Review of Contact (1997) by Rambo B — 04 Jul 2015

I watched this movie years ago and didn't think much of it but seeing it again, I learned something new. Jodie Fosters character is a dedicated lifelong scientist and predictably only believes in science until her boyfriend Matthew mccounhay (a former priest) introduces her to the idea that science does not explain everything--like miracles. The movie caught me off guard because I thought it was a movie about making contact with extra-terrestrials. Instead, it is about near-death experiences.

So through the advances of science, NASA was able build something designed to electrostatically make someone go through time, space, wormholes, yada, yada, yada. She discovers her dad from the beyond whom she misses very much and have wonderful conversations. Stuff that we wish we can do with loved ones who passed.

She awakens from what seemed like eternity only to discover none of her scientific tools recorded anything and the whole science community questions her with a little known philosophical argument called, "Occams Razor". Occams Razor is secular-friendly and the scientific worlds way of explaining things with the simplest of answers, "it didn't happen".

The movie opens with a view of Earth from space and as it pans out, We see how vast and complex our universe is. Able to contain things and thoughts beyond what we see. But somehow we make no room for the mysteries of the universe including the afterlife. Occam's razor strips away all other possibilities reducing answers to predictable outcomes. Sometimes we only use info we feel are safe and dismiss other things as far fetched. It is also a movie that asks us has science and technology helped us as people become better connected. Does science have a soul anymore?