Some nits for "Deep Impact"

After the first attempt of the Messiah failed, all nuclear missiles are sent to the two parts of the comet. I wonder why they do NOTHING to the comets. (They should at least bomb them into a few more fragments.) After this "effect" I wonder why only FOUR bombs smash the bigger comet into peaces not bigger than a suitcase.

Why don't they use H-Bombs to smash the comet?

What, the Messiah doesn't have enough fuel to do two landing operations on the comet??

The impact is shown in a GREAT sequence! But I wonder... I suggest, that the impact releases the energy of 1000 or more nukes, but where is the (hot!?!) shockwave? I see only some wind.

A major impact causes an earthquake with a magnitude somewhere between 10 and 12, even if the comet hits the ocean. I don't think, that the Statue of Liberty would surwive it.

I suggest that the (destroyed) bigger comet will cause some sort of "nuclear winter". It brings a great amount of dust into the upper atmosphere!

I just got this movie oin video yesterday, and I have to
say that it was very well done, and the acting was wonderful.
While this movie isn't as heavy on the action as Armegeddon was,
it seemed far more realistic, and wasn't grossly overhyped Kudos
to the producers!


I do have a couple nits:

(SPOILER ALERT! SCROLL TO SEE NITS)


When Leo Beiderman came back for the motor bike, how come a dog
was left in the house trapped(?) behind a pile of furniture? This seemed
very cruel.

When the wave rushes down the highway, you can see cars flipping as
it barrels over them. Most of cars that were flipping were painted white
and appeared to the same design (A very minor nit, or course, but
worth mentioning

Why weren't the astronauts given the codes for all of the nukes to begin with,
knowing that the ship was very likely going to take heavy damage, and
radio contact could be lost completely? Infact, the crew wasn't able to raise
Huston to get the codes untill shortly before they flew into the comet.

>When Leo Beiderman came back for the motor bike, how come a dog
>was left in the house trapped(?) behind a pile of furniture? This
>seemed very cruel.


Maybe they couldn't take him with them, and he he wouldn't
have had a chance anyway? Could a dog like that
get scared and start mauling people?

People running up the hill to avoid the wave. The wave would most likely be travelling at several hundred miles per hour. If it is that close, it's very unlikely that people would be able to outrun it.

Note: The "World's fastest man" runs at approximately 10 m/s, which is 36000 m/hour, or 36 km/h (or just over 22 mph). And that's over a sprint.

ScottN: The wave would most likely be travelling at several hundred miles per hour.

Luigi Novi: Yeah, I recall that the President (Morgan Freeman) stated in his speech to the country that it would be travelling faster than the speed of sound.

When the World Trade Center collapsed and downtown Manhattan was blocked off for weeks, much was made of people looking for the abandoned pets of the people killed and displaced in this horrible disaster.
When I saw this in theaters in May, 1998, I had no idea who Laura Innes was, as I was then unfamiliar with "E.R." and her character in that series. This pic's director, Mimi Leder, is a former "E.R." producer. Also, check out former "Hill Street Blues" star Bruce Weitz.
I find it upsetting that a young man's wife (even though she was very young, like the Leelee Sobieski character) would choose her family over her husband. Also, Maximillian Schell's wife left him to go back to her mother.
I had also heard that the story had been around since the big wave of disaster pics in the '70's.

I find it upsetting that a young man's wife (even though she was very young, like the Leelee Sobieski character) would choose her family over her husband.
Luigi Novi: Which character were you referring to, Adam?

I worded my post very poorly. I believe that when two people marry, they should stay by each other's side. The Leelee Sobieski character chose to stay with her family, rather than her husband, during the crisis.
Maybe Leelee (who looks more like Helen Hunt as she gets older) is the child of Data's fling with Tasha Yar.

Speaking of pets, a couple winters ago a train made up of several propane-filled tank cars derailed and caught fire in a small Wisconsin town, threatening that town with destruction if they exploded. The townspeople were evacuated, but unaware of the extent of the damage (nor the potential for more), left their pets at home. After several days, due to overwhelming public concern, the National Guard assisted some of the townspeople in an operation that came to be known as "Operation Pet Rescue." Armored personnel carriers and troops were utilized to rush small groups of citizens to their homes to evac the stranded pets.
The fires were finally brought under control (and hazmat teams gave the all-clear), by which time the people had been displaced for a few weeks. So if you ever need to evacuate (due to meteors, train derailments or whatever), take your pets with you...you don't know when you might be able to come back for them.

I see I'm not the only person who thinks Leelee Sobieski looks like a young Helen Hunt...I wonder if she gets tired of people making that comparison.

I realize that there were time constraints, and perhaps there is such a thing as showing too much destruction in a disaster film (yeah, right!), but couldn't they have shown a couple cities on the other side of the Atlantic getting inundated, at least for a few seconds? Just to show that this was a GLOBAL calamity, not just an American one.

"Armageddon" covered that one, Craig.
Director Mimi Leder has come a long way - in the mid '80's, she was a script (not SCPIPT, John Lang - the Hill got it right) supervisor on "Hill Street Blues."

I preferred Armaggedon, I just couldn't feel anything for the characters in this film.

However, I will reserve judgement and try it again. Sometimes a film or book improves with a second viewing and is dependant on the mood you are in at the time.

Saw this one last night and a couple of nits are obvious.

Did anyone else find themselves rolling their eyes at the scene at the deep shelter when they're bring elephants, monkeys, and flamingos in? To be blunt this would not happen in a real world situation. The only creatures that would go in such a shelter would be those that could be eaten or would be necessary for restarting the growth cycle of plants afterwards given the limited space and limited supply of fodder that would be involved. And you couldn't cater to the food needs of a wide array of animals, such as(to use the example from the film) the kinds of insects and so forth a flamingo eats.

Apparently the US government in the movie is run by idiots, and the general public ain't too hot in the brains department either. They have weeks of warning, yet the coastal cities aren't evacuated, and seemingly no one thinks to leave them. Instead everyone sits around literally until the last minute, hence ensuring lots of folks get killed. Obviously in such a scenario lots of folks wouldn't leave their homes, but one would think that the majority, given the chance, would. One can only wonder what will happen to Morgan Freeman's president character when folks finally get it thru their thick skulls that if some attempt had been made to evacuate the coast more people would have made it.

On the other hand the film does deserve credit for actually having Tea Leoni's character survive.

Oops, that should be "for actually having Tea Leoni's character not survive."

I never understood this movie's title. There's nothing profoundly philosophical about the impact the comet makes when it hits.

I think it was meant for the depth of the impact craer the comet makes when it hits. As in deep big hole in the ground.

Um....I was joking, Eve.

I really used to enjoy rewatching this film. Since 9/11, the scenes of New York's destruction have a very unsettling feel to them. In particular, the scenes of the tidal wave hitting the World Trade Center. Ironically, the Towers are depicted as the one thing that survives the tidal wave.
Wasn't the wave supposed to be going hundreds of miles per hour? At that speed, I don't think the Twin Towers or the Capital would be left standing.

If I recall correctly, in this film, one of the twin towers was knocked askew by the wave (seen as the waters pass further inland).

Also, check out former "Hill Street Blues" star Bruce Weitz.

I didn't know till listening to Mimi Leder's audio commentary last week that Bruce was that man sitting on a bench in the town square (or wherever) who seems unaware of people running around him and then of course he gets swept away by the waves pouring through the city. I always just thought that that was an old man (whether CGI or real), not Weitz himself, whose character, Stuart Caley, I'd always assumed was somehow able to get outta town and lived.

I also learned from Mimi's commentary that the little girl who played Jamie Cromwell's daughter, Holly, was Mimi's very own daughter, Hannah, who was 10 at the time.

I forgot to mention that also that in her audio commentary Leder said something about how creepy it was to watch the destruction of New York again in this film after the events of 9-11.

This movie is playing on the Showtime channels this month, and "On-Demand" as well.
Jennnie's Saab takes a nice whack on the back bumper from the Secret Service (or FBI) car, yet remains undamaged.

During the end of the Movie the new station is evacuating and they have prepared a helicopter, they are escorting Jenny Lerner on board and she suddenly runs over and snatches up Beth's baby and runs for the helicopter, all the while Beth chases her in a fit to get her daughter back, we learn at the end this is a ploy because Jenny wanted Beth and her Daughter to both get on the helicopter and fly to safety. From the beginning this felt wrong to me, If I thought the end was coming and there was no way for me to escape I certainly wouldn't want to doom my child to the same fate. In Beth's situation I think I would have watched her take my daughter and been overwhelmed with gratitude that this woman who's careen I had been stepping on was saving my daughter for me.

This movie is the closest I've seen to a real treatment of "what if a celestial body threatened to hit?" (I"m still waiting for "Lucifer's Hammer" to be made into a miniseries!)

My biggest nit has to to with the Biedermans and their neighbors trying to escape Virginia Beach. As the small piece strikes the Atlantic, we see the Hotchners on the highway and apparently near a sign that reads "Virginia Beach 6 mi." Leo and Sarah hadn't left that long ago, so there's no way they could have gotten from the Newport News area to the Appalachian Mountains (the only geography high enough that a tsunami a 1/2 mile tall wouldn't roll over) in the time given.

And don't get me started on how that highway bore no passing resemblance to anything, anywhere near Va. Beach, Newport News, Williamsburg, Richmond or Charlottesville.

I"m still waiting for "Lucifer's Hammer" to be made into a miniseries!

Ooh, add me to that list! One of the best 'end of the world' books I've ever read.

Me three.

I bought the DVD at Wal-Mart last week. Kind of impulsively; it was only five bucks, so what the heck? The DVD has only a plain battleship gray label, just like all recent Paramount DVD releases. Including 2009's Star Trek. Which cost me a lot more than five bucks.

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I also learned from Mimi's commentary that the little girl who played Jamie Cromwell's daughter, Holly, was Mimi's very own daughter, Hannah, who was 10 at the time.

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Adam Bomb: I find it upsetting that a young man's wife (even though she was very young, like the Leelee Sobieski character) would choose her family over her husband.

(10 years later)

Adam I do see your point. But don't forget that their marriage was just an "on paper" thing that they did so that she and her family could join his family in the shelter.

The movie had it's moments but I felt that much of Tea Leonie's subplot about her family was dumb. The world's going to end so she decides that the best thing to do is to try and get her Dad to leave his new wife and get back with her mother. She's an adult professional woman & her plot seems more in tune with an "After School Special."

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But don't forget that their marriage was just an "on paper" thing that they did so that she and her family could join his family in the shelter.

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When Leo Beiderman came back for the motor bike, how come a dog was left in the house trapped(?) behind a pile of furniture? This seemed very cruel.

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The Agony Booth has posted a "Movie Duel", comparing this with Armageddon, here.

Armageddon isn’t just dumb, it’s fractally dumb: every scene is exactly as dumb as the entire movie.

I have never seen a better one sentence summary of a movie.

Francois, why is the movie
Armageddon dumb compared to
Deep Impact, they both have Similar themes, and came out around the same time, I think Armageddon was more of a blockbuster, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_(1998_film)

Armageddon is pure mindless action trash, bravado porn, idiotic storyline, non existent character development, dialogue (ahem!) heavily laces with profanity and laughable "science" that makes the Flat Earth theory sound like nobel prize material. Deep impact, though not perfect itself, is far more thoughtful, well scripted and respectful of what such an event would actually be like in reality. Comparing the two movies on the basis of their theme is like comparing Plan 9 From Outer Space with 1953 War of the Worlds because both deal with aliens invading Earth.