Deep Impact

Deep Impact

A great big rock hits the earth, and lots of people die. That's pretty much all there is to it, and most of that was in the trailer. Can a major Hollywood movie really squeak by with such a slender excuse for a premise? The old disaster-movie king, cheese-meister Irwin Allen (The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake), would have made a kitsch classic out of this, with Charlton Heston, rather than a resigned and mumbly Robert Duvall, as the veteran astronaut who risks several lives trying to blow up the comet that's headed right this way! As stiffly directed by Mimi Leder, this thick slice of ham errs on the side of solemnity. It may the be most earnest end-of-the-world picture since Stanley Kramer's atomic-doom drama On the Beach. There are a couple of classic melodramatic flourishes: an estranged father and daughter who share a tearful reconciliation as a Godzilla-sized tidal wave looms on the horizon; and an astronaut, communicating on video with his loved ones back on Earth, who follows whispered instructions from a buddy lurking just off camera--so that his little boy won't realize that he's been struck blind. With Morgan Freeman as the president of the United States. --David Chute

Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Production: Paramount Pictures
  5 wins & 14 nominations.
 
IMDB:
6.1
Metacritic:
40
Rotten Tomatoes:
45%
PG-13
Year:
1998
120
3,889 Views
Heaven and Earth are about to collide.
Cities fall. Oceans rise. Hope survives.

President Tom Beck:
Hello, America. It is my unhappy duty to report to you that the Messiah has failed. This computer-enhanced radar image from Houston shows how the detonation succeeded, however, did not destroy the comet. There are now two pieces, one six miles wide, the other a mile and a half. Both are still on a path towards Earth. We've lost communication with the Messiah spacecraft although we continue to track it visually. We don't know how many are alive. We don't know their condition. Now we have to make some decisions together. What do we do? You have a choice. We have a choice right now. Ever since the comet was discovered, we've been hoping and working for the best, but we've also been planning for the worst. Our strategy has been twofold: First, our strategic missile command has been coordinating with the Russians a massive strike of Titan missiles to intercept the comets. If we can deflect these comets enough, they will bounce harmlessly off our atmosphere, and head on out into space. Unfortunately, the Titans cannot be launched until the comets are ony a few hours away, and while we are confident the missile attack will succeed, it is only prudent that we now take cautionary steps to ensure the continuation of our way of life, to guarantee that there will be enough of us left to rebuild a new world in the unlikely event that the comets do strike the Earth. So, in the soft limestone of Missouri, we've been preparing a network of immense caves, and they're almost finished. And we can put a million people in them. And that million people can survive there, underground, for two years, until the air clears, and the dust settles. Now the cave is more than a dormitory. It's our new Noah's Ark. We're storing seeds and seedlings, plants, animals, enough to start over. On August 10, a computer will randomly select 800,000 Americans, to join the 200,000 scientists, doctors, engineers, teachers, soldiers and artists who have already been chosen. Other countries are preparing similar caves along whatever lines they feel are best to preserve their way of life. This is ours. Beginning tonight and continuing tonight until the crisis passes, I am declaring a state of martial law. The armed forces and the National Guard are working with local law enforcement. A national curfew begins at midnight tonight. Now wherever you are, go home. Stay off the roads after sunset. Crimes against persons or property will be dealt with swiftly and harshly. News stations around the nation are being faxed copies of the lottery procedure as we speak and they'll be broadcasting the details to you in a few moments.

President Tom Beck:
Our missiles have failed. The comets are still headed for Earth, and there's nothing we can do to stop them. So, this is it. If the world does go on, it will not go on for everyone. We have now been able to calculate the comet's final trajectories, and we have determined where they're going to strike. The smaller of the two comets, Biederman, will hit first, somewhere in the Atlantic Seaboard, probably off the waters of Cape Hatteras, in just under twelve hours, at 4:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time. The impact of the comet is going to be... well, disastrous. There will be a very large tidal wave moving quickly through the Atlantic Ocean. It'll be 100 feet high, travelling at 1,100 miles per hour. That's faster than the speed of sound. As the wave reaches shallow water, it's going to slow down, but the wave height, depending on the shelf off the coast will be anywhere from 1,000 to 3,500 feet high. Where the land is flat, the wave will wash inland, 600 to 700 miles. The wave will hit our nation's capital forty minutes after impact. New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, all will be destroyed. If you have any means of escaping the path of this wave, leave now. The impact of the larger comet will be nothing less than an extinction level event. It will strike land in Western Canada, three hours after Biederman. Within a week, the skies will be dark with dust from the impact and they will stay dark for two years. All plant life will dead within... four weeks. Animal life within... a few months. So, that's it. Good luck to us all.


Share your thoughts on Deep Impact's quotes with the community:

0 Comments

    Quote of the Day Today's Quote | Archive

    Would you like us to send you a FREE inspiring quote delivered to your inbox daily?

    Please enter your email address:

    Citation

    Use the citation below to add this movie page to your bibliography:

    Style:MLAChicagoAPA

    "Deep Impact Quotes." Quotes.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Dec. 2024. <https://www.quotes.net/movies/deep_impact_quotes_2942>.

    Know another quote from Deep Impact?

    Don't let people miss on a great quote from the "Deep Impact" movie - add it here!

    Quiz

    Are you a quotes master?

    »
    Who said: "Just as courage imperils life; fear protects it"?
    A Mahatma Gandhi
    B Ernest Hemingway
    C Leonardo da Vinci
    D George Washington