Mirror mirror on the wall, do you know any two similar movies?

The 1st movie we are going to discuss about Deep Impact.

The poster of the movie Deep Impact (credit to www.impawards.com)

It was released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks in the United States on May 8th 1998. Deep Impact grossed over $349 million worldwide on an $80 million production budget.

The Synopsis

       On May 10, 1998 an amateur astronomer named Leo Bierderman (Elijah Wood) discovers an unusual object, and alerts astronomer Marcus Wolf (Smith) who realizes that the object is a comet on a collision course with Earth. Wolf tries to get the information out but dies in a car accident.

      A year later, a reporter discovers about 'Ellie' which she then she discover Ellie is not a mistress but an acronym : "E.L.E" for "Extinction-Level Event". Because of the investigation, President Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman) advances the announcement of the fact that a comet large enough to cause a mass extinction, and possibly wipe out human existence if it hits earth. Secretly The United States and Russia have been constructing a spacecraft, called Messiah in orbit. The plan to use it to tranport nuclear weapons in an effort to destroy the comet.

      After landing on the planet, the crew members plant the nuclear bombs 100 meters beneath the surface. When the bomb are detonated, the ship is damaged and loses contact with Earth. Instead of being destroyed, the comet splits into two smaller rocks, both world threatening. The president announced the failure of the mission and declares martial law. The US government conducts a lottery to select 800, 000 ordinary Americans aged 50 and under to join 200,000 pre-selected scientist, engineers, teachers, soldiers and official. Leo's families was selected but not Leo's girlfriend Sarah Hotchner (Sobieski). Leo marries Sarah in order to save her, but Sarah's family are mistakenly left off the evacuee list, which leads to Sarah refusing to leave without them.

       The smaller fragment of the comet impacts in the Atlantic Ocean, creating megatsunami. Leo went out of the shelter to save Sarah and her baby brother, which he did.In a last-ditch effort to save Earth, the Messiah crew decides to undertake a suicide mission with the remaining nuclear warheads. The ship reaches the fragment and enters a fissure to blow itself up, which breaks the bigger chunk of the comet into much smaller pieces that burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

The second movie would be Armageddon.

  

The poster of the movie Armageddon (credit to boxofficeboredom.com)

          This movie was released by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution and Touchstone Pictures on July 1st, 1998. Armageddon grossed over $553 million worldwide on an $150 million production budget. 

The Synopsis

          A massive meteor shower destroys the Space Shuttle Atlantis and bombards many cities, NASA discovers that a rogue comet passing trough the asteroid belt and pushed forward a large amount of space debris including a Texas-sized asteroid that will collide with Earth in 18-days.NASA led by Dan Truman (Thornton) plan to bury a nuclear device deep inside the asteroid that will split the asteroid into two and they fly safely past the Earth. NASA contacts Harry Stamper, considered the best deep-sea oil driller in the world, he asked for his team to carry out the mission. Once they have been rounded up and the situation is explained, they agree to help, but only their list of unusual rewards and demands are met.

         Harry and his crew when trough a short and rigorous astronaut training program.NASA reveal its plan to the world and launches two space shuttles named Freedom and Independence after a massive meteor hits Shanghai. The two space shuttle stops at an old Russian space station to refuel their ships. The shuttles makes a narrow escape when a fire breaks out at the space station.Both space shuttles sling shot behind the moon to catch up with the asteroids.Travelling through the asteroid's debris field, Independence's hull is punctured and crashes onto the rock. Grace, Harry's daughter is in distraught by A.J's (her boyfriend) apparent death. 

         Freedom lands safely but misses the target area and landed on the area that is hard to drill but they drilled there anyway. When they fall significantly behind schedule, the military initiates "Secondary Protocol" to remote detonate the nuclear weapon on the asteroid's surface which will not have any effect. The Freedom crew losses their drilling machine, but only to be saved by A.J.arriving in time to complete the drilling. As they finish the drilling, they realized someone have to stay behind and detonate the bomb manually. They draw straws and A.J. was selected. As he and Harry exit the air lock, harry rips off A.J.'s air hose and shoves him back inside, telling him that he would be proud to have him marry Grace. Harry detonates the bomb and Earth was saved by his heroic action.

Conclusion

       Both of this movies was released on the same year, just a couple of month apart. Both movies are about how the world is coming to and end. An asteroid crashing down on Earth and wiping out all living thing on earth is one of the possible ways for the world to end. Although many critics says that Deep Impact is scientifically more accurate than Armageddon, yet Armageddon received higher grossing then Deep Impact. Both movies portraits the characters in the movies as heroic where they are willing to sacrifice themselves in order to save others lives. The major difference between this movies is that in the movie Deep Impact, a small part of the asteroid did fall onto the earth and did some damage, rather than Armageddon, the asteroids was split into two and did not hit earth.