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Scariest Environment Imaginable: Armageddon vs. Deep Impact
137 Plays2 years ago
In 1998 Hollywood released two movies with almost identical ‘a meteor is going to destroy the earth’ plots. 25 years later, Rock & Rob decide to end the debate once and for all and find out whether Armageddon (1998) or Deep Impact (1998) is the superior ‘do an outlandish thing to stop the disaster’ movie. Find out which film will blast off into space to save the day as they are put through seven rounds of questions such as ‘better title’, ‘bigger plot holes’ and ‘which movie had the better President?’
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Transcript
Brotherly Greetings & Sarcasm
00:00:00
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention? Brothers don't shake hands. Brothers gotta hug. Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus. I don't want your life. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul. Okay, a simple wrong would have done just fine.
Introduction to Movie Showdown
00:00:26
Speaker
What is up everybody and welcome to the movie showdown with Rock and Rob. My name is Rob Mansfield and with me I've only got five words for you. It's Alex the Mallex Rockline. Rob it's the end of the world as we know it but I feel fine. Alex the Mallex, another one of my terrible nicknames for you. Although I do think I've heard Bob call you that as well.
00:00:50
Speaker
Yeah, my uncle calls me that dating back to who knows when I was a child, and I still don't understand it to this day. But it's a nickname that people in my family call me. No one knows what it means, but it's somehow it's past the test of time here. Well, let us waste no more time. The rock question of the week.
End of the World Plans?
00:01:09
Speaker
What would you do if you found out the world was going to end? Man, this is such a tough question. How much time do I have before the world is going to end?
00:01:17
Speaker
Give me your answer if you knew you had a year versus if you knew you had two weeks. Okay, so if I had a year, I think I'd probably try to see as many people and places I possibly could. Travel around, catch up with some old friends, a little more time to prepare. Two weeks? Man, I'd probably just freak out the whole time.
00:01:37
Speaker
I can't imagine doing anything like fun. Just paralyzed by fear. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would definitely stop showing up for my job, regardless of if it was two weeks or a year. I mean, who's gonna fire someone during the apocalypse? That's, I mean, a bad look for any organization. Cost saving measures. I would definitely travel around the world with my family to just try to see things that we've never seen before.
00:02:03
Speaker
take in some of Earth's beauty before it would go up in smoke, literally. I would definitely spend less time in Pennsylvania. No knock on Pennsylvania, but that's not really where I would choose to end my days. Let's say there was a year left. Do you think professional sports are still going on or school? I don't know what would happen. Sports, I feel like, would still go on.
00:02:23
Speaker
I mean, it's a source of entertainment. It's a way for people to shut their minds off for a bit. But do you think the athletes would be into it? I think you would have a lot of the younger athletes interested and still competing, but the older athletes that are a few years from retirement to begin with, they're just saying goodbye. I think anybody with families is saying, no, I'm not doing this.
00:02:42
Speaker
Yeah, that wouldn't be a very great way to like, what have you got injured? You know, like what if you tore your ACL? You're like, right. Yeah, you can't even find a doctor. The doctors are all on some beach or building a fortress in the mountains for protection. Yeah, you can even get the high ground if you tear your seal along those lines, but switching gears slightly.
Space Travel Fears
00:03:00
Speaker
If you had the opportunity, would you ever go to space? Are we talking like rich people going to space, like barely touching it or like deep space? The answer is no for both. So I don't know why I asked that.
00:03:11
Speaker
The answer is unequivocally no for me as well. What are your feelings about outer space? Space versus outer space. Shooting me off the earth in a rocket, no thank you. Space is terrifying, and I'm basing all of this on movies, but too much can go wrong. Who wants to float away to their death? That has to be one of the most terrible ways to die. You have enough oxygen to survive
00:03:33
Speaker
For a decent long time in those spacesuits, can you imagine just floating away into the abyss of space and just knowing that you were going to perish? No, I mean, at some point, you probably do come to terms with it. You'll go further than any human has ever gone. If that's any consolation, I think I would be stupid enough to think I could like air swim, swim back or something. I don't know. It would just be a bad way to end. I don't want to think about that space.
Deep Impact vs. Armageddon
00:03:56
Speaker
I bring up world ending events and space because our two movies this week are Deep Impact, which Rock will be representing, and Armageddon, which I will be representing. Occasionally Hollywood will produce two movies of similar themes in the same year. The biggest example of that is Armageddon and Deep Impact, both released in 1998. But we've seen this happen a good amount. In 1997, we had Dante's Peak and Volcano,
00:04:21
Speaker
two volcano movies that were released. Also in 1998, Ants and a Bug's Life, we got two animated films about insects. One, I think, clearly better than the other. That's for another day. In 2006, we had The Illusionist and The Prestige, two magician movies, I guess you would call them.
00:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, I'd call those magician movies. 2011, you had friends with benefits and no strings attached. I feel like we're going to have to do the one of those movies that is under 60%. Maybe we can make an exception and just compete both of those. I feel like we could have some exception episodes. All those would be pretty interesting. I do like the idea of the two similar movies coming out around the same time because at a service level, oh, those are exactly the same. But then you actually sit down and watch the movies and they're completely different. Kind of like what we did this week. Exactly what we did this week.
00:05:11
Speaker
So actually, according to Bruce Joel Rubin, who was a writer of Deep Impact, he had a meeting with a production president at Disney that took notes on everything he said about the script. And then Disney decided, hey, we're going to make Armageddon. I'm not sure how valid this is, but there's always some of those tales that go around when something like this happens. It seems highly unlikely that two major studios without any overlapping interactions with each other would both decide to release a movie.
00:05:41
Speaker
about a world-ending comet or meteor in the same year. And not just like any two studios, it's Touchstone versus DreamWorks, like two of the biggest ones in the late 90s. Well, Alex, tell me about Deep Impact. Deep Impact is about astronauts who learn to become drillers to try to save the world from being decimated by a comet. Deep Impact was released on May 8th, 1998, directed by Mimi Leder. She is a very accomplished TV director,
00:06:08
Speaker
Actually, Steven Spielberg was originally supposed to take on this movie as the director, but he was already directing Amistad. So he stayed on as an executive producer. Like we said, his studio DreamWorks was involved, which is why he was also involved. This was written by Bruce Joel Rubin. He actually won an Oscar for the movie Ghost. And also you have Michael Tolkien.
00:06:28
Speaker
He was an Oscar-nominated writer for The Player. This movie had a budget of $80 million. Box Office brought in $349.5 million. Deep Impact has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 45% and a Google Audience score of 72%.
00:06:46
Speaker
In comparison, Armageddon is about drillers learning to be astronauts in order to save the world from being decimated by a meteor. I just love these, gotta find the best man for the job movies in Armageddon.
00:07:01
Speaker
to find the best drillers on the planet to save the world. Anytime that is a plot device, I'm in. I'm in for it the whole way. With a montage. You know, you need a killer montage to go with it. Armageddon was released July 1, 1998, so just basically two months after Deep Impact. And it was directed by Michael Bay. Now, if you don't know who Michael Bay is, the best description I found for him
00:07:26
Speaker
was that he is known for making big budget, high concept action films characterized by fast cutting, stylistic cinematography and visuals and extensive use of special effects, including frequent depictions of explosions. I think frequent is an understatement.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yes, it is like more than frequent. Bay's filmography is interesting because his first stretch of movies is actually really good. He's got Bad Boys One and Two, The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor. Then he basically committed his life to the Transformers movies, with a few exceptions mixed in such as Pain and Gain, which was a pretty good movie. But I just wonder what type of movies we would have gotten if he didn't sell his soul to Hasbro.
00:08:10
Speaker
Armageddon was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, so there's a lot of familiar cast and crew from other Bruckheimer movies. It was written by Jonathan Hensley, JJ Abrams, Shane Salerno, Robert Roy Poole, Tony Gilroy. Those were the credited writers. The uncredited writers on the script were Scott Rosenberg, Robert Towne, Paul Antonassio, and Anne Bitterman. So if you're keeping track at home, that is nine writers who worked on this script, which seems like a lot. Did you get writing credit for this one?
00:08:39
Speaker
Seems like everyone got a writing credit. That's a lot of writers. I don't even know what to say about that. Armageddon has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 43%. And due to the film's fast pace and quick style editing, Roger Ebert called it the first 150 minute trailer.
00:08:55
Speaker
He also said Armageddon was the worst movie of 1998 and it's included on his most hated list. So Alex, I did some research on 1998 movies. Do you want to know some 1998 movies that apparently Roger Ebert thought were better
Critics vs. Audience on Armageddon
00:09:10
Speaker
than Armageddon? I would love to hear this list. We've got I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. That's the sequel. We have A Night at the Roxbury, which is a great movie, but it's not better than Armageddon.
00:09:21
Speaker
We have Chairman of the Board. That's the Carrot Top movie. We have Major League Back to the Miners. That's the third one. Great movie, but not better than Armageddon. We have Three Ninjas High Noon at Mega Mountain. That is the fourth Three Ninjas movie. I mean, anytime you got like a third and a fourth in there, just by experience, those movies are never as good as any of the other ones. Ebert just had a grudge for some reason. There is absolutely no way that this is the worst movie of 1998.
00:09:50
Speaker
No, sure, people can have their opinions, but he's wrong. So we know what the critics thought, but the Google audience score on this is 84%. It had a budget of 140 million and a box office of $553.7 million, making it the biggest movie of 1998.
00:10:08
Speaker
So critics can say what they want, but the people voted with their wallets. It's a lot of money, half a billion dollars. It really is. I think this is a prime example of fun just being better in the end and what people wanting is fun when they go to the movies. Deep Impact had everything going for it in terms of
00:10:27
Speaker
it should have beat Armageddon in the box office. It came out first, it had more prestigious actors at the time, and it had better reviews. And Deep Impact still did very well at the box office, but Armageddon beat it by about $200 million. That's a pretty significant number.
00:10:42
Speaker
I think this is just a great example of what we've been trying to say on this podcast, and that is for all of the art we want to talk about when it comes to filmmaking, which is very valid and important, there is also an aspect of fun that has to be taken into consideration.
00:10:58
Speaker
At the end of the day, you want to be entertained. Both of these movies, I think, are very entertaining, but in very different ways. So besides a meteor crashing into Earth and destroying everything, there are a lot of similarities in these two movies. Both movies open with a shot of the stars, not the actor stars, the literal stars in the sky. The cosmos.
00:11:19
Speaker
You also have some of the same locations. Twin Towers are in both of these films. Yeah featured pretty heavily with impact from the meteors. Both movies think that a missile blast will alter the path of the meteors.
00:11:34
Speaker
You have some drilling into the space debris, be it a meteor or comet. Both movies featured a Russian guy helping the main team. Classic. Both prominently feature the space shuttle Atlantis. Armageddon's opening shows Atlantis being destroyed in a meteor shower. Deep Impact had shown very briefly ferrying the astronauts to the bigger spaceship, the Messiah. So we talked about the similarities in the two movies. Let's talk about the differences.
00:12:02
Speaker
The biggest thing I noticed right off the bat was that Armageddon is really, really funny. Whereas Deep Impact takes itself much more seriously. You also have an 18 day countdown versus a two year total time frame. In Armageddon, they say that the sun wouldn't be able to penetrate the earth for a thousand years because of the dust from the meteor. Whereas Deep Impact said it would only be two years.
00:12:25
Speaker
Armageddon, you open with a lot of destruction, whereas Deep Impact, you close the movie with the destruction. In Armageddon, they call it a global killer. In Deep Impact, it is called an ELE, an extinction level event. You also have a big difference in how big the waves are. Armageddon, three mile high tidal wave. Deep Impact, 100 feet.
00:12:46
Speaker
In Armageddon, they said when you were in space, if the sun was on you, it would be 200 degrees versus Deep Impact. They said it would be 350 degrees. The other thing to me, the CGI holds up a little bit better. When you watched it, what was your thoughts? I know that Deep Impact spent a lot of time trying to get the water to look correct. They spent months
00:13:07
Speaker
trying to develop it. They even came up with some software. Another little fun fact, when they were constructing the comet in deep impact, they went through like all sorts of rounds of like, what color should it be? And like, what shape should it be? Which is really interesting. But at one point, if you look, there's a hidden mean face in the comet because they wanted to look meaner. So the guy was like, I just put a mean face in it. Which is great. I think it's funny.
00:13:30
Speaker
you would love that as a designer yeah it's like nice little hidden mean face they wanted to like be breathing and like it's it's it's a character in the movie you know like the comet is a character yeah armageddon kind of relied just on big explosions which is michael bay specialty which maybe that's why i feel like it holds up because they weren't trying to get too crazy with things
00:13:49
Speaker
But the water was good in Deep Impact, which makes sense because it was such an important focal point of the ending. They also called the wave itself another character. So it's like you have all the characters and then you have like these non-human characters with a comet in the wave, which is interesting, very interesting. No, for sure. All right, we'd love to do these speed drafts. Alex, disaster movies.
Favorite Disaster Movies Draft
00:14:12
Speaker
Ooh.
00:14:12
Speaker
Me versus you, Snake Draft, make a pick, four word or less summary, why you picked it. Rock, paper, scissor to see who goes first, ready? Rock, paper, scissor, shoot. Rock, rock, I knew this was gonna happen. Double rock, all right, round two. Rock, paper, scissor, shoot. I win, I will take first pick in this one.
00:14:32
Speaker
Ooh, love it. For the listeners, there's a loose definition of what a disaster movie is. We are looking for anything environmentally that would cause mass destruction. So Alex may have different opinion on what those type of movies are than I do, but we're just going to have fun with this. No zombies. We're talking no zombies, more either weather or some sort of natural circumstance that causes mass destruction on Earth. Yes. Okay.
00:14:59
Speaker
Got it. Ready? Go. First pick for me, Titanic. I'll never let go. Great pick, Rob. For me, first pick, The Perfect Storm. Wicked piss us, son. Showing your New England North Shore roots. In my second pick, I'm going to say the day after tomorrow, Frozen Statue of Liberty. That's a good pick. Second pick for me, This Is The End. Dear God, it's me, Jonah Hill, from Moneyball.
00:15:26
Speaker
Third pick, San Andreas. The Rock fights earthquakes.
00:15:33
Speaker
Okay, next for me. Dante's Peak. James Bond versus a volcano. I like it. Last pick for me, 2012. The prophecy is true. Last pick for me, there's still some really good ones on the board. I like Greenland, which is basically just a cooler version of Deep Impact. I do like Don't Look Up, but that's just a little too close to home. I think I'm going to go with Twister. Tornadoes are scary. Oh, man, steal the draft, I think.
00:15:59
Speaker
All right, Rock, what do you say? Ready to get into this? Let's do it. Round one, best cast or performance? Deep Impact. First of all, both of these movies just loaded with some stars. So this one is going to be a little bit more difficult than I think some of our matchups in past episodes. Deep Impact. We have four Oscar winners. You get Morgan Freeman, Robert Duvall, Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell.
00:16:26
Speaker
And you also have one Oscar nominee in James Cromwell. You also have Te'a Leone playing the lead role. We did mention Robert Duvall, second time for him in the movie showdown. We have a young Elijah Wood. We have another second timer in Jon Favreau, a movie showdown favorite. We love the faves. And kind of a hidden gem in this one. Mike O'Malley with hair as the teacher. I totally forgot he was in this movie. And when he first seen he came on, Rob, I texted you. Michael Malley in all caps. He's awesome.
00:16:56
Speaker
He had some really realistic teacher sarcasm in his one scene. He played a great high school teacher just having to deal with those kids all day. I think he was perfectly cast. And then apparently all night? And apparently all night, just all the time. He's always on. And, of course, Morgan Freeman. His accolades might be too long to list, but can never go wrong with Morgan Freeman in your film. No, no.
00:17:19
Speaker
So for Armageddon, we've got Bruce Willis second time on the pod. Sean Connery and Arnold Schwarzenegger were both originally considered for this role before landing with Bruce Willis. We have Billy Bob Thornton, who plays Dan Truman. Other actors considered for his role, Tim Robbins, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, and Michael Keaton. Jeez. We've got a young Ben Affleck, and I thought Batfleck was so cool in this movie growing up.
00:17:44
Speaker
He had that animal cracker scene. I just thought he was the man. Liv Tyler plays the role of Harry Stamper, Bruce Willis's daughter. She initially turned down the role twice before finally accepting and Mila Jovovich and Robin Wright both were offered and turned down this role. And Denise Richards was considered for it as well.
00:18:04
Speaker
We've got Will Patton second time on the pod, Steve Buscemi. Both Billy Bob Thorne and Buscemi have admitted to doing this film for the money, which kind of hurts. I think this movie is better than a lot of these people are given a credit for. They were so great in it too, which, you know, like you didn't mail it in. No, they were excellent.
00:18:22
Speaker
And Michael Bay thinks Armageddon is his worst film. He has said, I will apologize for Armageddon because we had to do the whole movie in 16 weeks. It was a massive undertaking that was not fair to the movie. I would redo the entire third act if I could. But when he had made that quote, he had already done three Transformers movies. Are you seriously going to sit here and tell me that the second and third Transformers movies is better than Armageddon? No, Armageddon is culturally relevant even now. It's got such a legacy.
00:18:48
Speaker
And the hidden gem in this movie, in my opinion, is
Casting Debate: Deep Impact vs. Armageddon
00:18:52
Speaker
Owen Wilson. He's not in it a lot, but when he is, he is hilarious. He just, like, comes in, starts draining some threes. He has some of the funniest lines in the whole movie. There's the part where he asks, what's it gonna be like up there? 200 degrees in sunlight, minus 200 in the shade. Canyons of razor-sharp rock. Unpredictable gravitational conditions. Unexpected eruptions. Things like that. Okay, so the scariest environment imaginable.
00:19:16
Speaker
That's all you gotta say. Scarce environment imaginable. He's got another line where he's like, I got that excited, scared feeling, like 98% excited, 2% scared. Could be 98% scared, 2% excited. And then alluding to what you had said earlier. Space. We're just in the beginning part of space where we haven't even gotten to outer space yet. I love that line. He had some great laugh out loud lines in this movie. He just comes in, it's just sneakily so good.
00:19:43
Speaker
We've also got Michael Clark Duncan, second time on the pod. Ken Hudson, who I only mentioned because he is the Santa in Home Alone, which I find funny. And I threw this one in here for you, Alex. I don't know if any listeners or if you see our clips, you can see Alex is a big Lego Harry Potter fan. And we actually have Jason Isaacs in this movie.
00:20:03
Speaker
found it funny because Harry Stamper at one point refers to him in this movie as Mr. Wizard and Jason Isaac would go on to famously play Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series. That's great. I love that little connection there. All right, Alex, tell me about our Seinfeld or friends connections.
00:20:20
Speaker
We have a ton. So I'm just going to give you a quick, quick overview. These two movies definitely have more than we have ever had in the past. And not only that, we have so many crossovers, which we've already mentioned some of them. So from Armageddon, we have actors appearing in Seinfeld. Stanley Anderson, who is the president, he plays Judge Art Vandalay in the finale episode of Seinfeld, which is pretty cool. Peter Stormare, he plays the Russian cosmonaut.
00:20:47
Speaker
Grace Zabriskie, who the asteroid is named after. She plays Dottie. She plays Susan Ross's mom. That line is really funny in the movie. Yeah, when I was like, I want to name it after my wife because she's a
00:21:03
Speaker
And then Billy Bob's like, that's sweet, Carl. That's great. I love that. And I love that she's the character. She's in everything, which is great. And then from Armageddon and Friends, you have, of course, Bruce Willis and Charlton Heston. Deep Impact, Seinfeld. Appearances, you have Jon Favreau, W Earl Brown, Maren Dungy. I don't know if that's how you pronounce it. Well, that's how we're going to pronounce it. Christopher Darga and O'Neill Compton.
00:21:27
Speaker
And then appearing in Friends from Deep Impact, Jon Favreau, Maren Dungy and Christopher Darga. So you got a lot of double ups there, which is pretty cool, too. This was a huge cast movie. It makes sense. I mean, you can't go wrong with either of these casts for this round. There's some recognized names through the Academy Awards for Deep Impact, but some really just big famous actors in Armageddon as well. So
00:21:57
Speaker
I mean, you could kind of do a coin flip. I'm going to push for Armageddon because I think that there isn't a single person in like the top 10 people in this movie that you're not like, oh yeah, I know that person. That person was great. Or I know that person from this. There's a lot of star power in that movie. And they all had at least one really good line in the film.
00:22:16
Speaker
It's crazy that Owen Wilson is probably like the forgotten one and he's so big, you know, like not forgotten in terms of him as an actor, but just in the in the movie. Oh, yeah, that's right. Owen Wilson is is on the crew. I think for me, Deep Impact has some huge stars, but I think I think I would have recast some of the characters and I don't feel that way about Armageddon. Yeah, I would agree.
00:22:40
Speaker
For as good as some of the people are in their careers, I lacked a certain connection to some of the characters in Deep Impact, and I did not feel that way about Armageddon. Morgan Freeman kind of steals the show, and of course he's an important character because he's the president of the United States, but some of the other protagonists, I didn't really connect with them as much. I mean, Elijah Wood doesn't get a ton of screen time, and Teo Leone just, I don't know, I didn't really connect with her character as much either. No, I agree.
00:23:05
Speaker
I think we're giving this to Armageddon. Yeah, I think Armageddon will take this one. OK, so one nothing Armageddon headed into round
Memorable Scenes from Deep Impact
00:23:12
Speaker
two. Best line or moment.
00:23:16
Speaker
Deep Impact, just like Armageddon, we have a great Meet the Crew scene. You got everyone kind of gathered around at a barbecue in Houston, H-town. You kind of get a sense of the characters interacting with their families or loved ones. You know, everyone just kind of getting familiar with what's going on. That's a good way to meet everyone. Pretty low key, still. You know, we're not panicking quite yet.
00:23:39
Speaker
You got the scene where Leo has discovered the comet and there's that line, nobody on our block has discovered the world was going to end before. Great line. That was funny. That was good. Then you have the assembly scene. That was really good. This is actually pretty great. This is actually an improvised line. So there's a kid that stands up and just makes kind of like a declaration to the whole school. Michael Malley, not impressed. You know, you're going to have sex a lot more now than anyone else in our class. Really?
00:24:09
Speaker
Thank you for your sexual insight, Mr. Thurman. You can sit down now. Famous people always get sex, Mr. Perry. That's the main reason it's good to be famous.
00:24:19
Speaker
So I'm not sure which part of that is improvised, but some of it is. And so if you look, if you watch again, the students around like their reaction are genuine. I like how he called it get sex. Yeah, that's like it's a birthday present. Yeah, right. Right. Like he has he has received it. Yeah. Oh, man. Got some good family scenes. That one at the end is really good when they pass the baby off to Elijah Wood and their daughter and they just accept their fate and tell them to go.
00:24:47
Speaker
I think Lili Sobieski in that scene is just it feels so real. She's like, no, no, you know, she's like, yeah, she gets it. Yeah. Man, that's that's tough. That was a tough scene, especially when you can understand Robin, you have a child. Yeah, everything changes after that. I feel like watching any of these movies, once you have a kid, things just hit you so differently.
00:25:10
Speaker
It's hard not to put yourself in that situation and just feel even more than what I would have felt when I was in high school watching this. There's certain shows or movies. I'm like, I don't think I can watch this now. If something happens to a child, you're like, no.
00:25:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I'm all set. Rob, speaking of that scene, the traffic jam scene, I thought that scene was good. You know, you kind of, you could feel the panic kind of reminds me of, um, some of the parts of the walking dead, you know, everyone's trying to escape and there's cars everywhere and this and that, but the behind the scenes for that scene in particular is pretty cool. So they filmed that scene in Virginia on a stretch of highway that had not opened to the public yet. They actually brought in 2,100 extras over, well,
00:25:51
Speaker
cars Wow on this and then every 15 minutes They would kind of reposition over a hundred cars just to kind of keep things moving And so it's not just like a static shot every time which I thought was pretty cool. You can also see there's like you haul trucks There's budget rent a trucks whatever those are actually filled with water snacks refreshments all sorts of stuff for the actors Apparently it was super hot that day. So they're trying to keep everyone cool
00:26:14
Speaker
That's cool. I always like hearing the behind the scenes type of stuff of how you make something work like that. Exactly. And actually, they didn't even use any special effects either. This was all just old school films. That's pretty impressive. I think the biggest hurdle they had to film that scene was you have, like I said, 2100 people, they created an AM frequency. So everyone would tune their car radios to that AM frequency and someone could just make an announcement and then everyone could hear it.
00:26:40
Speaker
Oh, wow. Interesting. So just for that one scene, and it only took two days to film, but I mean, the scene in the movie is not that long, but just to think like what went into one scene, like all that effort and the logistical nightmares. And it makes you appreciate some of those a little bit more. Yeah.
00:26:56
Speaker
So, for Armageddon, the Bruce Willis intro was
Key Scenes in Armageddon
00:27:00
Speaker
amazing. It kind of aged poorly, you know, he's hitting golf balls at the protesters, but it's fun, it's exciting, it's fast-paced, it lets you know who these people are. His interactions with AJ, he's shooting the gun at him. I really like the find the men scene.
00:27:14
Speaker
when Harry sends the NASA agents or whoever out to track his crew down to bring them to the NASA headquarters. And they're each doing their different thing, giving more glimpses into their personality. That montage is just really funny. I love the five words through line through the movie. And the first time you meet Harry and AJ, Harry says, I need to hear five words from you. I'll never do that again. Then later on, when Harry approaches AJ about coming to help him on this mission, AJ says,
00:27:42
Speaker
You know, Harry, there are only five words I want to hear from you right now. Those words are, you know, AJ, I really look up to you. You've been a hero of mine for a long time and I'm very impressed with your work. I'm emotionally closed off. That's like 11 words or something. That's like 11 words or something.
00:28:03
Speaker
And then Harry responds to him, you know AJ, there's not a job on the planet I want you to work with me on, which is a nice little twist because this job wasn't actually on the planet. And then when they're on the meteor and Harry thinks all is lost and then AJ emerges with the other drill bit, Harry says, AJ, I just got five words for you. Damn glad to see you, boy.
00:28:23
Speaker
And I think AJ responds, that's six words. I love when movies do that. They just have kind of through line jokes. Another scene I really liked, the government requests scene where each of the guys give Bruce Willis a list of what they want if they're going to do this. Michael Bay actually had the actors write their list of demands on the paper and then Bruce Willis read it. Alex, what would your request be if you were put in this situation? When they're reading them out, the one about we don't want to pay taxes ever, like never want to pay taxes.
00:28:52
Speaker
That's actually a really good one. I think if all the money you would save, I would definitely, I mean, it would have to come back to sports somehow. Season tickets somewhere, Super Bowl tickets every year, something like that. What about you? It's funny, our minds work really similar. So at first I said I would want $250,000 a year tax-free forever. Then I thought about it. So I think I would settle for meeting Derek Jeter and having an arranged marriage between one of my sons and one of his daughters.
00:29:20
Speaker
Man, that's genius. Moving on, I really like the scene when Harry switches places with AJ at the end. It's emotional. I think it's great. It's a good payoff. I'm kind of including this in that scene when he's talking to his daughter at the end. Another one of those scenes where when you have a kid, you just feel it emotionally a little bit more. And then this is cheesy, but I like when William Fickner, at the end of the movie, goes up to Liv Tyler's character and says, Colonel Willie Sharpe, United States Air Force, man.
00:29:48
Speaker
Requesting permission to shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man I've ever met
00:29:56
Speaker
It's a little cheesy, but I kind of like it. It's a good line. Yeah, it's cheesy, but you got to say something. They had to have some sort of interaction. You know, he's the last one there to. Yeah. To be with him before he dies. I do like the scene where he takes the spot of Ben Affleck because there's no you know, like back and forth. He just kind of like pushes him. He's like, yeah, I'm doing it. Yeah. Love that. Yeah. They do a lot of emoting just through their eyes and facial expressions right there. And
00:30:22
Speaker
That's cool. It's an exciting scene. It's an emotional scene. But I think without that, I don't think the movies is good. No, because you kind of get a promise of a future with Ben Affleck going back and he gets to marry Liv Tyler and kind of carry on that legacy. So what are you thinking? Who wins this round?
Humor vs. Seriousness: Film Tones
00:30:40
Speaker
I think first glance, while Deep Impact does have some good scenes, I just feel like the scenes in the comedy in Armageddon
00:30:49
Speaker
for this category are probably a little bit stronger. I had more fun and more scenes in Armageddon. And so I'm going to have to lean that way as well. So OK, Armageddon takes a two nothing lead heading into round three. Better title or better soundtrack? Alex, talk to me about the title of Deep Impact.
00:31:11
Speaker
They don't say deep impact in the movie. Not that that is a automatic win in this category, but the title, it's kind of has a double meaning, deep impact. Of course, the comet making contact with the earth is going to create a deep impact crater. Also deep impact, just more on an emotional level. I mean, this is life-changing. Even if the world is saved, there's going to be some sort of emotional aftermath that we'll have to be dealt with. I like that thought process going into the title there.
00:31:40
Speaker
Armageddon is pretty straightforward. The president calls it Armageddon in his speech, and it's just a word that most people know, which means the end of the earth. It's fine. I like it's one word, it's direct. You say to somebody, hey, have you seen Armageddon? They know what you're talking about. But I wouldn't say that it's the greatest title ever created. What do we have musically in Deep Impact?
00:31:59
Speaker
Deep Impact definitely takes advantage more of a score than a soundtrack. Music was actually done by James Horner. James Horner is pretty famous in his own right. He won two Academy Awards for Titanic, which is also the best selling orchestral film soundtrack of all time. I did not know that. Yeah, he also wrote the score for the highest grossing film of all time, which is Avatar. So two James Cameron films.
00:32:25
Speaker
Wow. All right. So he worked with James Cameron and gave a little help on Deep Impact. I like it. He had a deep impact on the soundtrack. The score was very emotional and moving. It puts you in the right fields for the situations you are supposed to be in.
00:32:41
Speaker
Whereas Armageddon, definitely more of a soundtrack, more of needle drops. Michael Bay told Bruckheimer that because Godzilla was going to have a soundtrack with their own song, that they needed to have it. So obviously you have Aerosmith, I don't want to miss a thing.
00:32:56
Speaker
a couple other Aerosmith songs. There's Sweet Emotion, Lagrange by ZZ Top. There's the leaving on a jet plane part where they're singing, which I really like. Trying to do a little Scorsese work with the music in this, but I would say it's more of a kind of commercial feel to it. Whereas Deep Impact, it definitely moved you in more of a filmmaking type of way.
00:33:22
Speaker
Definitely more traditional versus the soundtrack way to go. And we've had that in the past too with some of the movies we've compared. It is interesting to see, you know, we have all the differences, all the similarities, but like when it comes to music, score and soundtrack, two totally different ways to relate to the film. Music really sets the tone for these movies. And I like the songs in Armageddon a lot and I still have fun listening to them. But you look at Deep Impact script and what they wanted to accomplish and the score really helped amplify that.
00:33:52
Speaker
And I also have to say I do like the double meaning of the title Deep Impact. So I feel okay giving this round to Deep Impact. Armageddon. I remember when it first came out, it almost felt like a product placement. It was like it was like such a big deal that Aerosmith was doing the music for it. Oh, yeah. I remember that being like a selling point for the movie. Yeah, yeah. Which I like Aerosmith fine. Yeah.
00:34:12
Speaker
The soundtrack matched Armageddon very well. They went together because that's the kind of movie it was. Yeah. The score and Deep Impact went together. To me, Deep Impact just resonated more in that sense.
Scores & Scientific Accuracy
00:34:24
Speaker
So that's why I would vote for this to get the point. I like it. I agree with you. We're going to do it. So we've got a two to one lead. Armageddon is ahead, heading into round four. Plot holes, cringiness, random questions.
00:34:38
Speaker
Alex, I'm not a scientist. What do I care if a movie isn't scientifically accurate? Technically, Deep Impact has less science issues than Armageddon, but we're not here for that. You can Google all the scientific inaccuracies you want for a full list. We're not going to go through it in these categories. We are here to talk about the fun experience of watching these movies and what's going on with that.
00:35:02
Speaker
We're not taking a magnifying glass to try to find each little detail. I will say though, on that note, that NASA does show Armageddon during their management training program and new managers are given the task of trying to spot as many errors as possible. The most that have been found has been 168 so far.
00:35:21
Speaker
Oh my goodness. So there are definitely a lot of scientific issues with Armageddon, but we're not here for that. So let me jump right in to my attack on Deep Impact. In terms of plot holes, so the Lehigh Astrology Club are the only people that could find this comet. No one else would have noticed this meteor. And then even if they were the first, it's only the US and Russia that have figured it out for a year.
00:35:47
Speaker
That just seemed like there are some other world powers that are studying the space as well. I hope so for my well-being as a human who lives on Earth. I hope there's more people out there looking for these things. It just seems like a stretch that a group of high school kids would be the first people to find it and then nobody else really would. It's a stretch. Yeah.
00:36:05
Speaker
Cringiness in the movie. This is a big pet peeve of mine. Eating in movies always annoys me, except for like a few actors who can pull it off. But in that opening scene, I think it was Dr. Wolf was the person that they relayed the comment to. And he's just eating pizza and it was just gross and awful. I don't like it either. Just the sound. I love experiences chomping. But that was it. That's all I have for cringiness. Honestly, the movie's pretty tight in terms of, I mean, when you're looking past certain plot aspects of it. Sure.
00:36:35
Speaker
There's not a ton of potholes or cringiness. I do have some random questions, though. I don't think that the FBI is running somebody off the road to get their attention. I think they're above doing that. Maybe a little more discreet. Yeah, they're not risking somebody's life to get their attention.
00:36:51
Speaker
I also wonder why do FBI secret meetings always take place in kitchens? It's such a movie trope. You see it all the time. They're like, oh, we're going to have a secret meeting with the president or whatever. And it's always in a kitchen. It's like, why? There's a lot of people that go in and out of kitchens. You're right. Interesting. If I ever get invited into a kitchen, I'll either be skeptical or excited to meet the president.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. They say in Deep Impact that we get hit all the time by small meteors and things of that nature. All the time seems like an excessive phrase. I don't know if I have heard that much about us getting hit with small debris. It's not something I think about on a day to day basis. No. How old are these two kids getting married? We know that they're in high school, but they seemed pretty young to be getting married. And now I know they did it so that her family could be saved.
00:37:39
Speaker
Was it wrong of the family to encourage them to get married so that they could be saved? It's odd, but I think it's like last ditch efforts of all last ditch efforts. And I can weirdly see why they would be okay with it. I'd be fine with it.
00:37:55
Speaker
Yeah, especially knowing that my wife is pregnant. I'm doing everything I can to keep my family intact. I don't know how more desperate you can get, but that's probably. Yeah, that's probably the end of the line there, which leads me into my next question. When Elijah Wood is with his family at the base of the safety bunkers and he just leaves and his parents just let him go. No shot. I'm letting my son go. Not at all. That was way too easy. They're just like, I will drag him back and he can hate me forever, but I'm not letting him do it.
00:38:25
Speaker
You see this a lot in these disaster movies. There's always that mad rush to escape at the last minute. The world knew that this comet was going to crash into the earth for a year. Wouldn't you have left a little earlier, started making some earlier preparations to get to higher ground? There were a lot of people and they showed disasters around the world while they were happening.
00:38:45
Speaker
Are these people shocked? Like, where have they been, lived for the past year? Yeah, you asked what I would do if I knew the Earth had a year left. I would make my way to high ground. That's what I would do. Immediately and build a house or something. They even said, like, I think Morgan Freeman's character says how fast everything will be moving based on, you know, scientific guesses. There's no way that even a little like motorbike, whatever they're on, is going to outpace a tidal wave. No.
00:39:12
Speaker
Along those lines as well, when Elijah Wood is trying to find, I guess we'll call her his wife at the end of the movie and her family, there's no shot he would have found her in just that sea of people. That was definitely absurd, but made for a good scene. It made for a really good scene. Then when they're on the bike and they're climbing up the mountain, she's got the baby on her chest. He's like army crawling up the mountain and she's just walking perfectly fine behind him. We couldn't have done another take of that.
00:39:41
Speaker
Like, make it seem like, what are you doing? He was acting like they were going straight up a wall and she was acting like they were on a leisurely walk down by the beach.
00:39:53
Speaker
It's like, what is that? Like, let's get a little cohesiveness here. Okay. And she was carrying the baby. So he's got nothing. A little overacting baby. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I'd never knew about these magical caves in Missouri. How deep do they go to protect you from a meteor? But those are some legit bunkers, too. They have the big doors with the numbers on them.
00:40:12
Speaker
Yeah, well, never heard of it, but cool. All right, Alex Armageddon Armageddon is one of those movies that's pretty famous for a giant plot hole. Actually, Ben Affleck can give better justice to this than I can. So we will let him explain it.
00:40:26
Speaker
I asked Michael why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers. And he told me to shut the fuck up. So that was the end of that talk. He was like, you know, Ben, just shut up. You know, this is a real plan. All right. I was like, you mean it's a real plan at NASA to train oil drillers? He was like, just shut your mouth.
00:40:45
Speaker
See here's where we demonstrate that because Bruce is gonna tell the guys that they did a bad job of building the drill tank Like somehow they can build rocket ships, but they don't understand like what makes a good tranny Eight whole months
00:41:02
Speaker
like eight whole months as if that's not enough time to learn how to drill a hole but in a week we're gonna learn how to be astronauts a one whole week now you know how to fly into space we're gonna address that plot hole we're gonna give some credence to the other side of things so of course the plot hole i'm talking about is wouldn't it be easier to train astronauts to drill rather than train drillers to become astronauts it's a tired argument that you hear all the time but
00:41:29
Speaker
Honestly, I will say that deep impact kind of proves the point for Armageddon, because here they are having the astronauts do the drilling and they failed. They just did not work. They just did not know what they were doing. And in Armageddon, Bruce Willis's character actually invented the technology to drill that NASA has somehow gotten a hold of, which is why they call them in the first place.
00:41:52
Speaker
Yeah, it kind of does give a little backing to the fact that maybe it wouldn't be the worst idea to send a few actual drillers on this mission. And it's not even like the whole crew is the drilling crew. It's not like they're all going up. They have actual experienced astronauts. So I don't see it being too ridiculous of a situation for them who have an expertise in a very specific area that needs to be done a very correct way for them to be the ones that are going up with the assistance of an actual crew.
00:42:22
Speaker
Yeah, probably a little bit more of a merged crew. Maybe a little bit, yeah, sure. Maybe take out some of the drillers, add in some more experienced astronauts. But I feel like that argument, which we've heard so many times, I think I'm on the side of, I think they may have made the right call. I can't wait to come across an actual scientist, and I'm gonna deliberately bring this movie up, and I wanna hear him or her tell me how ridiculous it is that they would train drillers to be astronauts, and then I'm going to use Deep Impact as my argument point.
00:42:51
Speaker
as my exhibit as to why it actually would work only for them to turn around and say, you also realize that is fake as well. I don't know. It's on film. So it has to be real, sir. Is it? All right. What's cringy about Armageddon? We got the R word in here sometimes, which just stop. Yeah. The taxi driver near the beginning is talking to some Asian customers he has. And it's just cringy the way he speaks to them.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah. Does not age well. Don't do that either. All right. Got some random questions to get into. How did they know the size of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs? However, many million years ago, they somehow know a lot of information about what happened. Yeah. I'm sure someone has an answer for that, but it's nobody that I know.
00:43:37
Speaker
OK, getting back to the scene where they're kind of rounding up the whole crew. So they're on the oil rig in the ocean and then everyone kind of goes their own way pretty quickly, which is pretty crazy. But AJ starts his own business and he has all the equipment and it's been like three days, two days. He was really motivated.
00:43:53
Speaker
It's ridiculous. He wouldn't have had his own business by then. No, just kind of drove me crazy when they're going to send up the two shuttles, but they take off like next to each other. What if one is going up and like explodes when the other one like that's it? Like when you want some sort of like fail safe system and then when they're there like flying through space like right next to each other. Yeah, they were way too close. I think in real life, those two launch pads are three miles apart. Yeah, you knew would have to think they would take off staggered.
00:44:20
Speaker
probably further apart than 14 seconds. Yes, yes. Here's one is space dementia real? Is that the right term? Is it a real thing? I don't know, but I did read that NASA is trained to duct tape people to chairs if they begin to act like this. So I don't know if it's exactly the right term, but it is something that they prepare for. We said that movie had 168 inaccuracies. Well, there's one accuracy for you then. There you go. There you go.
00:44:47
Speaker
Here's one when they're trying to override the nuke and they're going to diffuse it. Classic question, red or blue wire. It's such a trope. I mean, I get it. It makes for exciting moments, but the countdown has to go as close. You know, that is it. And it's always about to cut this one. I'm going to switch and cut this one. If you're going to be on a mission with a nuke, you should just learn which one to cut beforehand and like write it down. It should be on the nuke.
00:45:12
Speaker
In case of emergency, cut red wire, blue wire, whichever. There's got to be some sort of paperwork somewhere, right? Like instructions like don't hit it too hard. Another trope is there's always some dude not near the nuke who just really wants to blow the nuke up. It's like he's always just saying, we got to blow it up. We got to do it. Always, always getting these nukes. Also, why is it daytime all over the world at all moments?
Continuous Disasters in Armageddon
00:45:52
Speaker
They could have just rolled with that, but they just decided to go right into another disaster. You don't even have time to kind of breathe or feel it's just one after another. And it's like, I feel like Deep Impact did that a little bit, but not as much as Armageddon. Armageddon was like, this went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong. Every step of the way it was, yeah, you'd have to think the law of averages would have caught up at some point. Yeah.
00:46:01
Speaker
I didn't pick up on that. That's funny.
00:46:14
Speaker
Well, Alex, I would say everything's on pretty even ground here. Going into this, I would have thought Armageddon's plot hole of drillers becoming astronauts would make it lose this round. But as we just said, I think Deep Impact proves that that is the better strategy. So I think we have to give this point to Armageddon. I think we do too. Isn't that weird? That's so weird. I was just, oh, this is an easy one for me. And then you do a little, yeah, you do a little digging. You watch the two movies and you're like, wait a minute. We're probably the only two people on this planet that
00:46:44
Speaker
actually think that, but you know what, I'm glad to go down on that ship with you. Me too. If this actually ever happens, we'll know what to do on us, Nessa. I'm gonna say, have either of you guys seen Armageddon?
00:46:56
Speaker
Um, okay. So that gives Armageddon a three to one lead heading into round five, our miscellaneous question of the week. So this week, have a pretty fun one for you. Which movie had the better movie president in Armageddon? There is just the president. And then in deep impact, we have got Morgan Freeman as president Beck.
Morgan Freeman's Presidential Roles
00:47:21
Speaker
Alex, before you even say anything, it's not even worth debating this. Morgan Freeman is amazing. He wins this round. I kind of just wanted to use this as an excuse to talk about Morgan Freeman in government roles. So in Deep Impact, he was a pretty tough B.A. president. There's not even an argument that the Armageddon president even stands up against him. He was just like, so blah.
00:47:44
Speaker
The only thing cool about the Armageddon president was that he also played the president in The Rock and he is also referred to as just the president in that movie, meaning that The Rock and Armageddon are in the same universe. But yeah, Morgan Freeman just wipes the floor and it's not even close. I did have a question for you, though. In Deep Impact, Morgan Freeman says that he is freezing wages and prices. Can the president of the United States do this?
00:48:07
Speaker
That's a great question. I feel like they could sign some sort of executive order to control some of it. But like everywhere, I doubt it. He was even saying like, oh, the penalty will be this if the cost of something isn't the same. That's just not going to happen. No, it's very noble. And I like where his head's at. I do appreciate that. But he's also a politician.
00:48:26
Speaker
Yeah, I wanna list out all of the government roles that Morgan Freeman has held in his career. So he's played the president twice. He has played the vice president. He has played the speaker of the house. He has played the chief justice of the Supreme Court. He has played a senator, CIA director. He has played a sheriff. He has played the South African president, Nelson Mandela, and he has played God. This guy has covered the entire ballot with his roles. If we ever needed an actor to step into a government role,
00:48:56
Speaker
He'd have to be towards the top of your list of people that you'd want doing it. He has such a commanding presence too. I trust him. I see him as the president. You got to pick up on some things after doing all this, right? Sure. Okay, that makes it easy. Deep Impact gets this point. We are three to two Armageddon going into round six. Better trivia.
00:49:17
Speaker
I'll start things off here with some trivia. This one's pretty great, actually. So when President Beck, Morgan Freeman, is giving a speech, he states that life will go on, we will prevail. Do you know that in the original script, he was supposed to say, life will go on, we will prevail. This is not Armageddon. But they took the line out for obvious reasons.
00:49:37
Speaker
That's nice. I actually think it could have been funny if they left it in but it wasn't going for that type of if it was reversed Armageddon would have left in a deep impact quote You're absolutely right in the New York City scene. There is a dog that attacks a Godzilla doll Godzilla came out on May 20th 1998 two months before Armageddon this appears to be a nod from Michael Bay that he felt his movie Armageddon was going to destroy the Godzilla movie it was competing with and in fact it did just that
00:50:06
Speaker
bringing in 553.7 million compared to the 379 million for Godzilla. This dog was specifically trained to attack Godzilla toys, so it was absolutely something that Michael Bay was planning on doing and using in the movie.
00:50:21
Speaker
leading up to that, I just think this is funny. There's a guy riding the bike with the dog. The dog's on a leash and he's riding the bike. There's actually a guy that rides around the roads near my neighborhood. He stands on a scooter and lets his dog drag him through the roads. But he's like on like the real road, like in the middle of the road and you're like driving behind him and that dog is booking it. So this guy getting dragged by his dog, I clocked it. I drove my car behind him to see how fast they were going.
00:50:48
Speaker
They were going between 15 to 20 miles an hour. Get out of here. That was hill-aided, but that is fast. That is fast. What kind of dog is this? I don't know. I should look next time. I see them at least once a month. That's great. Legit, dude on a scooter, he's just standing there, dogs dragging him. Maybe they're training for the Iditarod or something. Yeah.
00:51:09
Speaker
All right, what's your next one? OK, so when Jenny Lerner is looking up EL ease on the Internet, which seemed like a big deal, by the way, she was on the Internet in 1998. There's like these ad banners on the side and there's a little foreshadowing. One of these ad banners says the wave of the future or you've got some ocean coming. Pretty good. Well, you know, well, yeah, well, what's the common? You know, as we remember, it gets killed by the tidal wave. I like that.
00:51:35
Speaker
I mean, I don't like that she gets killed by a tidal wave, but I like the foreshadowing. I like the foreshadowing. Bruce Willis was given a second trailer that housed a full working gym at an estimated cost of $175,000. It was reportedly never used. Man, I feel like there's so much wasted money in Hollywood, but that's neither here nor there.
00:51:54
Speaker
Alright, this is actually pretty interesting. So after discovering the comet, one of the astronomers is killed in a car accident in the movie, but this actually mirrors a real life event. An astronomer by the name of Eugene Shoemaker helped discover the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994, and that was a source of inspiration for deep impact.
00:52:16
Speaker
That's cool, drawing from real life events, that's good. Another one about Bruce Willis. So Bruce Willis came to Armageddon after he decided a comedy he was working on called Broadway Brawler could not be salvaged and he wanted out. He worked out a deal with Disney where Willis would star in Armageddon and two future films for the studio. In exchange, Disney would absorb the failed project's cost as an advance against his initial salary.
00:52:39
Speaker
The two films Willis later made under this deal were The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Two pretty good movies. Yeah, that was a good deal for him. Yeah. All right, Rob, a nice little kitchen fact for you. The scene where Jenny Lerner meets President Beck was actually filmed in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, which was the same place where Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. That is a fun little fact. Well, not fun. Someone was assassinated, but that is an interesting fact.
00:53:08
Speaker
So in Armageddon, Max says to the doctor that's about to inject him with a needle, I'll stab you in the heart with it. Have you ever seen Pulp Fiction? Bruce Willis and Steve Buscemi both appeared in Pulp Fiction. That sounds like something really interesting. There's something there that we'll have to explore at some point.
00:53:25
Speaker
I love it. All right, last one I got for you. This is the first movie to prominently place MSNBC as the primary media provider in the film. Actually CNN was first approached to be the network of choice, but they turned it down. And the sort of new MSNBC, they were about two years old at that point, jumped on the opportunity. Nice.
00:53:45
Speaker
Okay, thank you about this trivia. I like my Godzilla trivia, but I had a lot of Bruce Willis stuff in there. Yours was kind of all across the board, hit on some cool areas. I think I feel comfortable saying that Deep Impact wins this one. Yeah, Deep Impact has some really interesting behind the scenes stuff that I thought was pretty cool. All right, so we are tied three to three, going into round seven. Better story, better script, more fun.
00:54:14
Speaker
You know, Alex, the original script for Armageddon didn't actually include the romantic subplot between AJ and Grace. Instead, it had more emphasis on Truman and Harry. But after the success of Titanic, Michael Bay and the writers thought they needed a love story to be able to draw in more of an audience. So they decided to add this aspect in between Ben Affleck's character and Liv Tyler.
00:54:41
Speaker
I'm glad they included the love story aspect in Armageddon because I think that actually pushes the movie over the edge. While I would have been fine getting more of what pushes Harry and some more of his backstory, I think him stepping in and sacrificing himself so that she could have the life that she wanted. I think without that, the movie falls a little short. You need that emotional push to get you there.
00:55:06
Speaker
Whereas within Deep Impact, the young kids getting married, it didn't really hit home to me. And the Thea Leone stuff, I don't know. I wasn't as emotionally invested in her story arc as I think I should have been, given that it was the central through line of this movie.
00:55:22
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't really connect with her as much. I know it's an opinion, and I think we shared this opinion, but I just felt like she was a little flat in this. I don't know what I was looking for, but you know, it's obviously sad when she dies in the film. I'm glad that she gets to reconcile with her father, but I don't know, I just feel like that whole storyline could add a little more substance to it. It's funny that you talk about Armageddon needing to add in a love story, because in Deep Impact, they actually took out a bunch of scenes with the love story between the kids.
00:55:51
Speaker
They did some screen testing and just realized the audience wasn't resonating with it. It's just funny how one movie needed it, one movie didn't need it as much. Deep Impact is probably on paper a superior movie in certain ways, specifically some of the artistic filmmaking things that we talk about. But I just have way more fun watching Armageddon.
00:56:11
Speaker
I have watched it again and again and again, and it never disappoints me. It moves. The pace is great. It's funny. It's emotional. I think I got to go Armageddon here. Armageddon definitely has some laugh all out moments. It's very funny. The actors in it are great. There are the touching moments with Bruce Willis's character. But I think the thing that really stands out is the time difference in the movies and how one movie is 30 minutes longer, but feels shorter.
00:56:40
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that's a huge sign that Armageddon is probably the one that should win this head to head matchup. So there you have it. Armageddon wins the matchup of 1998 disaster movies. So that puts our running total at four to three. Alex, I'm making a push here. I had a big lead. I'm starting to feel a little bit comfortable, but I just, I don't know if I can get the high ground quick enough.
00:57:04
Speaker
Nice, nice. Alright, you have any closing thoughts before we get into our rankings? I love a good disaster movie, not gonna lie. Of course, it freaks me out if it was in real life, but... Oh, yeah. Say what you want about scientific inaccuracies and Michael Bay explosions, but Armageddon is just a really freaking fun movie. Explosions in space. Can't happen, but I'm glad it did. I'm glad it did too.
00:57:26
Speaker
What are you ranking these? I'm going to keep these pretty tight. I think obviously one is more fun than the other, but I still got to give some credit to Deep Impact for some of the more artistic choices that they made. I'm going to go 72 for Deep Impact and 79 for Armageddon. Nice. I went 71 for Deep Impact and an 84 for Armageddon. Nice.
00:57:49
Speaker
Alex, this was a lot of fun. This episode was kind of the igniter that started us thinking down this road for this podcast, wanting to compare two really similar movies that were critically underappreciated and seeing what came out on top. And it did not disappoint. I loved watching both of these. I had a great time doing it. And I look forward to more matchups in the future. It's a lot of fun when you break them down and see just how different you really are.
00:58:14
Speaker
This has been The Movie Showdown with Rock and Rob. Make sure to like, subscribe, rate, and review all that fun stuff. And follow us on all the socials at Rock and Rob Show. Until next time, peace. I'm outta here. See ya. Just when I think you couldn't possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this. And totally redeem yourself! I'm not sure what to do with my hands. Bye, Felicia.
00:58:42
Speaker
That's your home! Are you too good for your home? Answer me! Hasta la vista, baby.