IMDb > Meteor (1979)
Meteor
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Overview

User Rating:
4.7/10   2,752 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 11% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writers:
Stanley Mann (screenplay)
Edmund H. North (screenplay)
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Contact:
View company contact information for Meteor on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
19 October 1979 (USA) more
Genre:
Tagline:
There's No Place On Earth To Hide!
Plot:
After a collision with a comet, a nearly 8km wide piece of the asteroid "Orpheus" is heading towards Earth... more | add synopsis
Awards:
Nominated for Oscar. more
User Comments:
The curse of 1979 strikes again. more (69 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Sean Connery ... Dr. Paul Bradley

Natalie Wood ... Tatiana Nikolaevna Donskaya

Karl Malden ... Harry Sherwood, NASA
Brian Keith ... Dr. Alexei Dubov

Martin Landau ... Major General Adlon
Trevor Howard ... Sir Michael Hughes
Richard Dysart ... Secretary of Defense

Henry Fonda ... The President
Joseph Campanella ... Lt. Gen. Easton

Bo Brundin ... Rolf Manheim
Katherine De Hetre ... Jan Watson
James G. Richardson ... Alan Marshall
Roger Robinson ... Bill Hunter
Michael Zaslow ... Sam Mason
John McKinney ... Peter Watson
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Additional Details

Runtime:
107 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Re-rated "PG" on appeal after originally being rated "R" by the MPAA. more
Goofs:
Factual errors: Comet tails do not automatically trail behind them; they are always pointed away from the Sun. more
Quotes:
Tatiana Donskaya: One day you will come to Moscow and I will show you a clean subway. more
Movie Connections:
Edited into The Day After (1983) (TV) more

FAQ

What is this movie about?
Did Natalie Wood really speak Russian?
A Note Regarding Spoilers
more
35 out of 47 people found the following comment useful.
The curse of 1979 strikes again., 13 March 2005
2/10
Author: Jonathon Dabell (barnaby.rudge@hotmail.co.uk) from Wakefield, England

Was there something in the water in 1979? I was reading up recently about some of the films that major movie stars made in 1979 and it is remarkable how many actors were busy wasting their talents on duds in that year. Michael Caine in Beyond the Poseidon Adventure; Laurence Olivier in Dracula; Roger Moore in Escape to Athena; Jason Robards in Hurricane; Peter Cushing in A Touch of the Sun; Donald Sutherland in Bear Island; James Mason and Anthony Quinn in The Passage; Robert Shaw and Lee Marvin in Avalanche Express; and Richard Harris in A Game For Vultures. Even some directors seemed to be affected by the curse of 1979 - Steven Spielberg, for instance, made his only fully-fledged turkey in the shape of "1941". The '79 trend for big stars in bad films also extended to Sean Connery. Poor old Sean's 1979 film, Meteor, is a disaster movie of stupefying awfulness.

It is revealed that a huge meteor is on collision course with earth, so big that unless it is diverted or destroyed its impact could cause another Ice Age. The American president (Henry Fonda) instructs professor Dr. Paul Bradley (Sean Connery) to figure out how to blast the meteor to bits by using secret nuclear weapons positioned in orbit above the earth. However, Dr. Bradley soon calculates that the American weapons alone will not halt the meteor. The Russians are brought in and informed of the potential destruction of the world as we know it and, in a race against time, the Americans try to persuade them to admit that they too have space-based nuclear missiles which could be added to the strike.

The special effects are remarkably poor for a post Star Wars sci-fi film, but the film fails on many other levels too. None of the actors look enthusiastic about being here; Ronald Neame and Stanley Mann's script is full of idiotic dialogue and plot contrivances; excitement is persistently undermined by interminable talky scenes; and the characterisation is so ludicrous that it makes you want to grind your teeth with despair. Soon after this, disaster movies came to an end, not to be seen again until their special effects-enhanced re-emergence in the mid-1990s. When you see Meteor, you'll immediately understand why the genre self-destructed.

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WTC...WTF?? buckaroobanzai50
Meteor 'music' buckaroobanzai50
Better than Armagedon lastaria
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so? the WTCs... greybabydaddy-1
Brian Keith Raci570
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