Eleanor is a scientist with one thing on her mind.. is there life out there? A question that seems simple, but has huge political, social and religious implications. So, of course, when a signal is actually intercepted from space.. everyone stands up to take notice.
While her boss and folks from the government are quick to jump in to try to steal this credit from her, normal everyday folks are having their own little woodstock celebration outside the Very Large Array in New Mexico. And by normal everyday folks, of course, I mean wack-jobs as well.. Not only did the signal send a series of Prime Numbers.. it contained a short clip from the 1936 Olympic Games.. from Nazi Germany. Makes sense, really.. the opening of games was the first global transmission of television. The aliens recieved it, amplified it, and sent it back to us, as if to say “We don’t know what this is, but we got it!”. Also embedded in the signal.. a complex schematic for building a single-person transport.
Another, quick to take notice is eccentric billionaire, S.R. Hadden. Who does everything in his power to see that the project gets done.
Now.. this was good sci-fi. But, I had an issue.. and that issue is the same issue that EVERYONE had with this movie. The Ending.
In order to take “small steps” welcoming humanity to the galactic family.. the alien that greets Eleanor appears as.. her deceased father. I think “Mr Garrison” from South Park said it best. “Two and a half hours waiting to see an alien, and it was her fucking father!”. I understand it, I don’t approve. It didn’t make for a good ending to such an involved story.
