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Cast Away is a 2000 film by 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks about a FedEx employee who is stranded on an uninhabited island after his plane goes down over the South Pacific. Tom Hanks was nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his performance.
k Noland (Tom Hanks) is a time-obsessed FedEx systems analyst. He is in a relationship with Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt). Both want to get married, but Chuck's busy schedule is always an obstacle.
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Quotations
I should've never gotten on that plane. I should've never gotten out of the car.
This is our car. You kept our car. All right, now this is weird.
After Wilson begins to float away Wilson! I'm sorry, Wilson!
To Wilson the volleyball, after doing some math That's a search area of 500,000 square miles. That's twice the size of Texas. They may never find us.
Encyclopedia
Cast Away is a 2000 film by 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks about a FedEx employee who is stranded on an uninhabited island after his plane goes down over the South Pacific. Tom Hanks was nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his performance.
Plot
Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is a time-obsessed FedEx systems analyst. He is in a relationship with Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt). Both want to get married, but Chuck's busy schedule is always an obstacle. At home in Memphis, Tennessee for Christmas after returning from a trip to Moscow, Russia, Chuck is called away for work while at a holiday gathering with relatives. As he is about to get on the plane, he gives Kelly a box containing an engagement ring and tells her not to open it until New Year's Eve. Kelly gives Chuck a pocket watch containing a picture of herself.
While flying through a violent thunderstorm somewhere over the southern Pacific Ocean, the FedEx jet crashes into the ocean in flames. Saved by an inflatable life-raft, Chuck floats helplessly on the ocean until he is washed up on a deserted island, the lone survivor.
Within a few days, Chuck ascertains that the island is uninhabited and sets out to do what he can to survive. When the body of one of the flight crew washes up on the island, along with several FedEx packages, Chuck buries the pilot and neatly piles away all of the washed up packages. He eventually opens all of the packages (with the single exception of a package adorned with a pair of wings) and tries to find a practical use for whatever is inside. One contains a Wilson volleyball. After receiving a deep wound on his hand, Chuck angrily grabs and throws the volleyball, leaving a bloody hand print on it. Naming the ball "Wilson" after the manufacturer (as well as rubbing out a face on it), he starts to develop a deep-friendship-like dependency to help him cope with the loneliness.
Four years later, a dramatically thinner, bearded Chuck is seen expertly tossing a spear into the water, killing a fish. One morning, a large chunk of plastic from a portable toilet washes up on the island. Upon seeing how the wind blew the plastic down after standing it up in the sand, Chuck decides to build a raft, using the plastic as a sail, so that he can escape from the island. Setting out to sea with Wilson, he becomes visibly emotional for managing to leave the island from overcoming the waves which had denied him on previous occasions. Spending days drifting out into the open sea, Wilson falls into the water as Chuck is sleeping and he is unable to save him. All alone on the raft, he is rescued by a passing New Zealand cargo ship.
On returning home, Chuck must come to terms with the fact that everyone he was close to has given him up for dead long ago and moved on with their lives. Kelly has married and had a child with another man, Dr. Jerry Lovett (Chris Noth). Chuck reunites with Kelly and they profess their love for each other, but they both know that Kelly has responsibilities to Jerry and her daughter and say goodbye to each other. He then sets out to deliver the one package he never opened on the island - the one with the angels' wings.
No one is home, so he leaves the package at the front door with an attached note. Stopping at a remote crossroads, a woman in a truck drives up and tries to help him, explaining where all the roads from the intersection lead to. As she drives away, noticing the painted angel's wings on the back of her truck, Chuck is seen smiling in the direction of the truck.
Production
Cast Away was filmed on Monuriki, a member of the Mamanuca Islands. It is in a subgroup of the Mamanuca archipelago, which is sited off the coast of Viti Levu, Fiji's largest island. The island has become a tourist attraction following the film's release. Upon Chuck's return, Kelly explains to Chuck that when he was found, he had "drifted 500 miles", and the island was "about 600 miles south of the Cook Islands." There is, in fact, no land between Antarctica and the southern-most Cook Islands of Mangaia.
The film makers actually burned down several trees on the island for the movie. In return they were required to plant three new trees for each one they burned down.
The producers made up a list of seemingly useless items that would be in the packages that Noland recovered: party dress, ice skates, divorce papers, video tapes, etc. They turned this over to a group of survival experts who decided what the protagonist might be able to do with them: fish net, axe, rope. In a panel discussing the movie, director Robert Zemeckis joked that the final unopened package contained a waterproof, solar-powered satellite phone. This led to a Super Bowl commercial that spoofed the movie, which shows Hanks' character (not played by Hanks in the commercial) making the final delivery of an unopened package to a suburban residence. As he delivers the FedEx box, he says to the recipient "by the way, what was in the box?" to which the female recipient says "nothing much, just a satellite phone, GPS locater, fishing rod, water purifier, and some seeds."
Product placement
Cast Away includes prominent product placement marketing that is worked into the story. Wilson and FedEx were the two major brands advertised in this film.
At the time of the movie's release, Wilson Sporting Goods launched its own joint promotion centered around the fact that one of its products was "co-starring" with Tom Hanks. Wilson manufactured a volleyball with a parody of the hand print face on one side. It was sold for a limited time during the movie's initial release and continues to be offered on the company's website.
The Tennessee Titans of the NFL are also placed in the film. This reference is made when Chuck is talking to Kelly in the kitchen after he returns from the island. Kelly talks about the teams move from Houston, Texas to Nashville, Tennessee as well the team's loss in Super Bowl XXXIV.
Another product placed in the film is the soft drink Dr Pepper, which Chuck is shown drinking on the plane before the crash, and again after his return to civilization.
FedEx reportedly paid nothing for product placement in the movie; though Fred Smith, FedEx's CEO made an appearance as himself as the one to welcome Chuck home. Chuck's "coming-home" scene was also filmed on location at FedEx's home facilities in Memphis, Tennessee. Initially, FedEx Corporation did not like the plane crash scene. The movie increased FedEx's brand awareness in Asia and Europe.
Cast
Reception
The film received several award nominations.
- 73rd Academy Awards: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks), Best Sound
- BAFTA Awards: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks)
- 58th Golden Globe Awards: Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama: For which he won (Tom Hanks)
- Screen Actors Guild: Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks)
- 2001 MTV Movie Awards: Best On-screen Team (Tom Hanks and Wilson)
Lost
Media executive Lloyd Braun of ABC Studios first suggested the idea of a "Cast Away" type series at a dinner party in 2003. Thom Shermann later pitched the idea for Cast Away-The Series but never developed the idea. The basic concept was later developed and pitched with the title Nowhere; which later evolved into the hit ABC show Lost.
Soundtrack
The film's minimal score was composed by Alan Silvestri for which he won a Grammy in 2002. The film's soundtrack is most notable for its lack of score while Chuck is on the island. There is no music at all until he escapes, which is used to resemble the lack of civilization on the island. A pseudo exception to this could be said to be the scene where Tom Hanks' character creates fire, in which he sings "Light My Fire" by The Doors, among others. The tracks for the score are as follows:
- "Cast Away" - 3.44
- "Wilson, I'm Sorry" - 1.39
- "Drive to Kelly's" - 3.54
- "Love of My Life" - 1.47
- "What the Tide Could Bring" - 3.39
- "Crossroads" - 2.08
- "End Credits" - 7.29
However, the official soundtrack CD contained an anthology of musical pieces from all movies directed by Zemeckis and scored by Silvestri. The only track from the actual movie is the track played through the end credits.
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