METEOR (1979) Novelization

Based on the 1979 film written by Edmund H. North and Stanley Mann. Directed by Ronald Neame. It starred Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Richard Dysart and Henry Fonda. The book is credited to Edmund H. North and Franklin Coen.  My assumption is that Coen wrote the book based on North's screenplay.

METEOR was one of the last of the disaster films made in the 1970's and while the film itself is disappointing it nevertheless has a lot of positives. From a story standpoint, the film tells its story grounded in realism and avoids melodrama—this is more DEEP IMPACT than ARMAGEDDON.  The emphasis is on character. There is spectacle but plot-wise it is organically handled. In many ways the film should have been an outstanding example of the genre, differentiating itself from things like THE TOWERING INFERNO and EARTHQUAKE and falling closer to ON THE BEACH.  

Alas, the film is ultimately a miss.  Too often the film presents us with details that take you out of the story.  Some of the details are scientific—early in the film a conversation is shown between Earth and a manned spacecraft in the vicinity of Mars.  The conversation is shown as being real-time whereas in reality there would be a considerable lag (6 to 22 minutes depending on where the craft was) between the two sides.  Am I picking nits?  Perhaps, but the filmmakers talked about scientific accuracy in the press so I think it's a fair point.  Additionally, there are moments in the film where views from outer space are shown on video monitors with no explanation as to how they are being produced.  Are both quibbles a result of narrative shorthand?  Sure, but again, they went on about how accurate it was in the press. . .

And I guess WAS accurate. . .for a 1970's disaster film that is.

The above is minor, and I could have happily lived with it if not for the film's major failing—the special effects. For whatever reason, they were not able to get anyone to handle the visual effects competently. Just about every shot of the titular meteor is a bad optical and every shot of the orbit-based missiles are bad miniatures. The scenes of destruction are usually the raison d'être for disaster film, and these are just as badly handled. There is a scene of an avalanche in the alps that reuses footage from the 1978 low budget film AVALANCHE.

What's astonishing is that the filmmakers delayed the release of the film in order to have the visual effects redone. This decision was made after filming was complete and, reportedly, after the film was "done".  The original effects team was fired; a new team came in who also struggled to deliver the effects.  Very late in the day yet another team was brought in.  Considering how poor the effects that made the film are, it makes you wonder how bad the original effects were. 

This is a shame. Money was obviously spent on the film. The cast is good, the story is inherently dramatic.  If the effects were at least decent it would be a lot easier to take.

The novelization corrects all of the flaws of the finished film.  Characters are more fleshed out (Sean Connery's character is a professor at Columbia, for instance), the science is more realistic, one is not constantly taken out of the story by obvious model work.  There is more political shenanigans (wisely left out of the film but not unwelcome here), and the Connery and Wood's character have a full blow lover affair.  It's all well-handled and is the ideal version of the story.