Today’s movie is a
science fiction film with a scene that happens on July 2. I hope you will watch
this film tonight and enjoy it.
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 images of 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
Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2014.
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