Contact - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Contact or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Contact

[wallace]

Ellie's father wears a ring with a blue stone on his right hand. In the rest of the movie, Ellie wears her dad's ring on the middle finger of her right hand.

[melinda]

When Ellie is going through the launch and wormhole, she repeats, "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay." Scott Glenn repeats the same phrase in The Right Stuff (1983).

[bryan]

In the book, S.R. Hadden is in his 50s and in nearly perfect health. He decides to enter space orbit to extend his life. At the end of the book, he fakes his death, is cryogenically frozen, and sent off into deep space in hopes of becoming immortal when an advanced civilization comes upon his spaceship.

[sara]

Jodie Foster was recorded ahead of time, so the cast members in the control room had to time their lines to fit.

[michele]

When Ellie returns to her apartment, just before receiving the first message from S.R. Hadden, as she enters the room she is reflected in a mirror. At the bottom left of the mirror is a photo of Carl Sagan, who wrote the novel on which the movie was based.

[steve]

The three-ringed time machine in the movie was originally designed for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).

[fred]

In 2011, Jodie Foster was part of a group of private donors that saved S.E.T.I.'s telescope array in California.

[clayton]

People in the crowds at the end of the movie seem to be wearing the same shade of blue. It is the "machine consortium blue," used by the corporate identification of the consortium that builds the huge travel devices, and suggests that those people believe Dr. Arroway's story.

[jesse]

In the book, David Drumlin dies in the first machine explosion trying to save Ellie. According to her accounts, he dives in front of her to save her life once the explosion occurs.

[kim]

In Carl Sagan's book, the capsule returns with a small amount of sand on the floor, further proof Ellie was telling the truth.

[willard]

During Ellie's travel trough the wormhole, right after she realizes the vehicle briefly stopped by Vega, a very long structure is visible above it for a few seconds. It's composed of squared surfaces linked one another by cables to form two arrays, pointing in the direction from which the vehicle seems to come. The book refers to it as the transmitting antenna. Understanding the aliens are showing her how they got in touch, she says "they're talking to the whole universe!"

[edgar]

President Bill Clinton's appearance was taken from an actual press conference on the White House South Lawn in 1997. His remarks were about the real-life discovery of an arctic meteorite that turned out to be from Mars. The altered footage caused some controversy. A few years later, CNN banned the use of its logo in fictional movies. CNN reporters are not allowed to do movie cameos, though Larry King appears from time to time.

[tamara]

The radio code used by Ellie Arroway at the beginning of the movie is W9GFO. The code used by the man she contacts from Pensacola, Florida, is K4WLD.

[kristina]

The visual effects crew deliberately inserted contradicting images in the Pensacola scene at the end, to create a dreamlike feeling. The beach is brightly lit with no sun in sight, the waves move backwards, and the shadows slowly change from one shot to the next.

[eli]

Gillian Anderson and Uma Thurman were considered for the role of Dr. Ellie Arroway.

[linda]

The vehicle in which Dr. Ellie Arroway travels through the wormhole system is a sphere surrounded by a dodecahedron, the fourth Platonic solid. With twelve pentagonal faces, some Greek philosophers thought it represented the structure of the universe.

[lonnie]

At the beginning, various television and radio transmissions are heard coming from Earth into outer space. As the camera moves away from Earth, the transmissions become older, as the first transmissions would be further out into space. From closest to farthest, the transmissions include: Third Eye Blind's Semi-Charmed Life (1997), Spice Girls's Wannabe (1997), Crash Test Dummies's God Shuffled His Feet (1993), Lagwagon's Angry Days (1992), Mr. Mister's Broken Wings (1985), Lipps Inc.' Funkytown (1979), A Taste of Honey Boogie Oogie Oogie (1978), the theme from Dallas (1978), The Trammps Disco Inferno (1976), Neil Armstrong saying "One small step for a man" (1969),"Robert Kennedy shot in hotel" (1968), Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech (1963), "John F. Kennedy shot in Dallas!" (1963), the theme from The Twilight Zone (1959), Domenico Modugno's Volare (1958), the theme from The Lone Ranger (1949), Franklin D. Roosevelt's "A Date Which Will Live in Infamy" speech (1941), and Adolf Hitler's speech to open the Berlin Olympic Games (1936, almost unrecognizable).

[ava]

After the funeral, Ellie starts her radio call with "CQ". This is phonetic shorthand for "Seek You," and means "Please respond if you hear this."

[wesley]

Carl Sagan was to cameo as a member of the committee selecting an occupant for the machine, but died before the scene was filmed.