(Redirected from
Meteor (movie))
Meteor (1979) is a film in which scientists detect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth and struggle with international, cold war politics in their efforts to prevent disaster. The movie starred Sean Connery.
It was directed by Ronald Neame and with a screenplay by Edmund H. North and Stanley Mann and co-starring Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Henry Fonda, and Johnny Yune.
Plot
The opening sequence involves a crew of astronauts that observes a collision between a comet and an asteroid named Orpheus. The astronauts and their ship are then destroyed by a fragment from the collision. Back on Earth, Dr. Paul Bradley (Connery) is dragged reluctantly to the offices of his former boss (Malden). They view the video footage of the doomed astronauts and it's explained that Orpheus is on a collision course with Earth.
While the United States government and military engage in political maneuvering, other smaller and faster moving fragments rain down on Earth. The major plot point involves secret orbiting nuclear missile platforms, one put up by Dr. Bradley's team for the U.S. and another constructed by his counterpart in the Soviet Union. Both governments are reluctant to admit to the existence of these orbital weapons because they are in violation of international treaties (unnamed in the film but presumably like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). Bradley left the U.S. project because he intended it to meet threats like Orpheus, while the military seized it as a strategic weapon... with the weapons pointed downward.
The two superpowers finally agree to combine their weapons to deflect Orpheus from collision.
Similar films released in the 1990s included Armageddon and Deep Impact.
In an unintended bit of humor, when the American missiles are re-trained at the asteroid, the American flags appear upside down. An upside-down flag is used as a distress signal.
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