MovieChat Forums > Sphere (1998) Discussion > Let's send a crack team of idiots!!!

Let's send a crack team of idiots!!!

posted 14 years ago by sknyluv
7 replies | jump to latest

Ok. So I get the point that Norman made up the whole thing about who should first meet aliens first. So that explains why they weren't "experts", but the whole operation, from the preparation, to the training, to the intelligence gathering ... everything(!) was half assed. Who was running this operation? The US Government?

Hey. Lets get 4 random people, tell them nothing, not train them ... then send them 1000 feat down with three, count 'em, THREE other people to run this whole operation. Sounds like great planning to me. I mean ... what could go wrong????

I think that annoyed me the most about this movie. I hope that when we meet extraterrestrials for the first time that we plan just a bit more than those in this movie.

[–] superstringy 14 years ago

I see what you're saying and totally agree. What a horrible plan!

But I think that was the point of the movie. Norman ADMITS that the report he wrote was bogus. And that he just completely concocted the whole government report to pay for the down payment of his house. He borrowed the ideas from sci-fi writers, etc.

So the fact that the plan is flawed is no surprise. It's why the movie plays out like it does. No one in the movie is saying that this deep-sea operation is well planned. In fact, many of the crew resent the fact that it's being carried out this way. It's all ultimately Norman's fault.

See what I'm saying?

[–] gholmes7 13 years ago

I don't see what's wrong with the team at all. They were preparing the meet an alien lifeform. Physicist and Mathematician to cover science which would be the common language. Psychologist to analyze it's behavior, and a Biologist (or was it Biochemist?) to study its biological make-up. Who else would you send? As for the crew of 3 people, it makes complete sense to me. At that depth each additional crew member would make it that much more difficult to keep supplied with air to breathe, food to eat, etc.

[–] spookyrat1 10 years ago

Who else would you send?

I agree with you. I don't have any problem with the team make-up or the fact that Norman speculates and borrows ideas from science-fiction in constructing his plan. Can any one ever be prepared to encounter an alien civilization?

Where I have problems is with the unholy rush to get the team down there without adequate training and screening, which is virtually admitted to in the film. The space craft wasn't going any where soon. It didn't make a huge amount of sense and I just couldn't see it happening like that IRL.

[–] jbuckets 7 years ago

Norman writes a half-assed, bogus report on how to conduct a First-Contact event.

Yet not one other psychologist/ scientist/ gov't/military committee in the US or on the planet reviews/ discusses it?!

Apparently, the term "peer review" doesn't exist in the movie's version of reality....

[face-palm]

Hey! Here's a great idea! Let's send all military personnel away before entering an unknown spaceship containing unknown lifeforms whom would obviously NEVER hurt us, but instantly understand us (in the general case) AND be peaceable/ non-life-threatening, etc, etc....

You're gonna need a bigger boat.

[–] icelandknight 13 years ago

(I am just re-watching this. I remembered it being better than this!)

Why didn't they watch ANY of the other entries in the cockpit/bridge, except the unexpained one??? That would have told them all they needed to know about the ship and where it came from! - AND in English! Apparently! - All their guesswork in the dining room is senseless, they HAVE all the data in the cockpit! (Before you suggest they didn't have "air", how did the 2 then have enough air to go out to the ship again? aha.)

Also, they say they are stuck down there, because the ships are caught in a storm... Have they never heard of submarines? Just like their station, submarines would be largely unaffected by surface weather conditions. (It may help to have been a diver to know this.)
*sigh*
I guess I'll go back and watch the rest, now. - Glad people are not just blindly accepting plot holes and lack of logic in this flick. Thanks.

[–] meikido 10 years ago

Super late comment.

Fully agreeing with the first part. I was also shocked at how they could be so uninterested in a space ship from the future. I would've flipped my *beep* *beep* that sphere what else is going on? How does the holographic log work? Why is the dead guy wearing such fancy pants??

About the second part I'm not sure if submarines can take on passengers under water.
Sounds like it'll be difficult. First of all hovering in one positions and then letting people enter and that in a room that has the right pressure for them.

But it was fun over all. Not very deep or scary but entertaining for an easy evening movie.

[–] shannonsspirit 10 years ago

Lol my thoughts exactly. Whether E.T. or Independence Day, you'd probably want to have a plan and have it executed by more than 7 people at the bottom of the ocean with a really small sub communicating every 12 hours.

I was also surprised that the interviews with respect to eyesight and drug use etc., occurred after the selection of the team.

But, they were suppose to be expects in the fields of math, marine biology and so forth. Although they seemed to be more of the kind of team that would be assembled in a teenage horror movie. Why would these people ever venture alone into the water? And I remember kind of laughing when the captain proposed they should split into groups during their initial search of the ship. (Exactly!!! "What could go wrong???") hahaha

I was also disappointed in the simplistic binary code. Even though a manifestation of Harry's, you would think a mathematician would come up with something far more challenging. The psychologist spouted calming platitudes, but panicked every time he was under stress. Nor do I remember the biologist ever saying anything expertly enlightening unless "this isn't one of God's creations" and "that's a nocturnal snake" counts. And why is it that these extremely gifted intellectuals, who skipped social upbringing while advancing into their 3rd Phd's during adolescence, were able to readily adopt social speech and layman's terms when conveying knowledge in their own fields?