Armageddon vs Deep Impact

Just finished watching War of the Worlds—the Independence Day version—so I figured I’d throw this out there, especially with all this end-of-the-world doom and gloom making headlines lately..

What’s your take, Bruce or Frodo Baggins? :)

Personally, I think Deep Impact wins. It's more human. Just regular people fighting to stay alive..

Personally, I preferred Hard Hit over Deep Impact.

Maybe you could include more movies centered around the same theme—you know, the end of the world—to set up a proper poll. Throw in titles like 2012, Armageddon, Hard Hit, Core, and the rest so everyone can vote. That way, we’d actually get a clear picture of The State of Things regarding how people here feel about those kinds of disaster movies. (Just a suggestion!)

Susan Nguyen71 said:Maybe you could group more movies with the same theme—you know, like the end of the world—and run a poll? We could throw in stuff like 2012, Armageddon vs Deep Impact, Hard Hit, Core, and things like that so everyone can vote... then we’d actually see the true consensus and what people here really think about those kinds of flicks. (Just a suggestion)

Disaster movie - Movies - Already did that one... 🙂

casualeagle82 said:I watched War of the Worlds—specifically the Independence Day vibe—so I figured I’d post this here, especially since everyone seems obsessed with end-of-the-world theories lately...

What do you think, Bruce or maybe Frodo Baggins? :)

Personally, I find Deep Impact to be the better film—it feels more human, you know? It's really about regular people fighting for their lives...

Just pure Hollywood garbage.🙄

Armageddon is a total masterpiece

Hard Hit is actually a pretty serious film, whereas Armageddon feels more like an action-packed playground. I guess both are fine, but it might be helpful to know which is which.

P.S.: No, it isn't a heavy drama like Schindler's List, but maybe it's the most accurate depiction of a potential comet strike on Earth we've seen so far.

Armageddon vs Deep Impact. Unquestionable.

Daniel Booth37 said:Hard Hit is a serious film

At the beginning, if we are talking about truly weighty cinema, you have to look at movies like Blowup or The State of Things...

Deep Impact is an enjoyable enough film, but unfortunately, Mimi Leader doesn't quite have the range for anything beyond being a solid TV director. It feels like a decent television movie—slightly better acting and production values than your average broadcast, perfectly watchable and competent, but nothing remarkable.

On the other hand, Armageddon is pure trash, and it isn't ashamed of that; in fact, it leans into it with everything it has. From a directorial standpoint, it’s messy, frantic, occasionally kitschy and overly pathetic, frenetic, stylized, and sometimes excessive when it shouldn't be... but it does all of this with a full awareness of its own techniques.

My vote, then—as sacrilegious as it may sound—definitely goes to Armageddon.

casualeagle82 said:given all the current hype regarding the end of the world in one way or another..

If you want a serious and high-quality film on this subject, rather than lemonade or comic book fare, then you should watch The Road.

Watched The Road last night and posted about it in the thread. A few days before that, I caught Book of Eli. My collection currently includes: The Postman, Waterworld, The Day After Tomorrow, Impact (that one with the comet), Armageddon, Deep Impact, and more recently, Eli and The Road. Very few movies have hit me with the level of hopelessness and melancholy found in The Road. If anyone’s seen the remake of On the Beach (the Armand Assante version)—and I haven't seen the original—then you know exactly what I mean. Minus the cannibalism and the gray forests, it’s an incredibly heavy, grueling watch. Saw it back when it first came out; I was younger then. Couldn't shake this specific sense of sadness for days. Everyone who watched it said the same thing: "What kind of torture did you just put us through?" I was depressed for three days straight and couldn't sleep. Anyone who's seen it probably remembers the scene where one of the main characters' families lies down in bed to commit suicide because of the radiation. It's a brutal scene. Right up there with The Road. Compared to those, movies like Armageddon, 2012, or Deep Impact are just mindless popcorn flicks for kids screaming "YAYYYY TSUNAMIIIII!!"

There's a decent amount of indie disaster movies out there dealing with cataclysms that are worth a watch: Supervolcano (it's shot like a pseudo-documentary), that one where the USA splits in two, or the F6 tornado flick—I can't recall the exact titles. One of the more unique ones is Deep Impact, where a white dwarf hits the moon and pulls it toward Earth. The Core is also interesting and pretty original, plus they had a solid cast.

casualeagle82 said:...one of the more original ones was Deep Impact, when that white dwarf hits the moon and pulls it toward Earth...

Original? You mean stupid? 🤣 That whole movie is built on a mountain of nonsense that couldn't happen in outer space—I mean, maybe in a cartoon world, but not here. And for the record, it wasn't a white dwarf, it was a brown dwarf. 😁

casualeagle82 said:, very few films have managed to leave me feeling that level of hopelessness and melancholy.

I assume you haven't seen Threads or Letters from a Dead Man 😁

I prefer Armageddon... at least I got a good laugh out of it!

I just don't get why they didn't send Chuck Norris on the comet in either movie...🤣

Hard Hit, definitely. It captures that raw struggle of ordinary people—the chaos and the sheer confusion—without leaning too hard into the melodrama. Sure, it’s a bit overstuffed, and it probably could have been tighter. For the director, this was likely a massive undertaking that proved to be a bit too much to swallow. I heard they actually brought in scientists to help ground things in reality.
The scenes showing the comet hitting Earth, while not perfectly accurate, are probably the most realistic depictions ever put on film. For instance, the idea of people just standing there watching a comet fall isn't grounded in physics. A plum-sized meteoroid hitting the atmosphere would leave a lasting afterimage in your eyes because of the brightness, similar to a camera flash, let alone a massive chunk like the one in the movie. Plus, anyone within visual range would be scorched by thermal radiation. It would be like being near a hydrogen bomb. Forests, clothing, paper—everything would go up. You can't just head down to the beach to watch the world end unless you're sitting in a bunker behind thick welding glass.
Beyond that, a comet traveling at speeds in the range of 10-12 miles per second would fragment pretty quickly; it wouldn't just enter at a slight angle of maybe 2-3° instead of 45°.
And obviously, no building over half a kilometer wide would survive those shockwaves. It would strip the soil and part of the bedrock right off the surface, let alone take out a skyscraper. Even the USA isn't that tough. 😁
It's a shame the sequences weren't longer. The dread builds up throughout the entire movie, but then the climax hits and passes by way too fast.

All in all, compared to Armageddon vs Deep Impact, this is a much more realistic portrayal. Especially the way it shows how helpless we really are when it comes to destroying a comet. And we truly are. Landing, drilling, and bombing it is basically Mission Impossible.
It feels much more realistic and human. There's more grit and genuine fear. I regret not catching this in theaters; I couldn't make it when it was out in '98.

As for Armageddon, it's total trash. It's an action toy designed to play into that "big American hero" trope, which is something I'm particularly allergic to.
It's bloated with sentimentality, and given how many laws of nature it ignores, it's not really my cup of tea. It's shallow, though I'll admit, it's fun.
Humans aren't more powerful than massive natural phenomena, no matter how good they look in slow motion. We'd die, and all that would be left of our "coolness" is a non-existent smudge.

In short, if you want shallow entertainment, go with Armageddon. If you want a very realistic depiction of chaos (even if imperfectly so) and that heavy sense of helplessness against nature by the end—go with Hard Hit.

I'd love to see a perfectly realistic film made, but that's a utopia. Nobody actually wants to watch reality, because reality is just too brutal.

Armageddon.

Personally, I find Armageddon way more engaging—Deep Impact is just too much melodrama for my taste. Since I tend to find heavy dramas a bit dull, that one didn't really land for me. It lacks the action I look for, too. There’s just endless crying, zero humor, more crying, then that whole bit about him riding a motorcycle to save his girl, then she hasn't seen her father in ages so they go surfing on that massive wave together, then they have their romantic moment, followed by a long, tedious speech from Morgan Freeman... you get the idea. I honestly only sat through it because the title made it sound like the absolute Core of cinema.
Then again, Armageddon isn't exactly my favorite either. Ben Affleck gets on my nerves—I can barely stand watching him. But even so, it's still better than that dreary drama.

Neither one works for me. Both movies are just packed with scientific nonsense and constant contradictions.

So indecisive... I absolutely love movies like this!

I’d say Deep Impact is definitely the better-made movie, but Independence Day is way more fun...

Just two little gripes I had with Deep Impact: I'm just not a huge fan when there are too many kids running around in a film—it can get a bit much—and honestly, that whole subplot where the news reporter starts moping because her dad decided to remarry? It just felt out of place for this kind of story... especially since they end up choosing to go out with the comet instead...