Armageddon (movie)

This is one I'd heard about for years, but never seen. All I knew going in was the basic, stupid premise: asteroid headed toward Earth, and only this scruffy crew of oil drillers can save them.

I knew what I was getting into from its reputation, though, so I definitely was expecting ludicrous melodrama. And wow, did it deliver in spades. Some of my thoughts, in roughly chronological order.

• It's a Michael Bay film, so of course it opens with tons of explosions and New York getting hammered. Hard to have explosions in space, so gotta get them in somehow. Note: I was so, so wrong about that.

• Gotta love that the asteroid is somehow, inexplicably, creating its own nebula.

• The "oh no you don't get to date my daughter" trope is probably as old as human language, but Willis actually firing a shotgun multiple times at Affleck - while everyone else tries to dissuade him in a very laid-back manner - is ridiculous.

• Related: Oh look, it's Liv Tyler. Wonder if she'll have any significant contributions to the plot. Spoiler: nope.

• Training montage! Tension among the crew! Hmm, certain crew are getting very little screen time. Wonder who's gonna die first?

• Oh, the shuttles are made of titanium, so fancy. I wonder why NASA hasn't thought of doing that?

• Michael Bay clearly saw Independence Day and thought, "Oh shit, I need a rousing speech from the president addressing the world too."

• Why the hell are both shuttles launching from the same pad. Just why.

• I was thoroughly amused by the speed at which the shuttles basically drifted in to Mir, primarily because I once spent a half hour watching the SpaceX Dragon creep its way slowly closer to docking.

• Gotta have the eccentric Russian who doesn't care about science or procedure or safety, because that's exactly the sort of person the Russians would have sent into space, donchaknow. And of course the equipment breaks...because it's Russian. Basically Russian work is shoddy and bad.

• Next up, the slingshot around the moon, with more camera shake than a Bourne film, but for far less effect. Never mind the fact that accelerating at high Gs is something that space shuttles are explicitly designed for (granted, humans aren't designed for them, but they don't make a spacecraft rattle).

• Oh noooo, the shuttle with the expendable characters went down. But of course the ones we care about survive. I actually didn't realize until much later that this is when Owen Wilson's character died; I didn't recognize him through the helmet and blood when Affleck was being distraught. Side note: it was nice that they didn't kill the only Black character on the crew.

• WHY THE FUCK DO THESE ROVERS HAVE MINIGUNS. WHY. JUST WHY THE FUCK. WHAT POSSIBLE SCENARIO WOULD REQUIRE THAT.

• Drilling commences. Problems are encountered. And back on Earth, you have the obligatory "bureaucratic politicians are going to interfere and fuck this up" sequence. William Fichtner gets a bad case of by-the-bookishness. "It's not my call!"

• The whole jump-the-rover-across-the-canyon thing...happens. They succeed because Lev is Russian, which is apparently good for something after all.

• I don't think it's ever explained why random explosions start happening on the asteroid and destroy the Freedom's rover. "That's new," Steve Buscemi informs us, but that's all the explanation we get.

• Of course they finally drill to the right depth (no one seems to think 797 feet is good enough, it's got to be exactly 800 feet, of course), Affleck gets ejected from the drill shaft and narrowly saved by Bruce Willis.

• Aaaand of course someone's gotta sacrifice themselves, and of course it's Bruce Willis. Heartfelt goodbyes all around!

• Launching the shuttle doesn't work, and Jessica Steen goes to investigate, along with our Russian Peter Stormare. But of course Steen, the pilot and astronaut trained on this equipment, can't succeed because she's a woman, and Stormare succeeds because he's Russian and hits things with a wrench. Gotta fit the misogyny in somewhere, I guess. Well, aside from the fact that the only women in the film are the love interest, the (apparently incompetent) pilot, the estranged ex-wife of Will Patton...and strippers.

• Of course Bruce Willis gets blasted away from the detonator with only 60 seconds to go, because having a timer count down for literally the entire movie (plus the one with the nuke) wasn't enough, and you need to cut it as close as possible, but still succeed heroically.

So that's Armageddon. It was as patently ridiculous as I had been led to believe, but it really did come up the other side of the so-bad-it's-good valley. It is one of the most ridiculous premises imaginable, and yet they somehow got an all-star cast. It's probably a half-hour too long, and the effects haven't aged well (I'm guessing they didn't look real super back in '98 either, its nomination for an Academy Award notwithstanding).

The script did know all the usual emotional levers to pull, and if all of the plot around it wasn't so ridiculous and tropish, it might even have been believable.

All in all, it was extremely stupid and quite fun to watch, and of course it's a classic in the disaster movie genre.

So, surely it’s not a surprise but I’ve just watched Armageddon for the first time in ages.

I was asking myself, how did it get itself such an A list cast? Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Owen Wilson, Michael Clarke Duncan… the list goes on.

These guys were either at the beginning, or their early peaks of their careers… so how did they all end up together on Armageddon? Such a random cast, what’s the story?

Armageddon and Don't Look Up are films about imminent "Globe Killer" asteroids hurtling towards Earth. Though, they differ significantly in their conceptions of America and its future outlook. The former revels in the surety of American exceptionalism whilst the latter denounces it.

In 1998, American pop culture was in overdrive. Matt Damon had a bowl cut, the iMac just dropped, and Britney gave us 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' (shame on us). A majority of cultural products conveyed a simplistic message, "Things look pretty dire, huh? Don't worry, we've got this (thumbs up emoji)." Armageddon's plot follows this reductive logic, "There's an asteroid the size of Texas headed for America TM (Earth), but don't worry, we've got oil workers and NASA!"

Oil workers as the noble protagonists of a disaster movie is particularly absurd in the contemporary era of climate change and fossil fuel decline. Either way, they are the chosen workers to save Earth (America) from an incoming asteroid. In the commentary, Ben Affleck asks, "Why is it easier to train oil drillers to be astronauts than it is to train astronauts to be oil drillers?" Shut the fuck up, Ben. Oil drillers are the backbone of America and embody the entrepreneurial spirit that defines the nation. They can do whatever they want.

Cue Aerosmith's 'I don't want to miss a thing', pan from the converse and animal crackers packaging to Affleck and Liv Tyler sprawled across a picnic rug at an American Ranch TM. Affleck jumps between cracker banter, (atrocious) Australian impersonations, and culinary erotica, producing perhaps the deepest nadir in American cinematic history.

But really, it's okay. During the mission to destroy the asteroid, some oil workers, including Bruce Willis, are lost. But the day is saved, and America's big, groaning hull scrapes past another iceberg, because of course it does. Is there any other alternative? Oil may once again be drilled, but sadly Bruce Willis won't paternalistically scold his daughter for her taste in men anymore.

To categorise Armageddon as an End of History Film is obvious. It was released at an interesting time, somewhere between the early 90s' triumphalism and the brutal undermining of American exceptionalism that would define the 00's onwards.

The year is 2021, 9 out of the 10 top-grossing films are franchises, a global pandemic is raging, no one gives a fuck about apple anymore, and successive failed military interventions in the Middle East have compromised the sheen of American exceptionalism. Where 90's Hollywood invented threats to American Empire, contemporary Hollywood has a plethora to choose from. In Don't Look Up, the asteroid has a material parallel in the imminent threat of climate change, and the protagonists are loser nerds as opposed to COOL oil drillers. Most importantly, America is no longer a bastion of world order but rather an obstacle to humanity's salvation.

Written by Adam McKay and David Sirota, the narrative features Trump analogues, destructive right-wing media influence, and the scientific community's impotence. For a couple of American liberals, they mount a sufficiently critical and pessimistic attack upon the political status quo. American politicians are short-sighted and tools of corporations, those corporations are technocratic monstrosities, and the people who end up resisting are often coopted by forces more powerful than them. Armageddon and Don't Look Up both address the concept of the American project. Though Armageddon is a base, nationalistic celebration, whereas Don't Look Up is a denunciation.

America's depiction inDon't Look Up is representative of a broad societal shift in both ideology and power. Meta narratives that have sustained the sleepwalk of American hegemony are disintegrating as notions of American exceptionalism are dwarfed by the looming climate catastrophe. Don't Look Up's pessimistic take on contemporary America is also found in other recent successes such as The Card Counter, Parasite, Squid Game, Joker, First Reformed, Get Out, Sicario etc. etc. All herald a burgeoning public scepticism of capitalism, American intervention, and domestic policy.

It seems the raucous celebration of America as depicted in Armageddon is over. American exceptionalism finds its place in more subtle character studies like Nomadland, 20th Century Women, or Ford V Ferrari. What intrigues and engages the public now is a recognition of their perilous position. Staring a climate crisis sized asteroid in the face, they aren't looking for a Bruce Willis to save them. They're expecting it to hit.

I just re-listened but fell asleep near the end.

I know they briefly mentioned the Aerosmith thing, but good lord. I’m halfway through the movie again.

Already 4 Aerosmith songs 😂

But, tbh, maybe cuz its so Michael Bay-ish, it kinda doesnt ruin anything. Kinda works. But its definitely an Aerosmith movie 😝

Harry’s daughter looks just like Liv Tyler too which is weird (jk jk)

I just got done watching Armageddon for the first time in years and you know what? If this movie was released now in theaters, it would be regarded as one of the best blockbusters of the year - and that's without an ounce of sarcasm. The characters are exactly what you want in a movie like this, they are colorful, memorable and just entertaining. Also the movie surprisingly hits the emotional notes really well, I almost never get emotional in these types of movies but Harry's goodbye to his daughter is genuinely touching without being overly cheesy (which is really surprising since this is a Michael Bay movie). There are some really great character moments from William Fichtner's character Willie Sharp and Billy Bob Thornton's character Truman that I feel like don't get enough mention. Obviously the score is amazing and the visual effects still hold up really well even after 22 years.

I was also listening to bits of Ben Affleck's commentary and there is this bit at the end when he talks about him convincing Michael Bay to shoot the end credit wedding scene saying that he felt that they needed an ending like that after all the doom and gloom. Then he goes into detail about how he brought in super 8 cameras to film the wedding and how Michael Bay let him operate the camera...I dunno, I feel like people who made this movie really cared, and it shows, no one is phoning it in. I think the key to why this movie works so well is that it hits that fine line between dumb-fun and genuine