* She meets the aliens, and the aliens show up with her father's face. Yeah, nice way to make her look nuts, aliens. No actual purpose for doing that.
Would you have preferred little green men? So many problems were avoided by using a human avatar. It also demonstrated that the aliens are unequivocally benevolent, and sensitive to the shock that would entail a first encounter. So there absolutely was a purpose for doing that.
She is a scientific, but forgets to take back home a prove of her findings. Ok, maybe she got so excited about the experience that she really forgot about it
The only time she was in a position to collect evidence, was at the beach. She might have taken a handful of sand for geologists to study, but how would that have proven her story? They would have had to compare the sample with every beach on Earth and the moon to support her claim.
But yeah, it contradicted Ellie's stoic scientific mentality. That was the point. The whole film is about the conflicting qualities of cynicism/empiricism and compassion/faith. Ellie had turned cynical after the loss of her parents, but she rejected or forgot this when she met her "father" again. Instead of scrambling on the ground for evidence during her last seconds on the planet, she did a more "human" farewell.
Rather than working on understanding and finding the interstellar paths, she dedicates her time to teach kids. Ok, it doesn't imply she is not actually working on that, but don't like the 80s-ish ending in a 90s movie.
Ellie is literally working at the place where she first made contact. The kids were there for an excursion, she was not their teacher. She's not a physicist, and her ability to understand/replicate worm holes etc. would be very limited. She's doing what she knows best.
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