Contact: Special Edition

Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 2 - 1.85:1, 16x9 Enhanced, Dolby Digital 2.0
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1997	Commentary Tracks	Yes, 3 - 1. Jodie Foster (Lead Actress); 2. Robert Zemeckis (Director) & Steve Starkey (Producer); 3. Ken Ralston (Senior Visual Effects Supervisor) & Stephen Rosenbaum (Visual Effects Supervisor)
Running Time	143:34 Minutes	Other Extras	Cast & Crew Biographies Production Notes Featurette - *The Special Effects*
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (74:33)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie	Cast & Crew
Region	4	Director	Robert Zemeckis
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Jodie Foster Matthew McConaughey James Woods John Hurt Tom Skerritt Angela Bassett
Case	Snapper	Starring
RRP	$29.95	Music	Alan Silvestri

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1) Isolated Music Score (Dolby Digital 5.1) Audio Commentary - Jodie Foster (Dolby Digital 2.0) Audio Commentary - Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey (Dolby Digital 2.0) Audio Commentary - Ken Ralston, Stephen Rosenbaum (Dolby Digital 2.0)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English Arabic English for the Hearing Impaired Audio Commentary - Jodie Foster Audio Commentary - Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey Audio Commentary - Ken Ralston, Stephen Rosenbaum	Annoying Product Placement	No
Subtitles		Action In or After Credits	No

Plot Synopsis

Contact is based on the novel of the same name by the late and great Carl Sagan, which some may consider to be bloated and overly long to begin with. With the exceptions of a few liberties of a minor nature, the film sticks closely to the plot of the novel, and Sagan himself assisted in the screenwriting process. The film begins with a pan backwards from Earth across the universe, which is accompanied for a while by the sound of various radio and television broadcasts from human history. The panning shot ends with the face of Eleanor Arroway as a child (Jena Malone), who is already experimenting with radio, ably assisted by her father. We soon cut to Ellie as an adult, played ably by Jodie Foster. Ellie spends all of her adult life listening through satellites for messages from civilizations in outer space, and having her funding cut by such vile folks as David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt). Given this character's arrogance throughout this film, the manner in which he exits, which I will not spoil any further for those who haven't seen the film, does not elicit the slightest amount of sympathy. In any case, Ellie seeks funding in the private sector, and gains it from the enigmatic S. R. Hadden (John Hurt), a man who is so well connected that he is able to suddenly appear on the Mir space station. With new funding, she is able to continue her research at the Very Large Array located in New Mexico. Just as the new funding is about to be terminated by the U.S. government, Ellie detects a signal coming from a faraway point in space referred to in the film as Vega. Shortly after this point in the film, the story seems to become more interested in lecturing the audience in an annoying way.

The point where this film really shoots itself in the foot is the way in which it attempts to assert that science and religion are following different paths towards the same goal, an annoying assertion that is offensive to anyone who knows such things as the true history of how nations like America came to be. The characters of this film spend far too much time arguing about who would be the ideal person to represent mankind, and eventually the conclusion is drawn that a professing Christian would be the ideal choice, which makes me wonder what the hell happened to the First Amendment. Well, here's a little revelation for the characters in this film: the last word of the Old Testament is "curse". One would think that a book which comprises the text we wish to take to the alien race we're about to make contact with as a summation of our ideals would end with a flourish of enlightenment, a message of hope, or maybe even a witty retort. Instead, we would be giving them a book containing promises of death, misery, suffering, and pain. Educated people are not in the least bit surprised that the Old Testament ends with the word "curse", and I would not be surprised to see an alien race greeting any believer in the supposed goodness of this tome with outright hostility. Although I have never read the novel by Carl Sagan, I would not be surprised to learn that the whole story is vastly different to this film version, as Sagan was one of the last voices of rationality within the U.S. government in a time when it was but one step from being overthrown and turned into a theocracy.

Transfer Quality

Video

All of the problems with this film's plot aside, I was hoping that this would be countered by a stunning, vivid transfer that makes the film a delight to look at in spite of the film itself. Sadly, there's a number of problems with this transfer that add up to a disappointing viewing experience. Not to a major extent, don't get me wrong, but enough to lead me to declare that this DVD is not nearly as good as it should have been. It should be noted, however, that the Region 1 release is equally plagued by image problems. The transfer is presented in the original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, complete with 16x9 Enhancement. The movie was reasonably sharp from start to finish, with every detail in the foreground being easy to make out, but there are moments in the film where background details such as overhead lighting and human beings become rather blurred. Shadow detail was excellent, however, with the significant portion of the film that is shot in the dark or with low lighting being well-detailed and easy to make out. The colour saturation was spot-on throughout the transfer, with skin tones and metal colours in particular being perfectly rendered.

MPEG artefacts were completely absent from this transfer, but film-to-video artefacts picked up the slack, and this was where the transfer really disappointed me. A lot of the story in this film is moved forward by action that occurs on television sets or computer monitors, and a great deal of effort was made during the production of this movie to prevent moiré effects from showing on the many shots involving television sets. That effort has been all for naught on this transfer, as there are frequent moiré effects throughout the film that make these shots rather unpleasant to look at. What makes this problem all the more troubling is that half the shots of television screens had picture information composited using CGI in post-production, while others had the picture shot directly off the screen. Using the former approach in the production of this movie would have been a much wiser move, because a lot of hassle with transferring this film to home media would have been avoided that way. There were also some aliasing effects present, with one major problem with this effect occurring eighty minutes into the film, and another major problem occurring ninety minutes into the film. While these artefacts have a lot to do with Robert Zemeckis' style of direction, which often involves long diagonal pans that can be very prone to aliasing and moiré effects, Columbia Tristar transfers typically do not have this problem in similar shots, unless they are of Universal pictures. Film artefacts were also much more prevalent than they should have been for such a recent film, with a significant number of very noticeable film artefacts occurring in the middle of the shots.

This disc is presented in the RSDL format, with the layer change taking place at 74:33, between Chapters 22 and 23. This is one of the worst-placed layer changes I have ever witnessed, as it occurs in the middle of a long pan shot towards the Machine, and thus is very noticeable. By contrast, the Region 1 version of the film has the layer change at 60:34, between Chapters 17 and 18, which is a much better place for a layer change.

Audio

Five audio tracks are included with this DVD: the original English dialogue in Dolby Digital 5.1, an Isolated Music Score in Dolby Digital 5.1, and three audio commentary tracks in Dolby Digital 2.0 without surround-encoding. I listened to the English dialogue and the three audio commentary tracks. The score music was of no interest to me at all, so I didn't bother with the Isolated Music Score track. The movie itself is a very slow and draining experience to watch, and I was barely able to sit through the film enough times to listen to four out of five soundtracks. I'll get to the reason why I left the Isolated Music Score out of my listening experience in a moment. The dialogue was always completely clear and intelligible, even in scenes with high ambient noise, although it would have been a blessing to be able to have some of it distorted or even dubbed in another language. Having some of this dialogue dubbed in Vulgar Latin would have been amusing, given that the Vulgar Latin version of the bible contains one of the most revealing celebrations of an atrocity ever written. Audio sync was never a problem at any point in the transfer either, and this also would have been a nice thing to have for some of the dialogue. Imagine the feeling of relief it would give the viewer to see Rob Lowe or Jake Busey open their mouths and have nothing come out, if only for half a second.

The score music was composed by Alan Silvestri, whom I feel is one of the most overrated composers in Hollywood, and I was not surprised when I heard shades of other music scores in this film. This, of course, is why I did not listen to the Isolated Music Score: this film contains one of the most disappointing and ineffectual music scores written by human hands. This film would have been much better off with score music composed by John Williams or Basil Poledouris, or maybe even by Jerry Goldsmith. As it is, this score music was really disappointing to sit through even when the dialogue got in its way. I really feel that the less I can say about both the dialogue and the score music of this film, the better.

The surround channels were used frequently during the film to create a highly ambient soundfield, which drew me into the movie as much as it possibly could have done. There were some moments when the film regressed to a a front-and-centre mix, and the special effects saw the only real support from the surround channels, and there was not a lot of split surround usage. The subwoofer was worked hard to support sequences involving the use of the Machines, but it was otherwise restricted to enhancing the music and ambience. In the overall scheme of the film's soundtrack, it was not really used to a particularly great level, but the usage it received was integrated well into the soundtrack.

Extras

This DVD has a massive amount of extras on it, but it is missing a few which are on the Region 1 version of the disc.

Commentary - Jodie Foster (Actor)

This is as dull as listening to a lecture about the evidence in favour of the bible's authenticity, and Foster has a marked tendency to mumble everything that she says. I stopped listening after ninety minutes due to a lack of interest in what Foster has to say. The commentary track is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, without surround-encoding, and with a corresponding subtitle track.

Commentary - Robert Zemeckis (Director), Steve Starkey (Producer)

I thought they couldn't possibly make a commentary track any duller than Jodie Foster's, and I at least forgive her due to the fact that much of my boredom with her comments stems from a boredom with the film. Well, they made a commentary truck much duller than Foster's and this is it. This commentary track is also presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, also with a corresponding subtitle track.

Commentary - Ken Ralston (Senior Visual Effects Supervisor), Stephen Rosenbaum (Visual Effects Supervisor)

This is the most tolerable of the three commentary tracks. This is faint praise, however, as the sheer boredom with the rest of the film translates into a complete lack of interest in what anyone in the film has to say. Again, this commentary track is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 with no surround-encoding, and its own subtitle track.

Theatrical Trailers

Two theatrical trailers are provided under a sub-menu of their own. One of them runs for approximately ninety seconds, while the other runs for just over two minutes. Both of them are presented in what appears to be the aspect ratio of 1.85:1, although it appears that they might have been encoded in 1.78:1 with some black bars added in. Both of them are 16x9 Enhanced, and feature Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Cast & Crew Biographies

Extensive biographies are provided for Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, Angela Bassett, Alan Silvestri, Carl Sagan, James V. Hart, Michael Goldenberg, and Robert Zemeckis. They are an interesting and enlightening read.

Production Notes

If you're wondering how they could have made a novel by one of the few brilliant minds of the Reagan era into such a dull film, this extra will enlighten you.

R4 vs R1

The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

Featurette - The Making Of The Opening Shot
Featurette - The Making Of The NASA Machine Destruction
Featurette - The Making Of The Harrier Landing
Featurette - The Machine Fly-By
Featurette - Hadden's Plane
Featurette - NASA Control Room

If you are seriously masochistic to the extent that you actually enjoy this film, then Region 1 is definitely the version to go for, although it can be said that a lot of the image problems present in this disc can be blamed on the fact that the bitrate in the main presentation was sacrificed in order to fit so many extras in the first place.

Summary

Contact is a dull movie that moves along at a sluggish pace, only recommended if you're a fan of Carl Sagan or for a one-time rental.

The video quality is disappointing given the film's recent vintage, with far too many transfer artefacts. The layer-change position could have been somewhat better placed, too.

The audio quality is good, but nothing to get particularly excited about. In this sense, it is perfectly reflective of the film itself.

The extras are extraordinary for a Warner Brothers release, but a vital extra that is a highlight of the Region 1 version has been left out. If you're a fan of this film, this is an important point, but if you feel the same way as I do about this film, it's nothing to worry about.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment

DVD	Toshiba SD-2109, using S-video output
Display	Samsung CS-823AMF (80 cm), 16:9 mode/4:3 mode, using composite and S-video inputs
Audio Decoder	Built In (Amplifier)
Amplification	Sony STR-DE835
Speakers	Panasonic S-J1500D Front Speakers, Sharp CP-303A Back Speakers, Philips FB206WC Centre Speaker, JBL Digital 10 Subwoofer