Sphere: Difference between revisions

 

 

The film begins with the discovery of a spacecraft deep within the southern Pacific Ocean. The thickness of coral growth on the spaceship suggests that it has been there for almost three hundred years. The United States Navy believes the spacecraft is alien in nature, sets up an underwater research facility at the site, and assigns a group of scientists and naval personnel to investigate further. They are:

Soon the crew are contacted by a mysterious entity calling itself "Jerry," which they assume to be an alien and related somehow to the mysterious sphere. Before much more can be learned, a powerful typhoon suddenly arrives, trapping all below until it blows over. Within the following days, things go horribly wrong. Strange sea creatures menace the station, crew members die in a series of tragic incidents and communications from "Jerry" have inexplicably become irrational and hostile. As the situation grows worse, the surviving team members make a shocking revelation as to the true nature of both "Jerry" and the sphere, but has it come too late to help them escape a living nightmare?

 

 

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* [[Amazonian Beauty]]: In the novel, Dr. Beth Halpern (sic) happens to be a very attractive weightlifter. One of the other characters described her as "Mother Nature with muscles."

* [[Applied Phlebotinum]]: Vocal regulators so that the audience isn't forced to listen to Munchkin talk the entire film.

* [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]]: {{spoiler|What the Sphere gives people the power to do. It even works if the person is not aware they have this power, resulting in a lot of nightmares made real.}}

* [[Closed Circle]]: A typhoon makes it impossible to leave the underwater enviroment for a week.

* [[First Contact Math]]: In the novel, this is the way Harry manages to first make meaningful contact with the mysterious alien presence.

* [[Gender Bender]]: Of ''corpses.''

* [[Ghost Ship]]: A deserted spacecraft, a [[Big Dumb Object]] {{spoiler|which grants uncontrollable psychic powers}}, and several monsters.

* [[Hand Wave]]: The movie gets [[Helium Speech|silly voices created by the helium atmosphere]] out of the way after a brief comic relief scene by having everyone don "voice regulators".

* [[Helium Speech]]: This trope is used often in works set deep underwater and is played straight in the novel. Appears only briefly in the film.

* [[Hot Scientist]]: Dr. Elizabeth "Beth" Halperin, though she doesn't start off that way. Reality warping at work.

* [[I Always Wanted to Say That]]: Ted, on "[[We Come in Peace]]".

* [[Inertial Dampening]]: The spaceship discovered at the bottom of the ocean features water-filled chair systems to help counteract high g-forces.

* [[In Space Everyone Can See Your Face]]: Played straight.

* {{spoiler|[[Reality Warping Is Not a Toy]]}}

* [[Reset Button]]: Used in the film. In the novel it is attempted but the results are unclear. The book's ending is left ambiguous enough that {{spoiler|one can infer that the Reset Button attempt only made things ''[[It Got Worse|worse]]''. The line at the very end where Norman says Beth is looking "lovely" could mean that she, with her inferiority complex and her hunger for power, deliberately held on to her abilities while the others forgot them -- or it could imply that while they erased their memories of ever having had these powers, they failed to erase their ability to ''use'' them.}} [[The Film of the Book]] lacks this [[Karmic Twist Ending]].

* [[Sinister Geometry]]: The Sphere is a great example. It is enigmatic and scary by virtue of being so simple and featureless. It's nature is what you project on to it, which is perfect for the theme of the film. One character is very unnerved as he observes that, aside from the random pattern of grooves that criss-cross it, the rest of the surface seems to be ''perfectly'' spherical.

** Worse:

* {{spoiler|[[Spheroid Dropship]]: The mysterious sphere is revealed to be able of autonomous flight at the finale.}}

* [[Starfish Aliens]]: The sphere itself, if it is indeed a living creature.

* [[Underwater Base]]: The research base the team uses is one of these. Called "the Habitat."

* [[Willfully Weak]]: {{spoiler|The surviving characters will themselves into simply ''forgetting'' their [[Physical God]] status, thus losing it, on the off chance they go mad with power. See [[Reset Button]] for the ambiguous exception.}}

* [[The Worm Guy]]: Norman, a psychologist carried off by the military to study aliens. To a lesser extent the other scientists. Crichton loved this trope and it features in several of his novels.

* [[You Are Not Ready]]: A depressing thought to Norman.

* [[You Can't Fight Fate]]: Harry invokes this. Because the ship encounters an "unknown event", it means no one on the ship of the future knew what was going to happen. Therefore, he reasons, they all die because that's the only way it could ''be'' an "unknown event". This leads to a haunting question delivered perfectly by Jackson with no irony whatsoever.

* {{spoiler|[[Your Mind Makes It Real]]: Both the novel and the film, a device bestows this power on unwitting researchers sent to inspect a seemingly alien ship find on the ocean floor. Half are killed by nightmares emanating from themselves or someone else.}}

 

[[Category:Sea Stories]]

[[Category:Sphere]]