We got 18 days. That's 431 hours, 15 minutes and 18 seconds. Times of luxury we don't have. What? And you know what he credits those guys in the actual end credits of this film? He calls them the doctor nerds. That is what he thinks of actual scientific things. I mean, this is a movie where like, if your job is to keep the world safe, you're probably doing it wrong. You're going to get mocked. And then a guy who like works with his hands is going to come in and say, all you intellectuals are absolute morons. Contingency plan? Your backup plan. You got to have some kind of backup plan, right? No, we don't have a backup plan. This is it. And this is

the best that you could that the government the US government can come up with I mean you're NASA for crying out loud you put a man on the moon you're geniuses you're the guys that think his shit up I'm sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking shit up and somebody backing them up you tell me on the backup plan at these eight boys counts right here that is the world's hope that's what you're telling me yeah

oh Jesus so to me this is like kind of the thing I wrestle with watching this movie, which is, I think I take the asteroid coming to destroy the earth more seriously than pretty much anybody in the movie, definitely a lot more seriously than any of the drillers. And so that's hard for me when I watch the film, like I'm kind of toggling back and forth. Like Bruce Willis is like, well, you know, we got a lot of demands.

Well, hold on, Amy. He's like this whale. I mean, cause is he Southern? I don't know. Is he Southern in this movie? Cause I there's moments where I'm like, is he trying

to do a Southern accent? Right. Okay. But imagine you have been told that the world is going to end you alone, I guess, because you're're the best, can save it. And you're like, cool, maybe I'll help you with the end of the world. But I have some things I need you to do for me first.

Oscar here has got some outstanding parking tickets and wants some wiped off his record. 56 tickets in seven states. I'll tell Oscar forgot it. Okay. Newton's got two women friends that he'd like to see made American citizens. No questions asked. Max would like you to bring back eight track tapes. Not sure if that's gonna work but let's

see what us chick

wants us for. come on. Caesar's palace. Hey, you guys wouldn't be able to tell us who actually killed Kennedy, would you? I

mean, come on. Although part of the fun of that scene I heard is that, like, all of the guys got to write down what they actually thought their characters would want, and then they just handed them to Bruce Willis, and he had to read them without reading them ahead of time. I

love it, and I think that Bruce Willis plays this scene perfectly. Like, I don't know what I was expecting as a kid. I keep on looking at this movie through those glasses because I'm like, what didn't I like? I love the way he plays this. I love, like this movie is barreling. Like it just doesn't stop. Like what is there not to like, that scene plays really funny. I think Bruce Willis plays this, you're right. Like this character who is put upon, you know, traditionally this, you know like protective father, like he's playing multiple levels and he has a beautiful spoiler alert death scene, which he shot on his first day. Did you know that that's seen on, on, in the capsule where he, you know, is about to die, uh, actually the scene where he to Liv Tyler, he shot on his first day. And I am blown away by, like he's in the pocket. Like Bruce Willis is in the pocket in this. I love that scene. But then when they get on board, they don't have to pay taxes, all this sort of stuff. Why did they get enemas? What, what, why are they getting enemas? Why are they even testing them emotionally? There's no other options. Like you're bringing them in, I mean, that, that, that room, I always remember that room, like where they're getting, like there's spikes coming out of the wall and they're like, what's on this card? It's like, who cares? At this point, they're going up. Like we don't have time to waste on psychological evals. Like we just need to get them in a suit and be like, go, go, go. And how many days are they there? Cause it seems like 18 days, they gotta still get up. There's, there's a lot of, they smartly in this movie, stop the clock. Like you see that 18 days and then we don't go back to that clock until take off and then into the final minutes of the movie. Like we have no idea the time of this movie. Like were they working super hard for like two days? I don't know. Like there's no ticking clock that we see after like the biggest ticking clock. No,

I mean, the whole pace is like relentless. I think the average length of a scene between edits here is like between one and four seconds. It is just go, go, go, go, go. I mean, Oh, you have to hear the commentary track. I just can't wait for you to hear it because you get to hear things like Ben Affleck who, you know, tapes this commentary track in 1999. And I want to just give like a quick catch up on everything that was going on. If you were Ben Affleck by 1999, right? He is cast in this movie Before Goodwill hunting comes out like there was just that buzz around him. Hey, there's this guy he's in this movie He wrote this movie. He's going to probably be a big deal So he's cast even before Goodwill hunting comes out and gets nine Oscar nominations He wins for best screenplay with Matt Damon. They beat out Boogie Nights, by the way, just for some perspective. Goodwill Hunting beat out Boogie Nights and as good as it gets. And he immediately rolls from that into Shakespeare in Love, which I think he's phenomenal in Shakespeare in Love. So you're Ben Affleck. You came out of nowhere. You think you're the coolest guy in the world. You're in this movie called Armageddon. You think it's kind of dumb. You've sort of been bossed around in the making of it. Like one of the great stories in this film is that basically when Michael Bay looked at a picture of him, he was like, Oh, he's got kind of a fat face. Right. Cause Michael Bay is very visual, incredibly visual, visual only perhaps. So he goes to Jerry Brooker and he's like, we can't have this guy in this movie. This guy's a geek. And Jerry Brooker's like, he is going to be a star. And that is when they made this compromise that he could be in the film if he worked out. And he got, dun dun dun, major dental surgery.

Paid for a set of $20,000 of pearly white teeth. Ben's going to hate that story. I always like low shots that kind of come right under your chin, just make you a little bit heroic. And he kind of had these baby teeth. told Jerry Bruckheimer, God, he's got these baby teeth, Jerry, I don't know what to do. Jerry used a very famous star in a plane movie that he replaced teeth with. So he says we did it to him, why not do it to Ben? So my dentist had been sitting in a dentist chair for a week, eight hours a day.

One of the things he says in there is that he did this before for a guy in a movie about a plane. So it's a Bruckheimer movie where he did this dental surgery on somebody for a movie about a plane. And there's some mystery about who it is. I mean, Nick Cage? Or you think it's Nick Cage? I think it's got to be either Nick Cage or Tom Cruise, right? Those are Bruckheimer's

two big movie star plane movies. Well, I mean, you know, it's interesting because Tom Cruise... has like a million dollar smile, or at least he did, and then he got those braces. So part of me feels like, if they were gonna do Tom Cruise's teeth and Top Gun, he wouldn't have gotten those braces. Like, remember when he got... I just remember Tom Cruise having braces for a period of time. Uh, late in his career. So have a feeling it probably was Nick Cage because Nick Cage also has that geeky, you know, character guy. I mean, by the way, Steve Buscemi is like, what about me? You want to fix my teeth? And he's like, no, your teeth are great. Um, you know, it's, I just love that they're going so hard here. I mean, they like redefining this guy. And, and I actually think that Ben Affleck is really good in this movie. Um, I think that the love story and I, who am I that I'm like, Michael Bay doesn't even like Armageddon and I'm here, you know, a stumping for it. But, uh, Bay said he would redo the third act and he, it's one of his worst films. He only had 16 weeks to make it. It doesn't show. I'm impressed. Like I watch this movie and I'm like, how did they get access to all this stuff? Like it's, it is amazing what they were able to do. But I think that that love story actually kind of just helps me get on board. And I like that Ben Affleck, he's the heart of this in a bunch of big ego guys. He is a guy that I believe could stand toe to toe with Bruce Willis, but also can put animal crackers on Liv's body. And that seems, seems so improvised, but I think that that scene is perfect because he's funny, he's charming, he's cute. He is different than the rest. And I think you really need it. I think you need that. I think that you feel the triumph when they meet up, when they meet the Russian guy, you know, I feel like he is the emotional core of this film until Bruce Willis takes it for the final lap there at the very, very end. I

like the bit in the animal cracker banter where they ask you, do you think anybody in the world is doing this exact thing right now? Cause that's a question I think about a lot as well. You know that this world is so big. Could there be another couple on the planet also playing with animal crackers and like running them up on their bellies? And if so, as he says, maybe that is what we're saving the world for is just the strange, wonderful, magical moments of being a human. I think that's really sweet. But yeah, I mean, Ben Affleck in this movie looks like a movie star. Whatever they're doing with his teeth, it works. I mean, his kind of philosophy at this moment of acting was basically, he loves acting. He said, the diet and the exercise is what they pay me for. The acting is free. He's like, I don't like doing that part, but I love all of the performing stuff. But he is in that moment of like, I'm the hot guy in town. I'm the cool guy in town. He hasn't yet been through the Zili Wars. So he comes into this commentary track being like, I'm going to make fun of this movie so much.

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, okay? You know, this is 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. I mean, this is a little bit of a logic stretch, let's face it. They don't know jack about drilling. How hard can it be? Aim the drill at the ground and turn it on. Well, I mean, I think the answer's simple because Bruce Willis never misses a drill. I mean, he never misses his core drilling. I

mean, who cares? But it is so funny. Wait, I have to play you this one too. Okay, picture the scene where Bruce Willis is like standing on his oil rig before he gets taken away from the oil rig. They're having some big old conversation. And in the background, there is a yellow helicopter that just happens to be flying right past his nose. This is where you just have a random helicopter in the background for no real reason, just because you're a big movie and you're expensive and you can't. But you have no idea how much of a headache

having a helicopter in the background causes, because it's all, you know, safety this and money that, and so many hours they can fly, and they're on the walkies, and the wind's blasting everywhere. And if I hadn't brought it up, you'd have probably forgot about that yellow helicopter in the background by now. I mean, but this is the thing. This is like the packet all in nature of it. I think this is why this movie exemplifies like the Michael Bay style. And I do want to talk about like production because, you know, I mentioned it's a 16 week shoot. And this movie is huge. Like I really was watching going, did they shoot this on stages? And it's like, no, they were out in the desert. They're doing so many different things. But due to the patriotic nature of the script and the success of Top Gun as being this kind of recruitment material for the Air Force, the, they, they kind of go, hey, why don't we do that again with NASA? And so NASA gives them carte blanche. I mean, they, people aren't allowed to shoot in the space agency, right? Like, I mean, they, they got to shoot in that, uh, buoyancy lab, which is at 65 million gallon, 40 foot deep pool, right? They got to be in there. They got to use $10 million space suits. The crew was allowed to shoot on the launch pad that went out of service after the Apollo 1 disaster. The movie was shot at Edwards Air Force Base. They were allowed to shoot where a real launch pad, where an actual space shuttle was docked. And they just couldn't step onto the shuttle itself. But Ben Affleck did. He admitted to it. He's like, yeah, I did it. You know, and then NASA, kind of, uh, you know, kind of pushed them off and they basically, you know, they were on a real oil rig. Uh, they were on a real space shuttle. That's like $19 billion worth of equipment. They got for free. I mean that is wild and that's what I think shows in the movie. You're just kind of gawking at like wow I'm seeing all this stuff because there's no creatures here and the biggest thing is you land on a rock. I mean you really just land in I mean they're drilling into a rock. That is the third, no aliens, no lasers, nothing, but everything about this movie looks so big and, and I guess also when you're in that kind of 16 week production schedule for a giant blockbuster movie, it's like you get access to everything. I was watching a special feature on YouTube about how they did that explosion in Paris and like the amount of stuff they shot practically for that. Like that wasn't done in a computer, it was amplified in a computer, but they really went out there and they built like these concentric circles of explosive and they were able to blow it up so it looked like this, this like a tidal wave image. Like I think that that's why this movie even looks better than movies like Independence Day and stuff like that. It really, they're doing so much practically. I think that that's really the secret sauce of this film.

But isn't it funny though that with NASA giving them the help to do so much of it practically, they just turn around and they're like, NASA, what a bunch of nerds. They don't know what they're doing. But yes and no, because I do

feel like Fichter's character in this is also kind of a badass. They do have the one female astronaut, thankfully.

I mean, I'm not claiming that I discovered what Michael Bay thinks of women, but we do have in this film four female characters, the perfect daughter slash girlfriend, the nagging wife who inspires the name of the asteroid. Oh, that part's so funny. The person that finds her gets to name her, right? Yes, that's right. That's right. I want to name her daddy after my wife. She's a vicious life sucking bitch from

which there is no escape.

And then you have the lady astronaut who doesn't know that you can just solve everything by whacking it with a wrench. And then you've got Molly Mounds catching the bouquet. I guess Steve Bus to get married.

I mean, I also don't forget the wife of the astronaut who has told his son that he's a salesman.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, you know, a lot of crazy shit going on with women in this movie.

I don't want to be a woman or a nerd. And I'm a woman and a nerd. Oh, well. But I do think that the NASA

astronauts have cool moments. I mean, Billy Bob is fighting against the, the president is more of a nerd than NASA. Like I do believe that like NASA, like they circumnavigate the, you know, the president and then the astronauts, like they do pull guns, they pull guns in space. Uh, you know, by the way, how big is the space shuttle I mean, when they're walking around in this thing, there's elevators, they're up and down. I'm like, this is the size of a tanker. And it looks like just a normal space shuttle. And they're like, there's levels, they're going in like Chewbacca trying to fix this like internal, you know in there. That is bigger than most college dormitories. I was like, what is this shit? I have no idea of the ship size based on what I'm seeing that has landed versus where they're all running around. And it has a dock with a giant ship in it, like the armadillo with machine guns on it. Okay, the reason they need machine guns, Michael Bay was actually really

specific about this. He needed machine guns because Mattel told him that if they put guns on the trucks, they would sell more Armageddon toys. There

are so many things that I think are amazing about this film. It makes me think that Michael Bay can do a lot of things very well. And one of those things is back-to montages that don't feel like you just watch back-to montages. Like, I mean, we are watching like dueling montages. Like, he is doing so much work. I think a lot of people try to copy George Lucas, like where at the end of Star Wars, they're kind of following three different plot lines and you're cutting between all three of them. Or maybe that's more return of the Jedi, but I feel like there's always this narrative of you're watching three stories kind of intersect. And this is a movie where all the action is happening on one, like one little area. And he is cutting between them. Like he is creating so much tension every time something happens. Like this is like the example of those scripts where they say, Oh, every five pages or no, it's every 10 pages, something has to drastically turn. And I think Michael Bay goes every five pages, something has to turn. It's like, okay, we start drilling. What happens now that blows up. Okay. We go here that like there is it never ends. The twists in this movie never end. I

mean, it is completely relentless. I mean, by the time Bruce Willis is in the hole and he like drops the controller to blow up the world, you're like another thing. It's like the tense thing that's gone wrong. It is just back to back to back to back to back. I mean, the only moment of calm release, I would say, is when they're drilling the hole at the very very very last bit right before they puncture it, and suddenly he makes drilling this hole on this deadly asteroid sound sexual?

I got a vent pipe jammed in the hole. We gotta cut it out before we can send the bomb down. AJ!