JFK
FADE IN:
Credits run in counterpoint through a 7 to 10 minute sequence of
documentary images setting the tone of John F. Kennedys Presidency and
the atmosphere of those tense times, 1960 through 1963. An omniscient
narrators voice marches us through in old time Pathe newsreel fashion.
VOICE
January, 1961 - President Dwight D. Eisenhowers
Farewell Address to the Nation -
EISENHOWER ADDRES
spaces and punctuation,
hidden words appear by skipping equal numbers of letters:
for example, every fourth, th, th,
like a giant crossword puzzle.
Hitler, the Kennedy assassinations, all encoded.
Isaac newton spent the last years of his life...
studying the Bible Code.
Another example, the computer found...
"Princess" and "Diana" encoded at the same skip distance.
And around it, "Paris," "tunnel
space, but it was garbled in the ionosphere,
so I had to launch a communications toaster... I mean, satellite.
- And then when I tried... - Well, message from space. Wow.
Dont encourage him, Hugh.
Jimmy, weve repeatedly told you not to talk to strangers.
But, Mom, Im on the verge of contact with an advanced alien civilisation.
I dont care how advanced they say they are, Jimmy.
If your father and
In black, we hear a chain-gang chant, many voices together, spaced around the unison strike of picks against rock. A title burns in:
O muse!
Sing in me, and through me tell the story
Of that man skilled in all the ways of contending...
A wanderer, harried for years on end...
On the sound of an impact we cut to:
A PICK
splitting a rock.
As the chant continues, wider angles show the chain-gang at w
Space Command. Understandably
nervous, the COMMANDING OFFICER escorts him down the hall.
GENERAL GREY
Who else knows about this?
COMMANDING OFFICER
S.E.T.I. in New Mexico identified a
signal but theyre even more
confused than we are.
The General shoots him a disapproving glance.
COMMANDING OFFICER
Excuse me, Sir.
He slides his security card through the lock and the doors fly
open.
INT. SPACE COMM
Pink Floyds "Dark Side of the Moon (Brain Damage)" plays as WHITE TITLES appear over black. As the song crescendos at the first chorus, SUNLIGHT flares over the lunar horizon and a crescent sliver of THE MOON is illuminated- huge, filling the screen f rom top to bottom. Were in space, circling around from the dark side until a HUGE FULL MOON fills the screen with whiteness- TITLES continue as we
brute, his ugly face twists with violence. He does not speak but instead utters horrible animal-like growls and howls. Almost pure if, bent only on mindless destruction, he is a force of frightening evil. This is NON.
FADE IN
283 EXT. SPACE
A caped figure flies high over the United States, gaining speed as the atmosphere begins to blur into the dark. mysterious blue of space. This is SUPERAN.
Rolls into FRAME. A bauble of green and blue and white swirls of cloud cover. The eerie clip and whistle of cosmic rays is drowned out by static and someone singing 몵MY WAY몶 - in Russian.
2 MOVING INTO FRAME - A SOVIET CAPSULE
Gleaming white. Black letters on its side, CCCP. A Russian COSMONAUGHT in his space suit is outside, repairing radio antenna. He몶s the one singing.
3 INSIDE THE CAPSU
space.
INT. ARROWAY HOUSE - NIGHT
That night, Ellie sneaks back into the room with the radio transmitter...
YOUNG ELLIE
CQ, CQ, CQ, this is W9GFO. Repeat, this is W9GFO, come back. CQ,
this is W9GFO, come back. I gonna need a bigger antenna.
CUT TO:
EXT. ARECIBO TELESCOPE - DAY
FISHER
What do you think Doctor Arroway? Ain she a beauty?
ELLIE
Itl do.
FISHER
The village is five miles away. There a
- The “new world” that Columbus boasted of to the Spanish monarchs in 1500 was neither an expanse of empty space nor a replica of European culture, tools, textiles, and religion, but a combination of Native, European, and African people living in complex relation to one another.
- The Native cultures Columbus found in the New World displayed a huge variety of languages, social customs, and cr