The movie begins with a beautiful shot of a large gibbous moon. I didn't see it the way it should have been seen. To truly appreciate this moon, I think you need one of those TVs that men just have to have for The Super Bowl.
Then there is a shot of the Earth from space. Also very nice.
Alex Kittner, a university astronomy professor and former NASA employee, is watching the greatest meteor shower in many years with his two children Jake and Sadie. With a telescope, of course. Alex and the family are among many throughout the world excited about this major event.
Dr. Maddie Rhodes works for an observatory in New Mexico along with Jered. She seems intelligent, but her main qualification, at least for this movie, is that she's gorgeous.
A very large meteor shows up, one that has been hidden by the other meteors. When it hits the moon, there is a major explosion. Later it is learned that was not a meteor: it was quite literally a shooting star twice as large as the asteroid that supposedly killed the dinosaurs.
Debris from the moon heads toward Earth and creates chaos. Then weird things start happening on Earth. Tides behave strangely and randomly, causing flooding. Newer cars have trouble starting. Power lines act up. TV, radio and cell phone reception goes haywire.
And it gets worse. The moon ends up 30,000 kilometers closer to Earth at its nearest point, and it is getting significantly larger in the sky.
Maddie and Alex are asked what is going on. Apparently Maddie is someone very important, because the President of the United States asks for her opinion.
Roland is sent to investigate one of the meteorites. As he explains, there is a very important distinction. A meteor hunter investigates meteors in space. Roland investigates only those that have hit Earth. And this is no meteor. The damage it did could only have happened if something much larger struck the Earth. Right? This one, though, is magnetized and very heavy.
Roland concludes this is a piece of a brown dwarf--a former star so heavy that the moon, with the star inside it, now has twice the mass of Earth. Its orbit is very erratic and these weird events are going to keep happening as the moon approaches Earth each time.
Maddie, Roland and Alex are part of a group of scientists called together to figure out what to do. This is difficult for Alex: he and the kids are still trying to get over the death of his wife, and his curmudgeonly, agoraphobic father-in-law who lives with them will have to take care of the kids. Roland his his own problem: his girlfriend Martina is pregnant, and he has to leave her behind in Europe. For some reason, most of the bizarre events are happening in Europe.
Maddie's ex is a journalist. He knows the whole story is not being told, and he knows he has the inside track. Or thinks he does. Maddie knows better than to give him what he wants.
The chaos on Earth keeps getting worse. But the most distressing news is yet to come: the scientists figure out that the moon's orbit will continue to put it closer and closer to Earth until ...
The Earth has only 39 days left. What to do? What to do?
Never mind whether this was a quality production. For the most part, this was nothing special from that standpoint. What matters is this: late in that first half I kept looking at my watch. Not because I couldn't wait for it to be over, but because I didn't want it to be over. I didn't want to wait two days to see more. And it wasn't two days. It was a week! I didn't enjoy the second half quite as much at first. All the excitement seemed to have levelled off during the first minutes. The focus was more on the characters who were connected to those who were saving the world, but not part of the effort.
Then the excitement level increased again. Toward the end, this movie will keep you on the edge of your seat. The special effects for the most part were not that impressive, but they saved the visual effects budget for the amazing climactic scenes. Once again, I would say the final solution must be seen like one would watch The Super Bowl.
I don't imagine most science teachers will be happy with this movie. They might laugh, but not with good reason. I don't know enough about science to say, but while the knowledgeable parties seemed to know what they were talking about and managed to make it sound quite real, not all of it seemed logical.
A major omission: some of the characters needed extensive training for what had to be done. We didn't get to see that? We didn't get to laugh at it? Oh, I guess it all happened miraculously in Offscreenville. There were some true miracles in this movie.
I guess the acting was good enough. James Cromwell, as the bitter grandfather, probably did the best job. Others had their moments.
But one of the most important things about the movie was the way the world came together. Remember New York City on 9-11? It shouldn't, but I guess it takes a real disaster to bring people together. That was another miracle.
If you want to watch a TV movie about a disaster, you could do worse.
Then there is a shot of the Earth from space. Also very nice.
Alex Kittner, a university astronomy professor and former NASA employee, is watching the greatest meteor shower in many years with his two children Jake and Sadie. With a telescope, of course. Alex and the family are among many throughout the world excited about this major event.
Dr. Maddie Rhodes works for an observatory in New Mexico along with Jered. She seems intelligent, but her main qualification, at least for this movie, is that she's gorgeous.
A very large meteor shows up, one that has been hidden by the other meteors. When it hits the moon, there is a major explosion. Later it is learned that was not a meteor: it was quite literally a shooting star twice as large as the asteroid that supposedly killed the dinosaurs.
Debris from the moon heads toward Earth and creates chaos. Then weird things start happening on Earth. Tides behave strangely and randomly, causing flooding. Newer cars have trouble starting. Power lines act up. TV, radio and cell phone reception goes haywire.
And it gets worse. The moon ends up 30,000 kilometers closer to Earth at its nearest point, and it is getting significantly larger in the sky.
Maddie and Alex are asked what is going on. Apparently Maddie is someone very important, because the President of the United States asks for her opinion.
Roland is sent to investigate one of the meteorites. As he explains, there is a very important distinction. A meteor hunter investigates meteors in space. Roland investigates only those that have hit Earth. And this is no meteor. The damage it did could only have happened if something much larger struck the Earth. Right? This one, though, is magnetized and very heavy.
Roland concludes this is a piece of a brown dwarf--a former star so heavy that the moon, with the star inside it, now has twice the mass of Earth. Its orbit is very erratic and these weird events are going to keep happening as the moon approaches Earth each time.
Maddie, Roland and Alex are part of a group of scientists called together to figure out what to do. This is difficult for Alex: he and the kids are still trying to get over the death of his wife, and his curmudgeonly, agoraphobic father-in-law who lives with them will have to take care of the kids. Roland his his own problem: his girlfriend Martina is pregnant, and he has to leave her behind in Europe. For some reason, most of the bizarre events are happening in Europe.
Maddie's ex is a journalist. He knows the whole story is not being told, and he knows he has the inside track. Or thinks he does. Maddie knows better than to give him what he wants.
The chaos on Earth keeps getting worse. But the most distressing news is yet to come: the scientists figure out that the moon's orbit will continue to put it closer and closer to Earth until ...
The Earth has only 39 days left. What to do? What to do?
Never mind whether this was a quality production. For the most part, this was nothing special from that standpoint. What matters is this: late in that first half I kept looking at my watch. Not because I couldn't wait for it to be over, but because I didn't want it to be over. I didn't want to wait two days to see more. And it wasn't two days. It was a week! I didn't enjoy the second half quite as much at first. All the excitement seemed to have levelled off during the first minutes. The focus was more on the characters who were connected to those who were saving the world, but not part of the effort.
Then the excitement level increased again. Toward the end, this movie will keep you on the edge of your seat. The special effects for the most part were not that impressive, but they saved the visual effects budget for the amazing climactic scenes. Once again, I would say the final solution must be seen like one would watch The Super Bowl.
I don't imagine most science teachers will be happy with this movie. They might laugh, but not with good reason. I don't know enough about science to say, but while the knowledgeable parties seemed to know what they were talking about and managed to make it sound quite real, not all of it seemed logical.
A major omission: some of the characters needed extensive training for what had to be done. We didn't get to see that? We didn't get to laugh at it? Oh, I guess it all happened miraculously in Offscreenville. There were some true miracles in this movie.
I guess the acting was good enough. James Cromwell, as the bitter grandfather, probably did the best job. Others had their moments.
But one of the most important things about the movie was the way the world came together. Remember New York City on 9-11? It shouldn't, but I guess it takes a real disaster to bring people together. That was another miracle.
If you want to watch a TV movie about a disaster, you could do worse.