From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Fri Mar 08 2002 - 07:51:52 MST
-----Original Message-----
From: Amara Graps [mailto:amara@amara.com]
Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 4:28 AM
To: extropians@extropy.org
Subject: Contact's Arroway character (was Re: My Review A.I. the Movie )
"Ellie Arroway was a _character_ in a movie. If you knew or met Sagan
(some of us here did), and you know something of his history, his friends,
colleagues, life, or have even read some of the biographies, then this
is what you would know about this character:"
"Sagan's character Ellie Arroway was a female-personified view of himself
plus Ann Druyan + Jill Tarter + women-astronomer-scientists that he
knew/admired/supported. Sagan supported women in science to the nth degree,
but if you want to understand that character, then you need to study Sagan."
I definitely got that impression as well, but only for the character in the
book, not the one in the movie.
"The book and the movie have some differences, not huge differences though
(the largest might be removing pi). Since Sagan was minutely involved in the
making of Contact from the movie's beginning in the early 80s to its premier
in summer 1997 (only 1/2 year after his death), then you should consider the
movie Contact his whole baby, and not a film that was sidetracked by
Hollywood interests (that, in my mind is one of the most remarkable things
about the film: it's a smart film that didn't fall to media stupidities.)"
As far as the number of things left out, there may have been only a few
quantitative differences, but qualitatively the differences were vast.
Having been reading Sagan for years I was disappointed. The introduction of
the pattern in pie at the end altered the entire theme of the book, and
Foster's character couldn't argue against even the most basic objections to
her stance. In the book she was much more outspoken and (I thought)
intelligent. The movie's Arroway was a dumbed down characterature of an
intellectual atheist, and stumbled anytime someone disagreed with her or
pointed out some lame allegedly logical flaw in her stance. To me, these
things showed the influence that hollywood did have in the film.
Sagan's books introduced me to science and captivated me by it, I read Demon
Haunted world and couldnt put it down, after that I read almost every one of
his books in succession. After feeling like I got to know him well, I was
quite dissapointed in the film. The overall message that the film taught
seemed to be entirely skewed from the book to the move...but of course Im
biased =)
In either case, perhaps I'll watch the film again (havent seen it in a
while) and write up a more in depth Critique of the deviations from the
book.
Michael
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