Film Comparisons: The Next Voice You Hear, Day the Earth Stood Still, Red Planet Mars, Contact

Rating: 10/10 (2 February 2008)

Four speculative films:
The Next Voice You Hear (1950) The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Red Planet Mars (1952) Contact (1997)
On three levels, these four films have aspects in common that make them an interesting film study. 1) Contact with a presence from beyond Earth, either from Heaven or somewhere in outer space. 2) Alien or God presents humans with message that cannot be ignored and which throws Earthlings into a certain level of turmoil about the implications of the message for humanity. 3) The contact has religious implications, either overt in The Next Voice You Hear, Red Planet Mars and Contact, or to a lesser degree in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
I doubt that Carl Sagan would be pleased to see his humanistic book-turned-film Contact placed in this grouping, but I have enjoyed all four of these films and feel that they make for interesting comparisons.