MovieChat Forums > Contact (1997) Discussion > The Machine's still there

The Machine's still there


Why all these trust issues after the trip, when the machine is still intact and ready to go? They could just try for themself.

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It couldn't be used again. Refer to the old posts that discuss this.

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Fowler's knots? Did you say ... fowler's knots?

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So it could only be used once. Says who? They did not mention this in the movie.

But if it really can be used only once, why use a test dummy on the first machine?

I'm not sure which threads you are refering to, read most of them.

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The Machine by itself is useless. It merely connects to the "transportation network" that had been created long ago. After the first trip, the aliens disconnected the link at the Earth end, so the Machine couldn't connect to it.

The novel goes into more explanation.


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Fowler's knots? Did you say ... fowler's knots?

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There's a plot hole then... Wouldn't they have disconnected after the first attempt with the dummy? It looked like the vortex was starting to form and then boom the bomb goes off.

If I were that alien race I would have been like ok let's disconnect it because they failed the first attempt. The aliens had no idea the government built a second one to reconnect it.

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Maybe they just leave it open until they make contact? That's a real mind bender.

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Another thought, what if the test succeeded and sent the dummy through? Would that have been it?

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The aliens would have been like "Not gonna contact them again. What a bunch of dummies!"

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Haha quite witty.

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Precisely. That's what I was thinking. It surely can't be a one use machine as that is an "awful waste of space and time" for everyone for a 10min contact that doesn't even explain or provide proof. And the whole "it's been this way for billions of year" would make me slap the alien silly. I mean, the whole point of Science is to question and seek truths. Not get passed around with religious like nonsensical - don't question things because that is how it works.

Now, if the machine was a one time use and they sent the dummy, then it would've been game over and Earth would've been laughed at by those civilizations and ignored.

Wonder what would've happened to see Drumlin go through and appear stupid. Couldn't stand his whole persona but that is so real with people being that way.

Personally, I feel they should've sent 3 people in that sphere and then they could've corroborated each other easily. Dr. Arroway, Joss Palmer (because he represents the 95% delusionals) and maybe Kitts or Drumlin or hell, Hadden

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The machine also seems to require a tremendous amount of power to work. Not to mention mainteinance. That's still a lot of money from taxpayers.

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True but remember "the first rule govt spending. Why build one when you can build two for twice the price?"

Money is really secondary imo as it is just arbitrary thing we give value to. They have the good machine already. I feel they will try to research it constantly going forward and retry eventually.

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I agree that money has arbitrary values, but politicians still have to pander people (including that 95% delusionals) in order to get votes. The problem is the lack of public interest in science and space exploration. If that was the ultimate goal of mankind, we would already be colonizing the solar system. Instead, we're wasting time and resources in getting crappy food, 4K screens with netflix/amazon prime/disney+, videogames, expensive cars, visiting other countries and, of course, going to church.

The alien, when talking to Ellie, also implies there is a time scale factor, where thousands or even millions of years could pass before taking the next step.

In my mind, a lot of scientists would continue to investigate the machine (and the science behind it) out of curiosity, but also without any funding. They would debate and try to understand, with differents degrees of success, how the machine could create a wormhole to travel to other systems. A lot of papers and theories would emerge. Otherwise, it's just a "magic" device beyond our comprehension and effectively with some religious implications. The machine itself would probably end like the Arecibo observatory, and probably thousands of years would pass until we build something similar, but this time from our own knowledge.

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Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

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