Wow, what a beautiful movie. It has strong themes that it isn't afraid to wear on its sleeves. I started crying when Ellie was traveling through space. "They should have sent a poet" just absolutely destroyed me.
I wish more people in STEM realized the importance of humanities. The way Carl Sagan clearly did. I'm not just saying that about this single line, but because the entire movie is wrapped up in this beautiful dance of scientific pursuit and the human experience.
Great movie, I highly recommend it. I know not everyone loves it, but I loved it.
I saw it once when I was a kid. I found it to be too absolutely painful for a rewatch. IIRC, they grilled her for half the movie for being an atheist. I found that to be abhorrent. (I wasn't really exposed to many Christians at the time, so it was shocking for me).
That's an interesting perspective, thanks for sharing. I come at it having been raised Catholic and realizing I didn't believe from a fairly young age, so it felt validating to me for the hero to be an atheist who is getting grilled for it. That was sort of my experience growing up and I haven't seen a lot of media really look at that before.
When I was watching it, I was just disgusted at all the harping on about it. I understood that the main character was supposed to be sympathetic and that things like this did happen in the US, but it just felt a whole lot like watching Schindler's List or Oppenheimer. I don't want to see those again either. Once was enough. I'm glad I watched all of them, but they are not enjoyable movies to watch.