Worst Case Scenario

Imagine, if you can, a worldwide crisis that touches the lives of everyone on the planet, a time when “we will all entertain our deepest fears and concerns.” Sound familiar? Before the global pandemic of 2020, we needed to suspend our disbelief and use our imaginations to feel the Deep Impact (1998) of this prescient and intelligently produced disaster film. Now, a much smaller leap of faith is required to resonate with this gripping story.

The disruptive effects of an extinction level event (ELE) upon the collective psyche and societal structure as we know it are explored in director Mimi Leder’s exhilarating and thought-provoking  adventure.

Made the same year as the more action-heavy, cartoonlike Armegeddon starring Bruce Willis, Deep Impact delves beneath the surface details to explore the nuances of the human experience under the duress of a global catastrophe.

Tea Leoni as Jenny Lerner

Many of the storytelling devices here will be recycled in future disaster epics including The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, albeit with less thoughtful social commentary.

The gravitasse of legendary actors like Vanessa Redgrave (Camelot, Julia) Maximilian Schell (Judgment at Nuremberg) Robert Duvall (The Godfather), and Morgan Freeman (The Shawshank Redemption, Driving Miss Daisy) adds to the all-star epic feel that subtly evokes those old Irwin Allen classics like The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno.

Elijah Wood as Leo Biederman

But the story is largely propelled by a cast led by then-newcomers including Tea Leoni (Spanglish, Fun with Dick and Jane), Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings), Lee Lee Sobieski (Eyes Wide Shut), Ron Eldard (E/R, Blackhawk Down), Blair Underwood (Quantico) and John Favreau (Swingers, Chef),  and ably supported by fine actors including Laura Innes (E/R), James Cromwell (Six Feet Under, Angels in America) and Dougray Scott (in a tiny early role as an MSNBC cameraman).

Ron Eldard as Oren Monash

Before the backdrop of impending calamity, we see our all-star cast go about their busy, fast-paced lives—teenagers come of age, ambitious go-getters try to get ahead in their careers, corporations attempt to conduct business as usual—as an omniscient media shapes the narrative for maximum dramatic effect.

Tea Leoni is Jenny Lerner, an ambitious MSNBC news employee who works under self-absorbed MSNBC anchor Beth Stanley (Innes) who fears Jenny is trying to usurp her position in front of the camera.  As Jenny, Leoni has some unforgettable moments, including the All About Eve-like tension with Innes; her terrified gulping of a martini right after she learns of the ELE; her shocked and numbed reaction at the suicide of her mother (Redgrave); her touching last reel reconciliation with her estranged father (Schell). It is Jenny who discovers the government coverup of the impending disaster and becomes an international news celebrity.

Robert Duvall as Spurgeon "Fish" Tanner

Freeman is iconically cast as President Tom Beck, our first African American commander in chief a decade before Obama, exuding cool, calm and compassionate leadership in the face of intense adversity. (Small wonder that Freeman, with his sonorous voice, soulful yet stalwart demeanor and imposing physicality, was also perfectly cast in the role of God Almighty. )

Laura Innes as Beth Stanley

When young high schooler Leo Biederman (Wood) and his classmate and girlfriend Sarah (Sobieski) discover a new celestial body in the night sky, Leo emails images and coordinates to the scientist who visited their astrononomy club, Dr. Wolf (an uncredited Charles Martin Smith) who confirms the unthinkable: The comet is a collision course with earth.

Morgan Freeman as President Tom Beck

The President, pressured by Jenny Lerner’s insistent probings, finally sounds the alarm and unveils a plan to deploy nuclear weapons on the face of the enormous meteor and introduces the team of astronauts who will undertake the task.

Ron Eldard is perfect as Oren Monash, the brash and arrogant young commander who feels that the veteran elder astronaut Spurgeon “Fish” Tanner (Robert Duvall), who walked on the moon decades ago, is stealing his thunder and undermining his authority.

Maximilian Schell as Jason Lerner

Vanessa Redgrave as Robin Lerner

Even in the midst of unimaginable events, the characters react as a generation raised by television, and the film contains wry observations and commentary about fame and success. “The best thing about being a celebrity is that you have a lot of sex,” Wood’s character is told, while the young and attractive group of astronauts chosen for the rescue effort (including Eldard, Favreau, Underwood, and Mary McCormack) are “not scared of dying; they’re scared of not looking good on TV.”

Leo and Sarah (Lee Lee Sobieski)

The media itself, represented here by real-life network MSNBC, is a pivotal character in the story as well. How the news business uses facts and figures to craft the story and shape the public narrative is vividly illustrated. Despite the threat of extinction itself, the relentless news machine focuses chiefly on ratings and marketing tactics. “I need graphics,” screams a producer, and the newly branded MSNBC  “Earth Rescue” news report soon features a digital rendering of the comet on a collision course with earth that will “scare the shit out of people.”

Favreau, McCormack, Aleksandr Baluev, Eldard, Duvall and Underwood

To preserve “our way of life,” the existence of a vast underground bunker system (obviously having been constructed years before!) is now revealed to the public if, by some chance, the mission does not succeed.

Fame and privilege will enhance the odds of survival for notables are “preselected” for the underground caves, while the rest of the population are subjected to a nationwide lottery for those sought-after spaces in the “new Noah’s Ark.” But it’s survival of the fittest, as no one over the age of 50 will be eligible for the lottery, and millions must face the chilling realization that they will not survive the disaster.

"There will be no looting..."

"Our mission has failed...

Despite their valiant attempt to destroy the comet, the rescue mission fails, splitting the space rock into two projectiles still aimed at Earth. The astronauts decide to sacrifice their lives to save the planet by flying into the larger meteor and detonating the rest of their nukes. “Look at the the bright side,” comments McCormack matter-of-factly. “We’ll all have high schools named after us.”

As the smaller asteroid hits our planet, a tidal wave engulfs the New York skyline including the twin towers, a reminder that this is a pre 9/11 film. The special effects are quite impressive for the late 1990s (thank you, executive producer Steven Spielberg).

But it’s the characters we care about, and there are many touching and affecting moments as annihilation looms large.

Badly injured, blinded, and seeing things differently, Oren has a lovely and quiet scene with Fish where the two men bond in a moment of solidarity and friendship, as Tanner sits beside Monash reading Moby Dick aloud. Later, the astronauts bid tearful goodbyes to their loved ones via satellite before sacrificing themselves for the greater good.

Jenny gives up her chance at survival with an unselfish act, letting her coworker Beth and her young daughter board the helicopter to take her place in the Ark—and reunites with her estranged father (Schell) as the wall of water overcomes them both. Sarah’s parents entrust the care of their newborn baby to the teenagers and embrace as the flood waters overcome them.

The astronauts’ sacrifice turns out to be well worth it, as the larger asteroid is destroyed and humanity is given one more chance. The rebuilding begins…

The special effects were not bad for 1998!

Exploring some deeper undercurrents—from government secrecy, the role of the media, facing our own mortality and getting our personal priorities straight— beneath the obvious and superficial triumph-over-adversity disaster movie tropes, Deep Impact has always provided food for thought for viewers, and its message is as relevant today as when it was made more than two decades ago. Maybe even more so…

Thanks to Dubsism and my friend Quiggy at The Midnite Drive-In for hosting the Disaster Blogathon! I look forward to reading everyone’s posts and sharing ideas regarding one of my favorite film genres.

An Ode To Urban Paranoia

I’m usually not a huge fan of remakes, but Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) is a notable exception—I find it even more engrossing and entertaining than the original. This retelling of the classic 1956 sci-fi chiller, given a stylish and sophisticated treatment by director Philip Kaufman, provides a time capsule into the late 1970s, but its themes of urban angst and conspiracy are just as valid today.

Spores travel through outer space, pushed on by the solar winds, forming a gelatinous oozing substance and spawning strange flowers from pods feeding on existing flora. A humanlike life form develops from the sweet-smelling flowers, the pods giving birth to human duplicates who suck the life from their progenitors. The pods’ rapid widespread growth, due to cross pollination with other species (including humans!), allows them to take over an entire city virtually overnight.

In the 1970s, aptly nicknamed The Me Decade, loss of identity is the ultimate dread. Assimilation into the hive mind of the establishment is a devastating blow to the children of love and self expression in the newly dawning Age of Aquarius. (Here, the concept of “flower power” is literally turned on its head.)

Donald Sutherland as Matthew Bennell

In the post-hippie, pre-yuppie era of the late 1970s, urban society displayed a preoccupation with the self-help movement (“I’m OK, you’re OK”), an urgent new interest in ecology and environmental concerns, and a collective fear of becoming less human, less individualistic, and succumbing to unbridled capitalism and totalitarianism.

But this film also promotes the invaders’ point of view —that we humans have nearly destroyed our home planet through our mismanagement, and the newcomers who take over will do better. 

The atmospheric production design creates an eerie visual and aural landscape upon which the film’s themes are played out. Dizzyingly crooked camera angles are amplified by the city of San Francisco’s famously steep and hilly terrain, creating an off-kilter reality. There is an homage to film noir with the camera lingering in dark hallways, revealing frightened faces at windows and strange things lurking in the shadows. 

Brooke Adams as Elizabeth Driscoll

The innovative sound design, with unsettling screeching, squealing, crackling, rasping and wheezing effects, enhances the terrifying scenes of the birth of the simulacrums from the bulbous space pods.

The film unfolds in a leisurely fashion, depicting everyday life in the late ’70s city by the Bay, but the normalcy is punctuated by a palpable tension. It’s an elegant buildup of paranoiac suspense as quiet dread gives way to sudden explosions of terror. The vacuous city dwellers in the background are undergoing a crisis we are not privy to. Brief moments of panic subside, resulting in blank faces and business as usual.  

The story is told through a group of compellingly flawed and engaging characters, portrayed by a powerhouse cast. 

Leonard Nimoy as Dr. David Kibner

Prolific Donald Sutherland, who is still working steadily today after over five decades in the business and must have more acting credits than any living actor (On TV, flipping channels, you may glimpse him in fare as wide and varied as 1965’s Die Die My Darling to 2014’s Hunger Games: Mockingjay, with iconic portrayals in films like Don’t Look Now, Klute and Ordinary People in between), is our quirky protagonist here.

As Department of Health restaurant inspector Matthew Bennell, a curly-haired Sutherland strides the crooked San Francisco streets in a flapping trenchcoat, in search of rat turds in the kitchens of fine restaurants and pining for his lovely coworker, scientist Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams).

Jeff Goldblum as Jack Bellicec

Adams, a throaty-voiced beauty and one one of the most intelligent actresses of the decade (she basically gave up her career to raise a family with husband Tony Shalhoub), gives an equally strong performance as the shaken Elizabeth, who discovers that her live-in dentist boyfriend Jeffrey (the handsome Art Hindle) is definitely not quite himself lately. 

Jeffrey is one of many undergoing the same personality change all over the city—a transformation into a cold and emotionless automaton, exhibiting somnambulistic behavior and rendezvousing with strangers for mysterious meetings.

Veronica Cartwright as Nancy Bellicec

Leonard Nimoy is Dr. David Kibner, self help guru and celebrity psychiatrist who calms the cresting fear epidemic in the city, explaining away the furor with '70s pop psychobabble—people fearing they are becoming less human and shutting their feelings off; it’s a “hallucination flu” going around that will all blow over in a day or two.

Smug and all-knowing and holier than thou, Nimoy’s elegantly villainous Kibner is an arrogant prick who’s even more logical and less empathetic than Mr. Spock! 

Art Hindle as Jeffrey

At the Bellicec Mud Baths, Matthew’s friends—neurotic, frustrated writer Jack Bellicec (perfectly played by a young Jeff Goldblum) and his free-thinking wife Nancy (Veronica Cartwright of Alien) find an undeveloped body covered in the telltale gelatinous substance. (The unformed creature is tall, the same height as 6’4” Goldblum!)

How does your garden grow?

The transformations from human to alien are unforgettably and terrifyingly portrayed: The grasping tendrils attach themselves to sleeping humans and siphon off their life force to fuel the new life forms. Garbage trucks full of strange cobwebby debris roll through the streets, picking up what’s left of the human race. The scene where Elizabeth’s body disintegrates completely as her essence is assimilated by the invader is particularly vivid.

Fighting to stay awake, the group attempts to blend in with the invaders, showing no emotion. But resistance is futile, to quote the Borgs of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Eventually exhaustion gives way to acquiescence.

Nimoy reassures a terrified Leila Goldoni

“You’re evolving into a new life form,” intones Nimoy’s Kibner gravely, “Born again into an untroubled world, free of anxiety and pain—and love.”

Paranoia pervades as Matthew and company uncover what’s actually happening. When Matthew dials the operator to alert the police and the disembodied addresses him as “Mr. Bennell,” he is aghast: “How do you know my name?” Panic ensues when the group’s wild conspiracy theories prove all too true. 

It's all too much for Nancy

Darkly comedic moments leaven the feverish proceedings: Cartwright’s Nancy is particularly hilarious, especially while pulling a morbidly obese man out of the mud bath and giving him a rubdown; as well as warning Goldblum to steer clear of his unformed double (“Don’t touch it, Jack…you don’t know where it’s been!”).

The battle of the individual vs. society depicted here is just as relevant today, as progress and technology and media attempt to put society on the same wavelength,  promoting cookie-cutter conformity while giving lip service to diversity.

If you’re a big fan of dystopian conspiracy classics like Soylent Green and John Carpenter’s They Live, as I am, I believe you’ll truly appreciate Invasion of the Body Snatchers. (I recommend skipping the subsequent retreads from the 1990s and 2000s, which have much less to offer, in my opinion.)

This is an entry in the Beyond Star Trek blogathon hosted by Quiggy at The Midnite Drive-In and Hamlette of Hamlette’s Soliloquy. Thanks for inviting me to participate; I look forward to reading everyone’s posts!