Contact: You Are Not Alone

When I approached this edit, I first identified the various “problems’ I desired to overcome with the new version. The somewhat disappointing ending is where my thoughts first landed. I have always felt that Ellie Arroway’s amazing experience in the film was overshadowed by all the nay-saying, commission hearings, etc. A woman receives an incredible message from another world and is transported xyz light years from our own galaxy for a rendezvous with an alien life form, only to return and be grilled by Congress on national television as if she’s some sort of criminal.
Some people feel that happy endings are clichÃ� these days, but I think an inspired ending filled with awe and hope is just what this film needs. I have restructured the flow of the story so that we get some of the nay-saying out of the way right from the start. This new version opens near the end of the original film, with Ellie’s return and the fallout surrounding the question, “Did she go, or didn’t she?” I’ve shortened the hearings to a single scene that I feel sums up the argument for and against the truthfulness of Ellie’s claims.

From there, we travel back in time to Ellie’s childhood, where the story proceeds differently from the original. All of the childhood scenes now appear together, rather than being interspersed between “present day” scenes.

With the pains of childhood behind us, the story moves into a higher gear much earlier than in the original film. Next on my list of improvements was to tone down as much as possible the romance between Ellie and Palmer Joss. I won’t go into details, but I’ve removed almost any hint at romance between the two of them. Now they just seem like really good friends.

A small peeve of mine was the compass passing back and forth between Palmer and Ellie several times. In YANA (You Are Not Alone), Palmer gives Ellie the compass and it never changes hands again.

Next on the “hit list” was the pacing of the film. Many people felt that it was too slow, taking too long to get to the interesting stuff. In a way, I agree, although I do have an appreciation for the meticulous pacing of the original. Through careful experimentation and a fair bit of trial-and-error, I’ve been able to prune several scenes without affecting the story in a negative way. Ellie receives the “message” nearly 20 minutes earlier in the film, and the pace only picks up from there.

I always felt that the opening, a 3-minute backwards journey from Earth to the star Vega, was much too long. I haven’t cut the scene from the film, though. I just found a new way to use the footage involving some careful time remapping. The entire sequence appears twice in the film, but both instances combined run at less than half of the original scene’s length.

Another sore spot with some viewers of this film is the over-the-top science vs. religion theme. I’ve removed some, but not all of it. I experimented with a version that removed the Christian terrorist subplot entirely. That necessarily excluded the existence of the first machine. Without the first machine, there would be no “machine seat” for David Drumlin to win by pleading to the religious and moral “consciences” of the committee.

In the end, the version without the first machine and religious subplot was rather boring. The trials Ellie must endure to get what she deserves provide the conflict at the very heart of the story. With this in mind, I decided to leave the first machine and terrorist subplot intact, but resolved to tone things down as much as possible.

Ellie never sees the religious terrorist at the rally outside the VLA (Very Large Array). She first encounters him as she arrives for the committee reception.

In all, I’ve removed some of the more annoying religious references. But to keep balance, some of it remains. Through editing this film, I’ve become aware of the care one must take not to fracture a storyline for the sake of saving a few minutes of film runtime.

Some people are also bothered by the character S. R. Hadden in the movie. Personally, he’s one of my favorite characters. I tried versions with and without him, but ultimately decided to leave him in because of the gaping plot holes that would be created in his absence. When “improving” a film, I feel it is important not to make matters worse by excising too many things.

There’s an old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” There are several scenes in Contact that are perfect (or nearly perfect) as they are, and so I’ve left them largely untouched. I believe it is a faneditor’s duty to recognize when something is good and let it be, rather than changing something simply for the sake of changing it. As a result, the middle 45-percent of YANA largely resembles the original. Nearly every scene has been tweaked and tuned a bit here and there, but some scenes are simply fantastic the way they are, and don’t need any help.

As Ellie approaches her rendezvous with the alien, the filmmakers chose to do some weird warping of her face. I guess they intended to imply that Ellie had seen something so spectacular that even a gifted actress like Jodie Foster couldn’t portray the emotion properly. Shame on them for tainting her performance with obvious face-warping that looks strange and detracts from the impact of the moment. All of the face warping has been removed, except for a small portion that was actually done well and adds something emotionally satisfying.

I’ve always been bothered by the strange coloring of the “alien beach” scene. The alien creates surroundings that remind Ellie of Pensacola, Florida. But as a child, Ellie didn’t draw Pensacola with a pink beach. Hers was golden. I have a feeling that the filmmakers were trying to give the scene a mystical or ethereal feel by using such strange colors… Personally, the scene just hurt my eyes as well as my sense of color balance. The skin tones were too red, the trees were too green, and the beach was pink! I’ve completely recolored the alien beach scene to more closely match young Ellie’s drawing of Pensacola. No more overly green trees, and no more pink beach!

Since, at the beginning, I took care of some of the things that annoyed me about the original “letdown” of an ending, I was free to construct an entirely new ending that is more hopeful, an ending that leaves us on a high rather than feeling like we’ve just been dragged through the mud at high speed. For the ending, I created a special 6-second sequence involving the star Vega, using After Effects.

I didn’t keep a comprehensive list of all the changes I’ve made, but there are many. Here are just a few more changes that come to mind:

- A new dedication to Carl Sagan (author of the original book) at the beginning of the film.
- Cut a fair portion of the CNN news footage, but left in any such footage that helps the story along.
- I’ve removed most of President Clinton. Love him or hate him, who wants to listen to a politician ramble on when the main character has received a message from another world!
- Many small cuts here and there, to keep the story moving at a more even pace.
- Not a part of the film itself, but I added a small nod to Back to the Future, and director Robert Zemeckis (who also directed Contact) in the DVD menu transitions. Some might find it a bit cheesy. Others might not.
- Used a handy little freeware audio plugin called Knockout to remove the music in several key scenes that I wanted to rescore with music from the Blu-ray isolated score. With a bit of care, one can remove most of the music with little degradation of the remaining audio.

In all, I’ve managed to cut 37 minutes from the film without leaving plot holes or unresolved subplots. I was careful and held in mind my goal of a complete and satisfying story while I was experimenting, cutting, and recutting.

I created fully animated motion menus for the DVD, the centerpiece of which is a representation of the wormhole Ellie travels through on her journey. The DVD also has chapter selection menus with motion thumbnails for each chapter.

The original source material came from the Contact Blu-ray. But even so, a bit of excessive graininess was apparent here and there. To fix this, I used the remarkable noise reduction plugin, Neat Video, on a mild setting to remove the excessive grain. I think you will find the picture quality of this edit to be exceptional throughout the film itself as well as the DVD menus, etc. I’ve taken great care to make sure this release is as polished as possible.

I’m sure that in time I’ll remember more of the changes I’ve made to the film, but this incomplete list will have to do. I’ve taken great pains to make Contact: You Are Not Alone as enjoyable as possible. It was truly a labor of love. Contact is one of my favorite films. I hope you enjoy my work.