Week 1 Motion Picture Project.

This week I will be taking a look at how the view on extraterrestrials has changed over the past few decades in film to see if there have been any changes in the way they are perceived or even accepted. We picked Contact (1997) to help represent with how extraterrestrials were viewed during the 90's to how they are viewed today, only a couple decades later with Arrival (2016). Although the similarities throughout both of these movies are staggering, the differences between these films bring to light a great shift in the perception of extraterrestrials and contact with them.

Although both movies at face value look eerily familiar, the out of luck slightly damaged female scientist who is the most reputable in her field gets nefariously used by military intelligence all the while dragging along a much less interesting irrelevant male support character all while having profound enlightening experiences with extraterrestrials, you can look deeper to see the issues with the perception of this contact with them. In Contact (1997) Jodie Foster's character initially locates a message in the stars and stumbles across alien broadcasted blueprints to build a transport vessel. She finds the holy grail of messages but has not had any direct contact yet. Meanwhile in Arrival (2016)  Amy Adams character is brought to one of many UFOs that have touched down on earth with the intention of making contact with mankind. Only about 20 years later in film and already we have advanced from receiving radio broadcasts with much skepticism to multiple UFOs and extraterrestrials seeking earth out for the sole purpose of contact. While Jodie Foster finds directions in languages we already know Amy Adams spends a long time having to learn and teach languages to the ETs. This shows that alien contact may not happen in a language we already know, but we may need to be prepared to learn an alien language, and this may in fact change the way our species thinks. In a short amount of time the view on what contact with ETs will look like has changed from indirect and doubted my many to upfront and direct contact with meaning.

Both films show the ETs giving humanity designs or a tool to build something. In Contact (1997) humanity builds a machine designed to transport Jodie Foster to the ETs. In Arrival (2016) the language itself is in fact the tool that not only changes humanity but brings them together. However with the machine being blown up by terrorists only to reveal a second in Contact (1997) and China being seconds away from starting an all out war with the ETs but is saved by Amy Adams in Arrival (2016) the latter showing humanity on the brink of total destruction it seems as alien contact has become more eminent or inevitable now than ever before. Lastly, In Contact (1997) Jodie Foster is given no proof of contact with the ETs saying that for Billions of years they have slowly inched civilizations towards disclosure leaving the world to wonder what the truth really was. In Arrival (2016) 12 ships show up all over the world leading to public pandemonium. Countries almost go to war with each other and with the ETs but in the end are told that the ETs will need their help in thousands of years so needed to teach humanity how to survive the technological advancement we are currently battling today. In Arrival (2016) humanity is brought together through a transcendence experience where time and space collide. In Contact (1997) Jodie Foster is ridiculed and lives out the rest of her life with no proof and little changed to civilization.

It seems that just in a couple decades the perception on contact with Extraterrestrials has become more ingrained in society. It seems Arrival (2016) was able to show contact as direct showing a change in the stigma of believing alien exist. In Contact (1997) you can feel the shadow that has begun to lift in recent years about the existence of aliens while teasing with the idea of alien contact with doubt and skepticism while leaving it as a possibility. Arrival (2016) seems to be getting people prepared for eventual contact with an advanced civilization from another planet, whether we go to them or they come to us. It shows in an upfront and in your face way how we can share our languages to peacefully co-exist or learn from one another. It seems as though contact with ETs seems to becoming more believable as Humanity becomes a interstellar civilization.