Armageddon (1998)

Similar to “Meteor,” in this one NASA hires an oil rig driller (!) played by Bruce Willis (The Fifth Element) to lead a team on the Space Shuttle to go out and set a nuclear weapon on an asteroid headed toward Earth. Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Keith David, Owen Wilson, opening narration by Charlton Heston. When this one came out, the real NASA announced that the plot wouldn’t work in real life because all the smaller pieces of the asteroid or meteor would hit the Earth like a giant shotgun blast, causing even more damage. Billy Bob Thornton later starred in “The Astronaut Farmer.”

Meteor (1979)

First in the modern space-disaster movie genre was “Meteor” (1979), which was also last of the great disaster movies of the 1970s. A comet collides with a five-mile wide asteroid, killing the three astronauts on Challenger 2, on its way to Mars. The giant rock is now headed for Earth but fortunately Sean Connery invented Hercules for just such a situation five years ago, a space platform in orbit with nuclear ICBMs on board. A wild-eyed general (Martin Landau) turned it around and aimed it at Russia or China, but the President (Henry Fonda) orders it turned back outward and announces to the world that the Russians have one and will do the same with theirs. Brien Keith plays Connery’s counterpart from Russia, and Natalie Wood (Brainstorm) is in it. A big chunk wipes out New York, covering Connery and the rest of the cast with sewer water while they’re trying to escape in a subway.

Not a bad movie, but by 1979 people were tired of disaster movies. American International, known for low-budget drive-in movies, spent $20,000,000 plus another six mil for promotion, but it wasn’t as profitable as their “Viking Women & the Sea Serpent” or The Thing With 2 Heads. It was co-produced by Warner Brothers Europe and Hong Kong’s Sir Run Run Shaw, better known for making countless kung-fu movies. Promos said it was suggested by an Isaac Asimov magazine article, in which he said a meteor could hit Earth, but Asimov had nothing to do with this story. Special effects by Glen Robinson, who had previously destroyed Los Angeles in Earthquake, and directed by Ronald Neame of 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure. Earlier such movies were The Comet (1910), La Fin Du Monde (1931) and When Worlds Collide (1951). That last one was a hit for scifi/fantasy producer George Pal after Cecil B. de Mille turned it down in the 1930s.

“When Worlds Collide” is the one where dying star Bellus (glowing orange) is headed toward Earth so scientists build a giant space ark before giant tidal waves destroy New York. A bit talky for the first hour but the remaining half-hour won Gordon Jennings a special effects Oscar. By the way, “The Meteor” was an early title for It Came From Outer Space. There was a semi-sequel to “The Comet” in 1916, “The Comet’s Comeback” based on H.G. Wells’ “In The Days Of The Comet,” in which Earth passes through the tail of a comet and it slows down Earth’s rotation.