This post started a discussion on the film Armageddon. This thread will end it. FOCUS: Self-explanatory. Discuss Armageddon. Good? Bad? Epic? Worthless? Dissect the ridiculous science, defend Steve Buscemi's space madness, question why they put a Gatling Gun on a space shuttle. Go.
I can't tell if that's sarcasm or not, but you know what? Almost every male I know, be he genius or moron, knows the movie by heart. Nobody actually thinks it's good. It just...needs to be watched. It's like The Notebook for men. They hand you a copy when they issue you a dick.
I mean, the minute a plot description includes the sentence, "And then they land the space shuttles on the asteroid and prepare to bury the nuclear warhead..." you really have to throw out whatever hopes you had for a film grounded in anything resembling an acceptable reality. At that point, you just need to sit back, enjoy it, and when something stupid happens, chuckle to yourself and think, "Oh yeah, it's Michael Bay." After that, the rest is cream cheese.
I have no problems with any of that. However, instead of focusing on the humor and entertainment, the movie becomes this hysterical, over-emotional garbage with generic cliches about "love". After the first half hour, suddenly, instead of being a silly and entertaining popcorn film (like "Independence Day", which was a lot better for that very reason), it tried to be serious movie. And at that point a lack of any logic and continuity DOES become a grave problem. The last 45 minutes of "Armageddon" are damn near impossible to sit through precisely because it abandons the "crazy fun and explosions" formula. And on that note, yeah, Liv Tyler is hot.
I really have to agree with you here, and not just on Armageddon but pretty much all Michael Bay shit. The dude just doesn't get it. Half of him wants to make movies with the most advanced crazy explosions and shit possible (which is cool) and the other half of him wants to make movies with deep sappy story lines (which is also cool). In the end, Affleck/Willis in a tunnel on an asteroid about to smash into earth just doesn't exude "reality," and an movie go-er with half a brain is repulsed. What his movie formula does: shallows out potentially deep story lines, and fags out potentially awesome action sequences. He just doesn't have the talent to pull that shit off, but unfortunately for us he has the ego to continually think he can, rather than making awesome action movies with puddle-deep story lines that would probably be fucking awesome. (although on second thought, I doubt they would be awesome at all, but certainly more fun than they are now)
*Cracks knuckles* okeeeeey...... It took nine writers to create this masterpiece. Drill a hole in this film and let the sap out. "It's funny that you mention a gigantic asteroid hurtling towards earth. It just so happens we JUST FINISHED these mondo space shuttles that can fly dozens of times faster than the ones we have now!" IT's a ROCK, but has similar gravity of earth. However, that doesn't stop a lunar rover from jumping thousands of feet over a canyon, not damaging it whatsoever. The asteroid is the size of Texas. In order to crack it, they have to bury the bomb at a Leviathan-like depth of.....dun dun dun....800 ft (half the height of the Sears Tower). Hold 800 ft up to the second largest state in the USA. Yep, that's all it takes. Not only that, but this bomb will crack this moon-sized rock EXACTLY in half, in which debris from it will not hit the earth whatsoever as the two enormous pieces volley past the earth at an incredibly close distance. Not only THAT, but this bomb will be millions of times more powerful the the Russian Tzar hydrogen bomb which is the most powerful explosive device ever designed. Also, it's so advanced it will make an explosion noise in space, which is impossible. Plus... (I could do this forever).... All astronauts need guns in space. Different sizes of guns, too. Bruce Willis finds Affleck in bed with Liv Tyler, chases him all over an oil rig, firing a shotgun at him like a Columbine nutcase. An oil rig, something with highly sensitive and dangerous/volatile equipment all over it, meanwhile not giving a shit if he might blow away another co-worker in the process. Why does the bomb have a red digital readout on it if it's getting buried in a rock and blown up? So we can have the umpteen trillionth "disarm the bomb at the last second" scene that shitty action movies always seem to have. The strip club in this movie is even nicer than the police stations of CSI. In other words, something else that doesn't exist in real life. All effects are murky and jump-cut so all the action is unwatchable. Ben Affleck's character is utterly insufferable in this. It's his worst performance but HEY every single member on this board in an Affleck fan. Can I get an amen? Most people can't survive an airplane crash on earth, but you can survive a shuttle crash at hundreds of times faster into jagged rocks on a giant spinning asteroid. The good part of this: Owen Wilson dies. Drink every time somebody yells "It's gonna blow!!!" Die of alcohol poisoning before the movie is over. Nobody in the film seems even slightly disturbed that Manhattan, Shanghai and Paris have been pretty much destroyed by asteroids. The kind of asteroids that don't burn up like the thousands of bigger ones that DO burn up in the atmosphere at the end of the movie. The planet and every human being in existence is about to be destroyed, but lets all pause so Bruce Willis can have what seems to be a 200 minute cornball "I'm so sorry but I love you..." sobfest. Steve Buscemi picks up hot chicks. All men as handsome as him do. That Aerosmith ballad sucks. I needed to say that again, because it does. The final line "The daughter of the bravest man I've ever met blah blah blah..." that William Fincter delivers to Tyler on the runway (apparently civilans are allowed to run out onto NASA runways whenever they feel like it) actually brought tears to the eyes of grown men that I personally know (fucking SERIOUSLY). It affected me differently: throwing up into my mouth. I'm sure I'll think of more. If not, I think I've made my point. This film is worthless. Watch me. Sorry, in my eyes she's ugly. Don't tap on the glass, you'll scare the fish.
I just want to point out that if Armageddon didn't take itself so damn seriously, all of the "problems" you've listed could absolutely be milked for hilarity. It could have been like a revamping of Dr. Strangelove in better hands. Alas, Michael Bay sucks balls.
Crown Royal... I have to publicly commend you for your hilarious post. That being said, my original reply was intended to be ironic (irony is the new sarcasm, ask the hipsters, they're in the know). But listen up: Armageddon doesn't require physics - in the head, Armageddon requires a soul - in the heart. Every single person in the world is going to die, your mom, your wife, your kids even and you're worried about how the physics work? My god, suspend your disbelief (like... a lot, because this movie would give Stephen Hawking's robo-chair an aneurysm) and watch them save the gawd-damned world in the most dramatic yet predictable way. Besides, it's way better than deep impact. Spielberg is overrated. Bay vs. Spielberg I'd honestly watch a good (dialogue good, not plot good: The Rock is good, Transformers2 is not) Bay movie than most Spielberg directed movies. Armageddon is way cooler than that shitty Deep Impact. Transformers gave us the cool new Camaro, what did Schindler's List do? QED.
Let me tell you a story. A story about a man with a limp. A man with a limp named Truman. Truman, he had a dream. His dream was to go into space. So he goes to NASA, and he says, "Let me go." And NASA looks at him, and looks at his leg, and it says, "Truman, you're never going into space." And Truman was crushed like a human leg under a rock big enough to make that human limp forever. And then this guy named Harry came along and listened to Truman's dreams, and looked at his leg, and saw that it was a good leg, a strong leg. Strong enough for space. "This isn't fair", said Harry. And then Harry went to space and nuked Space Texas, and gave a patch to Ben Reindeergames and said "Give this to Truman. Make sure Truman gets this." And then Harry died. He died, man. And guess what? Truman got his patch. His space patch. And it was like Truman went to space. Except he really didn't. If that doesn't make you sad in the chest and eyes, then you need to get up and move to Indiana, where nobody feels feelings like a normal human.
Truman DID make it to space, mon frere. Did you miss out on a little epic known as The Astronaut Farmer? He said "Fuck NASA and fuck you mission control that look like a sports bar which doesn't serve booze" and built a highly sophisticated space vehicle in his run-down barn. Then, the Vietnamese farmer from the beginning of Air America shot him down with a musket.
Fuck Armageddon for causing that sappy ass Aerosmith song to ever be made. Seriously I don't wanna close my eyes or else I'll have visions of ramming a mic stand down Steven Tyler's throat. That being said, William Fichtner's speech about requesting permission to shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man he's ever known gets me every time.