(SPOILER WARNING: If you don't want to know key plot points that take place in Deep Impact, don't read
this section!)
Last Friday night I went to see Deep Impact. I brought with me a mixture of expectations: I had read the script
months earlier and was overwhelmed by it, yet the audience feedback I had been receiving from test screenings said the movie was leaving
them uninspired. CA sources working within the biz were reporting the same verdict to me. The day before the film opened domestically,
both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter reviewed the film and gave it less than glowing praise. I kept
hearing phrases like "it's borderline", "TV movie-of-the-week-ish" and "the sum is less than the number of parts" from
those who had seen it.
This was my first choice of the most anticipated movies I wanted to see in 1998? What had happened to it along its path
of production? How could that script, written by Michael Tolkin (director of the upcoming Twenty Billion project) and
Bruce Joel Rubin (writer of Ghost and Jacob's Ladder), could possibly be filmed wrong? When Spielberg
had turned this one down and hand-picked Mimi Leder to direct it, even though some of Spielberg's stuff had been
hit-or-miss with me before, I thought the project was in very good hands.
So I went to see the 9:30 showing of Deep Impact Friday night, and by the time I left the movie theater I was
mad -- mad at the people who felt it was necessary to change the Deep Impact script into the lobotomized
version I saw on the screen, and mad that this same sort of thing had happened once again.
I'm getting up on my soapbox -- so you've been warned.
So here's the background: any film you've ever seen isn't the result of one person, it's the product of a collaborative
effort. But I believe there's a small number of critical positions -- the director, producers, stars, and writers -- that can influence
and shape what we'll see on the big screen. Yeah, there are other factors that can exert sizable pressure to shape the
film too -- the studio or another crew or cast member with some kind of influence -- but for the most part that's
uncommon. It happens but not all the time; there's usually just a half-dozen players that can radically alter a film from
its origin to the finished product.
And anywhere along this stage of development in any number of ways a film can go rotten. It can stray away from its
original vision, or it can be used as nothing more than a lever by an arrogant member of that team who wants more
money or more credit than their fair share. Real world politics gets magnified up there on the screen.
And somewhere along the way of Deep Impact's development, something went wrong. I think it may have been a
number of wrong creative decisions and maybe what I saw in that script wasn't what Mimi Leder saw in it, but I do remember
putting down the original script and thinking to myself: wow. If this is handled exactly the way Tolkin and Rubin
put it down on paper...this can be a hell of a film. Something that you have to
tell your friends and family to see because it's that good.
Deep Impact wasn't good for me. This is supposed to be a story of how a small number of people face the end of
the world. This is important because in the script it's never really the characters who're facing their own individual
deaths; instead, you're supposed to feel this invisible, crushing-depth pressure forcing itself down on the characters.
In the script in-between those lines you feel the sense that this comet is going to wipe away civilization forever.
The movie instead falters with this; instead you're left with the sense that this is a really big problem but it'll work
itself out in the end.
This is a movie that had the promise to be a helluva lot more than just an "ok" movie to see Friday night. There's whole
parts of the script that are gone that could have brought home the tragedy of what was happening. Scenes and
snippets of dialog that were like gold but now you'll never see them:
The scene showing how the government found out about the comet when the discover perished in the car crash. And like
you didn't see that coming in the movie: shots of a speeding jeep, followed by cuts of a bored-looking truck driver.
Thanks for telegraphing the obvious, Mimi.
The President's initial speech announcing the comet to the world, and his other addresses to the nation. The dialog in
his first address has the President "taking a moment to speak to the children of the world" is gone. Not only does it
help explain the science of the situation to the audience (what's the difference between a comet one kilometer in size and
one seven kms?) but it also serves as a way for the President to speak to the adults who're as scared as their children
at this moment. Those lines of dialog that would've been masterfully delivered by Morgan Freeman have been edited away,
if they filmed it at all. And the later Presidental speeches -- including the final one where the President's
inability to stop the forthcoming deaths millions (including his family and himself) show through. It elevates his character from
simply being a good President in the film to making him a great President, one of strong humanity and compassion
in the script.
The final words each of the Messiah crew say to their loved ones. Yeah, some of it's still in there but it's not
the same. What's the difference between what each of them say now? The script allows them to be unique in this
moment, and that's not truly the case in the film. Having the Russian cosmonaut using his 30 seconds to say
there's only been three women he's ever truly loved and they know who they are, or having another astronaut utterly
break down and can't say anything to his family, brought home just what was about to happen. And when the
event does happen, the editing of those scenes throw the rest of the events taking place on the ground completely
off-key. We should be watching Leo trying to stay alive, not gaze at fireworks in the sky.
And the moments of darkness before and after the first comet strikes -- these sent chills down my spine when I read them,
they were that well written. First, the effects: we should have seen the massive earthquakes that occur along with the
huge lightning storm created when a hole is punched open in the Earth's crust. And there's nothing shown of the rest
of the world. Even if there was no money in the budget for a quick glimpse out of the cockpit as the east coast of
North America went under the ocean, you could have had one of the Messiah crew stating what they're seeing without
having to spend the dough on a FX shot. The audience could fill in the rest of the cool imagery in their heads if we could
have a close-up of Blair Underwood or Mary McCormick's looking out of the window in shock, realizing the section of green
where England is supposed to be is nothing but blue now.
It takes more than a half-hour before the monster wave strikes the eastern coast of North America, and during that
time you see massive airlifts taking place, but the real horror is watching the people who know they'll never escape in
time. You still get to see the disaster but still some important scenes are gone. Téa Leoni's boss Beth, looking out the
window of her work's building, watching the wave enter New York's harbor. Behind her are pre-schoolers in the station's
daycare, oblivious to the wall of water coming for them. Beth's last act is to draw down the blinds so the children won't
know the moment before the wave strikes them. Something like that sticks with you after you've left the movie
theater because it is so horrific. Guess what -- if a comet hit the planet small children would die and not be
airlifted out because of the kindness of Téa Leoni.
One moment which would've appealed to me on an entirely visual basis shows another office worker looking out of the window
and seeing the incredible sight of a whale's body being tossed around inside the wave before it strikes his
building. Something that bizarre would've been spectacular to see.
And the beach scenes. When Téa Leoni's character and her parents (who remain together throughout the script, which makes
what's coming even more unbearable) assemble on the beach along with dozens of others left behind, they choose this way to spend their last moments with loved ones. Soon the dogs who had been playing in the
surf with their owners sense the wave's approach and begin to cower or try to run away from it. It's during this time
Leoni's character encounters another character eliminated from the movie, a small-time criminal who was taking
opportunity with the crisis but now realizes he's doomed. Just before the wave hits he finds redemption through Leoni's
character and it never for a moment reads as cliched or forced -- just one human being seeking absolution from another
one. You can talk to me about budget limitations or
making the script tighter by removing "unnecessary scenes", but if you ask me, those final scenes on the beach were
exactly what Deep Impact was supposed to be all about.
Leo Biederman's frantic search for his new wife Sarah (called Leora in the script) and his subsequent attempt to get them
to high ground. The wave takes hours to sweep inland and we never get to see the scale of the devastation in the film as
the wave is "eating states." That's why the script works so well: Tolkin and Rubin know how to write believable
dialog for characters about to meet their end, and how to burn an image in your mind's eye with nothing more than
words. And the means of dealing with the Wolf fragment has you biting your fingernails moreso than the film's solution.
I don't think Mimi Leder is a bad director but I do think she wasn't the right director for this picture.
I'm not privy to the reasons why the decisions to divert from the script were made; running CA is kind of
like being an air traffic controller: you're monitoring many aircraft all at once and getting email from some of the passengers,
ground crew and even flight crew but you don't know what's really going on inside those planes like the people inside do.
And yeah, it's incredibly bloody arrogant of me to criticize this film simply because I never walked in the director (or
producer, or actor, or so on) shoes. I get to do something no other film reviewers can get away it and it's pure evil to
moviemakers: I can be critical of the finished film by judging it against the many different phases of existence it had.
By doing this, it's like judging multiple versions of Deep Impact against the one that's out there right now.
But I can also see how a so-so script goes on to become an exceptional film because of the inspired directing, casting,
cinematography, costumes, or other element that gets added to it. Attending a film now is a chance to experience
either a wonderful surprise or an unfortunate dissapointment.
But I am speaking as someone who read the script and placed it as the number one pick on my "Want to See" list for '98.
I don't think knowing what was going to happen spoils the enjoyment of the picture for me, but the negative
advance feedback warned me that this could be the case. It's a incredibly hard process to make a
film, and an incredibly easy process to pass judgement on it. But when you are making a film you want as much magic
on your side as possible before you commit to one frame. You hope more magic will come from your crew and
cast when you shoot it, edit it, score it and market it. But if there's magic already in the script, why the hell
remove it???
What I read was one of the best scripts of the decade and what I saw was just another 'alright' movie. Believe me
when I tell you...it could have been so much more.
The new "Godzilla" is out of the bag
Sony Pictures attempts to keep the image of the creature under wraps until May 20th have fallen apart. Some stores
have already placed their Godzilla merchandise out on the racks for consumers to purchase. Items such as the film's
Official magazine, t-shirts, stickers and toys have all been erroneously sold last week -- and the images of
the creature are avaliable all over the Web now -- images that look like a "false" design Godzilla
producer has denied as the real deal. Check out our Godzilla page for
continuing coverage of the hype surrounding the film.
Patrick Sauriol
Creator, Chief Content Writer & Director
Coming Attractions
Got some neato items from the shoot? Parking passes, photos from the set?? Poster images, or the latest hot script
making the rounds???
That's why we're here.
We'll do our best to get 'em on the page. (Just remember to poke air holes in the parcel if it's alive -- thanks.)
Enter the world of Technopolis!
Aliens, gangsters and flying roadsters from the 50's
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