Feb 21, 2026 at 2:37 PM

both! contact, and its spiritual successor interstellar, are two of my absolute fav movies. i won’t go into interstellar rn, way 2 much to talk about, but @ contact, props for noticing my reference to her speech to the kids at the end. i love ellie's, well, sagan’s sentiments throughout the film, from encouraging kids to believe and search for answers, to the religious and societal implications of disclosure, to the novel use of the einstein-rosen bridge, to the sr hadden bits and not least the penultimate line, “the static isn’t what interests me, what interests me is that there’s approximately 18 hours of it.” what an absolutely brilliant screenplay. and what’s crazy is that i do believe it would happen a lot like this, minus some of the hollywood tropes ofc. i really hope this leads somewhere because i think it would just be so simultaneously humbling and vindicating for humanity to learn that we’re not alone

 

Feb 21, 2026 at 2:48 PM

Ellie is quoting Palmer Joss when she says that, actually. Remember? Her dad said the same thing when she was a kid; when Palmer repeated it when they met at the VLA, she decided to bed the man.

The book was a little different, and a lot more nerd-gasmic. Go forth and readeth, o exobiologically curious one

Interstellar was fun and realistically scarier, I thought. Star Trek is fun for the same reasons...

The Truth Is Out There

 

Feb 21, 2026 at 3:21 PM

well color me impressed, i was not expecting to be schooled in sagan on s80! the book’s actually been on my reading list for a minute now, i really need to peep that. interstellar isn’t just scary it’s eye opening, especially considering all the real science that went into it, accurately depicting gargantua, predicting what types of planets could exist in those conditions, the innerworkings of the tesseract, etc. and on a more human note i freaking lose my mind every time he says “i was your ghost murph.” and i love the star trek original series, highlights for me being city on the edge of forever, who mourns for adonis, spok amok, mirror mirror, corbomite maneuver, and the wrath of khan film especially. how close any of this will be to actual disclosure is anyone’s guess though, but it seems like we’re closer than ever to the truth

 

Feb 21, 2026 at 4:03 PM

lol! You never do know who's on the other end of a keyboard

I came at the SETI stuff indirectly through Carl Sagan; I read Cosmos first then I went through most of his titles. He interested me because of his astrophysics work -- I did technical writing for NASA while I was in grad school. Space always interested me, but I liked the rockets and robotics first (hence my current AI research & writing about AI companions, discussed in another thread somewhere here.)

My interest got bigger when I discovered Sagan. He's a great communicator, and his position is persuasive without being sentimental or goofy. If his written work is new to you and you like SETI, Cosmos will blow your mind for context. Mind. Bending.

I love all the Star Trek iterations! Not crazy about Deep Space Nine, though...

 

Feb 21, 2026 at 4:04 PM

(Cosmos is also a multi-part documentary series, I believe)

 

Feb 21, 2026 at 4:07 PM

 

Feb 21, 2026 at 4:12 PM

YOU be quiet.

 

Feb 21, 2026 at 4:14 PM

 

Feb 21, 2026 at 4:41 PM

 

Feb 21, 2026 at 5:28 PM

Oh but Roo can do it

 

Feb 21, 2026 at 5:50 PM

Nobody does it like Roo