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Between 2004 and 2010, I bought this pirated DVD which had the title Deep Impact or Meteor, I forgot which one. Basically the movie is about an asteroid or comet hitting Earth, and nuking it was not an option, because it will just cause more debris. So they evacuate the area of the impact, and let the asteroid impact that area.

Here are the details:

  • Someone detects an asteroid heading toward Earth
  • The military or scientists consider nuking the asteroid, but then another scientist say that it is a bad idea, because it will instead create more smaller asteroids that will cause more damage. He explained it using some sort of glass water cup on top of a table, probably with ice
  • Then after that scene, there is a scene where there is a news that shows Russia or China moving some sort of land-based ICBM as they are trying to destroy that asteroid
  • They determined that the asteroid will hit a city in the US, and then they decide to evacuate that area
  • To evacuate that area, they use as many forms of transport as possible, to the point that they used the city highway as some sort of airstrip for big aircraft to help evacuate the people
  • In the end, the main characters stay in the city, watching as the asteroid hits the city

What I do definitely know about this film is that this is definitely not Deep Impact or Meteor, although the DVD cover and the title said so, because I already looked at the plot for both of them in Wikipedia, and it is definitely not in Wikipedia’s page of impact even films.

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  • Welcome to SFF.SE! I hope you can the answer you are looking for!
    – Skooba
    Dec 21, 2016 at 13:30
  • Do you remember anyone who starred in this film? Or where in the US this object was meant to strike? Dec 21, 2016 at 13:48
  • Unfortunately nope, as back then I am too young to remember such details Dec 21, 2016 at 13:58
  • Armageddon? I remember mixing those names up back when they first came out, because they came out at the same time. Or, did you mean you are sure it was none of the films in that Wikipedia list?
    – Mr Lister
    Dec 21, 2016 at 15:38
  • Nope, definitely not Armageddon, because I watched it several times, and I'm pretty sure it is not in the Wikipedia list Dec 22, 2016 at 11:12

3 Answers 3

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Could it be the 1997 TV Movie, Asteroid? It does have a mass evacuation:

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 area within about 48 hours. They tell the president about it and he orders that the city be evacuated ASAP. Ultimately a fragment of Helios strikes a dam in the Kansas City area, causing flooding in the city. Wallach, who drives into the city to rescue two stranded firefighters and a drunk driver who struck their vehicle, gets caught in the flood. He and the firefighters survive, but the drunk driver dies.

The second asteroid (there was Eros and Helios) is apparently going to be worse, so they do try to shoot it down, but with mixed results.

Unfortunately it is discovered Eros will hit also and will be an extinction-level event. The United States attempts to destroy Eros using lasers mounted on three jet fighter aircraft, but one of the lasers is damaged when the jet carrying it takes off and climbs to altitude through a violent storm. After making some last-minute adjustments, the lasers on the other two aircraft are used to seemingly destroy Eros, unfortunately, it is discovered that the mission was only partially successful. Instead of destroying the asteroid, the lasers broke it into many small, yet deadly pieces.

The largest piece and several smaller fragments of Eros hit Dallas, Texas, where Lily's son and Lily's father are. The city is devastated by the impacts and blast of heat. Lily desperately searches the city for her father and son who survive the blast and aftershocks, but her father ends up trapped and hurt in the ruins of the hospital where he worked and her son Elliot wanders off trying to find help. After a search, Lily locates her father and with the help of nearby firemen, rescues him, but goes on to try to rescue Elliot while the soldier who accompanied her goes back to base, although a fireman does accompany her. The two search the ruined city and finally locate Elliot in a large impact crater created by the largest fragment. Jack shows up to help in a helicopter, having learned their location from Lily's former escort. He rescues Elliot and the four return to base where they watch the comet pass by Earth and are relieved it won't return to cause trouble for another 4,000 years.

Movie poster

Trailer

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  • Unfortunately, nope that is not the movie I watched, because there is an attempt to destroy that asteroid, but in my movie as far as I can remember there is no attempt to destroy that asteroid at all, because of the possible dangerous asteroid fragments Dec 21, 2016 at 13:45
  • The full film is at youtube.com/watch?v=S2RioIdkZw8 if you want to take a closer look. As regards attempting to destroy the asteroid, they don't attempt that with the first asteroid, pretty much for the reasons you stated. It's just that the second one looks to be even worse.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Dec 21, 2016 at 13:48
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    @FastFeanorTransform You mentioned that your movie was pirated, which is why it had an inaccurate title. Is it also possible that your copy is not the complete movie, and cuts off before this part about the second asteroid?
    – Steve-O
    Dec 21, 2016 at 14:31
  • I think that might be a possibility, because the starting scene in Asteroid in the youtube link in the comments have that table with glass cups that looks similar with my memory, and the evacuation looks kinda similar, and there is that scene where they mentioned about the impossibility of evacuating a city. But it is not exactly what I remembered... is it my memory that has gone bad? Jan 6, 2017 at 11:11
  • @FastFeanorTransform: It happens. Human memory is very malleable.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Jan 6, 2017 at 11:22
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You may be thinking of A Fire in the Sky (1978). This TV movie features a comet on course to hit Phoenix, Arizona. There are scenes of traffic-clogged highways, although I don't remember the highways being used as airstrips. Nuclear weapons fail to stop the comet. The main character watches and dies as the comet destroys Phoenix (at 2:07:24 in this video):

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The movie's name is Futureshock: Comet Impact (2007)..I was also looking for this movie.

Title image of *Futureshock: Comet Impact*

Astronomer Neil Gant fails to predict a comet hitting Ireland with disastrous consequences. However fear for a repeat gets his sky-watch program more NASA-resources. This time an approaching series of comets is detected in time, but only to calculate they're too large and fast to be eliminated. The target area, around Pennsylvania, is determined and hastily evacuated in a race against apocalyptic time.

Trailer

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    Could you edit this to explain how it matches the description given in the question?
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Apr 1, 2020 at 7:36

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