Totally Pointless Debate: Deep Impact vs. Armageddon

This past weekend, while the rest of the world was out catching rays and riding waves, I mostly stayed indoors and spent some quality time with the television. Quite uncharacteristically, I took in a slew of movies, ranging from the incomparable 2004 ‘instant classic’ Fat Albert, to the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn-Sydney Poitier juggernaut Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, to the Canadian roadtrip film, One Week, starring Joshua Jackson. While all these films were enjoyable in their own ways, two other movies I watched really took my weekend to the next level. Purely through the powers of serendipity, TBS decided to air Deep Impact on Friday night, and on Saturday evening, FX put on that film’s brother-in-arms/eternal archrival Armageddon. These two blockbusters from the summer of 1998 deal with mind-bogglingly similar topics (imminent destruction of the planet by some kind of space rock), and are responsible for creating a zeitgeist for the ‘apocalyptic earth destruction film’ in the late 1990s. I saw both of these films around the time of their release and probably thought they were okay, though I cannot say I've seen either one in the last decade. In an effort to trick myself into believing this was a productive weekend, I figured it would be a useful exercise to compare and contrast some specific elements of these films. While they have a lot in common, it will be interesting to see which has better stood the test of time.

Cast

Deep Impact: Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Morgan Freeman, Mike O’Malley

Armageddon: Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Steve Buscemi, Owen Wilson, Michael Clarke Duncan, voice of Charlton Heston

While both of these films have some undeniable star power, few movies have brought in a haul of big names like Armageddon. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of any of the major actors in that film, but it’s always good to see a bunch of familiar faces, especially when an audience is tasked with coming to terms with the potential end of the world. Though Morgan Freeman’s role of U.S. president in Deep Impact makes this a closer call, Buscemi and Thornton get the job done for Armageddon.

Music

If you like Aerosmith, Armageddon’s the film for you. (I don’t like Aerosmith). “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” still carries with it the haunting chill of awkward middle school dances, so I have attempted to avoid that song at all costs in the ensuing years. The Armageddon soundtrack also features the likes of Journey, Shawn Colvin, Jon Bon Jovi, Our Lady Peace, and ZZ Top. So, yikes. The score for Deep Impact was composed by James Horner, the man behind the music of Titanic, amongst several other big time motion pictures. The music in Deep Impact didn’t have much of an (ahem) impact on me, and the film obviously wasn’t swinging for the fences to create pop chart hits like Armageddon was. But really, simply based on what music was not featured in the movie, Deep Impact gets the win in this category.

Plot

The plots follow generally similar trajectories: we learn an asteroid or comet is headed towards earth and someone decides the best way to avert this disaster is to send people to the space rock and blow it up. The stories take different approaches to the same structural framework though. In Armageddon, we spend an awful lot of time on an oil rig, then an inordinate chunk of the movie dealing with a rag-tag group of oil drillers who must be made into astronauts, then an even longer portion trying to figure out how to implant explosives on the asteroid. I became increasingly impatient as the film refused to move on to the major, important work of actually saving the earth from destruction. There are also only 18 days before the asteroid hits earth when the film begins, which does not seem to be a reasonable amount of time to expect people who have never been to space to try to figure out how to land and to maneuver spacecraft. Couldn’t we have found some astronauts who could handle this work? There is also a lot of joking and light-heartedness while the team prepares for their mission. This cuts the tension a bit, but as someone who ostensibly would have perished had the plan not worked, I kept thinking these folks should have taken their job a bit more seriously.

In Deep Impact, we get several narratives woven together to create the storyline, as we examine how the president, the news media, a space crew, and average Americans digest a dire situation which may lead to the end of the world. Fortunately for humanity, there is much more time to come up with a plan to stop the comet from hitting us than in Armageddon. So it doesn’t seem so far-fetched when the team of assembled astronauts is able to manage the daunting challenge of landing on a comet or when we learn the U.S. government has constructed an enormous bunker in Missouri to save one million people. In Deep Impact, we must deal with several dilemmas—how do we inform the people of this kind of event, who do we try to save from dying, where do we want to spend our last moments alive, etc. This format of following different people opens the door to wider discussion of ethical issues, which makes it easier to overlook glaring implausibilities of the film, like (spoiler alert) when Elijah Wood’s character travels from Missouri to Virginia by motorbike to save a girl from the tidal wave and escapes its wrath by mere inches.   

While much of the screen shots in Armageddon are impressively expansive, the story in that film feels much smaller. You don’t get a good sense of how people on the ground are handling this situation. It’s all about Bruce and Ben fixing the problem and figuring out how to get back home to Liv Tyler—a scenario which is less interesting to me than figuring out how different people would respond to the impending end of human history. The resolution in both films involves sacrifice to save humanity. However, given the stakes, Deep Impact gets things worked out in a more digestible way. In that film, a lot of people die as we are unable to fully stop the comet from striking the Atlantic and creating a massive wave that swallows a great deal of land and people. We lose some key characters along the way, but in the end, Morgan Freeman and the nation vow to rebuild. In Armageddon, at the very last minute, Bruce Willis pulls the trigger, the asteroid explodes, and its constituent pieces manage to miss earth entirely. Sure, it’s a happier ending, but it feels a lot more forced and a lot less realistic than what transpires in Deep Impact. Also of note, Deep Impact accomplishes the feat of saving earth in 30 fewer minutes than Armageddon, which I count as an extremely good thing.

Special Effects

With a budget of $140 million (versus $75 million for Deep Impact), Armageddon easily gets the nod in this category. As should be expected for a Michael Bay film, the shots of the crew in space and the depictions of the asteroid itself are pretty spectacular. The asteroid is oddly beautiful and frightening at the same time, which enhances a film with an otherwise shaky plot. Deep Impact’s best effects occur after the comet hits and the tidal wave crushes Téa Leoni and most of the eastern seaboard. Outside of these shots, though, none of the effects were particularly memorable.

Overall Evaluation 

The fact Paris was the only city (aside from a few boats which were bombarded in Shanghai) destroyed in Armageddon was an insult this Francophile could not forgive. Notwithstanding the incomprehensibly low odds of a piece of rock hitting that exact spot, this occurrence underscores the major issue with Armageddon: this movie is about ensuring Liv Tyler is not forever separated from Ben Affleck, the rest of the world be damned. In Deep Impact, by following different stories of people dealing with the implications of the end of the world, I got a better grasp of what this kind of threat would mean for the planet. Also, I am a big fan of rooting for the underdog, and Armageddon and its massive budget outdid Deep Impact at the box office by more than $200 million. So if I ever find myself in the unlikely position of having to choose one or the other to watch again, it would certainly be Deep Impact. Though I think it’s a safe bet I won’t be tuning in anytime soon—unless an asteroid or comet starts heading this way, and I determine the best course of action is reviewing late 20^th century motion pictures for guidance.