Sphere. I Am Jeppy.
Jim Mulligan
This plot hole is so gaping and so glaring that I wonder if maybe I'm
not imagining it.
So the "alien" first starts talking in some binary code, which is
decoded, but alas, decoded improperly! For "Jerry" is really "Harry"!
But then all of the h's should have been replace by j's and all of the
a's should have been replaced by e's. So the if the entity was saying
I am Jerry instead of I am Harry, it should have also been saying I am
Jeppy instead of I am happy.
I left the movie at this point. It was bad up till then and that
glaring error was a signal of things worse to come.
Jim Mulligan
Waimanalo, Hawai'i. mul...@aloha.net jmul...@gte.net
A BANDAPAR
>So the "alien" first starts talking in some binary code, which is
>decoded, but alas, decoded improperly! For "Jerry" is really "Harry"!
>
>But then all of the h's should have been replace by j's and all of the
>a's should have been replaced by e's. So the if the entity was saying
>I am Jerry instead of I am Harry, it should have also been saying I am
>Jeppy instead of I am happy.
>
>I left the movie at this point. It was bad up till then and that
>glaring error was a signal of things worse to come.
>
Why should all the j's be h's if Harry just decoded THAT word incorrectly? It
was clearly explained in the book, but it appears more hazy in the movie--Harry
(or was it Norman harrison Goodman?) changed it to Jerry (subconsciously).
I agree that the movie is terrible (the source material rates a 7 at best), but
I would have never walked out. That's $4-9 bucks down the drain, man...
skl
Scott Hamilton
> This plot hole is so gaping and so glaring that I wonder if maybe I'm
> not imagining it.
>
> So the "alien" first starts talking in some binary code, which is
> decoded, but alas, decoded improperly! For "Jerry" is really "Harry"!
>
> But then all of the h's should have been replace by j's and all of the
> a's should have been replaced by e's. So the if the entity was saying
> I am Jerry instead of I am Harry, it should have also been saying I am
> Jeppy instead of I am happy.
>
> I left the movie at this point. It was bad up till then and that
> glaring error was a signal of things worse to come.
You misunderstood what happened. Harry made a mistake with the translation,
but only on that one line, which was translated manually. After that, the
computer took over the translations. The mistake was Harry's and it was
willful, because he was "Jerry." (In a subconscious kind of way.)
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
|| "Being a misanthropist is
This Missive Was From: || hell on my social life" - Me
ScoPi in St.Petersburg ||
sco...@atlantic.net || "He learned too late that man
|| is a feeling animal"
|| - It Conquered the World
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Visit Stomp Tokyo Movie Reviews at:
http://members.aol.com/stomptokyo/
MFalc1
Jim Mulligan said:>I left the movie at this point. It was bad up till then and
that
>glaring error was a signal of things worse to come.
I feel that if the filmmakers have put a good deal of time, money and effort
into their creation, then the viewer is obligated to stay to the very end of
the film, no matter how awful it may be. Of course, there are exceptions to
that credo (I couldn't make it through NADJA or CARRIED AWAY-but that had to do
with some blithering pretentiousness on the part of both films).
SPHERE, whatever its flaws, is not a film that should prod anyone to walk out
in the middle. It's certainly better than what I consider to be the two worst
Crichton adaptaions to date-THE TERMINAL MAN (1974) and CONGO (1995).
Mark L. Falconer-film and video reviews at
http://members.aol.com/MFalc1/home.html
Mark.J.Desocio
On 17 Feb 1998, MFalc1 wrote:
> Jim Mulligan said:>I left the movie at this point. It was bad up till then and
> that
> >glaring error was a signal of things worse to come.
>
> I feel that if the filmmakers have put a good deal of time, money and effort
> into their creation, then the viewer is obligated to stay to the very end of
> the film, no matter how awful it may be...
If I, as a viewer, have put down my "money" and "time" to watch
what amounts to a piece of crap, and it's too much of an "effort" to sit
there when I could be free, I'm moving on...
Alex Crouvier
Scott Hamilton wrote:
>
> In article <6cctdf$g3n$2...@gte2.gte.net>, jmul...@gte.net (Jim Mulligan) wrote:
>
> > This plot hole is so gaping and so glaring that I wonder if maybe I'm
> > not imagining it.
> >
> > So the "alien" first starts talking in some binary code, which is
> > decoded, but alas, decoded improperly! For "Jerry" is really "Harry"!
> >
> > But then all of the h's should have been replace by j's and all of the
> > a's should have been replaced by e's. So the if the entity was saying
> > I am Jerry instead of I am Harry, it should have also been saying I am
> > Jeppy instead of I am happy.
> >
> > glaring error was a signal of things worse to come.
>
> but only on that one line, which was translated manually. After that, the
> computer took over the translations. The mistake was Harry's and it was
> willful, because he was "Jerry." (In a subconscious kind of way.)
Jeez, you are defending this film?
RH Jones
First hour, fine. I left when Jerry, or Harry or who/whatever asked Dustin
if he wanted the giant squid back. I just didn't care anymore...
RJ
Justin Tribble
jmul...@gte.net (Jim Mulligan) wrote:
>So the "alien" first starts talking in some binary code, which is
>decoded, but alas, decoded improperly! For "Jerry" is really "Harry"!
I noticed this hole immediately when Norman started decoding the
letters later on in the movie (by the way, couldn't he figure out it
was Harry in the first place?)
This is a huge, gaping hole in the plot.
Justin T.
Justin Tribble
sco...@atlantic.net (Scott Hamilton) wrote:
>You misunderstood what happened. Harry made a mistake with the translation,
>but only on that one line, which was translated manually. After that, the
>computer took over the translations. The mistake was Harry's and it was
>willful, because he was "Jerry." (In a subconscious kind of way.)
Exactly! There is an explanation after all.
Justin T.
Jim Mulligan
On Wed, 18 Feb 1998 06:00:33 GMT, reds...@sedona.net (Justin Tribble)
wrote:
Not to belabor the point, but it wasn't translated word by word.
Rather Harry reasoned that silly circular keyboard thing and then
created an algorithm to decode each letter. As soon as the algorithm
was written it began decoding the words.
So still, there is this gaping, stupid plot hole...
Scott Hamilton
The algorithim doesn't matter. Harry screwed with the results. Remember, he
invented the algorithim, and no one checked his results until Norman looked
at it again at the end of the movie.
Also remember, the stream of numbers that Harry was translating was coming
from Harry! He was making it up as a code he could break, and Ted couldn't
(Okay, that's mostly from the book... more on that later). If he wanted to
change the layout of the keyboard OR the order of the numbers, no one would
know it because a) no one else could see how he was making sense of the
numbers, or b) he could change reality. At that point he was doing it
subconsciously, apparently.
I agree that this should have been clearer in the movie, and Dustin Hoffman
mumbling something in a soggy room hardly substitutes for a clear
explanation. This was made pretty understandable in the book, but the movie
should have stood on its own, which it clearly didn't.
Adam J. Cook
I just read this book over the weekend, but have yet to see the movie.
Seems like this first hour fine, second hour not fine is the consensus.
Of the four Crichton novels I have read so far, Sphere is my least
favorite. I liked Congo, Rising Sun, and Disclosure better than this.
Couldn't finish The Andromeda Strain. What novel is next to be made
into a movie for him?
Adam
Scott Hamilton
> Scott Hamilton wrote:
> >
> > In article <6cctdf$g3n$2...@gte2.gte.net>, jmul...@gte.net (Jim Mulligan)
wrote:
> >
> > > This plot hole is so gaping and so glaring that I wonder if maybe I'm
> > > not imagining it.
> > >
> > > So the "alien" first starts talking in some binary code, which is
> > > decoded, but alas, decoded improperly! For "Jerry" is really "Harry"!
> > >
> > > But then all of the h's should have been replace by j's and all of the
> > > a's should have been replaced by e's. So the if the entity was saying
> > > I am Jerry instead of I am Harry, it should have also been saying I am
> > > Jeppy instead of I am happy.
> > >
> > > I left the movie at this point. It was bad up till then and that
> > > glaring error was a signal of things worse to come.
> >
> > You misunderstood what happened. Harry made a mistake with the translation,
> > but only on that one line, which was translated manually. After that, the
> > computer took over the translations. The mistake was Harry's and it was
> > willful, because he was "Jerry." (In a subconscious kind of way.)
>
> Jeez, you are defending this film?
Opinions are seperate from the facts. I didn't like Sphere, the movie.
Matter of fact, I hated it, and I'm not a big fan of the book either. But
just because I didn't like a movie doesn't mean I just shut down my brain.
If I can clarify a plot point for someone, I'm going to do my best.
nick.b...@abbott.com
Alex Crouvier wrote:
>
> Scott Hamilton wrote:
> >
> > In article <6cctdf$g3n$2...@gte2.gte.net>, jmul...@gte.net (Jim Mulligan) wrote:
> >
> > > This plot hole is so gaping and so glaring that I wonder if maybe I'm
> > > not imagining it.
> > >
items in the movie that actually bugged me( I liked the film).
One point that almost made up for this error was when Harry started
his translation program, he was using what looked like a BSD Unix
shell script in a manner that is completely probable and practical
way for a scientist to do a quick and dirty substatution program.
Somebody there at least knew Unix enough to make the program believable.
I almost walked out on Batman and Robin when Batgirl's computer
hacker skill ment her pressing all the keys on a keyboard and
suddenly the computer was hacked.
Cole
On Wed, 18 Feb 1998 00:35:11 -0600, "Adam J. Cook" <ajc...@flash.net>
wrote:
>I just read this book over the weekend, but have yet to see the movie.
>Seems like this first hour fine, second hour not fine is the consensus.
Actually, it was more like godawful first 20 minutes, OK first full
hour, boring as hell second hour. When you find yourself sitting in
the theater 20 minutes into things, what should still be the "hook"
part of the movie, reeling you in, and you think, "Ya know, they
could've just explained all that in a 30 second voiceover as they're
entering the ship" . . .
Cole, thinking maybe Levinson shouldn't produce himself again anytime
soon
Paul J. Adams
Jim Mulligan <jmul...@gte.net> wrote in article
<6cdden$hjg$1...@gte1.gte.net>...
> On Wed, 18 Feb 1998 06:00:33 GMT, reds...@sedona.net (Justin Tribble)
> wrote:
>
> >sco...@atlantic.net (Scott Hamilton) wrote:
> >
translation,
> >>but only on that one line, which was translated manually. After that,
the
> >>computer took over the translations. The mistake was Harry's and it was
> >>willful, because he was "Jerry." (In a subconscious kind of way.)
> >
>
> Not to belabor the point, but it wasn't translated word by word.
> Rather Harry reasoned that silly circular keyboard thing and then
> created an algorithm to decode each letter. As soon as the algorithm
> was written it began decoding the words.
>
> So still, there is this gaping, stupid plot hole...
Sorry, I haven't seen this movie (and I probably won't), but I'm curious.
Are we talking about decryption here? When "decoding" is discussed above,
does this mean that a message was deliberately made unreadable by
substituting one character for another, and that someone then "broke the
code?" Or are we talking about a situation where someone got hold of some
binary data which was not intentionally encrypted, and figured out how the
data maps to something like an ascii character set?
If what we're discussing here is decryption, then I'd say the premise that
a particular symbol would translate to a 'j' in one instance, and an 'h' in
another instance is not nearly so implausable as the idea that someone
would rely on a simple substitution cipher (substituting one symbol for
another in a uniformly consistent way, for example 'b' = 'd') for the
security of binary data. I mean, I guess there are some people who do
this, but come on! Show some sophistication!
In any case, it sounds as if once again some filmmakers have elected to
"dumb the subject down" for the audience, to the extent that they got it
blatantly wrong, and proved themselves to be dumber than they assume their
audience to be.
Paul J. Adams
MFalc1 <mfa...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19980217235...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
> I feel that if the filmmakers have put a good deal of time, money and
effort
> into their creation, then the viewer is obligated to stay to the very end
of
> the film, no matter how awful it may be. Of course, there are exceptions
to
> that credo (I couldn't make it through NADJA or CARRIED AWAY-but that had
to do
> with some blithering pretentiousness on the part of both films).
Doesn't sound like a very consistent philosophy to me: One should never
walk out of a movie no matter how bad it is, unless it's really bad.
In any event, the audience has absolutely no obligation to the filmmakers,
and it's absurd to suggest that they do. If I go into a restaurant, and
they present me with a glass of thick, chunky, curdled milk, and a bowl of
rice which is wriggling with bugs, larvae, and worms, I don't feel any
great obligation to choke the shit down just because to decline would be an
insult to the chef. Particularly if I've already paid in advance for my
meal.
It's the same with movies, and it's the same with anything else. If you
buy a TV set, bring it home, plug it in, and nothing happens, will you
return the TV, or will you keep it and sit in front of it faithfully every
day, because to return it would be an insult to the manufacturer who put a
good deal of time, money and effort into their creation, and who depend
upon your business for survival?
Scott Hamilton
In article <01bd41fe$f27b2fe0$e93b...@gravedig.tiac.net>, "Paul J. Adams"
<ada...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
Not really. It was not really well explained in the movie, but the code
was originating from the mind of the man who was decoding it. So he could
'fudge' it anyway he wanted to get any result he wanted. When you can
change reality with your mind, you can't expect totally consistant
results.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
ScoPi in St.Petersburg|| Visit Stomp Tokyo Video Reviews
sco...@atlantic.net || http://stomptokyo.com/
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/