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Sphere

514 statements
101 feature instances
35 referencing feature instances

Sphere	type	TVTItem
Sphere	label	Sphere
Sphere	page	Sphere
Sphere	comment	Sphere is a 1987 novel by Michael Crichton, which was given a 1998 film adaptation. Both works combine elements of two genres: Science Fiction and Psychological Thriller. The film was directed by Barry Levinson, previously known for such films as Disclosure and Wag the Dog. The main stars were Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson.The story takes place in The '80s, with the discovery of a derelict spacecraft on the floor of the southern Pacific Ocean. The thickness of coral growth on the spaceship suggests that it has been there for at least three hundred years. For obvious reasons, 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 military personnel to investigate further. They are: Dr. Harry Adams (Jackson), a brilliant mathematician. Captain Harold Barnes (Peter Coyote), the mission's nominal leader, assigned to represent the Navy's interests. Jane Edmunds (Marga Gomez), a navy engineer, assigned to handle monitor duty. Alice "Teeny" Fletcher (Queen Latifah), another navy engineer. Dr. Ted Fielding (Liev Schreiber), an astrophysicist. Dr. Norman Goodman (Hoffman), a psychologist who wrote the US Government's First Contact protocol Dr. Elizabeth "Beth" Halperin ("Halpern" in the novel: see Adaptation Name Change) (Stone), a marine biologist.The first thing the team establishes is that this ship is not alien but human-made. More specifically, American-made. The ship has somehow time-traveled from the future, with the last entry in the log being dated 06/21/43. Its mission was to use black holes to travel through interstellar space, gathering objects of possible interest to Earth. However, the ship "overshot" its return trip via a black hole, ending up in Earth's past. Despite this, its mission was not a failure, as its cargo hold contains "something alien" — a large, perfect sphere that eerily hovers above the ground and has no obvious function.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 bizarre 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?Not to be confused with the Japanese Pop group.
Sphere	fetched	2024-03-21T02:32:29Z
Sphere	parsed	2024-03-21T02:32:29Z
Sphere	processingComment	Dropped link to ShaggyDogStory: Not a Feature - ITEM
Sphere	isPartOf	DBTropes
Sphere / int_116a941b	type	Applied Phlebotinum
Sphere / int_116a941b	comment	Applied Phlebotinum: Vocal regulators so that the audience isn't forced to listen to Munchkin talk the entire filmnote In a deep sea environment, the nitrogen-rich air we breathe on the surface becomes toxic due to the differences in gas density. Therefore, deep-sea divers breathe a gas mixture where some of the nitrogen has been replaced by helium..
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Sphere / int_1235f055	type	Dirty Coward
Sphere / int_1235f055	comment	Dirty Coward: Averted with Tina Chan. Norman surmises that she abandoned Barnes during their fight with the giant squid, but he doesn't blame her one bit. One because it was Barnes and two, because it was, you know, a giant squid.
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Sphere / int_1396b32c	type	The Worm Guy
Sphere / int_1396b32c	comment	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.
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Sphere / int_1440584e	type	Heroic RRoD
Sphere / int_1440584e	comment	Heroic RRoD: Beth suffers one when she realizes that she did indeed enter the Sphere.
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Sphere / int_1440584e	featureConfidence	1.0
Sphere	hasFeature	Sphere / int_1440584e
Sphere / int_177a6464	type	Genre Shift
Sphere / int_177a6464	comment	Genre Shift: The novel starts out as a technothriller, becomes a horror story once the giant squid shows up, and ends as a psychological thriller. Props to Crichton as these shifts happen fairly seamlessly.
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Sphere / int_18aff462	type	Artistic License â€“ Biology
Sphere / int_18aff462	comment	Artistic License â€“ Biology: In-Universe. The squids and jellyfish that appear around the Habitat are completely impossible, biology-wise (like all of them lacking reproductory organs). Turns out that they were made manifest from the fears of those who entered the sphere (Harry because of his immense fear to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Norman because of a bad experience when he was a boy with a jellyfish.) The film includes a scene where the characters walk through a massive torrent of eggs, which are apparently supposed to belong to the giant squid (presumably because the filmmakers couldn't afford to show the squid, but needed a way to make its presence known). But the vast majority of squid species (along with most cephalopods) don't just spurt their fertilized eggs into the ocean when they're ready to reproduce; they typically attach them to the ocean substrate where they live, usually choosing the walls of secluded underwater caves—where their eggs are less likely to be found and eaten by predators.
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Sphere / int_1c3d047e	type	The Rival
Sphere / int_1c3d047e	comment	The Rival: Ted and Harry (but especially Ted) act as rivals over the course of the story. Their sniping at each other is mostly friendly.
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Sphere / int_1c4e3202	type	The Spook
Sphere / int_1c4e3202	comment	The Spook: While many mysteries about the futuristic spacecraft are solved, nothing is ever learned about the sphere itself. We never find out what it is, who created it and what is was meant to do. We don't know if it's a form of extraterrestrial technology or a lifeform in its own right. The only thing we know about it is that it can grant humans the ability to manifest their thoughts, and even then we never discover why this happens or if it was even deliberate.
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Sphere / int_1d2400e9	type	Green-Eyed Monster
Sphere / int_1d2400e9	comment	Green-Eyed Monster: Ted and Harry, which is mostly one-sided on Ted's part. Harry quietly tells Norman that he forgives him for everything but allowing Ted to be on the mission: "He's a pain in the ass."
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Sphere / int_21e5b9c7	type	Failed a Spot Check
Sphere / int_21e5b9c7	comment	Failed a Spot Check: The "hard" scientists are so in awe of the alien sphere that Norman the psychologist has to point out its one, truly disturbing feature: it reflects its surroundings but not people.
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Sphere / int_234073a4	type	Your Mind Makes It Real
Sphere / int_234073a4	comment	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.
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Sphere / int_2479af9	type	Prescience by Analysis
Sphere / int_2479af9	comment	Prescience by Analysis: Immediately after the team discovers the Sphere and the fact that the spacecraft is of human origin from the future, Harry concludes that the entire team is going to die because the crashed ship is proof that its future occupants had no foreknowledge of the Sphere or time travel — thus the team must not have survived to warn anyone about it, so no record of it exists to inform future events.
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Sphere / int_2a3e0069	type	Amazonian Beauty
Sphere / int_2a3e0069	comment	Amazonian Beauty: In the novel, Dr. Beth Halpern happens to be an attractive weightlifter. One of the other characters describes her as "Mother Nature with muscles." She becomes more of this trope after she gains the sphere's power and unconsciously uses it to make herself yet more attractive.
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Sphere / int_2bc0fc4d	type	Ice-Cream Koan
Sphere / int_2bc0fc4d	comment	Ice-Cream Koan: Many. Beth even Lampshades that Jerry is channeling Deepak Chopra. She also comments that the Zen masters would say that the Sphere was a ball that wanted to be caught.
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Sphere / int_2c7f683b	type	Gas Leak Cover-Up
Sphere / int_2c7f683b	comment	Gas Leak Cover-Up: Norman is told he's needed to counsel survivors of a plane crash. When he starts bitching that time is paramount for dealing with Survivor Guilt, the true story comes out.
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Sphere / int_2d88e42c	type	Gender Bender
Sphere / int_2d88e42c	comment	Gender Bender: Of corpses.
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Sphere / int_2dc35926	type	Ghost Ship
Sphere / int_2dc35926	comment	Ghost Ship: A deserted spacecraft, a mysterious sphere which grants uncontrollable psychic powers, and several monsters.
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Sphere / int_2fd62e54	type	The Killer in Me
Sphere / int_2fd62e54	comment	The Killer in Me: Not even Harry is aware that "Jerry" is an aspect of him — the monsters who kill the others are all effectively "Monsters from the Id." One of the main reasons so many people find this work reminiscent of Forbidden Planet.
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Sphere / int_3126c34a	type	Insufferable Genius
Sphere / int_3126c34a	comment	Insufferable Genius: Harry. Growing up a math nerd in the ghetto made Harry very bitter, so he has a tendency to figure out everything before everyone else does, and he has little patience for those who can't keep up. Harry himself considers Ted this, telling Norman half-kiddingly that he doesn't forgive him for bringing Ted along, straight up referring to him as a "pain in the ass."
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Sphere / int_31c5e7fb	type	Starfish Aliens
Sphere / int_31c5e7fb	comment	Starfish Aliens: The sphere itself, if it is indeed a living creature.
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Sphere / int_31e92640	type	Japan Takes Over the World
Sphere / int_31e92640	comment	Japan Takes Over the World: The novel heavily implies a very heavy influence between the West and Japan in the time-lost spacecraft's own prior time line, which would be the future for the world at present in the book. Crichton would more fully explore this theme in his novel Rising Sun.
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Sphere / int_374c339d	type	I'll Kill You!
Sphere / int_374c339d	comment	I'll Kill You!: In the novel, Norman is the first to figure out Jerry's secret. He then attempts to taunt Jerry to prove that Jerry isn't an alien. Suffice it to say, Jerry does not appreciate this.
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Sphere / int_37690091	type	Stable Time Loop
Sphere / int_37690091	comment	Stable Time Loop: The story eventually ends with one. The team uses their powers to erase their memories of everything that they found underwater, thus ensuring that their discoveries won't affect the progression of history—and the NASA ship will still be sent back in time in the future.
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Sphere / int_38958f33	type	Black and Nerdy
Sphere / int_38958f33	comment	Black and Nerdy: Dr. Harry Adams.
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Sphere / int_3b99a9e0	type	Reality Warper
Sphere / int_3b99a9e0	comment	Reality Warper: The Sphere, which causes people who go into it to gain this power. Of course, this causes all sorts of havoc when people get it who are deathly afraid of giant squids, and so keep thinking about them. Interestingly, the only way to open the sphere to get inside it is to visualize it opening.
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Sphere / int_3bce9346	type	RagnarÃ¶k Proofing
Sphere / int_3bce9346	comment	RagnarÃ¶k Proofing: For a spaceship that's been underwater for 300 years, it's still in pretty good shape. There's even enough power left to run the computers and lights. This could be justified, having been apparently built of advanced alloys by its future American and Japanese creators so that it can survive travel through a black hole.
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Sphere / int_3c0a4666	type	Noodle Incident
Sphere / int_3c0a4666	comment	Noodle Incident: In the movie much is made about Norman having taken advantage of Beth when she was his patient. This event was not in the original book.
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Sphere / int_3e922887	type	Not of This Earth
Sphere / int_3e922887	comment	Not of This Earth: Zig-zagged. A sample of the hull of a supposed alien ship is analyzed and found to be made of common elements, but they've been worked into a composite form that nobody yet knows how to duplicate. It turns out that the ship is from the future and was built on Earth by (more advanced) humans after all... but then the titular extraterrestrial artifact is found in the ship's cargo hold. The protagonists can tell just by looking at the sphere that it's "something alien".
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Sphere / int_3f70415	type	Because Destiny Says So
Sphere / int_3f70415	comment	Because Destiny Says So: Harry believes that he and his colleagues are doomed to die because the crashed spaceship's computer logs indicate exactly when and why it crashed, but also that it was an unknown anomaly. Thus, Harry argues, if they make it back to the surface and report what they've learned, the ship won't crash because the mistake in the "future" will never happen note In the movie, he says they will crash, but without calling their travel through the black hole an "unknown entry event". Since it still crashed, they must all have died in the "past." In the end, they Take a Third Option by choosing to use the Sphere's power to erase their memories of what happened, keeping themselves alive while preserving the integrity of the timeline.
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Sphere / int_3f7a958b	type	Secret Test of Character
Sphere / int_3f7a958b	comment	Secret Test of Character: Discussed by Beth, Norman, and Harry. Norman theorizes that the Sphere is one of these, sent by an alien intelligence to determine humanity's suitability for contact — which they failed miserably. Harry disagrees, pointing out that that it's an alien device with an alien purpose, which is far more likely to have nothing whatsoever to do with the purpose of any race save its creators, and that the Sphere gives humans Reality Warper powers could be completely accidental. The analogy he uses is some kind of intelligent space-borne bacteria happening upon a human satellite and exploring it until it finds something that affects them in odd ways and ultimately kills many of them. The Film of the Book discards this in favor of Norman's initial Humans Are Bastards Aesop.
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Sphere / int_45bdaa0e	type	Just Ignore It
Sphere / int_45bdaa0e	comment	Just Ignore It: At the end of both the novel and the film, in order to get rid of the destructive abilities the namesake Sphere had given them, the main characters agree to use their power to make themselves forget about the Sphere and all of their activities involving it. In the original novel, at least, this works because the Sphere, by its own admission, didn't grant them these abilities — they already had them, as do all human beings, but it took the Sphere to alter their awareness so they could use them. Yeah, it's kind of a weird book.
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Sphere / int_469e3e2f	type	In-Universe
Sphere / int_469e3e2f	comment	In-Universe. The squids and jellyfish that appear around the Habitat are completely impossible, biology-wise (like all of them lacking reproductory organs). Turns out that they were made manifest from the fears of those who entered the sphere (Harry because of his immense fear to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Norman because of a bad experience when he was a boy with a jellyfish.)
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Sphere / int_47f5fe7d	type	Inscrutable Aliens
Sphere / int_47f5fe7d	comment	Inscrutable Aliens: The titular Sphere. All that the main characters are sure of is that it's alien. Its origin, the reasons for its creation, how or why it can bestow the abilities it can, or even whether it's alive or not, are never revealed. There's no way to even know if the abilities it grants are deliberate, or an unintended side effect.
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Sphere / int_4873cba8	type	I Was Young and Needed the Money
Sphere / int_4873cba8	comment	I Was Young and Needed the Money: Almost quoted, word by word, as the reason Norman accepted the request to write "Project ULF"—a research report regarding the potential for first contact and the creation of a proper contact team plus the potential psychological impact and how it would influence everything. Norman keeps thinking of the project as "a joke" (he did in fact do his due diligence, doing a fair amount of research and writing his report in full professional earnest, but still ultimately considered the whole thing a joke), enjoys the house that the report paid for, and is near-horrified when he finds out that the Navy has been using it as gospel since they found the ship.
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Sphere / int_4dbd3706	type	Clap Your Hands If You Believe
Sphere / int_4dbd3706	comment	Clap Your Hands If You Believe: 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.
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Sphere / int_4e7c4536	type	Wham Line
Sphere / int_4e7c4536	comment	Wham Line: Book only:
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Sphere / int_4e7f703c	type	Wham Shot
Sphere / int_4e7f703c	comment	Wham Shot: The "aliens" enjoy Blue Diamond almonds. And have a waste receptacle that is labeled "Trash / Basura".
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Sphere / int_514cba56	type	Sinister Geometry
Sphere / int_514cba56	comment	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. Not only that:
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Sphere / int_54243cf7	type	Parrot Exposition
Sphere / int_54243cf7	comment	Parrot Exposition: In the novel, Norman uses this as a psychological trick. Its purpose is to get him more info without requiring him to put much in. His conversation partner catches on soon enough.
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Sphere / int_558f5da6	type	Cryptic Conversation
Sphere / int_558f5da6	comment	Cryptic Conversation: Subverted. When Norman enters the sphere, the voice inside at first explains the Power to him via riddles, only for Norman, who is exhausted, to ask for a plain and simple explanation, which he is promptly given.
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Sphere / int_5c446b43	type	Aliens in Cardiff
Sphere / int_5c446b43	comment	Aliens in Cardiff: Contact with an alien artifact (and the human ship that is so advanced that was initially believed to be alien) smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This trope is discussed extensively in the book as part of the "Project ULF" briefing, and explained that 1) alien intelligences have to be assumed to be so alien that they may not care to land on a major city, 2) alien biologies are so different from humanity that they would go to a place that fits them better (which is then argued that Earth is covered with oceans so extensively that it makes more statistical sense for first contact to occur on water) and 3) assuming that aliens will do something like, say, land on Washington D.C. because it's what aliens do in movies, is just using a very erroneous (and maybe even dangerous) basis for planning.
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Sphere / int_6566a884	type	My God, You Are Serious!
Sphere / int_6566a884	comment	My God, You Are Serious!: Norman is shocked that Barnes took ULF seriously as Norman himself thought the project was a joke.
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Sphere / int_71038217	type	Wrench Wench
Sphere / int_71038217	comment	Wrench Wench: Both Edmunds and Fletcher at first, with Beth becoming one and keeping The Habitat working when the other two women are killed. Beth explains that the Navy equipment is either made to be easy to repair or extensively labeled with instructions (or with manuals at hand or easily accessible on the Habitat's computer), so it's not impossible for her to improvise this role. In the book, Barnes explains that the Navy component of his handpicked team are women because, based on research, ideally all submariners should be women. They are usually physically smaller, work better in groups, and consume fewer resources. But just try to make the Navy implement that...
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Sphere / int_7241785e	type	You Can't Fight Fate
Sphere / int_7241785e	comment	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:
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Sphere / int_730d3664	type	Adaptational Angst Upgrade
Sphere / int_730d3664	comment	Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Amongst other changes on the film, Beth obtains some additional hostility with Norman because on this version of the story it appears (but it's not detailed much) that Norman had a tryst with her when she was his patient and he is not particularly remorseful about it. Nothing of the sort occurs in the book.
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Sphere / int_7464705c	type	Arc Words
Sphere / int_7464705c	comment	Arc Words: "We are all tired".
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Sphere / int_754df088	type	Put on a Bus
Sphere / int_754df088	comment	Put on a Bus: Arthur Levine, a member of the mission in the book, drops out before the start and is not mentioned again.
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Sphere / int_756dbd0b	type	Hard on Soft Science
Sphere / int_756dbd0b	comment	Hard on Soft Science: Discussed and subverted in the novel. One of the Jerkass physicists asks what somebody from such a useless field as psychology is doing on the mission. Norman, the psychologist protagonist, points out what terrible people skills the average physicist has. It turns out the psychologist is the only one mentally stable enough to handle the nigh-omnipotence the titular sphere gives without killing everyone.
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Sphere / int_7a2d9301	type	Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure
Sphere / int_7a2d9301	comment	Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Inside the bridge of the ship, the team finds a small plastic statuette of a purple squirrel-like character with the phrase "Lucky Lemontina" written on the base. Of course, none of them have any clue what it means, since the item is from far in the future.
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Sphere / int_7af365d7	type	Reality Warping Is Not a Toy
Sphere / int_7af365d7	comment	Reality Warping Is Not a Toy: Once they gain reality warping powers, Norman, Beth, and Harry all lack the mental discipline to properly control them, which isn't helped by the fact that they don't even realize they possess the powers at first. Even as they start to get a handle on it, they decide they aren't responsible enough to keep their powers and use said power to erase their memories and the power itself.
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Sphere / int_7b6e47a5	type	Armor-Piercing Question
Sphere / int_7b6e47a5	comment	Armor-Piercing Question: "What is his real name?", asked by Barnes repeatedly (because even if belligerent and paranoid-sounding, he has a point in the fact that it's odd that the alien that has been without contact with other intelligent beings for hundreds of years wants to be referred to as "Jerry"), which for various reasons the rest of the cast respond to in a highly defensive fashion. The answer is eventually revealed (and the name is actually Harry) but Barnes is having a nasty case of dead by the time it happens.
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Sphere / int_7b7f0141	type	Tentacled Terror
Sphere / int_7b7f0141	comment	Tentacled Terror: "Jerry" summons a swarm of impossible jellyfish, and later a Giant Squid to attack the undersea station. The squid is a homage to the one in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and in-story is because the movie scared Harry as a kid.
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Sphere / int_7d791b62	type	Rewind, Replay, Repeat
Sphere / int_7d791b62	comment	Rewind, Replay, Repeat: The book version of the story has a minor running sub-plot of Beth watching a particular part of a surveillance video where she and one of the Navy women are talking again and again. This is thought of at first as a sign of mental fatigue by protagonist Norman Johnson (because this conversation was one of the last times that said woman was seen alive, and everybody's running on empty at this point in time). In reality, Beth keeps watching the video again and again in order to determine that the titular Sphere, which was on a monitor on the background and opens at one point of the conversation, can be opened if you think about it hard enough because it runs on Clap Your Hands If You Believe.
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Sphere / int_884c48a6	type	Non-Answer
Sphere / int_884c48a6	comment	Non-Answer: When Barnes tells Norman that his authorship of a paper made him tantamount to being a part of the mission, Norman retorts that his paper was about First Contact. Barnes simply gives a wry smile and tells Norman to come with him.
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Sphere / int_8941750b	type	Willfully Weak
Sphere / int_8941750b	comment	Willfully Weak: The surviving characters will themselves into simply forgetting their Reality Warper status, thus losing it, on the off chance they go mad with power. See Reset Button for the ambiguous exception.
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Sphere / int_91697559	type	Half the Man He Used to Be
Sphere / int_91697559	comment	Half the Man He Used to Be: In the film, Barnes is killed when he gets bisected at the waist by an automatic door.
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Sphere / int_96a33f11	type	Riddle for the Ages
Sphere / int_96a33f11	comment	Riddle for the Ages: The characters speculate but the origins, capabilities, and purpose of the Sphere are never discovered. Harry doesn't think the effects it has on them are even deliberate.
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Sphere / int_96fbeaf	type	There Are No Therapists
Sphere / int_96fbeaf	comment	There Are No Therapists: Defied. Norman specifically included having a psychologist on the ULF team to avoid the dangerous consequences of this trope. It comes back to bite him in the ass when the Navy selects him to be said psychologist. His ability to keep the group functional and stable is in large part a futile endeavor thanks to the situation being outside the norm, but it does give him slightly more awareness of his own motivations, which is helpful.
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Sphere / int_973d220f	type	Never My Fault
Sphere / int_973d220f	comment	Never My Fault: A pattern for Beth. She feels marginalized and powerless, so she struggles to hold on to whatever power she can get. Part of the problem, though, is the genuine mistakes she makes but refuses to acknowledge. For example, she talks about an assignment she had once where she got what she believes is an unfair evaluation, choosing to call the instructor ignorant rather than admit the work she turned in might have had some very basic flaws.note She was assigned to design a hypothetical creature and came up with an animal that the instructor mocked for having no anus, which she defends by saying not all animals have anuses. But not many and most of the ones that do have an equivalent, such as the mouth of a jellyfish also serving as its anus. Given her normal behavior, she likely just made a simple mistake but has convinced herself she meant to do that.
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Sphere / int_9788e2b1	type	Black Dude Dies First
Sphere / int_9788e2b1	comment	Black Dude Dies First: Queen Latifah's dispatcher is the first character to die.
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Sphere / int_9875ac5b	type	Ocean Punk
Sphere / int_9875ac5b	comment	Ocean Punk: Almost the whole story occurs on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, an important part of the Project ULF report was the Lampshade Hanging that people assume (because of pop culture) that aliens that visit will automatically aim for someplace on land (like Washington D.C., if not elsewhere) when the ocean-vs.-land disposition on Earth makes it more possible that they will land on water (and may be even more suited to live on water) and there are many mentions in passing about how the conditions of the extreme depth are demanding to both human and machine (and even to something as simple as cooking). As it turns out, the spaceship crash-landed, which further justifies the setting - if you hit a random part of the world, you've basically got a 71% chance of landing in water.
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Sphere / int_999b267b	type	Phlebotinum Analogy
Sphere / int_999b267b	comment	Phlebotinum Analogy: In the novel, Ted explains gravity and black holes to Norman by using fruit on a table.
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Sphere / int_9bcd82c0	type	Took a Level in Badass
Sphere / int_9bcd82c0	comment	Took a Level in Badass: Norman does this over the course of the book. Becomes something a Brick Joke when, after earlier in the novel he feels inadequate next to military man Hal Barnes, Norman manages to cripple the giant squid by blowing off one of its tentacles while Barnes was unceremoniously killed offscreen by it.
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Sphere / int_a20d4674	type	Techno Babble
Sphere / int_a20d4674	comment	Technobabble: In-universe. In the novel, Norman's narration recounts how he was told to revise the title of his report on potential contact with extraterrestrial life to sound more scientific. This leads to it being retitled "Recommendations for the Human Contact Team to Interact with Unknown Life Forms (ULF)".
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Sphere / int_a3cdf764	type	Drinking on Duty
Sphere / int_a3cdf764	comment	Drinking on Duty: In the novel, Petty Officer Fletcher is described as having a noticeable odor of alcohol on her breath during the first squid attack.
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Sphere / int_a7ba94de	type	Inferiority Superiority Complex
Sphere / int_a7ba94de	comment	Inferiority Superiority Complex: Many of the characters have it: Ted is distressed about not having made any ground-breaking discoveries before he reaches thirty (he believes that if he doesn't does by then, he will become too "over the hill" to be important on his field) and sees being part of the expedition as his great chance; Harry is a mathematical genius raised in the ghetto and absolutely loves being in the right (especially when he comes out of the sphere and his attitude becomes, in Norman's words, "manic"); Beth is a woman scientist and a marine biologist at that (a "double threat" of people overlooking her capabilities) and so is willing to be the one with the power (any power-sexual superiority, physical superiority, being the one with the answers, Reality Warper powers...) no matter the cost; Norman himself is particularly miffed that none of the other characters see his skill set as a psychologist to be of any help; and Barnes not quite unsubtly implied to have been assigned to Project ULF and managing the first contact as a Reassignment To Antarctica and wishes for the mission to succeed so his superiors will see his worth.
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Sphere / int_a7f551dc	type	Imagination-Based Superpower
Sphere / int_a7f551dc	comment	Imagination-Based Superpower: A literal example, as the titular sphere is capable of bestowing Reality Warper abilities upon whoever enters it. This would allow one to manifest their imagination and effectively shape reality to their whim. Unfortunately, these powers can also manifest a person's subconscious thoughts and worst fears. In the end, the surviving protagonists realize their abilities are too dangerous for any man to possess, and decide to erase their powers and all memory of their encounter with the sphere. However, it's implied at the very end of the novel that Elizabeth Halperin kept her powers.
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Sphere / int_ad2943a2	type	Inertial Dampening
Sphere / int_ad2943a2	comment	Inertial Dampening: The spaceship discovered at the bottom of the ocean features water-filled chair systems to help counteract high g-forces.
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Sphere / int_ae3d6438	type	Deadpan Snarker
Sphere / int_ae3d6438	comment	Deadpan Snarker: Barnes, but then he's played by Peter Coyote.
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Sphere / int_b4fe9d97	type	Space Isolation Horror
Sphere / int_b4fe9d97	comment	Space Isolation Horror: The "underwater" sub-division of the trope. Part of the reason why the whole cast struggles to keep it together psychologically lies in the fact that they are stuck in a claustrophobic environment at the bottom of the ocean right as a hurricane is passing over them (and will do so for days), with absolutely no way to contact the outside world. It's made pretty clear that if something bad enough happens, they will all just die and nobody will bother to try to look for the bodies.
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Sphere / int_b9af5ef3	type	The Film of the Book
Sphere / int_b9af5ef3	comment	The Film of the Book discards this in favor of Norman's initial Humans Are Bastards Aesop.
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Sphere / int_ba5bd7	type	Ignored Expert
Sphere / int_ba5bd7	comment	Ignored Expert: In a team full of Worm Guys, Norman is this. Some of the other members question why a psychologist would be needed on a first-contact team, and eventually fatigue, a claustrophobic environment and the strangeness of the Sphere and what may be within make everybody's Fatal Flaws come roaring out, with only Norman noticing the first warning signs.
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Sphere / int_bb5126ec	type	Prophecy Twist
Sphere / int_bb5126ec	comment	Prophecy Twist: Trying to come up with one is a plot point, how do you plan an escape when the continued existence of a crashed ship is proof that you're going to fail?
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Sphere / int_bddced73	type	Victory-Guided Amnesia
Sphere / int_bddced73	comment	Victory-Guided Amnesia: Used in both the novel and the film by the final survivors. Though the ending of the novel is rather ambiguous. Beth seems to be more in control of her manifestations and may have decided to keep her power and used it to make the others forget. But it is hard to tell exactly what is going on because of the fact that the narrator gets/claims amnesia.
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Sphere / int_c2d6fc5e	type	Murder by Inaction
Sphere / int_c2d6fc5e	comment	Murder by Inaction: Almost. After entering the sphere and acquiring the Power, Norman decides to abandon Harry and Beth by taking the rescue sub to the surface without them. It's only when he realizes that he's manifesting his own worst fear, the fear that he doesn't actually give a fuck about anyone besides himself, that he turns back.
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Sphere / int_c505d6ec	type	Missing Reflection
Sphere / int_c505d6ec	comment	Missing Reflection: One of the most unsettling things about the Sphere is that it reflects everything around it except people.
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Sphere / int_c52ac939	type	Helium Speech
Sphere / int_c52ac939	comment	Helium Speech: This trope is used often in works set deep underwater, and Sphere is no exception. In both the novel and film it appears briefly before the team puts on "voice regulators" that lower the pitches of their voices.
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Sphere / int_cb70651c	type	Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane
Sphere / int_cb70651c	comment	Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In the novel, when Norman enters the Sphere, a voice explains the Power to him and it's left ambiguous as to whether it was the Sphere speaking to him or his own consciousness. Or both. Either way, it does provide the only remotely plausible explanation for how the Sphere does what it does that we're ever offered.
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Sphere / int_cc7e9502	type	Humans Are Insects
Sphere / int_cc7e9502	comment	Humans Are Insects: When a character suggests that the sphere might have been sent as a test that the crew all failed, it's countered that it's entirely likely that it was made without humans in mind at all and the side effects it has on them is entirely coincidental, like how a creature that gets electrocuted by our communications equipment might consider it some kind of test that the creature had failed.
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Sphere / int_cdfe12c3	type	Nothing Is Scarier
Sphere / int_cdfe12c3	comment	Nothing Is Scarier: Due to budget constraints, the giant squid is never actually seen in the film (unlike in the novel). The characters only ever see its outline via the base's sonar system, and there's a tense scene where Norman and Beth are forced to escape back to the habitat while the squid tries to close in on them from afar. Until deep into the story, the protagonists receive only the most vague clues about what's inside the Sphere or what happens when you enter it, with even Harry (the first to enter the Sphere) only being able to deliriously babble about what he saw before he's already forgotten. This serves only to make the Sphere seem even more ominous and alien. In the end, we never learn who created the Sphere or why.
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Sphere / int_d09eafbc	type	Floating Head Syndrome
Sphere / int_d09eafbc	comment	Floating Head Syndrome: The film poster is an example.
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Sphere / int_d20b3e5d	type	First-Contact Math
Sphere / int_d20b3e5d	comment	First-Contact Math: In the novel, this is the way Harry manages to first make meaningful contact with the mysterious alien presence, as he notices that the sequence of numbers it's broadcasting is non-random.
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Sphere / int_d20e79b2	type	First Contact Team
Sphere / int_d20e79b2	comment	First Contact Team: One of the objectives of "Project ULF" was the creation of the procedures for making one of these, plus providing the names for it. Part of the reason why Norman is nervous about the Navy's application of the Project material is that he borrowed some of it from famous sci-fi (although he did do some serious research on his own, showcasing the basis of some of his parameters. Most of it was the testing of various groups under stressful conditions, where many of them broke down almost immediately).
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Sphere / int_d39e327f	type	What the Hell, Hero?
Sphere / int_d39e327f	comment	What the Hell, Hero?: Ted is astonished when everyone decides the mission is over because the ship isn't truly extra-terrestrial, "just" an American / Japanese spaceship from the future. Ted, who always believed that alien life existed but was skeptical of time travel, felt that the ship was now an even greater discovery.
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Sphere / int_d53acc8a	type	You Are Not Ready
Sphere / int_d53acc8a	comment	You Are Not Ready: A depressing thought to Norman.
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Sphere / int_d9c4365c	type	Reset Button
Sphere / int_d9c4365c	comment	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 one can infer that the Reset Button attempt only made things 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 except for a second of Beth giving the camera a Kubrick Stare, but it doesn't provides anything else.
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Sphere / int_dbb414ed	type	Hand Wave
Sphere / int_dbb414ed	comment	Hand Wave: The movie gets silly voices created by the helium atmosphere out of the way after a brief comic relief scene by having everyone don "voice regulators".
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Sphere / int_dc057cf3	type	Adaptation Name Change
Sphere / int_dc057cf3	comment	Adaptation Name Change: Minor example: Beth Halpern's last name is change to Halperin on the film. Norman Johnson in the novel to Norman Goodman in the film.
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Sphere / int_dfbd69d5	type	Underwater Base
Sphere / int_dfbd69d5	comment	Underwater Base: The story is primarily set aboard a US Navy deep saturation underwater habitat that was erected on the site to study the crashed ship.
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Sphere / int_dfe687c9	type	Alone with the Psycho
Sphere / int_dfe687c9	comment	Alone with the Psycho: Towards the end of the book, Beth begins to act more and more irrational. Norman attributes this to the stress of the squid attacks and the anxiety of waiting for rescue. It's only when she plants explosives around the spacecraft and the habitat that he realizes she's snapped as a result of her entering the sphere. She accuses him of entering the sphere, trying to sedate and later asphyxiate him to prevent his fears from killing her, when in reality she's the nutty one. And she nearly gets them all killed when, in the middle of her Heroic BSoD at the very end, she thinks of killing herself and her subconscious arms the explosives, and she also fights against Norman as he tries to get everybody out.
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Sphere / int_e206977a	type	In Space, Everyone Can See Your Face
Sphere / int_e206977a	comment	In Space, Everyone Can See Your Face: Played straight in the movie. Averted in the novel, where Norman notes that the names stenciled on the helmets are the only way to tell each other apart.
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Sphere / int_e2a6ebc1	type	Closed Circle
Sphere / int_e2a6ebc1	comment	Closed Circle: A typhoon makes it impossible to leave the underwater environment for a week.
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Sphere / int_e4965307	type	Composite Character
Sphere / int_e4965307	comment	Composite Character: In the novel, the Habitat is staffed by four female Navy sailors (archivist Jane Edmunds, maintenance officer Alice Fletcher, cook Rose Levy, and communications officer Tina Chan) who are picked off one by one as the story progresses. For the movie, their roles were amalgamated into Gomez's Edmunds character and Queen Latifah's Fletcher character. Interestingly, the movie version of Fletcher is actually given the book version of Edmunds' death (surrounded by a flock of jellyfish that dissolve her suit) while the movie version of Edmunds dies similarly to how the cook Rose Levy died in the book (corpse with broken bones found pinned to the habitat and knocking against the hull).
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Sphere / int_eb8ec7c8	type	Jerkass
Sphere / int_eb8ec7c8	comment	Jerkass: Barnes, who repeatedly lies to the team before they descend, sends Norman down even though he's not within the age and physical fitness requirements for deep sea habitation, and is only interested in the spacecraft for its potential as a weapon. He also possibly lies to his superiors to keep the team from returning to the surface, though, considering the Mind Screw elements began coming into play at the same time, it's possible he didn't. He also, rightly, calls out Beth for pressing buttons on the ship without warning anyone beforehand or really knowing what they'll do.
Sphere / int_eb8ec7c8	featureApplicability	1.0
Sphere / int_eb8ec7c8	featureConfidence	1.0
Sphere	hasFeature	Sphere / int_eb8ec7c8
Sphere / int_f01a1b71	type	Insignificant Little Blue Planet
Sphere / int_f01a1b71	comment	Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Near the end, one character suggests that the sphere was probably some kind of test for humanity that we failed. It's countered that the effects on humans are likely coincidental and it serves some purpose we don't understand but completely unrelated to us. Implicitly, super advanced aliens have no reason to care about us and wouldn't consider how it affects us any more than we think deeply about our electronics possibly electrocuting small organisms that also don't understand what they found and messed with.
Sphere / int_f01a1b71	featureApplicability	1.0
Sphere / int_f01a1b71	featureConfidence	1.0
Sphere	hasFeature	Sphere / int_f01a1b71
Sphere / int_f511ea9b	type	Product Placement
Sphere / int_f511ea9b	comment	Product Placement: Blue Diamond nuts apparently will still be around in the next century.
Sphere / int_f511ea9b	featureApplicability	1.0
Sphere / int_f511ea9b	featureConfidence	1.0
Sphere	hasFeature	Sphere / int_f511ea9b
Sphere / int_f516f938	type	Never Found the Body
Sphere / int_f516f938	comment	Never Found the Body: In the book, Barnes and Fletcher. Barnes never returns from his fight with the giant squid and Fletcher disappears during another squid attack on the habitat. All they find of hers is a single shoe near a blood splatter.
Sphere / int_f516f938	featureApplicability	1.0
Sphere / int_f516f938	featureConfidence	1.0
Sphere	hasFeature	Sphere / int_f516f938
Sphere / int_f8a82c75	type	I Always Wanted to Say That
Sphere / int_f8a82c75	comment	I Always Wanted to Say That: Ted, on "We Come In Peace".
Sphere / int_f8a82c75	featureApplicability	1.0
Sphere / int_f8a82c75	featureConfidence	1.0
Sphere	hasFeature	Sphere / int_f8a82c75
Sphere / int_fa4bf618	type	Blank Book
Sphere / int_fa4bf618	comment	Blank Book: The copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea after a certain page, because Harry hasn't read any further.
Sphere / int_fa4bf618	featureApplicability	1.0
Sphere / int_fa4bf618	featureConfidence	1.0
Sphere	hasFeature	Sphere / int_fa4bf618
Sphere / int_fe8a4ee2	type	Spheroid Dropship
Sphere / int_fe8a4ee2	comment	Spheroid Dropship: The mysterious sphere is revealed to be capable of autonomous flight at the finale.
Sphere / int_fe8a4ee2	featureApplicability	1.0
Sphere / int_fe8a4ee2	featureConfidence	1.0
Sphere	hasFeature	Sphere / int_fe8a4ee2
Sphere / int_name	type	ItemName
Sphere / int_name	comment
Sphere / int_name	featureApplicability	1.0
Sphere / int_name	featureConfidence	1.0
Sphere	hasFeature	Sphere / int_name
Sphere / int_name	itemName	Sphere

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Sphere	hasFeature	Alien Works / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Aliens in Cardiff / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Amazonian Beauty / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Because Destiny Says So / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Big Dumb Object / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Blank Book / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Films of 1995â€“1999 / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	First Contact Team / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Ghost Ship / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Giant Squid / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Helium Speech / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	I Always Wanted to Say That / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	I'll Kill You! / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Imagination-Based Superpower / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Japan Takes Over the World / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Just Ignore It / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Missing Reflection / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	No Man Should Have This Power / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Not of This Earth / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Ocean Punk / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Our Wormholes Are Different / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Phlebotinum Analogy / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Reality Warping Is Not a Toy / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Reset Button / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Science Cannot Comprehend Phlebotinum / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Scientist vs. Soldier / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Sinister Geometry / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	seeAlso	Sphere
Sphere	hasFeature	Spheroid Dropship / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Take Me to Your Leader / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	The Worm Guy / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Underwater Base / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	Unknown Phenomenon / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere	hasFeature	You Are Not Ready / int_d1e4c01a
Sphere (Video Game)	seeAlso	Sphere

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