Forget buzzy actors or huge franchises. The movies this summer belong to one surprising star: Carl Sagan.
The American astronomer and science communicator’s work plays a large part in not one but two major releases this summer: Pixar’s alien adventure, Elio, and Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation, The Life of Chuck.
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The former directly references Sagan’s work with the Voyager Golden Record and also draws inspiration from his books Contact and Cosmos. Sagan even gets a voiceover cameo! The latter, meanwhile, features an extensive discussion of Sagan’s Cosmic Calendar. In both cases, the incorporation of Sagan’s work deepens each film’s themes, using the vastness of the cosmos to illustrate the power of connection across space and time.
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