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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 1687
Released: December 30, 1997 |
| Our Price: $2.42 |
| Used Price: $1.13 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster stars in this visionary drama based on Carl Sagan's novel about human kind's first encounter with extraterrestial life directed by another Oscar winner Robert Zemeckis.Running Time: 151 min.System Requirements:Starring: Angela Bassett Jodie Foster John Hurt Rob Lowe Matthew McConaughey David Morse Tom Skerritt and James Woods. Directed By: Robert Zemeckis. Running Time: 150 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 1999 Warner Home Video.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG UPC: 085391504122
Description of Contact (Snap Case):
The opening and closing moments of Robert (Forrest Gump) Zemeckis's Contact astonish viewers with the sort of breathtaking conceptual imagery one hardly ever sees in movies these days--each is an expression of the heroine's lifelong quest (both spiritual and scientific) to explore the meaning of human existence through contact with extraterrestrial life. The movie begins by soaring far out into space, then returns dizzyingly to earth until all the stars in the heavens condense into the sparkle in one little girl's eye. It ends with that same girl as an adult (Jodie Foster)--her search having taken her to places beyond her imagination--turning her gaze inward and seeing the universe in a handful of sand. Contact traces the journey between those two visual epiphanies. Based on Carl Sagan's novel, Contact is exceptionally thoughtful and provocative for a big-budget Hollywood science fiction picture, with elements that recall everything from 2001 to The Right Stuff. Foster's solid performance (and some really incredible alien hardware) keep viewers interested, even when the story skips and meanders, or when the halo around the golden locks of rising-star-of-a-different-kind Matthew McConaughey (as the pure-Hollywood-hokum love interest) reaches Milky Way-level wattage. Ambitious, ambiguous, pretentious, unpredictable--Contact is all of these things and more. Much of it remains open to speculation and interpretation, but whatever conclusions one eventually draws, Contact deserves recognition as a rare piece of big-budget studio filmmaking on a personal scale. --Jim Emerson
Contact (Snap Case) Reviews:
Excellent Blu Ray transfer 
2009-10-26 - Excellent high definition transfer- major upgrade over the standard definition DVD.
Recommended.
Secret messages
2009-10-22 - An exceptional looking Blu-ray, "Contact" tells the story of Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster)and the impact that her discovery of a message from an alien race impacts society. In essence "Contact" acts as both a literal title and a pun--the film is about contact between science and faith, between a woman who loses her family at a young age trying to reconnect in some little way with what's she lost and her unending faith that she will discover there IS life out there.
Working with authors Carl Sagan and Anne Druyan director Robert Zemeckis has refashioned the tale adding the character of David Drumlin (Tom Skerrit)as an adversary who dogs Ellie every step of the way pushing her further and further away from her opportunity to embrace her discovery. Featuring a terrific supporting cast "Contact" focuses more on the humanity rather than the hardware but deals with a number of complex themes in the process. Rather than focusing on a team that goes to meet the Vegans Zemeckis and screenwriters James V. Hart & Michael Goldberg elect to make one person go throwing the finale into question--again, it comes down to a matter of faith and Ellie believes.
The Blu-ray has all of the original extras that were on the 1997 DVD. While the transfer looks extremely good with nice detail, color and clarity. It appears to be digitally scrubbed though with a bit too much digital noise reduction used reducing the level of the detail in the process. Nevertheless, it does blow away the original DVD by leaps and bounds particularly the opening sequence as we look at the Earth following the radio waves as they leave our planet moving further and further away from our solar system.
"Contact" is a very good if flawed film. The faith vs. science themes that were so prevelent in Sagan's book are still here but presented in a bit of a muddled fashion. There's zero chemistry on screen between Foster and McConaughey. David Morse brings a strong, quiet presence to his role as Ellie's father. The ending although it is touching and does provide a sense of closure (and while it does make sense in many respects) may feel like a cheat to some. I thought it worked quite well within the context of the film. Some of the story elements like the subplot involving a terrorist attack on the "Machine" and NASA are deftly handled--they could have been blown up (pardon the pun)into soap opera spectacle but Zemeckis plays it low-key. The other flaw is the time compression from discovery to execution; while it was essential to keeping the film moving forward it also makes everything seem as it it happens rather quickly.
Over all this is a exceptionally good looking Blu-ray and the fact that Warner has ported over all the DVD extras (something that many studios have chosen not to do)is a big plus as well. Highly recommended.
The best BluRay movie experience 
2009-10-20 - I have been a fan of this movie for a long time.....it's the best. Now I got it on BluRay - I was blown out - great job in convertining Contact to hi-deffinicion standard! Great Job! Highly recomend!
Contact [VHS]
2009-10-04 - Was a great DVD in fullscreen which is very hard to get on DVD and it arrived on time in great shape. Would buy from seller again.
1 Star for Blu Ray! 5 all the way for the film. 
2009-09-28 - Even since the birth of HD Video the first film title to come to mind was Contact. It Is one of my favorites to come out of the 90's. Once I heard of It finally receiving It's Blu-Ray debut I got ecstatic!, that is until I witnessed the back cover art of the disc. Warners seemed to just pull up an old box cover art template that was used for the DVD version in 97 and slap a BD logo onto it. From this alone made me a bit weary of what Warners may have done with the image for this Blu-Ray. Well my answers have been made clear to me from this review from DVD-Beaver and that this transfer is most likely from the 97 master containing a mess of DNR.
[...]
Looking at the photo caps I am mortified that Warners would allow this to happen to such a great visual film and actually think people will be so stupid and not notice. I mean WOW! What a major disappointment!
What a travesty!
No sale from me...
