METEOR was supposed to be American-International's BIG film. How big? How about a two page ad in the NEW YORK TIMES announcing the film a year before it's release? Tie-in's to the film like a official movie magazine and a pinball machine (pratically unheard of in those days)? The title METEOR copyrighted by American-International? But then METEOR was released.
The storyline (Comet passing through asteroid belt collides with gigantic rock causing the huge chunk to head towards Earth, disaster impending) is just basically a chance to see B-grade and former A-grade actors go through the motions, which is fine and passable. What is wrong with this film is the long pauses between anything really happening at all, which is poison to a disaster film. METEOR really didn't need a nearly five minute segment of two rocket platforms turning, or occasionally during the climax of the film, a character asking "How long till impact?", another character would say how long it was. And then we would see a combination of shots like the meteor, then the rockets, then a shot of the meteor headed towards the rockets, then a shot of the rockets headed towards the meteor (any combination of any and/or all shots above). Any momentum the film had would be killed right then and there.
METEOR isn't a bad film, it's a decent film with unnecessary filler sequences.
And what was actually destroyed by METEOR? American-International Pictures. The high (compared with other A.I.P. films) production costs combined with low box office returns doomed A.I.P. and was bought out by FILMWAYS and within two years of METEOR's release, A.I.P. was nothing more than a memory except to those lovers of drive-in flicks.
The storyline (Comet passing through asteroid belt collides with gigantic rock causing the huge chunk to head towards Earth, disaster impending) is just basically a chance to see B-grade and former A-grade actors go through the motions, which is fine and passable. What is wrong with this film is the long pauses between anything really happening at all, which is poison to a disaster film. METEOR really didn't need a nearly five minute segment of two rocket platforms turning, or occasionally during the climax of the film, a character asking "How long till impact?", another character would say how long it was. And then we would see a combination of shots like the meteor, then the rockets, then a shot of the meteor headed towards the rockets, then a shot of the rockets headed towards the meteor (any combination of any and/or all shots above). Any momentum the film had would be killed right then and there.
METEOR isn't a bad film, it's a decent film with unnecessary filler sequences.
And what was actually destroyed by METEOR? American-International Pictures. The high (compared with other A.I.P. films) production costs combined with low box office returns doomed A.I.P. and was bought out by FILMWAYS and within two years of METEOR's release, A.I.P. was nothing more than a memory except to those lovers of drive-in flicks.