Deep Impact turns 25: Bonus cinematic throwback

1998 was still a summer where we didn't have giant blockbusters every week. They were sparse, and you really looked forward to those few big movies. 

And curiously for that summer, two of the big ones had similar premises: An asteroid is about to hit the earth and something must be done to stop it. 

Now, we will get to Armageddon, which I adore and hold up not only as one of the absolute best 90s summer blockbusters, but one of my favorite films of all time PERIOD. 

But don't short change the first asteroid movie out of the gate short. Deep Impact came out two months earlier, had its own success, and while it hasn't endured quite the same, it's a very well done disaster movie in its own right.

I think the key distinction with Deep Impact and Armageddon (I promise this isn't just a blog of comparisons) is that Deep Impact is a lot more realistic film about what might really happen if this scenario presented itself (well, the whole collaborating with Russia thing is unlikely now). I mean, as realistic as it can be without the asteroid simply killing us all (which would 100% happen). Although Deep Impact does show restraint as to the asteroid size. It wouldn't render the planet uninhabitable permanently. 

After a brief prologue where the asteroid is first discovered, we cut to a year later when it finally becomes public knowledge. In that time, the US and Russia teamed up to build a spacecraft to intercept and destroy the asteroid (as with Armageddon by drilling deep holes in it and dropping nukes in them).

Now, we know that won't get it done. You don't make a big budget asteroid movie and not have an asteroid hit the planet. Plus all the marketing at the time made it no secret that an asteroid hits. People talk about trailers today showing the whole movie? Go look at the long trailer they made for this thing. 

The space mission is a big part of the film's opening hour. But once that falls apart by only blowing the asteroid into 2 pieces, there's the plan B of hiding people inside giant caves the government has carved out (in America, we are told other countries do similar stuff). They can put a million people in there and wait out the fallout for a couple years. And there's a whole subplot where certain characters get picked and some don't, and there's a lottery to pick most of the people. I don't know, in 1998 it seemed logistically possible that the US government could pull this off.

But this also turns much of the 2nd half of the film into a quieter story, really doing a great job of making you wonder how you would function if you knew you were going to die soon. I wish there was even more of this in the film, of how society functions. We get a few TV news glimpses of civil unrest, but it seems most Americans respond with dignity (again, it was 1998).

The space mission that failed comes through with a late save. They're able to blow up the bigger remaining part of the asteroid in a self sacrifice, and so we get a big goodbye sequence where everyone says their farewells to their families. It's manipulative as hell, but I cry every time. It works. 

And the smaller, less world-ending asteroid still hits and we get some of the coolest fx 1998 money could buy. The whole east coast gets wiped out (at least the Yankees are gone). Some old guy who is for some reason sitting on a bench reading the newspaper as a giant tidal wave approaches gets wiped out. A handful of the characters we followed through the film get wiped out. But in general it has a happy, hopeful ending.

I love this film. It is hugely rewatchable, pretty much at any point.

The ensemble cast is mostly very strong. Morgan Freeman, then still very much in his prime, is one of the great movie presidents. In 1998 there was still something novel about having a black president in a movie. Not positive this was the first movie to ever do that, but legend says this helped make the idea of having a black president for real more accepted.

Up in space we've got an excellent Robert Duvall leading the team (including Jon Favreau). 

Back on earth, the teen romance with Elijah Wood and Leelee Sobieski is charming. I really thought Sobieski was going to be a big deal. 

The glaring weak link is Tea Leoni. I have never been able to figure out why she acts the way she does in this movie.

So, Deep Impact. It was directed by Mimi Leder, one of the first examples of a woman directing a big movie like this. But she actually didn't go on to much (a lot of TV I think). Acting wise the biggest names at the time stayed that way. Even James Horner's score got overshadowed by his work on Titanic. 

But I still really love this film. Not as much as Armageddon, but enough to still place it among my favorite disaster movies of all time.