When A Father Loves His Daughter

Tonight's marathon is about saving the world through the power of love. This love is between a father and his daughter. Three different films that pertain to saving the world are presented here along with subplots involving a father and daughter having a rough time relationship wise and their efforts to work through their issues while fighting for humanities existence. All three are popcorn blockbusters that not only come with tons of action and special effects, but carries with them an emotional punch. This evenings lineup showcases some of the wildest and most amazing space adventures in cinema. We have on our menu for this evening:

                        Deep Impact 1998, Armageddon 1998, and Interstellar 2014

 

 

 

With a lineup like this, an all star cast is guaranteed. Deep Impact utilizes the talents of Morgan Freeman, Tea Leoni, Elijah Wood, Leelee Sobieski, and Robert Duvall. This one opens up the evening introducing the theme of disaster and the need to fight for survival. With disaster movies comes multiple subplots of all different kinds of individuals to give the audience a sense of what's at stake. Deep Impact centers around a comet heading directly for Earth with a space mission becoming necessary to destroy the comet with nuclear weapons. Unless the comet can be destroyed before colliding with Earth, only those who are allowed into the shelters will survive after winning in a national lottery. The question that the movie begs the audience to answer is out of all the characters introduced in the film, which of them will survive the impact. The film also begins the theme of a father and daughter having conflict but slowly come around to sharing a relationship again in the face of danger. The character of Jenny Lerner played by Tea Leoni experiences conflict with her estranged father but has to put aside their differences in order to face reality head on. It is a minimal subplot in this film but it engineers a pivotal subplot that gets progressively bigger in the later films. Deep Impact was the first disaster film released in 1998 that dealt with a Comet heading for Earth, and paying tribute to the great disaster films of the 1970's such as Earthquake and Poseidon Adventure. While the film was a box office success despite mixed reviews, it got completely overshadowed by the release of Michael Bay's much bigger in scope disaster film titled Armageddon during the 4th of July weekend in 1998.Nominated for a total of 4 academy awards including best visual effects and starring Bruce Willis, Liv Tyler, Billy Bob Thorton, Will Patton, Steve Buscemi, Owen Wilson, Keith David, and Michael Clarke Duncan, this disaster tale focuses on an asteroid the size of Texas heading for Earth with only one option available to stop it. That option is to land a group of Astronauts/oil drillers on the surface of the asteroid and drill a hole deep enough to plant a Nuclear weapon inside the core of it and blow the asteroid to Kingdom Come. With Armageddon, everything is faster, bigger, exciting, and more dramatic. Michael Bay's technique for fast cuts, commercial shots, and relentless action is introduced here along with a strong father and daughter subplot between Bruce Willis Character Harry Stamper and his daughter Grace. Harry Stamper is a regular blue collar everyday man who gets summoned by NASA in a request to save the world. He takes the offer knowing what he's leaving behind to save humanity. Harry's daughter Grace has a rebellious nature and is secretly seeing one of Harry's associates behind his back named AJ played by Ben Affleck. Harry has to learn to cope with the realization that Earth is on the verge of extinction, and his daughter is going to defy his wishes and continue to see AJ. It is a sentimental father and daughter relationship which only get's bigger with Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. Featuring the talents of Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Troper Grace, David Oyelowo, and Matt Damon, the final film of the evening centers around a team of explorers traveling through a wormhole in the greatest space mission in NASA's history in order to find another inhabitable planet to ensure humanity's survival. Interstellar brings it all home in the drama department concerning a father having to leave everything behind on Earth to go on the ultimate space mission to save the human race, with his daughter holding a grudge for doing so. All the themes introduced in the first two films such as disaster, everyone coming together, the fight for survival, and a father and daughter reconciling their differences is presented in this film and brings it all to a stunning emotional close. Interstellar received a total of 5 academy award nominations with a win for best visual effects.

So what are these films ultimately trying to say? Deep Impact says that life on Earth can end suddenly as well as permanently and reconciling differences is very important because there may not be another opportunity to do so. Armageddon says that it only takes one person to save a planet but also that the love between a father and his daughter can overcome any obstacle. Interstellar's message ultimately says that love always will find a way to preserve human life.

Our fathers and daughters for this evening:

And the rest of our heroes: