Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1413 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-10-12
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Danish, Dutch, French, Finnish, Italian, Norwegian, Castillian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 150 minutes

Synopsis
Devoted astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway undertakes an emotional and spiritual journey after receiving the message she's waited for all her life--a mysterious signal beamed in from alien beings, who pass along instructions for building and piloting a craft that will presumably survive the passage from Earth to their home. While struggling to fund her mission, Arroway also struggles with her feelings about the nature of things, particularly after meeting a charismatic New Age believer who questions her disbelief in God. A deliberately-paced, meditative adaptation of the eponymous novel by Ann Druyan and "pop" astronomer Carl Sagan, who died during production. Academy Award Nomination: Best Sound.

Customer Reviews

Finally a decent release for Contact
A review of an old fave of mine that has languished on a very poor DVD since release, and now finally displayed in all its glory on Blu ray.

Simply put, far superior to the approx 10 year old DVD as you would expect, though not perfect. However for a movie shot in 1997 it mostly holds up pretty well under the scrutiny of high def.
From a technical point of view this blu ray finally gives Contact the treatment it deserves. The majority of the movie is pin sharp, full of detail with well saturated colours. Though a couple of scenes dip below standard, one or two shots show some distracting banding in night skies, I noticed some scenes that had an uncharacteristic softness compared with the rest of movie. However the dips in quality were few and very brief, so not a problem to me.
The CGI elements hold up surprisingly well, you can tell of course that you are looking at CGI but it is not all embarrassing for a 12-13 year old movie. The beach scene where Ellie finally meets the 'alien' was intended to appear unreal due to the Vegan's creating of an artificial setting intended to make Ellie feel more secure (ie a bit of home) so it all has a strange look to it intentionally, but Ellie and her father appear to fade around the edges into the environment with a very blurred outline. No doubt showing the limitations of CGI and blue screen work 10+ years ago. However with the nature of the scene I don't find it a serious problem.
Scenes featuring the machine, again, for the majority look convincing and it is with these scenes that the sound really gets to work. On the whole Contact is a dialogue movie with few 'action' scenes to show off the sound design, but when we get to see the machine up close we really get an impressive sense of the machines enormous energy and momentum. When the rings spin beneath the launch pod the sound really conveys the weight and scale of the thing really helping to sell the completely CGI image.
All in all a fine effort in my opinion, for a movie desperately needing the hi def treatment as the original DVD release was annoyingly poor. Just compare the opening scene as we take a trip from earth to the outer reaches of the universe, very impressive on blu ray as opposed to the digitised mess on the old DVD.
Highly recommended upgrade for a fan of the movie.

brilliant
this blu ray transfer is amazing the picture is just great and make the dvd version really look dated was propper impressed and the movie is a classic!!

Premium quality
Indeed - the image quality is excellent.
Who likes the film - this blu-ray definitely worths the money.