intelligent life in the universe; the rare mainstream Hollywood science fiction film with intelligent ideas investigated the ageless debate between religion and science, and provided a fairly accurate account of complex scientific subjects. The film was moderately successful - on a budget of $90 million, it grossed $100.9 million (domestic) and $171.1 million (worldwide). It was nominated for only one Oscar - Best Sound.

• the stunning opening sequence was a long, zoom-out pull back shot from the planet Earth past other planets and reaching beyond the end of our solar system (accompanied by TV and radio transmissions on the soundtrack that stretched back in time) - it was revealed that the light from all of these stars was actually the highlight in a young girl's eye, as she was listening to transmissions on her amateur radio set; the audio-radio transmissions began in the present time and then moved backwards into the past as the time-travel journey progressed, i.e., The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster (1986), Nixon's "I'm not a crook" speech (1973), Neil Armstrong on the Moon (1969), RFK's Assassination (1968), MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech (1963), JFK's Dallas Assassination (1963), JFK's First Inaugural Address "Ask not..." (1961), FDR's Response to Pearl Harbor ("Day of Infamy") (1941), and Hitler's 1936 Address to Berlin Olympics

Opening Pull-Back Shot - Ending up as Reflected Light in the Iris of a Young Girl
An Image of the Earth, and the Moon
	Views of Some of the Planets in the Rest of the Solar System (Mars, the asteroid belt, Jupiter and Saturn)
	The Eagle Nebula
Various Layers of Nebula and Stellar Debris in Interstellar Space
The Milky Way and Deep Space, with Hundreds of Other Galaxies

• a bright dot of reflected 'sun'-light was seen on the iris of nine year-old "Ellie" Arroway (Jena Malone) (nicknamed "Sparks") who was in her Madison, Wisconsin bedroom speaking on her shortwave radio during a search for alien contact and evidence of alien life; she delivered the film's first line of dialogue - a greeting: "C-Q ("seek you"), this is W9GFO. CQ, this is W9GFO here, come back...is anybody out there?"; her father Theodore "Ted" Arroway (David Morse) next to her advised: "Small moves Ellie, small moves"; she had reached her farthest destination ever - another radio operator in Pensacola, FL almost 1,000 miles away
• later in the evening as Ellie was getting ready for bed, she showed off a colored beach drawing she had made of Pensacola - an important future plot point; when she asked her father if there were people on other planets, he gave a significant answer that would be repeated later: "I'd say, if it is just us, it seems like an awful waste of space"

Radio Astronomer and Astrophysicist Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster)	Blind Astrophysicist Kent Clark (William Fichtner)	Part-Time Priest Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey)
NSF Boss David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt)	Research Assistant Fisher (Geoffrey Blake)	Willie (Max Martini)

• in a quick fast-forward, the young girl was now grown-up astrophysicist and radio astronomer Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway (Jodie Foster as an adult), conducting project research with SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute) at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico; she admitted facetiously that her job was to listen for "little green men"; co-workers included blind astrophysicist Kent Clark (William Fichtner), and research assistant Fisher (Geoffrey Blake); Ellie's National Science Foundation (NSF) superior was David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), the President's Science Advisor; his first words to her were sarcastic: "Ellie, still waiting for E.T. to call?"; she called him an "asshole" under her breath
• in town, she also met handsome Christian philosopher and graduated seminary student Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey); throughout the film, their debate between faith and science raged; Ellie was agnostic and a hard-core skeptic who always searched for scientific proof, while spiritual counselor Palmer represented those who placed their trust and faith in God; Palmer called himself a part-time minister and humanitarian: "A man of the cloth - without the cloth"
• once Drumlin arrived shortly later at the SETI work site in Puerto Rico, he was disenchanted and skeptical of its practicality and cost: "We need to stop wasting money on pie in the sky abstractions, and start spending it on practical, measurable ways to improve the lives of the people who are after all, footing the bill"
• that same evening, Ellie and Palmer sat on a bench overlooking the Arecibo satellite dish and gazed up at the starry sky; she explained how she became hooked on astronomy at a young age, and stressed her belief in extra-terrestrial life: "There are four hundred billion stars out there, just in our galaxy alone. If only one out of a million of those had planets, and just one out of a million of those had life, and just one out of a million of those had intelligent life; there would be literally millions of civilizations out there"; he responded with her father's words: "Well, if there wasn't, it'd be an awful waste of space"; she replied simply: "Amen"
• they kissed and then had sex together that night in Ellie's cabin and became romantic partners; in bed afterwards, Palmer told her how he had experienced God in the universe: "All I know is that I wasn't alone, and for the first time in my life I wasn't scared of nothing, not even dying. It was God"; she briefly mentioned the death of her father when she was nine years old and how she never got to know her mother, before she hurriedly left him to go to work [Note: Later in the film, it was confirmed her father died when she was 10 years old]
• as she left her cabin, Ellie experienced a flashback of the night her father died of a heart attack in Wisconsin; they were getting ready to watch the intense Leonid meteor showers from their upstairs outside back porch with two telescopes when she heard him collapse inside and found him at the foot of the stairs with a bowl of spilled popcorn; she raced back upstairs to the bathroom to reach for his medicine in the cabinet, but it was already too late; the day of the funeral, the priest told her: "I know it's hard to understand this now, but we aren't always meant to know the reasons why things happen the way they do. Sometimes we just have to accept it as God's will"
• Ellie blamed herself for not getting to his medicine sooner; at her radio transmitter that evening, young Ellie vainly pleaded to receive a response from space: "CQ, this is W9GFO, do you copy? Dad, this is Ellie, come back? This is Eleanor Arroway, transmitting on 14.2 megahertz. Dad, are you there? Come back? Dad, are you there? Dad, this is Ellie"
• changes in policy affected the NSF's funding for Ellie's work for SETI in Puerto Rico; David Drumlin "pulled the plug" on her financial backing, and also criticized Ellie's unproductive, wasteful and useless work: "One, there is intelligent life out there, but it's so far away you'll never contact it in your lifetime. And two, there's nothing out there but noble gases and carbon compounds, and you're wasting your time"; however, rogue-scientist Ellie and Kent Clark persevered and vowed to find private funding for further ad hoc work in New Mexico to continue receiving alien chatter and messages; Ellie suggested funding from Hollywood: ("Why not, they've been making money off aliens for years"); as she left Puerto Rico for good, Ellie grabbed a compass (the 'toy' in a box of Cracker Jack) gifted to her by Palmer ("Might save your life someday"), but left behind his personal phone number
• 13 months later, Ellie was still seeking financial support and delivering a presentation in the offices of Hadden Industries in Los Angeles, CA, led by absent, reclusive billionaire S.R. Hadden (John Hurt); her request for funding from the Hadden Foundation was considered "experimental" and thus denied by one of the executives: ("We must confess that your proposal seems less like science and more like science fiction"); Ellie reacted by angrily slamming her briefcase down, and arguing how the invention of the airplane, breaking the sound barrier, sending rockets to the Moon, the development of atomic energy, and a planned mission to Mars were not "science fiction"; she asked the committee to reconsider their rejection by acquiring "the tiniest bit of vision" and by taking a "look at the big picture"; the panel immediately changed its mind following a phone call to Hadden who had attended remotely through a video camera - an executive pronounced their new decision: "You have your money"
• Hadden Industries' anonymous donation allowed Ellie and her team to continue conducting research at the Very Large Array (VLA) in Socorro County, New Mexico - a facility with 27 large radio telescopes (antenna dishes); after four years of work in New Mexico in the year 1996, however, Kent informed Ellie that her use of government-owned telescopes was threatened to be removed in three months by David Drumlin and others in the NSC (National Security Council), effectively closing down the SETI facility
• Kent added his own criticism of Ellie (dubbed "the high priestess of the desert"): "Staring at static on TV for hours at a time. Listening to washing machines...we're a joke to them, they want us out!"; Ellie defended herself: "I was looking for patterns in the chaos, come on!"
• in the intervening years, Palmer Joss had become a best-selling author of his book "Losing Faith: The Search for Meaning in the Age of Reason"; he was regarded as "God's diplomat" while also advising the White House; during a CNN cable-TV interview with Larry King (as Himself), Palmer posed the question: "As a human race, is the world fundamentally a better place because of science and technology? We shop at home, we surf the web, but at the same time, we feel emptier, lonelier, and more cut off from each other than at any other time in human history...Is it any wonder that we've lost our sense of direction?"
• one evening out in the array, at a moment of first "contact," Ellie received a cryptic signal - background static with a series of beeps, fading in and out; she frantically but joyously radioed the frequency of the signal to her colleagues in the Control Center as she drove back: ("4.4623 GHz. Hydrogen times pi. Told ya!...Let me hear it. Listen to that. Make me a liar, Fish!"); Willie confirmed that it was a strong signal from space: "Whatever it is, it ain't local'; Ellie and her team of scientists realized that the signal was possibly coming from the distant Vega star system 26 light-years away in the Lyra Constellation; the signal was composed of a sequence of prime numbers - and Ellie immediately recognized the repeating sequence of pulses: "Those are primes! 2,3,5,7. Those are all prime numbers and there's no way it's a natural phenomenon!"; the signal was independently confirmed and tracked by researcher Ian Broderick (Thomas Garner) at the CSIRO government agency Control Room in Australia; Fisher explained further: "The pulse sequenced through every prime number between 2 and 101"
• there was an overwhelming response to the "detection of an unidentified radio source from deep space" - huge crowds and media reporters descended into the area, including government officials David Drumlin, special Science Advisor to the President, and skeptical NSA official Senator Michael Kitz (James Woods); Ellie explained to Kitz why the signal was using primes: "Mathematics is the only truly universal language, Senator. It's no coincidence that they're using primes....That would be integers that are only divisible by themselves and 1. Well, we think that this may be a beacon. Some kind of announcement to get our attention"; Kitz suggested that Ellie may have broken official protocol: ("a breach of national security")
• as they listened to the transmitted message (with "two different interlaced frames"), a hidden video TV transmission of Hitler's Berlin 1936 address to the Olympics was revealed - to everyone's shock and consternation
• Ellie, Drumlin, and Kitz were summoned to the White House, where they met with the White House press secretary Rachel Constantine (Angela Bassett); Drumlin and Ellie both interpreted how the recording was not political, but simply that the Olympic event was historic as "the first TV transmission of any power that went into space"; it was strong evidence that the recording somehow reached the planet of Vega and then was transmitted back: (Drumlin: "The fact that they recorded it, and sent it back, is simply their way of saying 'Hello, we heard you'")

In the White House: Drumlin, Kitz, and Official Rachel Constantine (Angela Bassett)

Presidential Press Conference Briefing Room

President Bill Clinton's Reaction to the Discovery of the "Message From Vega"

• the group attended a Presidential press conference where President Bill Clinton (as Himself) made a few brief remarks about his reaction to the discovery: "It would surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered"; Drumlin - who was unjustly given credit for the discovery of the message and identified as "the leader of the scientific team that made this remarkable discovery," also spoke before the press and called the message "an unmistakable sign of intelligence"
• Ellie phoned Kent Clark back at the VLA, who revealed that an additional level of hidden coded data ("It's digital, massive amounts of data") had been found in Vega's message - initially measured at over 10,000 encrypted pages worth; Ellie shared the revelation with the others in the White House, with images of some of the pages; she explained how the data required someone with decryption skills who could interpret their meaning; when Drumlin suggested taking over the entire "privately-funded operation" without Ellie's help, and Kitz recommended to "militarize this project immediately," Rachel Constantine overruled them and ordered that Ellie would continue to direct operations at the VLA, although Drumlin would head up the decryption efforts
• the press had numerous reactions to the message; comedian Jay Leno (as Himself) joked on The Tonight Show: "So it turns out there's life on other planets; boy, this is really gonna change the Miss Universe contest, don't you think?"; a concerned news reporter on CNN speculated that the message might trigger a rash of mass suicides, or that there were "religious overtones" that would clash with scientific endeavors
• another CNN reporter on a helicopter described a mass invasion of the VLA facility by people camping in tents: ("Like a bolt from the blue it came. 'The Message from Vega' has caused thousands of believers and non-believers to descend upon the VLA facility here in the remote desert of New Mexico. Many have come to protest, many to pray but most have come to participate in what has become the best show in town"); among the many extremists, neo-Nazis and crazies who created a mass spectacle was religious fundamentalist-fanatic Joseph (Jake Busey) who preached doom and destruction - as he called out to Ellie passing by in a vehicle: ("Now these scientists have had their chance. Are these the kind of people you want talking to your God for you?")
• two weeks later, the message had still not been deciphered; Ellie was summoned via an anonymous email and faxed map to attend a secret 11:50 pm meeting near the VLA site; from there, she was flown by helicopter to a small airport to meet with the individual who had arrived in a private jet; she met up with Mr. Hadden who began by noting that she was "one of my most valuable long term investments"
• he initiated the conversation by summarizing her background with a video; Ellie was born in Wisconsin on August 25, 1964 when her mother Joanna died after complications during childbirth, Ellie had inherited her father's passionate interest in mathematics, science, astronomy; he died on November 10, 1974 of a "myocardial infarction" (heart attack) when she was ten years old; Ellie's academic background was exceptional: she graduated from HS almost two years early in 1979, attended MIT with a full scholarship and graduated with high honors, and completed her Ph.D. from Cal Tech with a major in Astrophysics and radio telescopes; she had turned down a Harvard teaching position to pursue project research at the Arecibo Observatory
• as a "final gesture of good will" after making many enemies in his life, Mr. Hadden explained how he was providing her with a "primer" to decode the 63,000 pages - the Vegan pages had been arranged in 3 dimensions rather than as 2-D pages; the pages when deciphered with the primer revealed schematic drawings and blueprints, essentially instructions for building something
• in more meetings in the nation's capital, Ellie shared her findings with government officials; she speculated the drawings might be plans for an "advanced communication device," for a "teaching machine" - or most likely plans to construct a complex, giant transport machine that would serve as a single-occupant transport mechanism for intergalactic travel to meet the aliens
• paranoid miltarist and conspiracy theorist and alarmist Kitz thought it might be a "Trojan Horse," and two other military officers similarly hypothesized it might be a weapon or "doomsday machine"; Kitz's fears were downplayed by Ellie: "There's no reason to believe that their intentions are hostile...We pose no threat to them. It would be like us going out of our way to destroy a few microbes on some ant hill in Africa"; she also countered southern conservative Richard Rank's (Rob Lowe) ludicrous assertion about not knowing the aliens' values or religious beliefs - she responded: "...the message was written in the language of science. Now, if it had been religious in nature, it should have taken on the form of burning bush, or a big booming voice from the sky"

Creepy Preacher Joseph Protesting Outside Reception
	More Romantic Banter and Debate Between Ellie and Palmer About Religion vs. Science

• that evening at a fancy Presidential reception, Ellie arrived as protestors outside, including the blonde long-haired and crazed preacher Joseph from VLA, were shouting "Praise God!"; the elegantly-dressed Ellie became reacquainted with Palmer Joss who had been hired as one of President Clinton's advisors; they continued their discussion about science vs. faith; after Palmer stated his stolid viewpoint: "I couldn't imagine living in a world where God didn't exist," agnostic Ellie vowed that the existence of God needed objective proof: "As for me, I'd need proof"; he challenged her to prove that she loved her father, briefly leaving her stumped for a response; both were interrupted by 'breaking news' that Ellie's speculation had been confirmed - the decoded drawings were of a transport mechanism "to take a single human occupant into space, presumably to the star named Vega"
• public opinion and pressure forced the President to approve the exorbitant funding ("a third of a trillion dollars") to construct the transport machine, along with other nations; although Ellie was the obvious choice to make first 'contact' with extraterrestrial life, there were ten international candidates vying for the "machine seat" for the journey to Vega 26 light-years away, who would be evaluated by a selection committee; Ellie was shocked to learn that Drumlin had resigned his post as Science Advisor in order to compete against Ellie as one of the ten potential astronauts
• Palmer was personally worried about Ellie's prospects if she were to be chosen; firstly, upon her return after four years, everyone else would have aged 50 years (Einstein's principle of relativity), and secondly, it would be incredibly risky, dangerous and life-threatening, although Ellie bravely asserted: "For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something, some reason why we're here -- what are we doing here, who are we? If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer, I don't know, I think it's worth a human life, don't you?"
• as one of the panel members of the IMC (International Machine Consortium) Selection Committee, Palmer divulged Ellie's agnosticism by directly asking her: "Do you believe in God, Dr. Arroway?"; she answered: "As a scientist, I rely on empirical evidence, and in this matter, I don't believe that there is data either way"; her blunt and honest answer cost her the trip; Drumlin, who had been angling to be the pilot-astronaut to Vega, delivered a more mainstream answer about his belief in God, and how Dr. Arroway was "a representative who did not put our most cherished beliefs first"; his calculated answer swayed the committee's vote, and he was selected in her place
• Palmer attempted to justify and explain his rationale for destroying Ellie's chances: "I just couldn't in good conscience vote for a person who doesn't believe in God. Someone who honestly thinks the other 95% of us suffer from some form of mass delusion"; to break off with him, she returned the Cracker Jack compass
• in a tense scene during preparations for the test launch of the spherical transport pod at Cape Canaveral, a security breach was detected; Ellie was watching on TV monitors and alerted security and astronaut David Drumlin to the problem: ("We've got a security breach here. Right behind you, the tall guy, the technician, see him? He's not supposed to be there. David, he's got something in his hand!"); the religious zealot and terrorist Joseph detonated the suicide-bomber vest that he was wearing with a hand-held trigger; a spectacular explosion destroyed the machine, resulting in the death of Drumlin and several others
• Ellie returned to the VLA control center in New Mexico, where she watched a TV news report about Drumlin's funeral and burial during a formal ceremony attended by Clinton at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC; the news station also aired Joseph's terrorist video suicide-note (filmed in Panguitch, Utah) explaining his delusional reasoning: "What we do, we do for the goodness of all mankind. This won't be understood, not now, but the apocalypse to come will vindicate our faith"
• in her private room, Ellie was contacted with a secure message and video transmission via the MIR Space Station; the terminally-ill and dying Hadden from cancer (in outer space to slow down his death) revealed to Ellie that Hadden Industries had secretly funded a back-up second machine that had been constructed on Hokkaido Island by Japanese subcontractors; he asked Ellie flippantly: "Wanna take a ride?"
• Ellie was chosen to be the pilot of the 2nd mechanical transport pod; just before news of the launch became public, Ellie received another visit from Palmer (who had come to Hokkaido with Kitz) who again apologized and returned her compass, admitting he was personally interested in her: "I did't want you to go, because I don't want to lose you. You find your way home, alright?"

Speaking With Hadden From the MIR Space Station

Ellie Walking Across Gantry to Pod in the 2nd Machine Built in Japan

The Single Passenger Seat in the Pod

• as she walked forward and across the machine's gantry to the single-passenger pod, Ellie nervously watched the rings spinning below before being magnetically attached to the pod chair and hooking up her audio-video transmission line; during the tense launch that generated dangerous "electro-magnetic field" levels and was nearly aborted, Ellie kept shouting: "I'm okay to go, okay to go, I'm okay to go"; she was propelled into space by being dropped into a set of three spinning, rapidly-rotating gimbals rings illuminated by bright lights

The Wormhole Sequence - Her Journey Through Tunnels to The Distant Planet of Vega

• she vibrated and transited through a series of tunnels or wormholes providing various views from the outside environment (reminiscent of Kubrick's Stargate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)), during which time she observed signs of a brilliant white star and four planetary stars circling above the distant planet of Vega with a spaceport on the surface of the planet below - possible signs of an advanced civilization; she unbuckled herself from the pod chair to retrieve her compass floating in front of her, and turned back to watch the chair become disattached before there was darkness; floating weightless, she found a flashlight to illuminate her surroundings
• Ellie reacted to what she was seeing after her arrival at faster-than-light speed, and in a reverential account as the camera zoomed into her eye, she movingly described: ("Some celestial event. No, no words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should've sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful. I had no idea. I had no idea...They're alive...Oh God!"); the camera zoomed into the white of her eye

Camera Zoom-In to Ellie's Eye

Awakening on an Alien World Beachfront on the Planet Vega

A Florida Beach Similar to the One In Her Drawing

• she awoke, after her long mystical journey, and found herself in an alien world - a surreal, digitally-altered beachfront; on the side of the beach was a growth of tropical trees, positioned in the same way as a colorful drawing she showed off early in the film that she had drawn as a child in Pensacola, Florida; as she reached out into her 'bubble-like' rippling environment, she heard musical tones
• in a heartwarming, poignant scene, she experienced a reunion with her 'holographic', long-dead father Theodore "Ted" who walked up to her on the beach and greeted her: "Hi Sparks...I missed you"; her father was a proxy for the alien beings who took her father's form within a familiar environment after "downloading" Ellie's thoughts and memories when she was unconscious, so that the first contact between humanity and the alien world would be easier to comprehend: ("We thought this might make things easier for you"); he picked up a handful of shimmering beach sand that formed a crescent shape like the stars in the sky

Ellie's Meeting with an Alien - A Shimmering Holograph of Her Deceased Father "Ted" Arroway (David Morse) on Vega

• following Ellie's question about whether she was being tested, she was told that humanity had been evaluated: "You're an interesting species, an interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other"); she attempted to ask questions but was denied the opportunity: ("Now you go home"); when she wondered: "Do we get to come back?", the alien replied that her journey was only the first small step to finding other species in space: ("This was just a first step. In time, you'll take another....This is the way it's been done for billions of years. Small moves, Ellie. Small moves")
• during Ellie's return journey, she became unconscious, and awakened on the floor of the pod; to outside observers in Mission Control, they thought that the machine pod had merely dropped straight through the machine's rings and landed in a safety net during a "malfunction" - "You didn't go anywhere"; during her recovery at a medical facility, Ellie was astonished when she was told by Kitz that "nothing happened" and that there was only static on the recording
• Ellie was brought before a Congressional Committee to testify about her experience; ex-NSA official Michael Kitz and others who headed up the executive investigation were highly dubious of Ellie's fantastic story - she insisted that the elapsed time for her trip was 18 hours - how did she know that?: ("What I experienced as 18 hours, passed instantaneously on Earth")
• since Ellie had no physical proof or any evidence to show them to back up her experience of space travel and an alien encounter, Kitz accused her of suffering from a self-reinforcing delusion; he even speculated that Hadden (now-deceased) had created the entire incident (the message and the machine): "Your experience is the result of being the unwitting star in the farewell performance of one S. R. Hadden"; using the principle of Occam's Razor (the scientific principle that "the simplest explanation tends to be the right one"), Kitz called it "the biggest, the most elaborate, the most expensive hoax of all times"
• another panel member continued to denounce Dr. Arroway's account: ("Dr. Arroway, you come to us with no evidence, no record, no artifacts. Only a story that, to put it mildly, strains credibility. Over half a trillion dollars was spent, dozens of lives were lost. Are you really gonna sit there and tell us we should just take this all on faith?"); Ellie was forced to admit to Kitz that everything might have been an hallucination, and that she would react the same as the panel members "with exactly the same degree of incredulity and skepticism!"; Kitz stood and angrily berated her: "Then why don't you simply withdraw your testimony, and concede that this 'journey to the center of the galaxy' in fact, never took place!"

Ellie's Testimony and Denoucement by Kitz Before Congress

• Ellie responded to Kitz about the impact of the almost 'religious' experience that she had - and asked the panel to just trust her and have faith in her vision; she had now come to the belief that her experience was absolutely true, but that she could never prove it: ("Because I can't. I had an experience. I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever. A vision of the universe that tells us undeniably how tiny and insignificant and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, that we are not - that none of us are alone. I wish I could share that. I wish that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe and humility and that hope. But...that continues to be my wish")
• as she left the US Capitol building arm-in-arm with Palmer, thousands of supporters held up signs: "Ellie Discovered the New World," and "Open Our Minds Open Our Universe"
• the film's ambiguous ending fully concluded that faith and science were not mutually exclusive; it allowed audiences to make their own personal determination between both faith and science (without definitive proof of extra-terrestrial life or God's existence), concurrent with Ellie's finding that as an orphaned child and as a hardened scientist, through her alien encounter (with a God-like creature), she had also regained personal faith and hope that she wasn't alone in the universe
• the film concluded with the confidential finding from White House official Rachel Constantine to Kitz during a video conference that Ellie's video recording device had only picked up noisy static, but that it was about 18 hours in length - confirming and validating Ellie's statement about the length of her journey
• 18 months later, the film's last line of dialogue was delivered by Ellie to a group of children on a field trip to the VLA, recalling her father's words to her: ("I'll tell you one thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space. Right?"); while sitting outside next to a deep canyon, Ellie picked up a handful of dirt (similar to the alien's actions on Vega) and saw the same shimmering star pattern in her hand
• above a dark starry night sky, the words "FOR CARL" appeared - a tribute to Carl Sagan, before the closing credits