Contact: Carl Sagan's other video (and novel) legacy to the world
I promise to get back to technology posts soon, but first, this message:
I couldn't sleep this evening. I found myself wide awake at midnight. There's plenty of work to do, not including writing posts for this blog. I went into the den to try to fall asleep, but no luck.
While laying in the dark on the sofa, I began thinking about astronomy and science, and my mind took me to Carl Sagan, one of my heroes. I remember how remarkable a man he was, and how much he gave us all. He wrote or co-authored more than 20 books, including one of my favorite bits of science fiction, Contact. He wrote over 600 scientific articles, and, probably his greatest legacy, he wrote and was the star of the PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, seen by over 600 million people worldwide. He brought science to the masses, and, among many other things, was a strong advocate of critical thinking.
You can read more about him by following the links in this post. However, I want to talk a little about the book and movie, Contact.
Sagan's literary influence, his wonderful wife Ann Druyan, was with him every step of the way in the writing of this novel, and she made her mark on the result. She also was the producer of the movie, unfortunately finishing it just a little too late.
This morning, I watched the movie again. It was released in 1997, a year after Dr. Sagan's death. He worked hard on the movie, but had to wait for special effects to catch up to what he had written. He and Ann didn't want to shortchange his audience. The movie is spectacular. And the book is even better!
For ten years after the book was published, I am pretty sure I read the book once a year. It had such depth of character in Ellie Arroway, and the story is riveting. I believe I fell a little in love with Ellie. I certainly envy her, even now. She got to go to the STARS!
Ellie Arroway (played by Jodie Foster) is a brilliant, driven, amazing woman with a dream - to discover proof of other intelligent life in the universe. As her father told her in the movie, "Small steps, Ellie," so she learned to be patient in her search for life in the sky. She is a scientist and skeptic through and through for most of the book; she doesn't believe in anything that can't be proven, questioning anything that doesn't fit in the scientific universe she trusts. But, at the end of both the book and movie, she finds faith.
The movie lets us down a little at the end, in that Ellie, while apparently (but not obviously) continues doing research, she is a teacher/tour guide for young students. Her goal is to instill a sense of scientific wonder in them and grow future scientists. Not a bad ending, but, in the book she continues her research looking for proof of a universal creator (a progenitor race) that the alien beings told her existed. Even though I have read the book many times, I still get a thrill and a shiver at the end.
I won't spoil it for those of you that have not read it. Go out and buy a copy and experience the wonderful writing and mind of Carl Sagan, scientist, great mind, and human being extraordinaire. You will not be sorry.
I also get to mention what I think is an interesting juxtaposition. Four days from now is the anniversary of Dr. Sagan's death. I haven't really thought about or seen the movie in several years. Odd that I thought of it tonight.
Dr. Carl Sagan, November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996
Posted by Sid Plait at 12/16/2008 2:44 AM 
Categories: Movies/TV, Who I Am, Influences, Astronomy, All, Critical thinking, Book Reviews, Science
Categories: Movies/TV, Who I Am, Influences, Astronomy, All, Critical thinking, Book Reviews, Science
In 1996 I found my self in Alice Springs, Australia, with some time on my hands, located a second hand book store and as usual went straight for the science fiction section and there stood Contact. At that time I was only dimly aware of Carl Sagan as an astronomy guy of some sort, the blurb on the back made it sound interesting and the price was right at a very low AU$1.
I bought some food and soft drinks and wandered along the dry Todd River out to the Telegraph Station where there is a nice green area. I sat me down in the shade of a Gum tree, shared my lunch with some playful Ghalahs and started to read.
After a while I thought that I had read something very similar sometime in the past. A little while longer and I was convinced that this novel was a rip-off of another book. Finally it dawned on me that I had in fact read this book many years ago, probably got it out from the library around the time is was released in 1985, but had forgotten all about it.
A couple of years later I was living in Singapore. Everyone who have lived there will tell you that the best hangout place in town for non-nightclubbing people is the Borders book store on Orchard Road. It has to be seen to be believed, people sitting around everywhere in chairs and on floors, reading. It really is a hangout place, people will sit around reading magazines and whole books not buying anything and without the staff battering an eyelid, I've seen less liberal libraries.
In this book store's science section I found Carl Sagan's non fiction books. The first one I bought was Pale Blue Dot, which re-ignited my old passion for astronomy and cosmos in general. When I came back for more, I found The Demon-Haunted World and that book more than anything made me realise that I was and had always been a skeptic. It didn't really change my life but it certainly helped me define my outlook on the world.
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I can't believe there are no comments yet on the late great Prof. Carl Sagan!
I first got to hear of Prof. Carl Sagan when he presented a series of lectures on "The Planets" at the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, back in 1977, which was broadcast on BBC TV here in the U.K.
It was from then on, when I was 14 going on 15 years' of age, that I began to think skeptically of "Life, the Universe, and Everything", and even more so after watching Carl Sagan's excellent "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage" series, back in 1981, which was also broadcast on BBC TV.
In frustration, I am still waiting for the digitally remastered "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage" series to be released in the U.K. on Region 2 (PAL) DVD's, as the only box set currently available from Amazon U.K. are Region 1 (NTSC) DVD's, which will require me to purchase a multi-region DVD player! D'oh!
Regards, Ivan.
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First of all, Ivan, thanks for mentioning that there were no comments on the Dr. Sagan post. Thomas Seifert commented a little while back and I forgot to approve it. (Thanks, Thomas, and I apologize!) Have you tried contacting the publisher? Sometimes all it takes is a nudge. I bothered a music publisher about once a month about a live recording I used to have on vinyl. It took a while, but they finally published it. I'm sure I had something to do with it, but I couldn't have been the only one asking for it. There may be others asking, but your contact may push it over the edge. Can't hurt, right?
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No, I haven't tried Contact(ing) the publisher of "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage", but I'll try enquiring via e-mail at The Carl Sagan Portal (www.carlsagan.com) to see if they will produce a Region 2 or Region 0 DVD box-set sometime in the near future. Otherwise, I'll resort to ordering the Region 1 DVD box-set from North America and get myself a multi-region DVD player -- those things are getting cheaper everyday! -- to play it on, as I'm fed-up waiting!
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My DVD collection stretches across most regions and I always buy multi-region players. If you live in the UK, I recommend www.superfi.co.uk , all their players are multi-region out of the box and it's brand names from around £35. Argos sometimes have cheap multi-region players but stay away from those, they are absolutely rubbish.
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Thanks for the tip, Thomas!
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http://podblack.com/?p=183
You might like to enter in the next Carl Sagan Blogothon too?
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Contact is one of my favorite movies - the book less so. But I do love the movie and can't wait for a BluRay edition!
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