What Real NASA Experts Actually Think of Bay's Armageddon
Michael Bay's Armageddon may have pulled in $553 million worldwide when it hit theaters in 1998, but don't expect anyone at NASA to defend the science behind it.
In fact, they now use it as a training tool — to see how many things recruits can spot that are scientifically absurd.
The movie, which stars Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck, follows a team of oil drillers who are launched into space to stop an asteroid "the size of Texas" from wiping out Earth. It's big, loud, and—according to actual astrophysicists—completely ridiculous.
Astrophysicist Alastair Bruce, speaking to inews, broke down the movie's most laughable problems:
"The rock is just too damn big. That's why it's fun to talk about, because it's such a Hollywood thing — they went big, and then they went way too big."
He explained that anything over 1 km in size could cause massive devastation, but would also be visible months in advance — not discovered 18 days before impact, as the movie claims:
"You would probably be able to see it with the naked eye at least a few months before it hit. In Armageddon, they don't notice it until 18 days before the rock smashes into us. I mean — it would be visible. People would be looking at the sky, going ‘what's that?'"
The film's "let's nuke it from the inside" plan? Also nonsense.
"Even if you were able to vaporise the entire rock, it would still be moving with an incredible speed towards the Earth. All you've really done is spread out the impact."
Bruce did give the movie a tiny sliver of credit: some of the locations were filmed at real NASA facilities, including actual launchpads and training sites — though prettied up with a healthy dose of CGI. And NASA did cooperate with the production, even if the finished product drifted far, far away from anything resembling reality.
Despite the scientific face-palming, Armageddon remains peak disaster-movie comfort food: explosions, Aerosmith, and oil drillers with space helmets. And let's not forget Ben Affleck himself mocked the plot in the DVD commentary, asking why it was easier to train drillers to become astronauts than just train astronauts to drill.
The film may have a 5.3/10 rating and a 151-minute runtime full of nonsense, but it's still textbook Michael Bay: zero realism, maximum spectacle.
And as NASA has made clear — if an asteroid really is heading toward Earth, maybe don't call the guys from the oil rig.