I've "only" read Sagan's novel... you nailed it and his attitude "coded" between the lines well. Even non-believers obviously can thaw up a bit. I find it great that he acknowledged the idea of intelligent design, although he had a reputation to lose and his colleagues could have ridiculed him for it. that shows character.
What stuck with me also was the quote you brought, about us being alone in the Universe's infinity would be an awful waste of space.
I indeed believe aliens or better other civilizations exist (did even before I read "Contact"
), but only after reading the novel I "got" that we probably will never meet them because of those great distances.
Actually sad, I think... but I think Stephen Hawking has a point, too, when he says we shouldn't be too enthusiastic about meeting "them" should they ever find a way to conquer the distance to earth because we can't know how this "meeting" would go, that "they" could be hostile toward us and we wouldn't know what would happen.
Maybe I'll watch the movie someday. Even though it's quite long I think I won't doze off as I did when I tried to watch "Titanic" - never finished that one, always dozed off... it's just too long.