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Rating: 1/10 (20 December 2006)

I loved the book 'Contact,' but was very disappointed by the film. In my first, unpublished, attempt at a critique I found myself getting mired in a scene-by-scene breakdown. I soon realized this was like trying to escape a pool of quicksand, too many problems, and too little time to solve them before being pulled under.
Then I thought, no, this film has much bigger problems than logistical screw-ups, namely the obvious religiosity of the producers. (White Flag, 20 Dec. 2006. If you would like to read this comment, please ask.) But if I couldn't free myself from a pool of quicksand, what chance did I have against an ocean? I have since discovered a version of the 'Contact' script dated September 8, 1995, credited to Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, among others. This script is essentially what appeared on film.
So I guess I can no longer pin all my dislike on the director/producers. It pains me to say this, but my problem with this movie is Carl Sagan. Let me add that this is in no way a personal attack. Just trying' to figure it all out.
Many artists have difficulty translating their work from one medium into another. If you enjoy reading Sagan's books you know this guy simply could not touch lightly on any subject. It just wasn't in him. He had to explore everything inside and out and three days from backwards. Of course he had to make certain concessions for the popular media, but he always managed to do so with clarity and effectiveness. In the bookish freedom from practical constraints on length he could be concise in message. In book form Sagan was finite, yet unbounded.
Film, however, is a very different animal. Extraordinary films require extraordinary screenplays. The screenplay format forces you to do one of two things: write a condensed book, or write a movie. A screenplay is its own species, related to a book in DNA only. Where the book is the fossil, the screenplay is its living, animated descendant.
I think the screenplay, as a process, was fundamentally at odds with Carl Sagan. The physical limitation of a hundred and twenty pages must have felt suffocating to him. He couldn't fit that big brain of his into that small a space. So instead of translating his work into film by penetrating its internal bureaucracy, Sagan simply gutted it.
He touched on the religion v. science conflict too lightly and with no rebuttal. He removed most of the dramatic potential by simplifying Ellie's family structure. He took out all the good stuff: the wit, the skepticism, the cosmic perspective, and worst of all, the conclusion.
The inescapable irony is that Sagan probably would have been much more comfortable writing 'Contact' as a television mini-series as it was originally conceived by he and Francis Ford Coppola. It could have been ten hours long. It could have been another 'Cosmos,' and me and a hundred million other people would have loved every minute of it. (This in no way condones Coppola's despicable attempt to halt production on 'Contact' immediately after Sagan's death.)
Of course Sagan was not a filmmaker. The filmmakers, however, are filmmakers, and they should have known better. They made a film based not upon Sagan's wonderful book, but on his wholly inadequate screenplay, which in my view amounts to culpable negligence.