# Armageddon: Good lord what a turkey! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 20, 2006, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182 "2006-03-20T19:29:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![sunfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sunfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunfish)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/21 "2006-03-20T22:37:08Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > You forgot the Unobtainium armor coating the super-dooper space shuttles. I thought that was the outer shell of the vehicle in _The Core_, another turkey if ever there was one. In addition to the nitpicks pointed out here and at The Bad Astronomer’s site, I’d like to add these: - in the opening sequence, supposedly showing the K-T impact event - sorry fellas, you got the paleogeography wrong. Florida didn’t exist yet, the Yucatan didn’t look like the modern Yucatan, and where the hell was the Cretaceous Interior Seaway (big, wide strip of ocean that should have run up through the middle of North America)? - when Steve Buscemi gives his little speech about why the spot the shuttle ended up on is a bad thing, he says they landed on “compressed iron ferrite” - Okay now, a) ferrite is a form of iron, so “iron ferrite” is redundant; b) the only ferrite that’s NOT man-made is good ol’ magnetite (i.e., a natural magnet, sometimes given the old-fashioned name loadstone), in which case they would have had a hell of a problem maneuvering steel equipment without getting stuck to the surface; c) to the best of my knowledge, magnetite has never been found (at least in appreciable quantity) in a real iron meteorite; and d) IF by some bizarre chance their meteor contained a lot of magnetite, there’d be no way to compress it because magnetite’s crystal structure is already as compact as it gets. Whew… sorry to turn on the full nerd mode there, but I had to let that out. Thanks for the chance to unload. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/22 "2006-03-20T23:41:34Z")
Armageddon is a fun, big budget Jerry Bruckheimer action fantasy movie with an ensemble cast similar to The Rock, Con Air, Independence Day, Pirates of the Carribean and Die Hard. It was written and produced to entertain with loud explosions, amusing wise cracking characters, melodramatic scenes of astronauts walking in slow motion and fighters flying in formation while American flags wave in the background to the tunes of Aerosmith. It is not meant to be an accurate resentation of astrophysics, geology, oil drilling, NASA, the USAF, nuclear weaponry or any other aspect of the space program. It was not designed to withstand the scrutiny of a hundred thousand dorks picking apart every the minutia of every scene and gleefully sharing every continuity error and logically implausable scene on the Internet. Besides, what kind of freakin cyborg doesn’t get all teary when Chick’s (Will Paton) ex wife tells their kid that the “salesman” he sees on TV with the astronauts is his father. To answer some of the OPs questions: > [@](#): > > So… you’ve planned ahead to have an emergency backup detenator which a person has to stay behind and manually push. And you have a system for blowing up the nuke weapon from Earth. > > But… you don’t have a backup plan to set off the nuke frome the shuttles?! WTF?! The equipment was damaged in the rock storm > [@](#): > > And once the countdown is started to blow the nuke from Earth, why is cutting off the signal going to stop it? Wouldn’t you want the default to be “if no signal, still blow?” Isn’t this the whole idea… to be able to set off the bomb if things are going wrong? Because the crew would be killed and the movie would end > [@](#): > > What manner of intelligent meteors are these that seek out NYC, Hong Kong and Paris?! And take out a space shuttle! What are the odds?! Because it’s not dramatic if a meteor hits in the great plains 100 miles from a major city. > [@](#): > > How is it that the early meteor showers are wrecking cities but after the Texas-sized meteor is split in half (less said about the physics of that the better) nothing of size is going to hit? The smaller pieces were vaporized. The point is that even if larger meteors hit, who cares because they won’t be big enough to kill the planet. > [@](#): > > How is it that the big meteor isn’t spinning 3D until the crew is damn near on it, yet they show up on the surface with detailed survey photos of the darn thing? The spin started when it went past the moon. They tell you this. > [@](#): > > Why aren’t these people quaranteened when they return? How can the cosmonaut wlak normally on Earth after 18 months in space? Why is he wearing Soviet gear in or after 1998?! The correct answer is “who gives a shit?”. It’s not relevant to the plot. > [@](#): > > Why is he such a stereotype? (Actually every ethnic charcter or their montage equivalents in the whole damn thing are ethnic stereotypes.) Because it’s funny. > [@](#): > > How does the AJ character survive a rocket fuel fire? He just does. > [@](#): > > Why do guys who just got off of a long-term oil rig stint need to borrow money from a loanshark to hit a strip club for a few hours? Because it’s funny. > [@](#): > > Why is one of the only two people who can fly the shuttle drawing straws to stay behind? They don’t. “The shuttle takes two to fly so we can either all stay here and die or ALL OF YOU can draw straws.” > [@](#): > > Why does it have ski landing gear in space and wheels on Earth?! The correct answer is “who gives a shit”. But if you need a better explanation, it has both and uses the ski in space so it doesn’t rip apart the tires on the sharp rocks. > [@](#): > > How does the whole oil rig crew leave after the Willis character, take commercial flights from the South China Sea to different parts of the US & immediately begin doing strenuous activities BEFORE Willis gets to NASA with a military escort?! I assumed they were in the Gulf of Mexico. You also forgot that AJ was also able to set up his own drilling company complete with his name on the sign. It doesn’t make sense but I don’t care. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/23 "2006-03-21T00:22:39Z")
I don’t really mind this movie. I hated it the first time, and then the 2nd time I realized “Wait. That’s it! It’s a comedy! That’s where the enjoyment comes from”. So I just watch it as a comedy, like a big-budget version of Airplane II. Actually, One could say that Armagedon is “Airplane III: The search for more money”. Oh, and it gets brownie points for having a scene where Bruce Willis tries to kill Ben Affleck with a shotgun. Someone on this forum once said “Everyone movie should have a scene where Bruce Willis tries to kill Ben Affleck with a shotgun”. I’m inclined to agree. ---
**Author:** ![sunfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sunfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunfish)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/24 "2006-03-21T00:38:13Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It is not meant to be an accurate resentation of astrophysics, geology, oil drilling, NASA, the USAF, nuclear weaponry or any other aspect of the space program. It was not designed to withstand the scrutiny of a hundred thousand dorks picking apart every the minutia of every scene and gleefully sharing every continuity error and logically implausable scene on the Internet. Really?? You don’t say! :rolleyes: Look, as a sci-fi fan in particular, I’m perfectly happy to suspend my disbelief when a story is good. I also recognize what this movie was trying to accomplish. On the blow-everything-up, rah-rah scale of things, this movie rates a 8 or 9 out of 10. But I’ll reserve the right to be mildly irritated with the artistic license that Hollywood likes to take on scientific subjects, because too many non-science types swallow what they see as the truth. After discovering, in rapid succession, that three people I would consider reasonably well educated, sane folks all thought that people and dinosaurs existed simultaneously because of _The Flintstones_, I decided to be a little more vocal about my nitpicking. By way of contrast, _Deep Impact_ wasn’t perfect either but they did make an effort to get more of the details on target, and for that alone it ranks higher than _Armageddon_ in my book. YMOV. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/25 "2006-03-21T01:20:56Z")
Personally, I can’t believe people complain about _Armageddeon_ but give _Deep Impact_ a pass, as the latter couples the bad science of the former with a dose of \*\*extra-\*\*stupid decision-making and a horribly contrived romance plot tacked on. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – _Deep Impact_ is a movie so dumb that you end up at the final reel rooting for the rock to wipe out humanity and replace it with something smarter… ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/26 "2006-03-21T01:44:51Z")
> [@sunfish](#): > > But I’ll reserve the right to be mildly irritated with the artistic license that Hollywood likes to take on scientific subjects, because too many non-science types swallow what they see as the truth. After discovering, in rapid succession, that three people I would consider reasonably well educated, sane folks all thought that people and dinosaurs existed simultaneously because of _The Flintstones_, I decided to be a little more vocal about my nitpicking. Than I suggest you hang out with smarter people. It’s not a scientific subject any more than Peter Pan, Star Wars or The Flintstones. It’s fantasy and should be taken as such. Attempting to apply some sort of stringent scientific method to the film will only result in frustration. You either accept that Peter Pan can fly, The Force is strong in this one and some fat dude works in a quary using a dinosaur as a crane…or you don’t. Sorry, but nitpicking movies does not make you appear intelligent or clever. It makes you appear anal and pretentious. > [@sunfish](#): > > By way of contrast, _Deep Impact_ wasn’t perfect either but they did make an effort to get more of the details on target, and for that alone it ranks higher than _Armageddon_ in my book. YMOV. Yeah…but it sucked. It was boring, the characters were uninteresting and other than the big wave hitting New York, it was largely forgettable. Personally, I think Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay are geniouses when it comes to those kinds of mindless action movies. For some reason they have a knack of making those kinds of films exciting and cool in a way that The Core and Stealth aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/27 "2006-03-21T02:11:06Z")
> [@sunfish](#): > > I thought that was the outer shell of the vehicle in _The Core_, another turkey if ever there was one. The term “Unobtanium” was used by scientists and engineers to ridicule scripts like these that called for a material so strong nothing could damage it, and yet was maleable or otherwise formable into useful items. _The Core_ decided to actually use it as their metal in the script. _Armageddon_’s “science” used to satisfy the “science fiction” label was bad, but not too bad compared to other movies. The difference is quantity, in that every other minute “Science!” was included that was wrong, exaggerated, and usually unnecessary. The science that _was_ accurate was too complicated (ie, the mission was more difficult because the asteroid was spinning on all three axis). The rest of the movie was awful, too, causing even casual lay observers to question everything about it. I had already seen _Deep Impact_ when I saw _Armageddon_, and _Armageddon_ did not benefit from the comparison to a similar movie that, while flawed, correctly focused on people’s reactions to impending doom. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/28 "2006-03-21T02:19:54Z")
If we’ve learned nothing else from “Armageddon”, it should be that it’s easier to teach a miner spaceflight than it is to teach an astronaut mining… -Joe ---
**Author:** ![sunfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sunfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunfish)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/29 "2006-03-21T02:24:32Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Than I suggest you hang out with smarter people. It’s not a scientific subject any more than Peter Pan, Star Wars or The Flintstones. It’s fantasy and should be taken as such. Attempting to apply some sort of stringent scientific method to the film will only result in frustration. You either accept that Peter Pan can fly, The Force is strong in this one and some fat dude works in a quary using a dinosaur as a crane…or you don’t. Oh, the folks I referred to are indeed pretty smart. They just happen to be non-science folk, which in this country, in this day and age, means there is a helluva lot that they don’t know. That’s okay, as I’m far from an expert on a lot of subjects, but I’m always happy to learn something new from them; I’ll assume, unless I see signs to the contrary, that the same holds true in reverse. Maybe a better example, because it’s less clear-cut to the average person, is the ridiculousness that was _The Day After Tomorrow._ In any case, I thought I made it pretty clear that I’m happy to “go with the flow” if the storyline is good, so I think you’re making more of this than is necessary. > [@msmith537](#): > > Sorry, but nitpicking movies does not make you appear intelligent or clever. It makes you appear anal and pretentious. I usually reserve the real nitpicky stuff for people I know will get it or appreciate it, and keep to a more general level stuff for everyone else. Since a lot of the general stuff had already been covered by other people in this thread or they links they gave, I gave in to a moment of weakness and übergeekness. So sorry. But hey, if nitpicking makes me appear anal and pretentious, I could do worse than be in The Bad Astronomer’s company! > [@msmith537](#): > > Personally, I think Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay are geniouses when it comes to those kinds of mindless action movies. For some reason they have a knack of making those kinds of films exciting and cool in a way that The Core and Stealth aren’t. Bruckhemier and Bay also did _Pearl Harbor_, which put me to sleep. Like I said before, YMOV. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/30 "2006-03-21T02:31:48Z")
The “intelligent big giant meteor movie” was **Deep Impact**. Armageddon was just … stoopid, like “Dirty Dozen in Space.” ---
**Author:** ![sunfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sunfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunfish)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/31 "2006-03-21T02:33:06Z")
It occurs to me I should clarify something - by “non-science person” in my last post, I meant people who aren’t at least science buffs. **garygnu** , I agree with your perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/32 "2006-03-21T02:34:43Z")
They can leave all the plot-holes, impossibilities, and scientific errors in, and then add all the one’s from _The Core_, if only they’d take out the love scenes between Afflack and Tyler. God those made me want to stick spikes in my eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182/33 "2006-03-21T03:32:38Z")
Armageddon goes out of its way in its opening sequence to suggest that we’re going to take a look at events which happened before and will happen again. If we’re going to do that we’re taking things out of the realm of fantasy and giving me some “what if” sci fi set here on Earth. If we can’t find room in a bajillion dollar budget to hire a scientist and get some very basic things right, we can at least hire a continuity editor. Or have humans act like humans usually do. If we can’t do that, we need not to be making a movie. The more I think about the story the less sense any of it makes. Oil rig strikes oil, people almost get killed, boss gets taken away by the government, so… the entire crew takes a vacation in the States? And the boss knows this intuitively? Yes, it was in the South China Sea. An incredibly horny dude getting off of an oil rig with a pocketful of money in Asia does not fly to New Orleans to hit on women at a bar. No, no, no. He certainly doesn’t get there on commercial flights before his boss with a military escort get to Houston. I don’t happen to find ethnic stereotypes funny. What is this, 1906? Half of the “humor” in the movie either revolves around peoples ethnicities or Steve Buscemi’s character enjoying sex with underage girls. “Hardy har…” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armageddon-good-lord-what-a-turkey/349182.md?page=1)