Approach to the future
|
|
| Scenario exploration |
|
| |
|
Ratings
|
 |
| Futurism: 6 |
|
| |
|
| Entertainment: 9 |
|
| |
|
| Plausibility: 8 |
|
| |
|
Interesting depictions
|
|
| Alien contact: |
|
| Programs are underway to detect signals from alien races, and are picking up speed. A signal might be intercepted at any moment—provided aliens exist, and provided some of them are using signals we are trying to monitor. |
|
| |
|
| Timothy Ferris has written that such signals might be the only real way that species from different stars communicate with each other. Actual travel may be prohibitively difficult and time-consuming, and conversations at the speed of light will take decades or centuries. The alternative might be a kind of interstellar Internet, with each contributor's "home page" encoded in massive, continual transmissions. These would be sent on ultra-high bandwidth beams through the system, and could be accessed at any time. The key, then, would be gaining access to one of the information beams. |
|
| |
|
| The aliens in Contact remain essentially invisible, communicating only indirectly or metaphorically, suggesting some of the genuine difficulty that contact will entail. |
|
| See:A note on aliens. |
|
| |
|
| The film impressively portrays the massive, overpowering machine built to the aliens' specifications. |
|
| |
|
| It also plausibly depicts the range of response that would result from such a contact, from fear to philosophizing. |
|
| |
|
| Futuristmovies.com, © 2001 Josh Calder |
|
|
|
