July 2 - Sphere

SPHERE

On July 2, 1998 [2:53 to 13:23] Norman arrives at the site of what he thinks is a plane crash in the Pacific Ocean. Instead he learns there is an alien spacecraft that crashed 300 years ago and that he and the team are there because of a report he wrote years ago about how to handle first contact. Besides him the team includes marine biologist Beth" Halperin, astrophysicist Ted Fielding and mathematician Harry Adams. The team along with navy Commander Barnes and two technicians descend to an underwater habitat that has been placed to serve as headquarters for their investigations.  They soon discover the ship is American and from the future. The last event in the log is ‘Unknown Entry Event’, apparently a trip into and through a black hole.  They find a large perfect sphere that reflects everything, except people. Harry concludes they are fated to die under the sea. He reasons if they had returned the ‘event’ would not be unknown. Harry enters the sphere and this prevents their evacuation prior to the arrival of a typhoon, so they are stuck in the habitat. Numeric messages appear on the computer coming from an alien named “Jerry’,  from inside the sphere they presume. One tech is killed by jellyfish and another by a giant squid. The squid returns and attacks the habitat and both Ted and Barnes are killed. Norman finally deduces that Harry’s trip into the sphere gave him the power to manifest his dreams and nightmares and that is what caused the deaths.  Beth’s suicidal thoughts trigger explosives she had planted on the spaceship and they are barely able to get away in a minisub. The three decide humanity is not ready for this power and collectively decide to forget the power and what happened, as the sphere returns to space.

A very interesting psychological sci-fi  movie. Presents a very suspenseful mystery. The ending is not as clear as I would have liked.

Sphere by Michael Crichton (Ballantine Books, New York, 1987) at page 4 gives date of Norman’s arrival

Producer - Barry Levinson

Director - Barry Levinson

Screenplay - Kurt Wimmer, Stephen Hauser and Paul Attanasio

Runtime – 2 hours 9 minutes

Released - February 13, 1998

Starring –

Dustin Hoffman as Dr. Norman Goodman

Sharon Stone as Dr. Elizabeth "Beth" Halperin

Samuel L. Jackson as Dr. Harry Adams

Liev Schreiber as Dr. Ted Fielding

Peter Coyote as Capt. Harold C. Barnes

Queen Latifah as Alice "Teeny" Fletcher

Marga Gomez as Jane Edmunds

Huey Lewis as Helicopter pilot

Bernard Hocke as Seaman

James Pickens, Jr. as O.S.S.A. Instructor

Michael Keys Hall as O.S.S.A. Official

Ralph Tabakin as O.S.S.A. Official

Watch a trailer for Sphere