ELE vs. EE

This is the story of how two acronyms denoting the apocalypse, each prominently using the letter E, chilled me to the bone.

SPOILER WARNING

Last night I watched Deep Impact for the first time since the late 1990s, and I'm happy to say it really held up. Held up? some of you will ask, since you're probably of the opinion that the movie didn't hold up even back in 1998.

Well, you're wrong, and part of that may be because you lump it in with Armageddon as one of the two asteroid movies that came out in 1998. But aside from the fact that both movies feature a deadly asteroid hurtling toward earth, and both movies feature teams of astronauts trying to drill nuclear devices into these asteroids to blow them apart, Deep Impact and Armageddon couldn't be more different. While Michael Bay's movie is all about jingoism, machismo and action, Mimi Leder's movie is actually a drama set against the potential end of the world, supported more by acting and characterization than by big set pieces. (Though it does have a really big one at the end, and it's worth the wait.)

But I think part of the reason I was more primed to enjoy Deep Impact than Armageddon, even back when I watched them both for the first time (and only time for Armageddon, I can guarantee you), comes down to a little three-letter phrase from the beginning of Deep Impact that always chilled me: ELE.

You see, a reporter played by Tea Leoni (who's quite good in this film) gets wind of what she thinks is a scandal involving a cabinet member having an affair with a woman named "Ellie." It turns out, Ellie is not a person but an acronym, ELE. She and the president (Morgan Freeman, great as usual), who she's quite surprised to see after being essentially kidnapped by FBI agents, have an entire conversation about ELE without being on the same page -- he thinks she knows that the earth is going to be hit by an asteroid, she thinks he's stalling and covering up a sex scandal. However, the movie's not trying to make her out to be a dummy -- she catches the president say "Ee-El-Ee" rather than "Ellie," and she realizes everything is not what she originally surmised. She does the 1998 equivalent of a Google search (the difference in technology reminded me how far we've come in 13 years) and finally comes up with the following meaning for ELE:

Extinction Level Event.

Did you just get the same chills I got?

There are few three-word phrases that can more quickly convey the gravity of a situation than "extinction level event." Like, this shit that's going to happen is going to wipe out everybody -- all humans. And who knows how many other species as well. And you can pretty much forget about the plants. The rocks may be okay, and possible the water.

Better get those astronauts on that shuttle to try to blow up that rock.

It wasn't until watching last night, however, that I realized that ELE shares letters with another acronym, this time only two words, that I saw in the movie Knowing two years ago. That also chilled me to the core in that context, in another movie dealing with the potential end of the earth.

Knowing is definitely a more ridiculous movie than Deep Impact, so I won't try to wade into its plot or fact-check myself for accuracy. But suffice it to say that Nicolas Cage's character has found, in a time capsule from the 1950s, a series of numbers that appear to be predictions of disasters around the world, incidents in which a significant number of people (more than 20) die. These handwritten predictions show the date and then the number of people who die in each incident, including such famous incidents as September 11th. However, the numbers run out at some point. The last date -- a date still in the future of the movie's present tense -- shows the date in question and then the number 33.

Except it isn't the number 33. It's the letters EE. Cage's character reads it as 33 because it's consistent with the pattern, where all the other incidents include only numbers and no letters.

But he eventually figures out what EE stands for, and I'm again getting chills as I write this:

Everyone Else.

That's right, on the last date predicted, an event occurs in which everyone else on the planet will die.

Everyone Else. The biggest number there is.

The woman who discovered this pattern of disaster and death went crazy. They find a room where she stayed, where every surface in the room was covered with the scrawled letters "EE" and the scrawled words "Everyone Else." Wouldn't you go crazy, if you discovered a pattern of death that continued to prove its 100% accuracy over the course of time, and the last incident involved the death of all human beings?

I would.

Damn, maybe I should watch this movie again this week as well.

I want to end with a few more words about why I like Deep Impact so much. It could be the feminine sensibilities director Mimi Leder brought to the project, but it's the best kind of disaster movie -- one where getting to know and care about the characters is of paramount importance, not showing explosions or other types of destruction. And in order to do that better, they cast good actors, actors who can actually make you feel.

One of the reasons I wanted to revisit this movie is because I did feel when I first saw it -- I felt a lot. In fact, I don't (but probably should) mind telling you that I got a little teary during Deep Impact. Not once, but several times.

Over the years since then, I decided that I must have been caught in an emotionally vulnerable place in my life, and that the movie couldn't be both as subtle and as affecting as I remembered it. Nope, wrong. It is subtle, and it is affecting. I'm pretty sure the same moments that got me last time got me again (more spoilers):

1) When Leoni's reporter (now anchor) reads on the air that no one over the age of 50 will be part of the lottery to see who gets government protection in underground caves. She's just been handed this text for the first time on air, and she pauses after reading the sentence, realizing what it means. Leoni doesn't go to some big emotion, she just sits there, looking down, thinking about what she's just said. Leder stages this scene perfectly, because we see it from the perspective of her mother, played by Vanessa Redgrave, who's watching her daughter read the announcement on her home TV. Redgrave doesn't go to a big emotion either, she just shifts her body in a way that indicates she knows what this means: She will not survive the asteroid strike. I tell ya, that combination really got me.

2) When Leoni gives up her spot on the helicopter to her friend and mentor, played by Laura Innes. The look of gratitude on Innes' face on the other side of the helicopter window, as it lifts into the air, at this moment that they know they'll never see each other again, is priceless. Sure, this moment or a moment like it occurs in hundreds of movies involving life-and-death scenarios. It's a tribute to these actors and this director that they got it just right in this one.

3) When the teenager played by Leelee Sobieski must make a split-second departure from her parents, just hours before the asteroid is set to strike. The amateur astronomer who discovered the asteroid (Elijah Wood), who's Sobieski's neighbor and new husband (they married so she could be saved along with him), has made a selfless trip on motorcycle back to find his wife. When the military convoy came to pick them up, she impulsively stayed with her parents after they weren't on "the list." Now he's come back for her, and her parents make her go with him, and take her baby brother/sister, knowing that it's their children's only chance to survive. Sobieski is wonderful in this anguished scene, where you realize how young she is -- "No, Mommy, I don't want to go!" Her frantic tears are just the kind of thing you can imagine happening in a moment when you have to leave your family, now, and you know you will never see them again. You don't even have time to formulate a proper goodbye. I was probably struck more by this scene even than I was the first time, now that I'm a parent. As her parents watch her disappear on the back of the motorcycle, it's devastating. Her mother breaks down in tears and her father, barely holding them back himself, hugs her from behind. It's emotional gold.

Going even further than recommending Deep Impact, I'm going to say that it should be used by any filmmaker trying to make an effects movie without sacrificing character. I've just hit on three really good, really gut-punching moments, but the whole thing is remarkable for its ability to involve you in the inner lives of its characters. It's not what studio execs demand first and foremost from a movie like this, but maybe they should.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out so well for Deep Impact -- it made $60 million less domestically than Bay's emotionally fraudulent competitor, and Leder has only directed two features since then: the 2000 flop Pay It Forward (talk about emotionally fraudulent), and the 2009 film Thick as Thieves, which also features Morgan Freeman.

Well, it had a deep impact on me, at least.

Posters of the apocalypse

We love movies about the end of the world, don't we?

Even if we know there's a high likelihood they will suck, our excitement overwhelms us -- doesn't it?

But I'm wondering if that phenomenon wouldn't be half as powerful without a tradition of truly captivating posters ... which, a lot of times, were for movies that really sucked.

It remains to be seen what we'll think of Battle: Los Angeles, but I can tell you that the poster you see above absolutely thrilled me. It perfectly accomplishes what posters for apocalyptic movies set out to do -- it provides a single-image encapsulation of the idea of normal life supplanted by chaos. What better way to indicate "business as usual" turned upside down, than surfers waiting for the next big wave as aliens rain the heavens with artillery fire?

It's that mixture of everyday things we recognize and exotic things we don't recognize that makes the image so powerful. And that's why I think the poster for Battle: LA you see below is not as effective:

Sure, there's a basic impressiveness here: A single soldier stands and looks at ... something. We don't know what. And that's part of the problem. Is it an alien craft? Is it a chunk of land turned up on its side, and the spiky objects we're seeing are buildings or other parts of the industrial landscape? We can't really tell. It still makes me want to see the movie, but not the way the surfing poster makes me want to see the movie.

So I thought today it would be fun to go back and look at other posters of the apocalypse, and to dissect how they used familiar images to whet our appetite for the movie in question ... and whether that whetted appetite ended up resulting in a satisfying movie.

Let's start with the most recent obvious example, which also has a whole series of posters associated with it:

2012 (2009, Roland Emmerich)


These posters are, frankly, perfect. They are ludicrous at the same time that they are somehow deliciously plausible. Waves crashing over the Himalayas? Not on your life would that ever happen. But would I like to see a movie where it happens? Yup, I think so. Emmerich et al were also smart to use the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, since it has a basic awesomeness that is enhanced by collapsing under the weight of a tidal wave. The final image is interesting to me, referencing the most orgiastic destruction depicted in the movie, when plate tectonics rip apart the west side of Los Angeles. It's interesting because there's a billboard for Battle: Los Angeles that features the same section of town, with those artillery blasts from the surfing poster above -- I'm wondering if that's an intentional allusion (or else direct theft) from the 2012 advertising campaign.

Was it worth it? I thought so, yes. The destruction was great on its own terms, and just removed enough that you didn't have to ponder the billions of people who were dying. Some criticized the movie for that very reason, and for dozens of other reasons, not the least of which is that they have a knee-jerk hatred for everything made by Roland Emmerich. I did previously as well, but this one really worked for me. And speaking of Emmerich ...

The Day After Tomorrow (2004, Roland Emmerich)


Emmerich tried to capitalize on our fears of climate change with The Day After Tomorrow, and this poster was a good start. The Statue of Liberty, up to her nose in snow? My God! AND IT MAY BE HAPPENING AS SOON AS TWO DAYS FROM NOW!

Was it worth it? Not really. The Day After Tomorrow was silly. I was able to appreciate it only on the level of seeing some of the special effects, but to be honest, the catastrophic phenomenon depicted here does not lend itself to effects the way some of his other phenomena do. In fact, the scene I remember most was where tornadoes were ripping apart Los Angeles, which doesn't even really jive with the rest of the movie. Emmerich basically threw it in there because he could. And speaking of uses of the Statue of Liberty ...

Cloverfield (2008, Matt Reeves)


The Day After Tomorrow poster shows only the statue's head, while this poster shows only the statue's body -- because the head has been ripped off its shoulders by a giant reptilian alien. The smart thing about the Cloverfield poster is that it reminds everyone of their first exposure to the movie, which was that great teaser trailer that went viral in late 2007, in which the final shot is the statue's head coming to a rest in the street somewhere, uptown from Liberty Island. The events depicted in Cloverfield may not lead to the end of the world, but who knows ... they may.

Was it worth it? HELLS yes. Cloverfield was awesome. I got it on BluRay for Christmas and am looking forward to my third viewing. And speaking of the Statue of Liberty again ...

Planet of the Apes (1968, Franklin J. Schaffner)


Of course, all these other movies' usages of the Statue of Liberty owe a debt to how it was used as a gut punch at the end of Planet of the Apes. Having this iconic image sunken into the sand just killed us -- and by "us," I mean people who saw it in the theater, which does not include me, as I was not born for another five years.

Was it worth it? Well, duh -- Planet of the Apes is a classic. However, I have to wonder if this poster was used to advertise it at the time, or only in retrospect. I'm thinking retrospect. Given that it was a highly guarded secret that this ape planet was Earth, intended to Shyamalan us 30 years before Shyamalan, I doubt they would have revealed it in the original advertising campaign. But back to Roland Emmerich ...

Independence Day (1996, Roland Emmerich)


Emmerich first started blowing up the world back in 1996, with Independence Day. Talk about making it personal for us -- the White House getting blasted by an alien laser beam became the signature image of the film. And there's something about when you get to the president, who should be untouchable, that really strikes a chord with us. In fact, you could say that the White House bit worked so well, Emmerich intentionally alluded to it in 2012 with the scene where the capsized battleship flattens the White House, after riding on the crest of a tidal wave. That one scene is like every exciting thing from every disaster movie, rolled into one. (The Empire State building poster looks nicer and is good, too -- and certainly wouldn't have been possible post-9/11).

Was it worth it? I am not a fan of Independence Day. But I did like those few scenes with maximum possible destruction. They lived up to what I was expecting. And speaking of tidal waves ...

Deep Impact (1998, Mimi Leder)


Both asteroid movies that came out in 1998 were all about the tidal wave that was going to destroy the world, but only Deep Impact emphasized these in the ad campaign, while Armageddon focused more on the heroic and patriotic oil riggers-turned-astronauts. Although this poster cheeses it up a bit by showing the human drama implied by the world's coastal regions being violently drenched, the sight of the wave bearing down on New York City captures the situation pretty well.

Was it worth it? Yeah, I really liked Deep Impact -- in part because of the human drama I just poked fun at a minute ago. What can I say, I'm a sap. I should probably see it again to be sure, but I really liked it.

Okay, this post is getting long, so let's hurry through these last couple:

The Core (2003, Jon Amiel)


Talk about preposterous ... the idea behind The Core was that the Earth's core had stopped, and some scientists/adventurers had to drill into it to jump-start it. This presented all kinds of visual problems about how to represent the threat, and what they ended up with was merely adequate. Not only is the part of the Earth's surface shown in this image too abstract to make out, making the threat abstract as well, but the deep fissure depicted here is not actually the outcome of the threat -- more than anything else, it shows the hole they'd have to burrow to get down to the core.

Was it worth it? Hopefully the abstract advertisements kept people away, because this movie was not good. However, not knowing exactly where the threat is did not matter here ...

The Day After (1986, Nicholas Meyer)


This is cheating a little bit -- The Day After was a TV movie rather than a theatrical release, so our appetite for it was not whetted by a poster. In fact, this image probably accompanied the eventual video release. But the nuclear blast in the middle of an American city is so effective that it doesn't really matter which city it is -- though I believe the action was set around Kansas City.

Was it worth it? To this day I still identify The Day After with all my fears of nuclear annihilation. It was damn effective.

I had a couple more I was going to do, but all the image files attached to this post were causing Blogger to act funny -- images disappearing (possibly being "behind" other images), etc. So I'll just leave off there. You've had enough. I'll let you off the hook.