Contact Movie Blog

Contact is a science-fiction movie starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, in which an SETI scientist who finds strong evidence of extraterrestrial life and is chosen to make first contact. The movie elucidates stirring scientific concepts and theological inquiry at the expense of satisfying storytelling, making for a brainy blockbuster that engages with its ideas, if not its characters. In the movie, there is a correct explanation of the twin paradox, but at the end of the movie, the idea of the twin paradox is incorrectly used. Overall, the movie gets its physics right, with the exception of the twin paradox. 

So what is the Twin Paradox? The twin paradox is the apparent paradox arising from relativity theory that if one of a pair of twins makes a long journey at near the speed of light and then returns, he or she will have aged less than the twin who remains behind.

In the movie, when we first hear about the twin paradox, we are given a correct explanation of the twin paradox. The correct explanation is that when Ellie (Jodie Foster) leaves Earth and returns, she will only be 18 hours older, and everyone else on Earth will be 40 years older. However, at the end of the movie, Ellie claims to be gone for 18 hours, but only 4 seconds passed on Earth. This is wrong, as the relative object would experience time dilation and experience less time than the other object. 

In order to correct this, the movie would have to have the pod disappear for 18 hours, and have 40 years pass on Earth when the pod returns.

Overall, the movie would be given a PGP-13, because the movie was good about its physics up until the ending.