AWAYTOC

Time: 33:00

Summary: Ellie gets ready, boards the machine, and has an amazing experience. She thinks she is traveling through space. She finds herself in an amazingly beautiful place composed largely from pictures in her memory. She is told by a being that looks like her father that she has nothing to fear, and experiences like hers have been happening for millions of years. Then she returns to find that no earth time had passed. In fact, the scientists have proof that the capsule she sat in fell straight to the ground. The former military leader holds an inquisition and propounds the theory that it was all an elaborate plot by Hadden as a joke that Ellie believed due to self-delusion. Ellie ends up giving a humiliated but passionate defense of faith. She ends up back at the research station, giving tours to kids, and then sitting alone by the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Vocabulary:

1. wormhole: an astronomical passage between one universe and another
2. incredulity: inability to believe something
3. skepticism: belief that truth cannot be known

Questions:

1. Why is there no test run this time?
2. Describe Ellie’s experience.
3. Who did she see?
4. Was her experience real?
5. Why don’t the other scientists believe her?
6. Does Ellie have proof of her experience?
7. What did Ellie want to find?
8. Did she find what she wanted?
9. Is she deluded?
10. Why is she alone at the end of the film?

For Further Discussion::