After the \u201cContact\u201d sneak preview, viewers in the sold-out theater outside Kansas City were asked to complete the usual survey probing their reactions.<\/p>\n\n
It was Saturday night at the mall and the Hollywood dream machine needed to know how this $90 million \u201cevent movie for intellectuals\u201d was going to play in Middle America. Was it \u201centertaining,\u201d \u201cexciting,\u201d \u201ctoo slow,\u201d \u201cthought provoking,\u201d \u201cfun to watch,\u201d \u201cmeaningful,\u201d \u201cemotional\u201d and \u201cbelievable\u201d? Were the special effects good enough? Did it have enough action? Did it leave \u201cyou feeling good\u201d?<\/p>\n\n
In this case, researchers needed to add some questions, such as: \u201cHas this movie affected your view of science and faith?\u201d Or, \u201cAre you more or less likely to go to church tomorrow?\u201d Or, \u201cDo you believe in a Higher Power? What kind?\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cContact\u201d is based on astronomer Carl Sagan\u2019s novel and, in one wide-screen package, tries to blend discussions of God, science, life, death, eternal life, extraterrestrial life, organized religion, unorganized religion and the origins of the Cosmos \u2014 with a Big C. That\u2019s all. Sagan died on Dec. 20, as the movie neared completion.<\/p>\n\n
The movie shows that Sagan, as the scientific establishment\u2019s designated media apologist, was committed to blending skepticism with a market-friendly brand of spirituality. \u201cContact\u201d is not a feel-good movie for hard-shell agnostics. Rather, it\u2019s the summer science-fiction epic for millions of Americans who find pure science spiritually unfulfilling, but who don\u2019t feel they can embrace the 10 Commandments.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThis movie is surprisingly sympathetic to religion and does raise some critical questions about science,\u201d said Robert C. Newman of Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, Pa., who holds a Cornell doctorate in astrophysics. \u201cStill, anyone who worships the God of the Bible isn\u2019t going to be very happy as they walk out of the theater. \u2026 Of course, I don\u2019t know how many people who think of themselves as traditional Christians pay much attention to what they watch or do much thinking about what movies have to say.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Sagan\u2019s heroine is radio astronomer Eleanor Arroway, played by actress Jodie Foster. In both the book and the movie she is a tough-minded, yet emotionally complex, skeptic. The key is that movie director Robert Zemeckis, in addition to simplifying the plot and adding the usual action-packed plot twists, has radically edited and altered the religious characters. The novel contains sympathetic believers and even avoids stereotypes of fundamentalists, noted Newman, one of several Christians in science who corresponded with Sagan as he wrote the book.<\/p>\n\n
One pivotal figure, the Rev. Palmer Joss, is an inquisitive, but quite conservative, evangelical. In the movie, Matthew McConaughey\u2019s character has evolved into a mass-media mystic who never mentions Christianity and uses what one person calls \u201cflowery, New Age rhetoric.\u201d Instead of a cross, Joss\u2019 necklace offers a circle within a circle \u2013 a miniature holy hubcap. He carries a slim leather volume with a ribbon marker and empty, gilt-edged pages that he fills with his own thoughts and observations \u2013 a do-it-yourself bible. He tells Arroway that he fled the priesthood because he \u201ccouldn\u2019t handle the celibacy thing\u201d and their first theological debate occurs in bed.<\/p>\n\n