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Sphere
Sphere Movie Poster
Directed by	Barry Levinson
Produced by	Barry Levinson
Written by	Michael Crichton (novel) Kurt Wimmer (adaptation) Stephen Hauser & Paul Attanasio (screenplay)
Starring	Dustin Hoffman Sharon Stone Samuel L. Jackson Liev Schreiber Peter Coyote
Music by	Elliot Goldenthal
Cinematography	Adam Greenberg
Editing by	Stu Linder
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	February 13, 1998
Running time	129 min.
Language	English
Budget	$80,000,000
Gross revenue	$37,020,277[1]
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Sphere is a 1998 science fiction / thriller film, starring Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson. Sphere was based on the 1987 novel Sphere by Michael Crichton. The film was released in the United States on February 13, 1998.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Reception 3 Soundtrack 4 Track listing 5 References 6 External links

In the middle of the South Pacific in the near future, a thousand feet below the surface of the water, an alien spacecraft is discovered by the U.S. Navy. The thickness of coral growth on it suggests that it has been there for several hundred years. A team made up of a marine biologist, a mathematician, an astrophysicist, a psychologist and a member of the U.S. Navy is tasked with making contact with any alien life inside the spaceship. The team are housed in a state-of-the-art underwater living environment (the Habitat) during their stay on the ocean floor.

Upon entering the spaceship, two startling discoveries are made. The first is that the ship is American, and was in service in the future, gathering objects from around the galaxy to bring back to Earth, until an "Unknown (Entry) Event" takes place. However the exact year from when the apparently American spaceship came from cannot be verified. This is due to the date format which only indicates the last two digits of the year. 06/21/43 could indicate an infinite possible time from the future, e.g June 21, 2043, 2143 or 3143. Although during the conversation between Harry (Jackson) and Norman (Hoffman) after getting back to the habitat where Harry postulated that they are all going to die, he also concluded that it came 50 years from their future: 2043.

The second find is a large near-perfect sphere held inside the ship which has very unusual properties.

Ted (Liev Schreiber) hypothesises that the unknown event in the ship's log was the ship inadvertently crashing into a black hole, which propelled it several hundred years backwards through time.

Harry (Samuel L. Jackson) then comes to the conclusion that they will all die on the ocean floor, because if the trip through the hole that happened in the future was called an "Unknown Event", then the team never made it back to the surface to tell anyone about it. This becomes the premise of the film.

After this discovery, a massive surface storm drives them to cover on the sea floor for one week. The group then faces a series of crises, including a giant squid, electrical fires and water snakes, which are all believed to be the work of an alien intelligence (the sphere), which is called 'Jerry' (in fact, it is 'Harry'; Ted gets the code the 'sphere' is communicating in wrong).

Over the course of the film various members of the team are killed off until only Harry (Samuel L. Jackson), Norman (Dustin Hoffman) and Beth (Sharon Stone) remain. At this point, they realize that the three of them all entered the sphere, which gave them the power to manifest their thoughts into reality, and that all the disasters that had been plaguing them were the result of manifestations of the worst parts of their own minds. The entity 'Jerry' turns out to be Harry's subconscious communicating with them through their computer system while Harry is asleep.

It is then that they must leave the Habitat because of Beth's premonition of wanting to kill herself, thus setting off an underwater explosive and obliterating the ship, the Habitat, and the surrounding environment.

The film ends with the three deciding to give up their "powers" to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. This done, the "power" of "forgetting" everything may just be the right recipe of redemption from the Sphere.

It is noteworthy that the film was considered a disappointment to many fans of Michael Crichton's novel. The film drifts away from the book in several places. In an interview, Dustin Hoffman stated that they were not ready to release that film and that there was so much more that they wanted to do with it, but simply had no ability to do so due to a time constraint.^{[citation needed]}

Sphere
Soundtrack by Elliot Goldenthal
Released	1998
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	35:36
Label	Varese Sarabande, Cat.VSD-5913
Producer	Elliot Goldenthal
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link
Elliot Goldenthal chronology
In Dreams (1998) Sphere (1998) Titus soundtrack (2000)

The score for Sphere was composed by Elliot Goldenthal. It is a very dramatic, dark and ethereal piece. It is one of his more straight forward soundtracks, although it is still considered original and inventive. Although the overall mood is atmospheric and pensive, there are dramatic, anthemic and shattering pieces, usually for the action parts such as "Event Entry 6-21-43" and "Manifest Fire".

1. Pandora's Fanfare (1:17)
2. Main Titles (2:49)
3. Event Entry 6-21-43 (0:53)
4. The Gift (1:42)
5. Sphere Discovery (2:08)
6. Visit to a Wreckage (1:58)
7. Water Snake (2:36)
8. Terror Adagio (3:24)
9. Wave (3:18)
10. Fear Retrieval (3:48)
11. Andante (2:20)
12. Manifest Fire (3:48)
13. Manifest3 (3:47)
14. Their Beast Within (1:44)

• Sphere at the Internet Movie Database
• Sphere at All Music Guide

v • d • e Films directed by Barry Levinson
Diner (1982) • The Natural (1984) • Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) • Tin Men (1987) • Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) • Rain Man (1988) • Avalon (1990) • Bugsy (1991) • Toys (1992) • Jimmy Hollywood (1994) • Disclosure (1994) • Sleepers (1996) • Wag the Dog (1997) • Sphere (1998) • Liberty Heights (1999) • An Everlasting Piece (2000) • Bandits (2001) • Envy (2004) • Man of the Year (2006)