Armageddon vs Deep Impact

Nemesis-G

Recently I been search for early Morgan Freeman movies. Reason? Well let's just say The Shawshank Redemption is too awesome. The book is awesome, so does the movie. If you never see it before, then clearly you are missing a masterpiece. Morgan Freeman is a perfect actor, I love his performance.
So during my search of early Morgan Freeman movies, I accidentally stumbled into a movie called Deep Impact. It's about natural disasters, but a very special one: asteroid impact. I watched it and found nothing special about it, it was just a weak story back by some mediocre effects. So I'm gonna share my experience with you.
The story is simple, and since I'm gonna talk about it, so there will be spoilers. A lot of them.
Basically, a bunch of astronomy students found an uncharted star when they are observing the sky, so they sent a photo to a famous astronomy professor and asked for his help. The professor found this new discovery is actually a comet, and it was somehow threatening, so he copied his calculating result on a floppy disk. However, on his way to the authority (I suppose), he crashed on a truck and killed in accident. One year later, a female journalist accidentally found out the existence of this comet, this resulted to her arrest by the FBI agents, and an unoffical meeting with the current president of the United Empire of America.....in a place seems like an abandoned factory or something. She was just after a scoop, but now she learnt a horrible secret: the comet we saw earlier, is going to crash on Earth. Because of her intervene, the Imperial president has to make his announcement of this event earlier than scheduled. He also announced that there is a plan to save mankind, which is already executing by the time. The plan was to board the giant asteroid and dig holes on it, then nuke devices would be manually inserted into the deep holes, and they will blow the asteroid into pieces. By the way, the discoveror of the astroid was made famous because of the announcement...for some reason. The astronauts successfully boarded the asteroid and digged holes on it, however due to some technical difficulties they missed the correct timing of their escape, this resulted in losing one astronaut and the other one permanently losing his sight. They also lost their transmitter on their way, so the contact with Huston is lost till they are in Earth orbit. The plan did not work out well, as the nukes did not blow up the asteroid as planned, but rather blown it into two pieces, and they are still heading to Earth. So the panic begun and the Imperial government started to select elites of the country and send them to the pre-build underground hide out. The Empire also planned their last chance of getting rid of this asteroid problem by fire thousands of Titan nuke missiles into orbit when the asteroids come close, hopefully blast them into some directions other than Earth. Guess what, it also failed. The small one hit the Pacific ocean and giant tsunami destoryed New York and DC, and the big one is still on its way. By the way, the discoveror of asteroid abandoned his hide out and went for his beloved girl, and they escaped the tsunami together. The space expedition found out that the asteroid is not completely destoryed, so they contacted Huston. After they say good bye to their family, they went on a new mission: since the asteroid is close to the Earth, the sun would have melted most of ice which was covering it, so a giant hole would appear on the asteroid; they will fly in the hole and blow up the asteroid once and for all, but neither do they have enough time to dig holes on it nor do they have enough fuel for the back trip, so it would be a kamikaze mission. They sacraficed themselves and the asteroid was finally destoryed, and Earth was saved.
I found this story is unbelievably weak and it bears an uncanny resemblance to a Bruce Willis movie called Armageddon. In fact, it's the same story! Both movie has a giant asteroid on the way of crashing into earth, both movie used the method of dig into the asteroid and nuke it into pieces, both movie there are astronauts sacraficed for the deed, and also, in both movie the Earth was saved in the last moment. Only difference between them is Armageddon was a blockbuster and Deep Impact fell flat on its face. I would not make comments like "rip off" or "copy cat" or something like that, because both movies came out in 1998. In fact, Deep Impact came out earlier in May 8th, and Armageddon was in theater July 1st. Well, I believe I been building up the crap storm long enough, let's dive in.
First of all, the premise is stupid. Comet does not equall to asteroid for crying out loud, most of the materials in the comet core are ice, dry ice and dust, it basically a "dirty snow ball". This theory has been confirmed in 1985, as the probes caught clear photos of Halley's core. So how can a comet crash be devastating? It would probably be vaporized before it can even go through the atmosphere. The "comet" in the film is obviously an asteroid. However asteroids don't glow, so if it IS an asteroid, those astronomy students would not be able to spot it. Comet or asteroid? Either way, it doesn't make sense.
Secondly, the space expedition is not impressing at all. The whole progress is way too smooth. I'll sum it up for you: They fly, they reach, they get on, they dig, shit happened, one died, one burnt, they get off. Wow, exciting right?  Armageddon has the same plot, see how exciting and breath taking that was! They lost a space shuttle and almost all crews on it just to get on the damn asteroid, and it also turns out that due to the impact of the small asteroid pieces, they completely missed the landing zone and hit the hard rock which is not suitable for drilling. You really feel for those astronauts up there. But in this movie? Well, I suggest you not to blink, or you will miss it.
Thirdly, the subplots went  nowhere. The journalist subplot faintly told a story of how she and her father get back together during the disaster, and died together. It is not very coherent, and honestly the character is not very likeable. She is the typical "media whore" kind of journalist, who would do anything just for a scoop. I don't feel anything for her. The comet discoveror subplot is the real shit here, it has absolute no purpose AT ALL. The only purpose that this character serves was to discover the questionable plot, and after that? What did he contribute to the story? Boy isn't that a million dollar question. I personally believe he is just a waste of time. Maybe the director is trying to give the audiences the impression of "the different reactions of ordinary people when disaster hits", but before you do that, go see Titanic a million times!
Lastly, the build up of the story is just shit. The space crews' connection to their familes was limited into a few minutes just before they blow up themselves, and do I have to mind you that IT WAS TOO WEAK!? Again, refering to Armageddon, see how strong the bond was, especially before Bruce Willis sacrafice himself. The whole asteroid crashing event....well, check The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, Armageddon, or even freaking Godzilla, I bet you will see better reactions. The Imperial president speech is not impressive, nor moving, it was too bland and you will forget it in 5 seconds.
Overall, this movie sucks. Talk about a big let down. Even Morgan Freeman and his coolness could not save it. Oh, you maybe wondering what role did Morgan Freeman played? He was the Imperial president, a character who has just a few lines, and not many shots.   

kirasj

well
after reading the whole story
what i feel most is that i learn a lot of new words

i remember when i was a very little boy
i watched a movie about the asteroid crash the earth
there were some students and an underground building in the movie
maybe what i watched is the Deep Impact
it was long time ago
i can't remember clearly
but i didn't forget the feeling when i watched at that time
perhaps it was the first time i saw a movie about disaster
it gave a deep impression on my little heart
it is a great memory for me

the movie Armageddon i didn't see it
but maybe i saw a little on TV
does that the story end with Bruce Willis left to make the mission complete
and let another young man who is the fiance of Willis' daughter go to the shuttle for escaping
if i misremember that
it may be another movie

Nemesis-G

That is Armageddon, your memory did not trick you.