Asteroid

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Asteroid
Asteroid DVD cover
Directed by	Bradford May
Produced by	Peter Ware John Davis Merrill Karpf
Written by	Robbyn Burger Scott Sturgeon
Starring	Michael Biehn Annabella Sciorra Zachary Charles Don Franklin Carlos Gómez Michael Weatherly
Music by	Shirley Walker
Editing by	Bud Hayes, Michael A. Hoey, Mark Kahn
Release date(s)	16 February 1997
Running time	120 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Asteroid is a 1997 NBC TV movie about the United States government trying to stop an asteroid colliding with the Earth. It stars Michael Biehn. The movie won the 1997 Emmy Award in category Outstanding Special Visual Effects.

Cast

Plot

Late one night, near Billings, Montana, a gas tanker is driving by when a small meteor suddenly hits in front of the truck. The driver attempts to swerve out of the way, but loses control and overturns and the tanker explodes, causing a massive fire.

The next morning, the fire is burning out of control and it is reported that the tanker was hit by a lightning bolt. With the area evacuated, FEMA Director Jack Wallach (Michael Biehn), and a colleague, Adam Marquez (Carlos Gómez) are flying via helicopter over the area, inspecting the fire, when they notice that two people are still in the area. It's a man on the roof of his house, trying to save it, despite his wife's protests.

Jack and Adam land and take the woman aboard, despite her angry protest in concern of her husband. Her husband starts to suffer from smoke inhalation when Jack manages to get him aboard the helicopter. Jack just barely manages to escape as a propane tank causes a massive explosion and destroys the home. They escape.

Later that evening, at the National Observatory in Boulder, CO, 29-year-old widow Dr. Lily McKee (Annabella Sciorra), the director of the National Observatory, is observing a comet which is going to pass by Earth on the 4th of July. Later on, when she goes home and looks at some photos, she sees what she believes are asteroids.

The next day, she informs Jack and Adam of the possibility of an impact and calls them in. She tells them of two asteroids: Helios and Eros, whose orbits have been disrupted by the comet and may hit the Earth. Helios would hit with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs and generate temperatures five times hotter than the sun in the area of impact. Everything within a 150-mile radius would be destroyed and the impact would also spray molten rock another 70 miles.

Eros is 4-miles across and would cause a global ecological disaster if it did indeed hit. Then, Max Jenson (Brian Hill), one of Lily's assistants, informs Lily, Jack and Adam that Helios is getting closer to the Earth and that the observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii had picked up some smaller asteroids that the National Observatory cannot see and they believe that a small one hit Montana. Jack and Adam realize that the fire was indeed caused by an asteroid impact.

Later on, Lily and Max check Helios' trajectory and realize that it will indeed hit the Earth. Their numbers show that Helios will hit in the Kansas City, Missouri area within about 48 hours. They tell the president about it and he orders that the city be evacuated ASAP.

References

External links

• Asteroid at the Internet Movie Database