Ok folks the first screening of the full film ARMAGEDDON took place last night in Arizona. I, of course, knew about it and placed some operatives in and around the area for information retreival. Dave Bowman here is the first to come back with a 'full' review. The film was a very rough cut, like that of MEET JOE BLACK that Hallenbeck reviewed. In fact I'm in contact with people that are still working on effects sequences on the film. I have received about five responses so far, however the others were...'too tired' to write and said they'd write me up a report this weekend. They all pretty much liked the film, except for those that didn't understand that the film is science fiction. And science fiction, by it's nature requires a suspension of disbelief. I mean look at the space suits. They are old Wally Wood outfits from E.C. comics. The asteroid surface comes right out of a cover from an old pulp, as a result it ain't like normal asteroids. Dave Bowman is a stickler for details (ie, what NASA currently can do, vs what they do in the film.) Personally, I don't want to see the current equipment doing anything, I want to see stuff I ain't ever seen before. And the last detail he talks about that I feel I need to address is the 'camp' feel he describes in regards to patriotism and such. Personally, I don't feel that sort of thing is 'camp'. Of course I'm an Eagle Scout and still believe in those symbols and I don't giggle at them. What I would really like from you other Arizona spies would be to go see DEEP IMPACT this weekend and compare the films. I think the readers would really appreciate that. I know I would. As always this is a test screening and the following opinion is the voice of one man suffering the tortures of time travel. You don't know him and he is a first time spy, hopefully we'll come to see more reports from Dave Bowman so we can gauge his point of view, as we can Moriarty, Hallenbeck and Aguirre... Now on to the review...
Dave Bowman here, visiting your dimension once again. As always, my fluxing state of spatio-temporal dislocation is leaving me a bit confused about tenses and pronouns, which all seem so... irrelevant, when you've gone through the transformations that we/I have -- so feel free to clean up my grammar, to make this more comprehensible.
In any case, I recently found myself visiting your future, wherein I happened to see catch the movie Armageddon. Perhaps this will be of interest to you; it certainly was to me. See, your timeline is really odd. Thirty years ago it contained a strikingly accurate portrayal of my Jupiter mission (though the movie seemed longer, I must say), but since then, your space program has frankly gone to Hell. In *my* timeline, we had permanent lunar bases by the late '70's, and were just beginning to explore Mars in the '80's. In *your* timeline, however, everything stagnated. Nobody was interested. I've never quite understood that.
Recently, some conspiratorial space activists have gotten the notion that if they convinced Hollywood that space was a plausible threat, then perhaps people would become interested in it again. Hence, the development of such movies as Deep Impact and Armageddon. Of course, there are other motives for developing such pictures, which unfortunately directly cross purposes with the aforementioned desire for plausibility.
Here's a disclaimer: as an experienced astronaut, I probably have much more exacting standards for what is "plausible" than most other people. Particularly for those of you who live in a timeline where space travel is almost fictitious, few will notice how many inaccuracies this film contains. For those of you, it will just be fun.
The plot is probably a bit familiar by now: Earth is being threatened by a ________ from outer space, and it's up to a rag-tag band of all-American eccentrics to save the world. Bruce Willis plays Bruce Willis -- quite well, I might add -- and is joined by a fine cast, most of whom also play themselves very well. There are the obligatory scenes: New Yorkers acting crazy, a gratuitous strip-club scene, lots of gratuitous flag-waving, slow mo "Right Stuff"-ian "Astronauts on the Tarmac" shots, military goons being gooney, the inspirational speech from "Deep-Independence- -Impact-Day" about how humanity is all united and everything, perpetually intoxicated cosmonauts, a romantic sub-plot, and so forth. All is pulled off, however, with an almost perfect amount of camp. Any more or less camp would have made the movie annoying, although some of the one liners were obviously intended to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
The movie opens with New York getting quite enjoyably thrashed by a swarm of meteorites, skyscrapers plunging into the streets and so forth, interlaced with some distracting attempts at slapstick humor. These meteorites serve as the heralds of the "Big One", and the destruction of New York is never again mentioned in the film.
Soon enough, the "Big One" is discovered, and we're told that it's going to hit in 18 days. Lobbing nukes at the thing won't do any good, because it has too much mass and momentum, so they decide to fly a couple of shuttles there, with a crew of the world's best oil drillers (Willis, of course), to drill into the asteroid and crack it open. Now, this is where my astronaut training kicked in, and I began squirming in my seat. See, in *your* timeline, NASA can't launch a shuttle inside of three months, much less launch two in eighteen days (it takes 2.1 million signatures just to get one of the damn things off the ground). Once in space, their main engines can't re-light, which makes a shuttle about as maneuverable as a sixty-ton piece of earthenware. But never mind all that. In Hollywood's timeline, NASA has developed the X-71 wondershuttle, which can do things that make even me envious. I can live with that.
After unveiling the X-71, NASA recruits our colorful band of rough-neck oil-drilling adventurers. Willis, Buscemi, Affleck and the others do an admirable job of portraying some largely hackneyed characters. Liv Tyler joins them as Willis’ doe-eyed daughter, whose role mostly involves being plucky yet pouty. She does well with what she’s given, though. Billy Bob Thornton, meanwhile, does a superb playing the 'friendly and efficient NASA administrator', something potentially less believable than the X-71, yet Thornton pulls it off. In other words, the acting in this movie is less ridiculous than everything else.
Our friendly oil-drillers separate the sheep from the boys at NASA, while incurring the wrath of the military and executive branch of the government. Soon enough they’re rocketing through space on their way to the asteroid.
I’m using the term 'asteroid' loosely here, mostly to distinguish it from the menacing thing in Deep Impact. But anybody who’s ever flown through the asteroid belt -- or studied astronomy for more than eight seconds -- won’t be able to recognize this thing. It’s cool-looking, for sure, particularly the parts that look just like Capital Reef National Monument shot through a bluish filter, but doesn’t resemble anything I’ve ever encountered whilst studying planetary evolution. No matter.
The rest of the movie consists of suspenseful action scenes, intercut with Liv Tyler back in Houston looking worried yet resolute, stock footage of panic in the streets, and pastoral America bravely bracing itself for the inevitable, gazing wistfully for one last time upon it’s amber fields of grain. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Actually, I thought it was darned funny.
Throughout the movie, I kept losing my suspension of disbelief, mostly due to technical inaccuracies. The CapCom would say "it’s missing us by 100,000 miles," whenever any idiot could see it was more like 300. While space shuttles were flitting around like fruitbats on crack, I would cringe in my seat muttering "you can’t DO that!" But this was probably just me. Most people won’t be disturbed by these details, and will probably enjoy the movie a lot. The acting is good. If the characters were less stereotyped, they probably wouldn’t be as much fun. The plot doesn’t get in the way of anything. The action is good, and footage of Earth is gorgeous. I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys action flicks and isn’t an aerospace geek. For those who *are* space geeks, I would recommend getting drunk first, and then seeing it.
Heck, next time I materialize in this dimension, I’ll probably do that myself. This movie isn’t quite f
What... 'This movie isn't quite f...' WHAT!?!?!?!?! fantastic? fair? funny? fun? fabulous? fictional? french? What was Dave gonna say? I don't know. Hey Dave, how about a full answer?
