MovieChat Forums > Contact (1997) Discussion > Eighteen hours in the pod and....

Eighteen hours in the pod and....


She never needed to piss or defecate? Was she wearing diapers? If so, wouldn't the amount of urine or feces indicate a prolonged journey? If no diapers, was there a toilet in the pod?

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She spent most of the time on the aliens' "beach", not inside the Machine.

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You got your mind right, Luke?

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Really? Haven't seen the movie for years. I thought she stayed in the pod, yet it went transparent for her interactions with the alien. My mistake.

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I think maybe most of the time on the beach unconscious

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She wasn't on a beach because it never happen. It was all in her mind(imagination), think it was pretty clear about that by the end of the movie. Even if she did make contact, seems like she went inter-dimensional, mind-link? Which would also imply that she never really left, at least not her physical body.

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But the 2nd to last scene in the movie had Mrs. Constantine telling Kitz that although
Ellie's recording device only recorded static, it recorded 18 hours of it. So, it can't be mind link only, since her body (and the device) were out for 18 hours.

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No. She lost 18 hours according to the static recording. That's not imagination or mind link. She traveled through a worm hole. Otherwise it did not need to be dramatic.

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Are you serious?
It's one of the easiest things to understand about the whole movie! There are also the evidence: 18 hours of static registration.
If it's hard for you to understand this (no offense), try to read the book (or at least the last part) where everything is clear and loud with several proofs. I don't want to spoiler anything but the book is AMAZING. And the final message (another gigantic undeniable proof of the intergalactic trip) is mindblowing.
The trip was real, period.

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there was no beach... she never left the orb

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WRONG! Read the book.

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Maybe a still suit that recycled her waste?

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It would be in her "diapers" then.


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4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.

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So she's superman now?

How odd and presumptuous thing for you to say and actually beLIEve.

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It's his signature, jackass.

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Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb.

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Ahahaha, this is hilarious.

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What the hell does a bomb have to do with this movie?! It did quite well at the box office and continues to garner a cult following.

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It is easy to go 18hrs with out needing to urinate or defecate.

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Sidewindr replied 2h ago
It is easy to go 18hrs with out needing to urinate or defecate. 

Really? Have you heard of the "Flight or Fight" response in humans? Being terrified in the wormhole would definitely cause a bowel movement or a need to urinate.

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And you could know that because people go through wormholes every day? 😁

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Judging by her screaming, it is easy to know she is terrified.

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She wasn't terrified. Besides being terrified does not normally result in involuntary defecation or urination except amongst cowards.

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This is so wrong. Skydivers wear dark colored pants to hide their urine stains.

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If the journey lasted more than six hours, the passenger would need to at least urinate, unless they were sent off in a state of near-dehydration.

It's certainly likely the design team would equip the pod with enough of a waste elimination system (plastic bags, if nothing else) so the passenger could survive a day or so without having to crap in their pants.

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I guess it was a good thing Drumlin never got to go.. he was getting up there in age.. he looked like the type who has to pee every 15 min.


Welcome to the El Flamingo, Jeffrey!
Don't piss in the pool, Jeffrey.

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Very true. My original point being that proof of the 18 hour journey would be the amount of urine/fecal matter.

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I guess it was a good thing Drumlin never got to go.. he was getting up there in age.. he looked like the type who has to pee every 15 min.
That's funny.

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You don't even have to go that far. In just a few hours, the body changes in ways easily noticeable by monitoring a person's physiology (which the crew at the base of operation did). The monitor would have reflected an instant change in her metabolism, body temperature, weight, etc. which would be impossible if she had not spent 18 hours in there.

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Excellent response. If I could have said it that professionally in my original post, there would not have been so many responses. Applauds to you.

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I could have replied to any other post in this thread, or even to the thread directly, but for no reason at all I pressed "Reply" here. Anyway, this isn't a reply to this one post but to the entire thread.

Until a few months ago, I used to "defecate" only one or two times a week. That's how my body worked, and that's how it works for many other people. After that I started drinking coffee two or three times a day, which completely changed that, because (and I don't understand why) coffee makes me go to the bathroom 30 to 60 minutes after drinking it. Every single time. However, I must say - from my own experience - I understand she would not need to defecate in just 18 hours, mainly because she didn't eat anything during that time and COULD be clean before getting into the pod. And even if she needed, she probably could hold it.

Now, about peeing, it's a different story. She didn't drink anything during those 18 hours, which helps, but it's still hard. Well, sometimes I sleep for over 12 hours, but when I wake up I feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom (plus a headache >.<), and it's hard to hold. She spent most of the time unconscious, which could explain how she did that though. Also - and I know a few other people would identify with this - sometimes I spend the entire day playing online. I completely forget about eating, drinking and even going to the bathroom. I wake up 6 am, log in into the game, and when I notice it's already midnight and I'm still playing nonstop. I'm a Computer Science student living a very unhealthy life, and because of that I've seen very weird behavior from my body. I don't even bother anymore, and that's probably why the fact she didn't need to pee for 18 hours didn't even seem "weird" to me when I watched the movie.

I've never been inside a pod traveling across a wormhole, and I've never been to other galaxies. I have no idea how my body would react to the experience, or how anybody else's body should react to it. But under my usual "routine", I can easily pass over 24 hours without going to the bathroom, as long as I don't drink or eat anything and keep my brain busy with games or some programming challenges.

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If you actually understood what happened, Dr. Arroway was not in the pod for 18 hours. She was in the pod only a few moments, and most of that was on the over-extended powerup and prelaunch stuff. She fell right through the net after the pod was released, so again--from the earth perspective, Ellie was only in the pod for maybe five minutes. Special Relativity in relation to time-travel perspective versus stationary position at the systems integration site.

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I really don't like talking about my flair.

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Sounds impressive, but not possible. Yes, by Earth's perspective, only a few seconds. But by her perspective, 18 hours.

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Ironically, you're the one who didn't quite understand what happened. The need to relieve herself wasn't tied to Earth's perspective, since she was physically not on Earth when the pod was released (or at least when it passed the center of the rings). It only appeared like she was on Earth the whole time because the duration of her trip was instantaneous from Earth's perspective—as per the time dilation phenomenon.

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I believe that's what I said..... Earth's perspective for a few seconds (nanoseconds?), her perspective about 18 hours, hence the need for nature calls.

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If we assume 18 hours alien time(where she went) is 1 second on earth.
If she needed to pee every 3 hours earth time that would mean 3*3600*18 = 194400 hours alien time. So she would get a nature call every 194400 hours in the world where she went. And since she did not stay there that long (only 18 hours), she did not pee or defecate.

I hope this answers your question.

Andhera kayam rahe!

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It's not quite explicitly stated in the movie but the aliens have the ability to manipulate time and space. She does indeed spend 18 subjective hours experiencing the trip but, as I said, the aliens were able to manipulate it so that she came back a mere split second after she left. It's also the reason why the radio signal "miraculously" stopped at the exact same time as she returned as the aliens effectively travelled ~12 years into the past and turned the transmission off then(which would have seemed impossible to humans based on our limited understanding of physics...compared to the aliens anyway).

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see

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Ellie was in fact physically on Earth; she was in direct contact with the tropisphere that surrounds earth. She would have to be physically outside of earth's influence altogether, including the ionosphere for what you said to be correct.

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I really don&#x27;t like talking about my flair.

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Regardless, her experience was 18 hours. The tape ran that long, for one thing, so that amount of time for her did transpire.

But really, isn't this a silly thread? We see people in films go on for hours without going to the bathroom. I think we're all supposed to let that one go, as it were. (Take it as read, if you will.)

Can you imagine a superhero film where Iron Man has to take a dump?

Captain America: "Oh, geeze, really?"
Thor: "Defecate later, Stark -- we have more pressing matters!"
Fury: "I told you to go before we left!!"

Batman: "Commissioner, we could really use that antidote now!"
Gordon: <sound of pee> "I'll be right there, o' Dark Knight! Ahhh ... "

Or how about scifi, like Interstellar in the Tesserac?

TARS: "Coop. Coop, are you there?"
Coop: "TARS, y'all made it!! Say, did ... did you happen to bring any toilet paper?

Be sure to proof your posts to see if you any words out

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She was unconscious for most of the hours, that's why she said they must have downloaded his memory, subconscious and thoughts to create his father. We just see some of the hours /or just 5-10 minutes of the journey then she fades and screen shows black screen to beach transition, that means a lot of time has been passed. That's just what I think.

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