YMMV / Deep Impact

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Leo's father barely even tries to dissuade him from leaving the shelter. Could it be he had decided the kid is an idiot and didn't want to risk them all getting kicked out?
• Aluminium Christmas Trees: Excluding the part about being on a certain collision course with Earth, the story of the comet Wolf-Biederman is very similar to the real comet Hale-Bopp. Both were discovered independently by two people, one of whom was at a party of astronomy amateurs, and they received a composite name as a result. Both were also discovered only two years before they passed closest to Earth (1995-1997 in the case of Hale-Bopp).
• Awesome Music: While the melodrama in the film itself isn't everyone's cup of tea, James Horner's beautifully bittersweet score may have you reaching for the tissues, "Drawing Straws" and "Goodbye and Godspeed" being good examples.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Go on, guess which twin buildings are shown to be the only structures left standing out of the water after the tsunami has drowned New York. This scene has been, understandably, edited out of some TV broadcasts of the movie.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Morgan Freeman gives a Presidential speech about the comet with graphics of the solar system, complete with an analogy between colliding comets and balls bouncing against one another on a pool table. It's exactly like his later role as host of Through The Wormhole. Later on, he also says he believes in God and that he believes God answers every prayer, even if the answer is sometimes "no"- since it's Morgan Freeman, he should know.
    • Similarily, ten years after this movie was made, Barack Obama was elected as President of the United States, becoming the nation's first African-American President.
    • Freeman later played another US President in Angel Has Fallen.
  • When Leo proposes to Sarah, he holds out his hand and reveals two gold rings.
  • Jenny Lerner's actress, Téa Leoni, would herself go on to play a Cabinet Secretary (of State), and later President, Elizabeth McCord, with Morgan Freeman as Chief Justice of the United States.
• One-Scene Wonder: James Cromwell as Senator Rittenhouse. He only appears in the scene where Jenny tracks him down for an interview but his performance does a great job of foreshadowing the disastrous news she's about to uncover.
• Retroactive Recognition: Jon Favreau playing ejected-into-space astronaut, Gus Partenza.
  • Alimi Ballard, plays Bobby Rhue in the movie.
• Signature Scene: The arrival of Beiderman, which causes the titular impact and the resulting mega-tsunami that wipes out New York City.
• The Woobie:
  • Sarah seems to really get it rough. First, she and her family are not selected in the survival lottery (in spite of her marrying her best friend, Leo to get in). And later, when Leo comes to her rescue on the crowded highway, they force her to leave them behind (and to take her baby brother with her), shortly before they are killed by the giant wave.
  • Gus Partenza, the only astronaut who is left behind in space to die, after the unsuccessful attempt to destroy the asteroid.

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