Major spoilers for the ending of Contact throughout the post, beware.
Contact is an absolutely amazing film in almost every way. The ending is also amazing in a lot of ways. Ellie's character development, from a die-hard skeptic in religion to having had an almost religious experience herself, is extremely moving, and the entire scene where she is in the Machine is spectacular in every way. However. [the scene where she is being interrogated by Kitz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CiG9Wgvyj0) and what comes after is extremely out of character and full of plot holes.
One of the things that makes Ellie's character so compelling is that she is a badass who stands up for herself, and she needs to be. Misogyny isn't talked about as explicitly in the film, but it isn't hard to read between the lines and see the way Drumlin constantly interrupts her and takes credit for her findings (even claiming to be the leader of the project he tried to kill) as a representation of sexism in the science field. This has happened to many, many female scientists throughout history (and is stated explicitly in the book). In order to get by with the cards stacked against her, [Ellie learns to stand up for herself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnkEace3rb4) and is very contrary to the typical "damsel in distress" story. At the end, they completely betray that. Ellie lets Kitz, a minor antagonist throughout, yell at her and call her crazy. Then, just to twist the knife, Joss defends her where she didn't defend herself, and they ride off into the sunset.
I have issues with the romantic arc between Joss and Ellie in general. Ellie is a genius who is passionate about astronomy; It's abundantly clear that she is very passionate about SETI. Being able to find and meet aliens is her life goal that she worked for all her life. Then Joss intentionally sabotages that goal by asking her an extremely loaded question that leads to her not getting chosen to meet the Vegans because he doesn't want her to die, and she's fine with that? Really? This man she slept with once and then saw again years later completely sabotages her life goal, and she doesn't even get mad? Personally, I don't care how madly in love I am, I would lose my shit if that happened. Most people would. Her reaction to that scene is incredibly out of character for her, but also out of character for pretty much anyone.
Back to the ending: the plot holes.
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The chair was crushed during her trip, and Ellie only survived because she happened to have left the chair then (although I like to interpret it as her intuition saving her more than chance). If the pod fell through immediately as everyone else saw, either Ellie would have still been in the chair, safe and sound, or she would've been a pancake on the ceiling. It would've been impossible for her to have escaped the chair that quickly. This isn't mentioned at all, but would raise questions to anyone who saw the pod.
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As previously stated, Ellie isn't the type to let them walk over her like they do in the trial, and she's extremely smart. She absolutely would've asked to see the static that was recorded, and they wouldn't have been able to hide it without being extremely suspicious. They could have lied or edited it, and the ending with Ellie not being believed would've remained (and I do really like that part) without making her look spineless.
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They still have the Machine. They could've sent someone else, or hell, they could've sent a stopwatch if nothing else. Or a plant, or some poor canary. You get the idea. It really just isn't a "we'll never know" thing. IMO, if one wanted to preserve the movie's ending as much as possible while fixing the plot holes, the Machine should've been damaged in some way. I doubt the government could've justified building a third one.
Those are my issues with the ending, but as I said, it is still an amazing movie. I just wish the ending had Ellie stay as the badass character she was. Having her lose her spine and become another damsel in distress just seems like a massive betrayal of her character.
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