Written by Stanley Mann and Edmund H. North

Long before Deep Impact and Armageddon, there was the 1979 film Meteor, starring Sean Connery.  You’d think he was a bit beyond the schlocky disaster flick genre, but apparently, back then he wasn’t.  Neither was Natalie Wood, Brian Keith, Henry Fonda, or Karl Malden among others.

It’s a beautiful day on the planet Earth.  The oceans are calm and beautiful.  The sailboats are out.  Paul Bradley (Connery) is on one of them, as part of a race.  The Coast Guard intercepts them and plucks Bradley off of his boat at the request of NASA.  Apparently, a new comet was recently discovered headed for the asteroid belt.  It smashed into it, shattering an asteroid known as Orpheus and destroying a space station. The remaining pieces of Orpheus are headed straight towards Earth, including one that’s 5 miles wide.

Paul worked on a project known as Hercules, that put nuclear missiles in space for a situation just like this.  The problem was that once the military found out it was up there, they turned it around and pointed the missiles back toward their enemies on Earth.  Now Paul is needed to re-align the missiles.  It becomes clear, however, that the U.S. missiles alone will not do it.  Luckily the Soviets did the same thing and also have missiles in space.  Now if we can just work together…

In terms of 1970s disaster movies, this one actually was better than most.  The cast was impressive and actually did a good job.  Connery was believable as a scientist who had walked away from his misused creation.  Brian Keith was excellent as his Soviet counterpart with Wood in the middle to create romantic tension with Connery.  It didn’t feel like they were there just to pick up a paycheck but delivered good, convincing performances.  The job might have been easier than those in more recent films who act against a green screen with little knowledge of what the final product will look like.  This crew at least had some idea of the setting, if not all the effects.  I’ll wager the scenes in the New York City subway system with mud pouring onto them weren’t their favorites, though.

That’s right; New York City gets it again, although it’s not the only city that has taken a hit.  The special effects are what I’d expect of that post-Star Wars period.  They are decent but nowhere near the CGI of today.  Some of the scenes are good, but many more don’t quite work.  It’s very obvious that they are models.  This is true of the majority of the avalanche scene at the ski area as well as the aftermath of one of the pieces hitting New York City.  On the other hand, some of the scenes are much more realistic looking just because CGI effects weren’t around.  It’s a trade-off of sorts and one that works pretty darn well, with the exception of the missiles in space that look more like they came out of a kid’s playset than any sort of modern effect.

As this era’s disaster flicks go, I’d take Meteor over many of the others.  Despite the fact that it’s a given in these films that the Earth is somehow saved, it manages to create tension and be fun.  The cast does a great job and the effects are decent enough to be convincing, plus the story works.  In many ways, it’s a step above what else was being made at the time.