Projects » Deep Impact

Production Year: 1998
Directed by: Mimi Leder
Genre: Drama / Sci-Fi / Thriller
Tagline: Heaven and Earth are about to collide.
Rating: 5.9/10 (23,835 votes)
Runtime: 120 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Certification: Argentina:13 / Australia:M / Belgium:KT / Chile:TE / Finland:K-12 / France:U / Germany:12 (w) / Hong Kong:IIA / Mexico:A / Netherlands:12 / Norway:11 / Portugal:M/12 / Singapore:PG / South Korea:12 / Sweden:11 / Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) / Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) / UK:12 / USA:PG-13

Plot Outline: A teenage astronomer and his teacher discover an object amongst the stars at night. Little do they know that it's a comet on a direct collision course for earth. After the teacher dies in a car crash trying to report his findings the President announces the comet's existence. He also states that there is no need to panic, because NASA is going to send astronauts on the space mission, Messiah. Their mission is to destroy the comet before it gets too close to the earth. When Messiah backfires, the President announces that special caves will have to be built, and the government will have to have a lottery-of-fate to randomly select 800,000 ordinary American citizens to go along with 200,000 scientists, soldiers, and other officials. These 1,000,000 people will be set aside to save the population from extinction when the comet hits.

Awards

Deep Impact won 5 awards and received another 7 nominations.

ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards 1999 - WON
Top Box Office Films, James Horner.
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA 1999 - Nominated
Saturn Award, Best Science Fiction Film.
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards 1999 - Nominated
Favorite Actor - Sci-Fi, Robert Duvall.
Favorite Actor - Sci-Fi, Morgan Freeman.
Favorite Actress - Sci-Fi, Téa Leoni.
Favorite Supporting Actress - Action/Adventure, Vanessa Redgrave.
Favorite Supporting Actor - Sci-Fi, Elijah Wood.
Bogey Awards, Germany 1998 - WON
Boogey Award, Silver.
Golden Screen, Germany 1998 - WON
Golden Screen.
Image Awards 1999 - WON
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, Morgan Freeman.
Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA 1999 - Nominated
Golden Reel Award - Sound Effects & Foley, unknown.
YoungStar Awards 1998 - WON
Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Drama Film, Elijah Wood.

Cast

Robert Duvall .... Capt. Spurgeon 'Fish' Tanner
Téa Leoni .... Jenny Lerner
Elijah Wood .... Leo Beiderman
Vanessa Redgrave .... Robin Lerner
Morgan Freeman .... President Tom Beck
Maximilian Schell .... Jason Lerner
James Cromwell .... Alan Rittenhouse
Ron Eldard .... Dr. Oren Monash
Jon Favreau .... Dr. Gus Partenza
Laura Innes .... Beth Stanley
Mary McCormack .... Andrea 'Andy' Baker
Richard Schiff .... Don Beiderman
Leelee Sobieski .... Sarah Hotchner Beiderman
Blair Underwood .... Mark Simon
Dougray Scott .... Eric Vennekor

Quotes

Boy: "Hey Leo, now that you're famous you'll get a lot more sex than anyone in your class."
Leo Biederman: "Really?"

Trivia

When Marcus Wolf (Charles Martin Smith) discovers the comet, he is sitting alone and eating a pizza, exactly as his character was doing in Starman (1984) when notified of the alien craft's landing.
When Jenny Lerner is looking up "ELE" on the Internet, the ad banners on the right-hand side of the screen foreshadow the tidal wave at the end of the film: "The Wave of the Future", "You've got some ocean coming", etc.
When Marcus Wolf (Charles Martin Smith) is trying to send email about the approaching comet, we see the first few entries in his e-mail inbox. Two of the messages are from "cshoemaker arizona.unv", one of which has the subject line "101 Mir jokes". Carolyn Shoemaker and Eugene Shoemaker are well-known comet experts, credited as "comet advisors" to the movie.
After discovering the comet, one of the astronomers is killed in a car accident. This mirrors the real life car accident death (July 18 1997, in outback Australia) of astronomer Eugene Shoemaker, who helped discover the Shoemaker-Levy 9 Comet.
One of the NASA officials in the movie is played by Gerry Griffin, who is a former NASA flight director. Griffin presided over the Apollo 12 mission and later became director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Joshua Colwell, who played one of the NASA officials in mission control, was also a technical advisor on the film.
One of two major asteroid-hitting-Earth movies released during 1998. The other was Armageddon (1998).
The movie begins in the year 1998, where Leo and Sarah's astronomy club is on top of the hills looking at stars and where Dr. Wolf died in a car crash. A year passes, and it's 1999, the year when President Tom Beck announces to the world that a comet would threaten to hit the Earth in one year on August 16. Therefore, the date of the Wolf-Beiderman impact is predicted to occur on 16 August 2000.
A line was editied in the President's press conference scene. President Beck stated "Life will go on, we will prevail." Originally, President Beck said "Life will go on, we will prevail...THIS IS NOT ARMAGEDDON!" The producers later realized that the movie was going to be in box office competition with the movie Armageddon (1998).
During the school assembly, one student makes the observation "You're going to be having sex a lot more often!" to Leo Biederman. This line was improvised by the young actor, and the reactions from the other students are genuine.
The motorcycle that Leo rides at the end of the movie is a 1997 Yamaha XT225.
The traffic jam scene was filmed on a highway in northern Virginia that was under construction at the time. The roughly 1,800 vehicles used in the scene came mostly from volunteers from the Washington D.C. suburb of Manassas, Virginia.

Goofs

Factual errors: The activity on the surface of the comet raises almost instantaneously at local sunrise. This activity should increase gradually.
Factual errors: An impact of this size should also generate an atmospheric pressure wave which would throw people off their feet and even destroy buildings.
Factual errors: People on the ground are shown as watching while the 2km-wide comet fragment passes overhead. The radiant heat from the impactor's passage should have flash-burned them to a crisp immediately and set on fire everything under the impactor's flight path.
Factual errors: Astronomers wouldn't use a white light to read a star map, they'd use a red one.
Factual errors: The message delay was supposedly 20 seconds, this would mean the comet is 3.6 million miles away, which is very close for a comet. The computer models show that the comet never gets anywhere near this close to the earth until just hours before impact.
Audio/visual unsynchronized: The cheering-crowd sounds in the final shot do not match the visual of the crowd, which is standing still and impassive.
Errors in geography: The giant wave that destroys New York City is going in the wrong direction When it hits Washington Square Park. (The Washington Square arch is actually on the uptown side of the park, while the wave should be coming from farther downtown. But it makes for a nicer shot that way.)
Errors in geography: The impact off Cape Hatteras forms a tsunami that we are told washes inland as far as the Ohio River valley. Given what we are told about its height, it actually could reach no farther than the Appalachian Mountains. If any part of the tsunami reached the land north or south of the mountains, either by a direct route across land or by diffraction around the end of Florida and then moving north, it would be too attenuated by this to continue as far as the Ohio River.
Plot holes: More than a year before the secret of the comet is revealed, it is indicated as having magnitude 2.6 and then being located near the Big Dipper. It would be easily visible to the naked eye every night from most of the Northern Hemisphere and hence could not be kept secret. Even a less bright comet could hardly be kept secret, since amateur astronomers are always searching for them.
Factual errors: The comets' tails are shown behind the heads of the comets as they moves away from the sun toward the Earth (as if they were trailing behind them like a wake). In fact, a comet's tail always points away from the sun and they should have been pointing directly at the Earth.
Continuity: Stuart Caley takes off his glasses twice at the end of a budget meeting.
Revealing mistakes: The strong wind that ripples Jenny Lerner's hair and clothes leaves nearby bushes unaffected.
Continuity: The roads in New York City are completely filled with cars, making it impossible to escape. Yet, when the Brooklyn Bridge comes up, the freeway in the background shows cars moving at a fast pace, barely escaping the wave.
Factual errors: In the beginning of the movie when Marcus Wolf goes to send the eMail, there is an obvious reason why it doesn't work. He tries to connect to a POP (Post office protocol) server. This is what you would do to receive e-mail. He would need to connect to a SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) to send his e-mail.
Factual errors: The 1st comet is due to hit at 4:37pm in August on the Eastern Seaboard, yet when Jenny Lerner walks onto the beach to meet her father her shadow's length shows it much later in the day.
Continuity: When Jenny is being followed across the bridge by the FBI, she is rear-ended twice. But when all the cars pull off onto the ramp, neither Jenny's car nor the FBI car appears damaged in any way.
Errors in geography: Highway mileage sign near end of movie says "Virginia Beaches 6 miles". This is shown in the mountains. The nearest mountain range is nearly 120 miles.
Errors in geography: The Hotchner family (along with the Biederman family) lives in Richmond, Virginia, which is nowhere near the Virginia beaches (which are to the east and southeast of Richmond). For them to be passing a "Virginia Beaches - 6 miles" sign headed westbound implies that they lived at the beach, not in Richmond.
Errors in geography: The wave that hits the Statue of Liberty comes from behind it, which in reality would have been coming from the Jersey City side. The problem is that that the wave would be coming from a northwesterly direction as it is shown. The wave was really supposed to be coming from the southeast. So the wave should have hit the front of the statue instead of the back.
Factual errors: After a press conference, a copy of Newsweek magazine is shown with a glossy, shiny cover. Newsweek's cover is never glossy.
Continuity: When Leo Biederman picks up the motorcycle in the Hotchner's home at the end of the movie, the left-hand mirror is twisted the wrong way; however, when Leo takes off, the mirror is correctly set.
Factual errors: During the final days before impact, when the comet is visible to the naked eye to observers on earth, it is seen both during the day and during the night. This is impossible. For the comet to be visible in the sky during the day, it and the sun would have to be on the same side of the earth. To be visible during the night, the comet would have to be on the opposite side of the earth from the sun. A comet orbiting the sun and approaching the earth could not change its position in this way.