I was recently being taken to the BBC for an interview, which is about the only time I ever get to travel in a taxi. On this particular day, when the taxi driver asked me what I did and I told him I was an astronomer, he started asking me about extra-terrestrial civilisations. I suggested he watched this wonderful movie, Contact, based on the book that Carl Sagan published in the mid 1990s.
Sagan then co-wrote the screenplay for the movie with his wife. The movie stars Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. Sadly, during the filming, Sagan died of cancer.
If you enjoy the film I would highly recommend the book. The book has some interesting additional complexity, which I won’t go into as otherwise I will give away the surprises. But it s a fantastic read from one of the most gifted scientists and science communicators of the 20th Century.
Is the book better than the film?
The headphones were silly.
Was the religious angle necessary?
There is a character called Palmer Joss: common two-syllable last name ending in R as first name, uncommon one-syllable last name. There is a VLA scientist (rather famous, actually) called Miller Goss. Coincidence?
I personally found the book better than the film, for its added complexity.
The religious angle is in the book too. I think Carl Sagan was an agnostic but towards the atheist end of the spectrum to which Dawkins refers in his “The God delusion” book. But that’s only my hunch. I think he never stopped questioning his own lack of faith or how others could have faith.