Meteor (1979)

User Rating:

4.7/10   

Director:

Ronald Neame

Writers:

Stanley Mann (screenplay)
Edmund H. North (screenplay)

Release Date:

19 October 1979 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

There's No Place On Earth To Hide!

Plot:

After a collision with a comet, a nearly 8km wide piece of the asteroid "Orpheus" is heading towards Earth...

Plot Keywords:

Satellite | NASA | Comet | Coast Guard | Meteor Threatens Earth

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

US TV Schedule:

Sat. Nov. 14

9:00 AM

SYFY

Cast

Sean Connery	...	Dr. Paul Bradley
Natalie Wood	...	Tatiana Nikolaevna Donskaya
Karl Malden	...	Harry Sherwood, NASA
Brian Keith	...	Dr. Alexei Dubov
Martin Landau	...	Major General Adlon
Trevor Howard	...	Sir Michael Hughes
Richard Dysart	...	Secretary of Defense
Henry Fonda	...	The President
Joseph Campanella	...	Lt. Gen. Easton
Bo Brundin	...	Rolf Manheim
Katherine De Hetre	...	Jan Watson
James G. Richardson	...	Alan Marshall
Roger Robinson	...	Bill Hunter
Michael Zaslow	...	Sam Mason
John McKinney	...	Peter Watson

Runtime:

107 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Russian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo

Certification:

West Germany:12 | Italy:T | Australia:M | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 (1979) | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:PG | Singapore:PG | UK:A (original rating)

Company:

American International Pictures (AIP)

Trivia:

Some of the background radio chatter in the Hercules control room is taken from recordings of Apollo missions.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The sequence in Siberia supposedly takes place during a blizzard (flying snow is matted in over the scene). However, the Siberian man has no snow on his hair or clothes, does not have to fight any wind when walking, and leaves the flap to his hut open when he goes inside - and the smoke coming out of the hut's chimney rises vertically.

Quotes:

Tatiana Donskaya: One day you will come to Moscow and I will show you a clean subway.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in House of Games (1987)

Armageddon It!

As a person who loves disaster movies (in spite of it being a basically flawed genre), I could not hate this movie as much as most people seem to. It is a big budget disaster about a disaster and much about its construction is highly flawed, and yes the acting is mostly weak, and yes the effects are often obvious, and yes that was stock footage, but, BUT, this movie does deliver in one vital department: it blows sh*t up!

I'm sure by now most people are familiar with this as a folly for Sean Connery, and Henry Fonda, and the rest of the all star cast. It pretty much is, but that doesn't mean it isn't somewhat enjoyable. Some of the disaster and action sequences are quite good. And the special effects are really not so terrible for 1979 (not that special effects today are at all convincing by comparison). The score is really something hilarious to behold and the space photography is pretty overwrought (as if the movie were saying "holy crap, dude, look at this awesome spaceship!"). It is kind of neat to see Brian Kieth as a Russian. It's also a bit refreshing to see a movie pose a more plausible solution to meteors that landing a space shuttle full of oil drillers on one. It's also funny that a movie that precedes Reagan's Star Wars Project proposes a far better use for it. Another interesting prophetic note: the first thing destroyed in the USA in this film is the world trade center.

And if you still think this is the worst disaster movie ever, go and watch "Beyond The Posiedon Adventure" or "Raise The Titanic". Hell, even "Earthquake" was pretty damn bad in spite of it's "revolutionary" contribution to cinema. And besides, what other disaster movie has its heroes threatened by sewage? Now, I think that I could have made a better film out of this story, but that doesn't mean we can't watch this version and laugh. And besides, sh*t blows up!