Carl Sagan died at the tragically young age of 62 when work on this movie was being completed. The movie was based on Sagan’s novel, but only about half of the novel could fit into a traditional Hollywood movie budget. I have never been able to escape the feeling that had Sagan lived another 10 years, we would have been blessed with the needed sequel. Ideally the sequel would have involved director Robert Zemeckis along with Jodie Foster (as Dr. Eleanor Ann Arroway) and Matthew McConaughey (as Palmer Joss), a trio that made the movie Contact a gem.