Transcript - Ep 311 - Office Ladies Do: Armageddon!

TRANSCRIPT

Office Ladies | Episode 311 - Office Ladies Do: Armageddon!

 
    Angela [00:00:07] [dramatic music playing in background] This is the Earth, at a time when the dinosaurs roamed a lush, fertile planet. 

    Jenna [00:00:21] [music continues] A piece of rock, just six miles wide, changed all that. 

    Angela [00:00:34] It hit with a force of 10,000 nuclear weapons. 

    Jenna [00:00:41] A trillion tons of dirt and rock hurtled into the atmosphere, creating a suffocating blanket of dust the sun was powerless to penetrate for a thousand years. [music intensifies] 

    Angela [00:01:02] It happened before. 

    Jenna [00:01:05] It will happen again. 

    Angela and Jenna, in unison [00:01:09] It's just a question of when. 

    Jenna [00:01:15] Everyone, buckle in for 

    Angela and Jenna, in unison [00:01:19] "Armageddon." 

    audio cue [00:01:19] [pod intro plays] 

    Jenna [00:01:30] I'm Jenna Fisher, 

    Angela [00:01:31] and I'm Angela Kinsey. 

    Jenna [00:01:33] We were on "The Office" together 

    Angela [00:01:34] and we're best friends. 

    Jenna [00:01:35] And now, we're doing the ultimate Office lover's podcast, just for you. 

    Angela [00:01:40] Each week we will dive deeper into the world of The Office with exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes details, and lots of BFF stories. 

    Jenna [00:01:47] We're The Office Ladies 6.0. 

    audio cue [00:01:49] [musical sting] 

    Jenna [00:01:55] Hello, everyone. 

    Angela [00:01:56] Hey! We have a big, big episode today. 

    Jenna [00:02:00] We really do. Welcome to our breakdown of the 1998 summer blockbuster, Armageddon. 

    Angela [00:02:10] [makes dramatic noise] 

    Jenna [00:02:12] [makes explosion noises] Explosions! So many explosions. 

    Angela [00:02:14] So many. 

    Jenna [00:02:15] We said we might do this a while back and we got mail. Amber W. from Brighton, Michigan wrote us to say, "You mentioned doing a watch of Armageddon and you guys will podcast the crap out of that. I need it in my life." Kelly B. from Westfield, Indiana, who listens with her family said, "I've been listening to your podcast since the episode and it's truly my favorite one I listen to. We desperately want you to break down Armageddon. You mentioned it and we are all in. I showed it to my kids recently because you mentioned it and it is so bad we totally need you to break it down. Please." 

    Angela [00:02:54] "Podcast the crap out of something" might be my new favorite expression, Amber. You guys also know that this movie, Armageddon, does live in the lore of The Office. 

    Jenna [00:03:03] Yeah. 

    Angela [00:03:04] We briefly discussed this movie in the very early days of our podcast when we broke down the episode, "The Fight." So you guys, if you remember, Michael Scott is wanting Jim to punch him really hard in the stomach. Jim suggests that he have Dwight do it, and then we learned this tidbit about Michael and Dwight. 

    clip from The Office - Michael [00:03:23] Go ahead, do it. 

    clip from The Office - Jim [00:03:24] Just have Dwight punch you. 

    clip from The Office - Michael [00:03:26] Oh, yeah. Well, that would be kind of worthless, because I know a ton of 14-year-old girls that could kick his ass. 

    clip from The Office - Jim [00:03:31] You know a lot of 14 year old girls? 

    clip from The Office - Dwight [00:03:33] What belt are they? 

    clip from The Office - Michael [00:03:34] Look, Dwight is a wuss. When we rented Armageddon, he cried at the end of it. He did. 

    clip from The Office - Dwight [00:03:39] Michael, I told you. That was because it was New Year's Eve and it started to snow at exactly midnight. 

    clip from The Office - Michael [00:03:44] [making crying noises] Bruce Willis, I'm gonna leave him on the asteroid. 

    clip from The Office - Dwight [00:03:46] Okay, I'll punch you? 

    clip from The Office - Michael [00:03:48] Oh, okay, here we go. Alright, come on. 

    clip from The Office - Dwight [00:03:51] [yells a battle cry and punches]

    Jenna [00:03:54] Amazing, so Michael and Dwight watched Armageddon. 

    Angela [00:03:58] On New Year's Eve. 

    Jenna [00:04:00] And now, lady, we have watched it. 

    Angela [00:04:01] We have. 

    Jenna [00:04:03] There's so much to discuss, but let's dive into the facts and stats. 

    Angela [00:04:07] Yeah, I'll kick us off. As you said, Jenna, it was released in 1998 on July 1st. 

    Jenna [00:04:13] So kind of around the July 4th holiday. 

    Angela [00:04:16] Oh, yeah. Here's a little description. "After discovering that an asteroid the size of Texas will impact Earth in less than a month, NASA recruits a misfit team of deep core drillers to save the planet." 

    Jenna [00:04:30] Yeah, they do. 

    Angela [00:04:31] You want to hear the tagline? 

    Jenna [00:04:32] I do. 

    Angela [00:04:33] It's so good. Ready? "It's closer than you think." I feel like that's a that what she said. 

    Jenna [00:04:43] [laughs] I have another tagline. 

    Angela [00:04:44] What? 

    Jenna [00:04:45] "Explosions and yelling." 

    Angela [00:04:47] Oh, that's very good. Okay. It was rated PG-13. Jenna, I haven't told you. We don't know what each other are both sharing today, guys. 

    Jenna [00:04:57] It's been very hard not to share my thoughts about this movie with you. I've been sharing them a little bit with Sam because I couldn't help myself. 

    Angela [00:05:04] Yeah, you needed someone to bear witness. We have been living in a vacuum, but Jenna, I wanna tell you something right now. I know more about this movie than (I feel like) I did about any subject I took in college. There is a DVD commentary that has been lost. You can't find it anymore. It was on a laser disk. I found it online. 

    Jenna [00:05:25] Amazing. 

    Angela [00:05:26] It's two hours and 35 minutes. It's Michael Bay. Bruce Willis, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Ben Affleck. I listened to it. 

    Jenna [00:05:34] The whole thing? 

    Angela [00:05:36] I crapped out at about two hours. Okay, so the last 35 minutes, I was like, "Oh, I get it now." Lady, it is one of the most insane rides of your life. Like, I want you to go on a road trip and listen to it. Anyway, all that to say, I know why they wanted a PG-13 movie. 

    Jenna [00:05:57] Tell us. 

    Angela [00:05:58] Okay, ask me any kind of random s**t as we break this down. Michael Bay said (and I'm quoting him) that his grandfather said to him, if you wanna make a lot of money then find something you can sell to middle America. 

    Jenna [00:06:13] OK. 

    Angela [00:06:13] He said this movie's patriotic. He wanted it to be PG-13, even though that meant he had to dumb down some of it so 13-year-olds could get it, but then also still make it exciting enough for the adults in the audience. He thinks he accomplished that and I think he did, too. 

    Jenna [00:06:30] He did. 

    Angela [00:06:30] Yeah. 

    Jenna [00:06:31] Yeah. Well, this movie is two hours and 31 minutes. 

    Angela [00:06:35] Right. The commentary is just a few minutes longer. 

    Jenna [00:06:39] That's what I was going to ask you. 

    Angela [00:06:41] It's two hours and 35 minutes. 

    Jenna [00:06:44] Yeah, it is real long. 

    Angela [00:06:48] Real long. Did you see this in theaters? Do you remember the first time you saw it? 

    Jenna [00:06:51]  I did see it in theaters. I don't have a strong memory of seeing it and I'm confused by that now because... 

    Angela [00:07:01] You're like, "How could I not remember?" 

    Jenna [00:07:03] How could I not remember that? 

    Angela [00:07:04] I mean, I saw it. I shared this when we broke down The Fight for Office Ladies, that I saw this with my dad. He is a drilling engineer, a deep sea drilling engineer. Like, on oil rigs out in the ocean. 

    Jenna [00:07:18] Like where we meet Bruce Willis and his team. 

    Angela [00:07:23] Exactly. So I went and saw this movie with my Dad and I'm going to share some of his reactions later. 

    Jenna [00:07:27] I can't wait. 

    Angela [00:07:28] But yeah, so what I don't know is how I made it through the movie without peeing four times. 

    Jenna [00:07:33] Yeah, you probably went to the bathroom several times. 

    Angela [00:07:36] I had to have. 

    Jenna [00:07:37] Matt, Sam, do you remember seeing this movie for the first time? Did you see it in theaters? 

    Sam [00:07:43] No, I never saw this until a week ago. 

    Angela [00:07:46] No way. 

    Jenna [00:07:47] Oh, Sam. Wow. 

    Sam [00:07:47] No, this move, this was all brand new to me. 

    Angela [00:07:51] Oh my gosh! What were your thoughts? 

    Sam [00:07:54] Oh, I'll let you know as we go. I took detailed notes. 

    Angela [00:07:57] Oh my gosh, please let us know. Okay. 

    Jenna [00:08:00] Matt? 

    Matt [00:08:01] I definitely saw it in theaters. The only thing I really remembered from the movie was the animal cracker scene. I don't know what that says about me, but it's literally the only thing that I could tell you about this movie. 

    Angela [00:08:13] Because you were a teenage boy. 

    Matt [00:08:13] I know, I was taking notes. I was like, "Okay, animal crackers." 

    Angela [00:08:16] No, God. No. God, please tell me you never have recreated this moment. Please tell me that you haven't busted out animal crackers on a lady's belly. 

    Jenna [00:08:24] Guys, doesn't Michael Scott reference animal crackers in some thing about wooing a woman? 

    Angela [00:08:33] Sexy time? 

    Jenna [00:08:33] I swear. 

    Angela [00:08:34] Oh my gosh. Someone Google it. Wait, Jenna, what'd you find? She's looking very excited. 

    Jenna [00:08:40] Okay, according to Dunderpedia, in "Threat Level: Midnight," there is a flashback scene of Michael Skarn and his wife. One of the sequences is a take on the scene where Ben Affleck puts the animal cracker on Liv Tyler's stomach. So two Armageddon references in The Office, folks. 

    Angela [00:09:05] This is the brilliance of The Office though. You think something's mentioned and it's like, "Oh, will we ever see that again?" And then it is woven back in. I love that. 

    Jenna [00:09:14] Yeah. From The Fight all the way to Threat Level: Midnight. 

    Angela [00:09:17] Alright, Jenna, do you have any stats for us? 

    Jenna [00:09:20] Well, like you mentioned earlier, Angela, the director of this movie is Michael Bay. 

    Angela [00:09:24] Have you ever met Michael Bay? 

    Jenna [00:09:26] No. Have you? 

    Angela [00:09:29] Sort of. 

    Jenna [00:09:30] Sort of? How do you sort of meet someone? 

    Angela [00:09:32] I can't believe I've never told you this story, in all of our years of friendship. 

    Jenna [00:09:35] No. 

    Angela [00:09:36] Okay, here's my Michael Bay story. So I was performing at Improv-Olympic and then a friend of ours who also performed there worked at a restaurant. If we could get there before 9 PM, he could get us a free appetizer. But then after nine, they lowered the lights and it turned into a nightclub. 

    Jenna [00:09:53] What is your age? 

    Angela [00:09:56] I'm, like, 25 or 26 years old, somewhere in there. So we do our improv show and we haul ass over there so we can get in before nine and get free apps. We're in a booth and nine o'clock hits: the lights lower and all of a sudden music's thumping. I'm like, "Oh my gosh," in walks Michael Bay and Dan Aykroyd, together 

    Jenna [00:10:21] [laughing] What? 

    Angela [00:10:21] With a group of gals. Michael Bay had hair like... Long, wispy hair parted on the side, kind of feathered. 

    Jenna [00:10:32] It was very Fabio. 

    Angela [00:10:33] Very Fabio, just wispy feathered hair. He had on a suede western jacket with fringe and jeans. 

    Jenna [00:10:43] Okay. Is this pre-Armageddon or after Armageddon? Was this pre 1998 or after 1998? 

    Angela [00:10:50] This is pre. This is like... Maybe "The Rock" era? 

    Jenna [00:10:54] Yeah. 

    Angela [00:10:54] Yeah, yeah. Okay. He comes in with Dan Aykroyd and the ladies. They sit at the booth right behind us. I am back to back with Michael Bay. Like my hair, if I tilted back, could touch his wispy hair. Then when the music started, the gals got up. They were dancing. Other people danced too. This place turned into a club. But yeah, Michael Bay and I sat back-to-back. 

    Jenna [00:11:20] Wow. 

    Angela [00:11:21] Mm-hmm. 

    Jenna [00:11:22] That's a nuts story. 

    Angela [00:11:23] It's a nut story. You're just sitting there eating your cheese sticks and Dan Aykroyd and Michael Bay walk in, and Michael Bay looks like a character out of a 70's Western movie. 

    Sam [00:11:35] I can't believe this story doesn't end with an explosion of some kind. 

    Angela [00:11:40] Well, we had to leave because after 9 o'clock the tables were reserved, so we got booted out. But I was there long enough to see that crazy duo. 

    Jenna [00:11:50] That's amazing. 

    Angela [00:11:51] Anyway. 

    Jenna [00:11:52] I'm glad we watched this movie just so I could hear that story. Alright, let's talk about the writers of this movie. In the credits at the beginning of the movie, it lists screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams. That was a surprise. But on IMDB, there are a lot of other people listed under the writing category with additional multiple titles. 

    Angela [00:12:15] Yeah, I had a writing professor that said that a tip of the hat to if a script went through a ton of changes, is if you have "adaptation by," "story by," and so on. We had all of this. 

    Jenna [00:12:25] In this movie. 

    Angela [00:12:27] Yeah. We had adaptation by Tony Gilroy and Shane Salerno. We had story by Robert Roy Pool and Jonathan Hensleigh as well. A lot of chefs here. 

    Jenna [00:12:36] Well, this movie has a lot of stars, pretty much all of them men. They are Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck, Will Patton, Steve Buscemi, Owen Wilson, Michael Clarke Duncan, William Fichner, and also Liv Tyler. 

    Angela [00:12:52] Mm-hmm. 

    Jenna [00:12:53] I can't really imagine anyone else but Bruce Willis in this role of Harry Stamper, as the lead oil driller guy. 

    Angela [00:13:00] 100 percent. 

    Jenna [00:13:01] He really held this movie together for me. But did you know that Sean Connery was originally considered for the role? Michael Bay decided to cast someone younger after meeting some actual oil drillers. Surprising to me that he ever did meet real oil drillers, but OK. 

    Angela [00:13:18] Oh, yeah, they did their homework. I will tell you that. 

    Jenna [00:13:21] Did they? 

    Angela [00:13:21] Yeah, they did. They did they had Joe - 

    Jenna [00:13:23] They did their homework about NASA, the space program, and oil drilling, and then they were like, "F**k it." 

    Angela [00:13:28] They threw it all out. 

    Jenna [00:13:30] "We learned all about it. We're not gonna put any of it in the movie." 

    Angela [00:13:33] They did. They met with real drilling engineers, they had Joe Allen, who was an astronaut, consult. Ben Affleck will say in the DVD, "We use some of it." 

    Jenna [00:13:43] I mean, it's very funny to me because so much of the first third of the movie is just them explaining why they're going to do things that make actually no sense in real life. 

    Angela [00:13:55] No sense. Also, Jerry Bruckheimer shares that they offered this role to Liv Tyler five times before she accepted it. It was on the fifth time that other actors have been added by that point, Billy Bob Thorton and so on, you know, that she was like okay. 

    Jenna [00:14:09] I thought she was great. 

    Angela [00:14:10] I did too.

    Jenna [00:14:11]  I actually really liked her. 

    Angela [00:14:11] I know. 

    Jenna [00:14:12] Bradley Cooper auditioned for the role of A.J. Frost. Can't imagine anyone but Ben Affleck. I thought everybody was very well cast in this movie. 

    Angela [00:14:22] Same. 

    Jenna [00:14:23] Incidentally, the budget for this film, I watched this movie with my son and after the first sequence in New York, he said "How much did this movie cost?" It cost $140 million. In the U.S. And Canada, it made $201.5 million at the box office, and the gross worldwide was $553.7 million. So it made its money back and then some. 

    Angela [00:14:50] Okay, so it was a hit. 

    Jenna [00:14:52] It was a hit at the Box Office. Angela, what did the critics have to say? 

    Angela [00:14:59] Well... They have a lot to say. I'm just going to share Roger Ebert, who gave it one star. I'm quoting him. He said, "The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense, and the human desire to be entertained." He also went on to say, "The plot covers many of the same bases as the recent 'Deep Impact,' which compared with Armageddon, belongs on the American Film Institute list." Michael Bay did take some issue with Deep Impact. I can share that later. 

    Jenna [00:15:28] Oh, Deep Impact was a whole thing. It had just come out. 

    Angela [00:15:31] Two giant movies about asteroids hurling themselves towards Earth. 

    Jenna [00:15:37] Yeah, I watched some of the press junket of the actors promoting this movie. 

    Angela [00:15:43] You did?

    Jenna [00:15:44] Yes, and they kept getting asked about Deep Impact. You can just see how pissed they are. Interestingly enough, I had read that as well, about Roger Ebert hating it. I believe he lists it as the movie he hates more than any other movie in his compilation list. It's at the very bottom. Of every movie he's ever seen in his whole life. He really, really hated this movie. Gene Siskel, on the other hand, gave it a thumbs up. 

    Angela [00:16:12] Did they hate each other? Did the two of them hate each others? 

    Jenna [00:16:15] I don't know. 

    Angela [00:16:15] Is that Siskel punking Ebert because he knows how much he hated it? 

    Jenna [00:16:18] I don't know, just to get under his skin, I'm not sure. But yeah. He said that he found that the sensory overload actually became bizarrely audacious and amusing. 

    Angela [00:16:31] Huh, well, you know, Michael Bay was quoted as saying in an interview that the whole movie, they shot in 16 weeks. He said it was a massive undertaking and it wasn't fair to the movie. He said he would like to redo the entire third act, if he could, because the studio literally took the movie away from him. He said that it was terrible. He said that his visual effects supervisor had a nervous breakdown. 

    Jenna [00:16:53] I'm not surprised! 

    Angela [00:16:54] I know! So then he had to take charge. He said he actually called James Cameron and said, "What do you do when you're doing all the effects by yourself?" But then he ended the interview with saying, "But the movie did fine." So it got 43% on the Rotten Tomatoes tomato meter, but a 73% on the popcorn meter. Folks liked it. 

    Jenna [00:17:17] Okay. So this really tracks for me about this movie. I became very fascinated by the film's award nominations because it was nominated for four Academy Awards. Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Song by Diane Warren: "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing," performed by Aerosmith. But then it also got nominated for seven Razzie Awards. It was nominated for Worst Picture, Worst Actor: Bruce Willis, Worst On-Screen Couple: Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler, Worst Supporting Actress: Liv Tyler. 

    Angela [00:17:56] Oh no! 

    Jenna [00:17:56] Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Original Song. 

    Angela [00:18:00] Oh no! 

    Jenna [00:18:02] I guess there's also something called the "Stinkers Bad Movie Awards." 

    Angela [00:18:06] Oh my god. 

    Jenna [00:18:07] Bruce Willis won the Stinker Award for Worst Actor, and Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler won a stinker for Worst On-Screen Couple. But then, at the MTV Movie Awards, the movie was nominated for Best Movie. Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck were nominated for Best Actor and Actress, and also Best On-screen Duo. Bruce Willis was also nominated for Best Actor at the Saturn Awards, and the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. He actually won that one. It was also nominated by the Japanese Academy for Best Foreign Film, and it won the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film. I have to say, this really accurately summed up my feelings about the film, because as I was watching this movie, 

    Angela [00:18:57] First you texted me, 

    Jenna [00:18:57] And I said, "This is the worst movie I've ever seen in my life." 

    Angela [00:19:02] Mm-hmm. 

    Jenna [00:19:02] "I don't know how I'm gonna watch the whole thing." But then as it went on, I found myself saying, "I f**king love this movie." 

    Angela [00:19:12] Yes. 

    Jenna [00:19:12] So I both hate it and think it's terrible, and I also think it is one of the best movies ever made. 

    Sam [00:19:18] I took several guesses at what the parts were that turned your viewing of it around. 

    Jenna [00:19:24] Yeah, it was a real journey. 

    Sam [00:19:26] Yeah, because I also hated it at the start. 

    Jenna [00:19:29] And then did you love it? 

    Sam [00:19:30] I love it. It reminds me of bad bands that I like. There's so many albums that I know are terrible that I love. 

    Jenna [00:19:35] Yeah, I don't know. There's something about it. 

    Angela [00:19:39] Matt. What about you? 

    Matt [00:19:40] I... It didn't hold up as well for me. Watching it this time, the story felt really ridiculous. But I did admire the scale and the shots of it.

    Angela [00:19:53] Yeah. 

    Sam [00:19:54] And for me, it reminded me... How much bad improv have you seen? Where the actors commit to being pimped out on stage? This is what it reminded of, everybody's commitment to this is insane. Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis, they all commit to this as if it's really happening. 

    Jenna [00:20:10] The commitment of the whole movie to the premise is really impressive. It takes itself very seriously. 

    Angela [00:20:18] Mm-hmm. Listen, if full blown out wispy hair, suede tassel jacket man is walking up to you, he's gonna take the movie to the next level. 

    Jenna [00:20:29] This is the only movie that man is making. 

    Angela [00:20:31] This is it. 

    Jenna [00:20:32] He's making a 110% movie. 

    Angela [00:20:34] He is all in. 

    Sam [00:20:34] Yeah, and he refers to it as a film, not a movie. 

    Angela [00:20:37] Yes, it's a film. My thoughts after watching it are, let's see... 

    Jenna [00:20:44] You're choosing your words so carefully. 

    Angela [00:20:46] It was such a commitment. I am tired. I appreciate all the special effects. Oh my God, the way they made some of this, we'll get to it. I really appreciate what the crew did. I really do. At the same time, I don't ever need to see this again. Ever. But I would listen to that DVD commentary again. 

    Jenna [00:21:12] I'm jealous you listen to it. I want to hear it because I'm going to play a little section of it later that I found and it really made me want to hear the whole thing. 

    Angela [00:21:20] I have six clips and I will also share in stories for anyone who wants to listen to it. 

    Jenna [00:21:29] Listen, why don't we take a break? And then when we come back, we are going to break down Armageddon. 

    audio cue [00:21:34] [musical sting] 

    Jenna [00:21:38] Alright, we are back. 

    Angela [00:21:39] It's time to break down Armageddon. This movie is gonna open with a menacing voice. 

    Jenna [00:21:45] Well, we open in outer space. 

    Angela [00:21:47] Yeah. 

    Jenna [00:21:48] We see the earth. Something is hurtling toward it. We find out that we're back in dinosaur times and this meteor hit the earth back then. You heard us, earlier in this podcast, recreate this opening narration that was originally done by Charlton Heston. 

    Angela [00:22:07] That's right. 

    Jenna [00:22:08] One of my favorite things is the chiron that comes up on the screen. I laughed out loud that it says "65 million years later." 

    Angela [00:22:17] Well, here's the thing. They have to do that for the 13 year olds watching, right? It's like, "Cut to 65 million years later." We're not in dinosaur times anymore. I did love that, when the letters of the movie come up then they all blow apart.

    Jenna [00:22:31] Because everything in this movie is going to explode eventually, including the title of the movie. 

    Sam [00:22:36] If you pay attention, it's right after they say a Michael Bay movie, it explodes. There's an immediate explosion. 

    Angela [00:22:43] It's perfect. We got this guy Pete, he's an astronaut. He's outside of the spaceship. He's tethered by one of those cords. 

    Jenna [00:22:51] Yeah, he's fixing a satellite in space. 

    Angela [00:22:52] Yeah, that's what he's doing. Billy Bob Thornton's back at mission control and he's like, "I'll give you a buffalo nickel if you just calm down a little bit. Can you do that for me?" 

    Jenna [00:23:03] His heart is racing in space. They're monitoring him. 

    Angela [00:23:05] Yeah, and he's like, "Hey buddy, we got plenty of time. So don't you worry." That's it. This guy's a goner. If someone says, "Don't you worry," you better get the hell out of there. 

    Jenna [00:23:19] Did you notice? Pete's blue eyes? 

    Angela [00:23:21] Yes. 

    Jenna [00:23:21] I was like, "Is this Josh Lucas? Is this a young Josh Lucas?" 

    Angela [00:23:25] I thought the same thing! 

    Jenna [00:23:26] I looked it up. It's not. 

    Angela [00:23:28] I did too, it's not! 

    Jenna [00:23:29] It's a stunt actor named Ian Quinn. 

    Angela [00:23:31] With the most beautiful blue eyes! 

    Jenna [00:23:33] Gorgeous. 

    Angela [00:23:34] Gorgeous! 

    Jenna [00:23:35] He's gonna get hit by something falling from the sky. They don't know what at first, but all this sh*t starts raining down. We're 45 seconds into the movie, things are already exploding.

    Angela [00:23:45] This shuttle explodes, and then... 

    Jenna [00:23:48] The satellite explodes. 

    Angela [00:23:48] All of it. 

    Jenna [00:23:50] Pete explodes. 

    Angela [00:23:51] Down on Earth, the military thinks these are bogies. They could be getting attacked. I'm sorry, I'm calling bulls**t. We're getting attacked from space? What's happening? 

    Jenna [00:23:58] Well, this is what they say. They said, "Is it missiles? Is it an internal malfunction? Is it a glitch? Is it wild card?" They create little pods of people for all of these different scenarios. Tasked to figure out what it is. 

    Angela [00:24:11] I have a clip from the DVD commentary I want to play for you guys about this opening number. 

    Jenna [00:24:18] [laughing] Opening number! 

    Angela [00:24:19] What do you call it? Opening sequence? 

    Jenna [00:24:21] Scene? I don't know. 

    Angela [00:24:22] Michael Bay said he hired a young writer to do a rewrite. He doesn't say the name of the person. He says that this young guy rewrote 53 pages in two days and then Bay read the new script. Michael Bay said, "It was pure s**t." He then gave the young writer this note and I quote again, "In the opening you have to grab the audience by the balls." So this sent the writer back to work. "How do I grab him by the balls?" And he came up with this, this idea that this whole thing goes kablooey right away. 

    Jenna [00:24:55] Well, now we're gonna cut to Carl. He's a man. He's sitting inside of, I don't know, a grain silo? He's looking up at the sky with a telescope. 

    Angela [00:25:03] He's got a homemade telescope, guys. 

    Jenna [00:25:05] He was played by John Mahon. His wife, Dottie, played by Grace Zabriskie, is gonna throw the door open. She's really mad because he hasn't come in for dinner. 

    Angela [00:25:17] I mean, his Stouffer's pot pie sat on the table for 10 hours. 

    Jenna [00:25:20] She wants a divorce. 

    Angela [00:25:21] She's pissed! 

    Jenna [00:25:23] This character of Dotties is gonna set the tone for all women in this film. If you are a woman in this movie, you are either a shrew wife, a stripper, a bitch with no sense of humor, or Liv Tyler. These are the four categories of woman in this film. 

    Angela [00:25:38] Well done. Good breakdown. 

    Jenna [00:25:40] Thank you. I'd also like to say that the fact that Carl is featured so heavily in the beginning of this movie is going to give you the impression that he's going to be some sort of central character, but he's actually gonna disappear forever after just a few scenes. 

    Angela [00:25:53] Yeah, we don't see him again. But he does get to name the asteroid, because I guess the first person that sees it and clocks it gets to name it. 

    Jenna [00:26:00] He calls NASA and tells them about it. 

    Angela [00:26:02] He tells Billy Bob Thornton, "I want to name her 'Dottie' after my wife." And then his wife is like, "Awwww." Then he says, "Because she's a vicious life suckin' bitch from which there's no escape." So there's that. 

    Jenna [00:26:15] Alright, back at Command Center, everyone. It's DEF CON 3. Remember the DEF CONS? 

    Angela [00:26:20]  Oh, I mean, Billy Bob Thornton is like, "You're going to wake up 11,000 people, let's get going!" 

    Jenna [00:26:27] Yeah, I want to remind you what DEF CON 3 means. 

    Angela [00:26:30] Oh, Michael Scott would be so excited. 

    Jenna [00:26:32] Yes, DEFCON 3 means an increase in force readiness above that required for normal readiness. It means the Air Force is ready to mobilize in 15 minutes. In America's history, we have been at DEFCon 3 on only a few occasions. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and during the September 11th attack. Incidentally, in movies, we have reached DEFCON 3 in "Crimson Tide" and "Independence Day," and also "War Games." 

    Angela [00:27:08] Okay. 

    Jenna [00:27:08] We reached all the DEFCons in War Games 

    Angela [00:27:10] War Games. So stressful, that movie. 

    Jenna [00:27:13] Yeah. 

    Angela [00:27:13] We are now going to cut to New York City. You guys, there's a guy riding his bicycle. He's got a dog. They're making their way through the city. 

    Jenna [00:27:19] Yes, this is a bike messenger played by Eddie Griffin. 

    Angela [00:27:22] Mm-hmm per Michael Bay this scene. He gave a nod to the movie Godzilla. Did you catch it guys? 

    Jenna [00:27:28] Is it because Eddie Griffin's dog is gonna bite some little Godzilla toys? 

    Angela [00:27:34] There's a guy selling some Godzilla dolls on the sidewalk at six minutes and 33 seconds. Michael Bay wants you to know that dog was trained special to do that. It cost him $20,000 to ship that dog to set. And quote from Michael Bay, "He really did rip the s**t out of those dolls." 

    Jenna [00:27:55] Amazing. 

    Angela [00:27:55] Amazing. 

    Jenna [00:27:57] Well, we're not sure what's happening here. We're just getting a little slice of life on the streets of New York City and then holy sh*t, tons of what we still don't quite know what start raining down from the sky hitting Manhattan. I wrote, "This is literally insane. Insane. This opening is insane." 

    Angela [00:28:16] This New York scene, where I guess parts of the asteroid are pouring down on them, was done so well. I actually want to play a clip from the DVD of Michael Bay talking about how they did it. 

    audio clip - Michael Bay [00:28:28] These effects, right here, were on car flippers, and we had TVs that were shooting through the window at high rates of speed. This was basically being a kid in a candy store deciding you can flip and blow up whatever you want. We had to come up with ideas, how to do things in daylight, which is very tricky in effects-driven movies. Because you've got to be very critical on your effects. A lot of effects movies are done at night, where it's easier to disguise things. We had small basketball-sized space rocks coming in. It wouldn't just blow up and throw a car. It would level city blocks. That's how fast these things come in, at 30,000 miles an hour. Here in the Grand Central Station scene, I had Rob Legato, who did "Titanic," do these shots. This was a model that was 16 feet wide. There were photographs of the Grand Central Station with green screened people. There were a lot of very dangerous stunts done here, and these are people around flying cars. We invented a flipper system that was quite accurate, and I was able to put people in very close proximity to these cars. We shot this New York sequence literally in four days, and that's quite a bit of shooting. 

    Jenna [00:29:42] Well, this scene won the MTV Movie Award for Best Action Sequence. 

    Angela [00:29:48] I believe it. 

    Jenna [00:29:49] Well deserved. 

    Angela [00:29:50] Well deserved. 

    Jenna [00:29:51] So now in the movie, we know what is going on. It's a meteor shower, but is it over? Quote from NASA, "We have 11,000 people at NASA trying to figure that out." 

    Angela [00:30:01] Mm-hmm. I do have a background catch for us. At 10 minutes and 26 seconds, Michael Bay put himself in the movie. 

    Jenna [00:30:07] I saw it! 

    Angela [00:30:08] I know, he's one of the guys. 

    Jenna [00:30:10] He's trying to figure it out. 

    Angela [00:30:11] He's one the NASA employees. Interestingly enough though, here's what he had to say about visiting the real life NASA Space Center. Let's hear it. 

    audio clip - Michael Bay [00:30:20] In meeting with the people at NASA, I realized that they're simple guys, they're extremely smart, they are very Americana guys. NASA's not slick in any way. I mean, basically it smells like the tubes from your mom's old TV set she had in the 50's. I'm dead serious. The old Mission Control is the most unsexy place you've ever seen, and you cannot believe that they actually landed a guy on the moon there. What I tried to do with NASA was to sexy it up, to think the best and the brightest are going to be this facility. In reality, they do have the best and the brightest, but the equipment seems antiquated. But the best in the brightest look very much like Billy Bob. I mean, these are the people that I met at NASA. They're mathematicians. They're scientists. They're slight. I mean the astronauts you saw, they're not studly. They're little guys. You know, they are not the guys you saw in the movie "The Right Stuff." Astronauts are just... They's scientists. 

    Jenna [00:31:16] Astronauts are scientists! 

    Sam [00:31:18] I wish that was the tag of this movie, I wish the poster said "Armageddon: we made NASA sexy." 

    Angela [00:31:22] I mean, you guys, I've been holding on to that. That's not the last time he's going to mention the unsexyness of NASA. 

    Jenna [00:31:29] Oh my god, I have to listen to this whole thing 

    Angela [00:31:31] You really do. It is worth it. 

    Jenna [00:31:33] Can we go on a road trip and just listen to it together? 

    Angela [00:31:35] Yes. 

    Jenna [00:31:37] Well, here is what we're going to find out. Finally, this is a quote. "This is an asteroid the size of Texas. It's a global killer. The end of mankind. It doesn't matter where it hits. Nothing will survive, not even bacteria. We have 18 days before it hits Earth." 

    Angela [00:31:57] Alright, guys. sh*t just got real. 

    Jenna [00:32:01] So now we're going to meet the actual cast of this movie. Forget about Bike Messenger Guy and his dog. Forget about Carl and Dottie. You're never going to see them again. We're going cut to an oil rig in the South China Sea where we meet Bruce Willis, AKA Harry Stamper, and he's playing golf. He's hitting golf balls off a rig at the Greenpeace boat. 

    Angela [00:32:22] Who's protesting the rig. 

    Jenna [00:32:24] Yes. We also meet Ben Affleck, who's AJ. He works on the rig. 

    Angela [00:32:28] Yeah, he's gone rogue, right? 

    Jenna [00:32:30] Yeah, they can't find him. 

    Angela [00:32:32] Well, he did something with number two, whatever that is. 

    Jenna [00:32:35] Pump number two. He turned it on when he wasn't supposed to. 

    Angela [00:32:38] That's right. And Bruce Willis is now pissed and looking for him. 

    Jenna [00:32:42] Guess what? He's been working on this rig for five years. When is Bruce Willis gonna trust his gut? You know, AJ has a gut, and he thinks that pump number two is fine, and they get in a little argument about it. This is when Bruce Willis discovers that his daughter, played by Liv Tyler, is sleeping with AJ. She's in his bed. 

    Angela [00:33:05] Yeah, and he is not happy about that. 

    Jenna [00:33:07] So he's gonna get a gun. 

    Angela [00:33:09] Mm-hmm. 

    Jenna [00:33:10] And he is going to start firing a gun on an oil rig. 

    Angela [00:33:15] This is a big gun. It's, like, a shotgun. 

    Jenna [00:33:17] Is this safe? This feels unsafe for so very many reasons. 

    Angela [00:33:20] Well, I can tell you, as I watched this movie with my dad who's a drilling engineer, this was the first moment in the movie that he turned to me and he said, [in a Southern accent] "Never happened. Never gonna happen." 

    Jenna [00:33:32] Right? 

    Angela [00:33:32] He called BS on it. I found an article on mailmagazine.com where they had three drilling engineers fact check this movie. Let me tell you, they shared my dad's sentiment. One of them said, "No way would you fire a gun on a rig. It would ricochet off of everything." 

    Jenna [00:33:49] Yeah, I mean... 

    Matt [00:33:51] It did do that in the movie. I mean, there's a lot of ricochet. 

    Jenna [00:33:54] A lot of ricochets, something ricocheted into Ben Affleck's leg, and this whole thing is stopped because a helicopter approaches. There's a lot of father-daughter tension, a lot arguing, Grace is saying that it's her life, she can date who she likes. 

    Angela [00:34:11] Ben Affleck said, "You know why we had a helicopter in this movie?" 

    Jenna [00:34:15] Why? 

    Angela [00:34:16] "Because we just wanted to show everyone that we were a big movie that had a ton of money." He said, "It was loud, you couldn't hear your lines, but they had to have a helicopter." 

    Jenna [00:34:23] Yeah, these are the people who are financing this oil drill and they're going to give them a little tour. Liv Tyler clearly has some role in this business, family business. It's her dad's rig. 

    Angela [00:34:33] It's like she's the marketing PR person. Like, "Look, this is what you're spending your money on." She's now in a nice black dress. She's in high heels on a rig. 

    Jenna [00:34:42] Right. Yeah. She's showing off everything that's happening. But we're also going to cut to a lot of problem solving meetings over at NASA. They're trying to figure out how to going to stop this giant meteor. There's this great scene where they explain, "Oh, we should just have a nuclear bomb go off, just shoot a nuclear bomb at it." And the guy is like, "No, you have to drill a bomb into the middle, because imagine If you held a firecracker in your open hand and it went off, it would burn your hand. But if you close your fist around the firecrackers and it goes off, it'll blow your hand off." So this is what they have to do. They have to drill - 

    Angela [00:35:25] A hole and then put a nuclear bomb in the hole of the asteroid. 

    Jenna [00:35:29] Right. 

    Angela [00:35:30] We're going to cut to the rig now. Something is wrong. They are blowing oil, mud, and gas all over the rig. My dad turned to me and said, [in a Southern accent] "That would never happen." He called bullsh*t. I'm doing such a bad impression of my dad, but he would say "Never happened." According to the drilling engineers that fact-checked this, quote one said, "That's one of the things where the physics doesn't make sense. He just goes over there with a big crescent wrench and turns the valve by the standpipe? It makes absolutely no sense. That's not how it works. You secure a well from the rig floor. You don't secure it from the corner of the derrick." But also they all just went on and on and said there's so many safety measures now and it's very slim that anything like that would happen. 

    Jenna [00:36:10] Well, for the plot, I guess this had to happen because it proves that AJ's gut was wrong about drill number two. 

    Angela [00:36:21] Right. Now, you guys, another helicopter's gonna come. This time it's General Montgomery. 

    Jenna [00:36:25] Mm-hmm. 

    Angela [00:36:26] And he's going to say, 'You've got to come with me. It's a matter of urgent national security." Harry's like, "Did Crazy Willy put you up to this?" And the general's like, "I'm afraid I don't know who Crazy Willy is, sir. I'm dead serious." Then I think this is when Steve Buscemi's character gets the Creeper Award. 

    Jenna [00:36:42] Yeah, he gets to make a weird underage sex joke. He comes up to Bruce Willis when he sees the helicopter and he says, "I swear, I didn't know how old she was." 

    Angela [00:36:52] This is going to be the beginning of the Creeper runner that is Steve Buscemi's character. Harry's like, "Fine, I'll go, but I want to take my daughter" because he's wanting to get her away from AJ. 

    Jenna [00:37:05] Yeah. So they arrive in Houston, Harry Stamper meets Dan Truman. After a kind of rough hello, they go inside and they bring Harry up to speed. If you are wondering why the entire world is not in a massive panic right now, they're gonna tell us. There are only nine telescopes in the world that can see this asteroid, and the U.S. controls eight of them. So they're able to keep this a secret from the whole world, even though most of New York City has been destroyed by a meteor shower. "No one's looking up in the sky except for us." 

    Angela [00:37:41] That's right. Bruce Willis has maybe one of my favorite lines in the movie. He says, "Six billion people on the planet, why'd you guys call me?" 

    Sam [00:37:48] By the way, in terms of people looking up at the sky, I googled how far... Because the asteroid is the size of Texas, hypothetically NASA would know about that decades to centuries before impact, not 18 days. 

    Angela [00:38:01] Also, now since the scene is back in the NASA Space Center, Michael Bay had more to say about NASA and its building. Let's hear it. 

    audio clip - Michael Bay [00:38:09] At NASA here, we tried to sexy it up. This is not a building. Actually, this building sells herbal products. If you saw the real NASA, you just wouldn't trust it as far as you can throw it. It looks very much like an old 60's, 50's of school. I was very unimpressed when I went to NASA, just in terms of just the look and the lack of design. But I was also very impressed with the intelligent people that I met there and the systems that they're doing. So we tried to give NASA a look in our mission control that was stately. I was creating a NASA that would, what would my perception of NASA be? 

    Jenna [00:38:46] Amazing. 

    Angela [00:38:47] You guys. I'm telling you, could you not listen to that all day? 

    Sam [00:38:51] Yeah, and look, I'm not kink shaming. I know there's a kink out there for everybody. This is the first time I've ever seen anybody be horny for NASA, just as the building itself. 

    Angela [00:39:02] Well, not the original building. 

    Sam [00:39:04] [laughing] Yeah, exactly. 

    Jenna [00:39:05] So now they're gonna take Harry down to this airplane hangar and they're going to show him this drill. It's a drill that they stole from him. His plans that were patented, they stole it from him eight months ago for a Mars project and it's not working right. They need him to fix it so that they can take it into space, so they can drill into this asteroid. They have these eight astronauts that they've been training to use the drill and they are messing it up. This leads to Ben Affleck's famous DVD commentary about this scene. Let's hear it. 

    clip - Ben Affleck [00:39:41] 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 f*ck up. So that was the end of that talk. He was like, "You know, Ben, just shut up, OK? You know, this is a real plan, alright?" I was like, "You mean it's a real plan, at NASA, to train oil drillers?" He was like, "Just shut your mouth." See, here's where we demonstrate that, because Bruce is going to tell the guys that they did a bad job of building the drill tank. See, he's a salt-of-the-earth guy. The NASA nerdanauts don't understand his salt-of-the earth ways, his rough-and-tumble ways. Like, somehow they can build rocket ships, but they don't understand what makes a good tranny. Like eight whole months, as if that's not enough time to learn how to drill a hole. But in a week, we're going to learn to be astronauts. One whole week? Now you know how to fly into space? "I need my guys." "Why do you need them?" "They're the best. Everyone's the best." "Why are they the best?" "I don't know, they just are. 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. "You think it's just drilling a hole? There's a lot you gotta know about. And when you're gonna break snap off an edge in a tranny on a corner of a hot pipe, and you're going to get a gas pocket." Like, yeah, well, what about when the booster rockets don't fire in your EVA suit and your zero gravity, you know? 

    Angela [00:41:41] You guys, this commentary is one of the best things I've heard in a long time. 

    Jenna [00:41:46] I do wanna say something though. I wanna say, I completely agreed with Ben Affleck's take in this moment. But when they got up there and they were drilling that hole, I did feel like they needed some drilling experts. 

    Angela [00:42:02] Well, the drilling engineers that were interviewed for that article, they were proposed this question: would it be easier to take an astronaut and train them to be a drilling engineer, or get the drilling engineers out into space? Listen, they didn't have to fly. 

    Jenna [00:42:15] No, they had pilots. We're gonna meet them. 

    Angela [00:42:16] They were passengers. 

    Angela [00:42:18] So they were all like, "No, it's just you've got to know so much about geology and all the pressure and all of that and it takes years and years." 

    Jenna [00:42:29] I think they were right to take the drilling engineers up into space, ultimately I do. 

    Angela [00:42:35] I mean, they didn't have to learn how to be astronauts. They just had to learn to get to space. 

    Jenna [00:42:41] Bruce Willis is going to do it, but he needs his own men. He needs real drillers. So now we have our Let's Assemble the Team montage. 

    Angela [00:42:51] Boy, you guys, these drilling engineers they're all over the place. They're riding motorcycles, they're getting tattoos. One of them's being creepy in a bar, one's on horseback. One's betting in Vegas and AJ, we find, has started his own drilling business. 

    Jenna [00:43:06] It's so sad looking. It has a wooden sign that he's gray painted, "AJ's Drilling" on it. It looks like a homemade lemonade stand. 

    Sam [00:43:16] Jenna, I gotta ask. Is this the scene that turned the movie around for you? 

    Jenna [00:43:19] No, it was actually the scene before. It was the scene of Bruce Willis being like, "I'll do it." 

    Sam [00:43:26] This is the moment I found myself enjoying the movie, smiling and realizing I no longer hated it. 

    Matt [00:43:32] I love an "assembling the crew" montage. 

    Sam [00:43:35] Who doesn't love a good montage? 

    Matt [00:43:37] The thing about this one though, I'm still very unclear about what the people could do. They're like, "This guy's the best," and they're like... 

    Angela [00:43:41] The thing is, we don't need to know what they're the best at, they're just the best. 

    Sam [00:43:44] We don't need Owen Wilson, at all. He comes in handy zero time. 

    Jenna [00:43:48] Yes, this is when we introduce Owen Wilson, and it's never clear to me what he's good at. Steve Buscemi, we come to find out, is some sort of genius. 

    Angela [00:43:57] He is a genius. 

    Jenna [00:43:58] He taught at MIT, he has multiple doctorates, and he's very useful when they get out there. 

    Sam [00:44:05] Yeah, and the big guy getting the tattoo operates the drill at the end, so he's relevant. 

    Angela [00:44:11] Owen Wilson is just funny sidekick material. But Harry is going to gather them all in the new sexy NASA conference room. You guys, this scene was Bruce Willis's first day of filming. He joined them a month into filming. He tells them about the asteroid. Then he has this amazing line, that they shared on the DVD commentary was improvised. What was it? He says, "The United States government just asked us to save the world. Anybody want to say no?" 

    Jenna [00:44:41] That's a good line. 

    Angela [00:44:42] I know. 

    Jenna [00:44:43] Way to go, Bruce Willis. Well, they all agree to do it, but they do have some requests. 

    Angela [00:44:48] They do. Michael Bay said he had the actors write things down that they would want as their characters and then Bruce read them off the pages. So there was some improv here. Michael Bay came up with the line about the no taxes. They'll never have to pay taxes again. 

    Jenna [00:45:04] I thought that was a really smart request. 

    Angela [00:45:05] Yes, he said that got a really big cheers in the movie screenings he went to. No one wants to pay taxes. 

    Jenna [00:45:12] One of the guys has 56 parking tickets that he would like resolved. Another person wants them to bring back 8-track tapes. Chick, the gambling guy, would like a full week's Emperor's package to Caesar's Palace in Vegas. Bear wants to stay at the White House in the Lincoln bedroom for the whole summer. Interesting. Well now it's time for another montage. This movie is really montages and explosions. And screaming. This is their medical psychological exam montage. 

    Angela [00:45:43] Is happening in this? What is happening? They're all in hospital gowns. Someone brings a big giant syringe with yellow liquid. 

    Jenna [00:45:52] What is that for? 

    Angela [00:45:53] What is that for? Some of them have bags with IVs. Some look like they're getting an anal probe? 

    Jenna [00:45:59] Yeah. 

    Angela [00:46:00] What? 

    Jenna [00:46:01] I know. 

    Angela [00:46:01] Then they dance and then they f**k around with the hospital equipment. 

    Jenna [00:46:05] The doctor doing the anal probe is the only woman in this whole movie that has a sense of humor. 

    Sam [00:46:11] Also, this is one of the three mini deep dives I did. I was fascinated. I was like, "Why do they all get enemas?" And it's a real thing. Many astronauts receive pre-launch enemas to clear their bowels before. 

    Angela [00:46:21] So they don't s**t themselves? 

    Sam [00:46:23] Yep, yeah. 

    Angela [00:46:24] Oh, well, there you go. There is a psychiatrist who does some type of inkblot test and a Rubik's Cube thing.

    Jenna [00:46:31] When I watched this part of the movie with Lee, he said, "I can't believe this is still going on. This is unnecessarily long, the sequence." 

    Angela [00:46:41] Agree. 

    Jenna [00:46:41] At the end, the doctor says that they failed. Sorry. They failed all of the tests. None of them are suitable. Billy Bob Thornton says, "All I need to know is that they can physically survive a trip to space." So his bar is very low. The doctor says, "Personally, I don't know how they survived the tests." But he does approve them. 

    Angela [00:47:03] He does. Now, you guys, we get to see the space shuttle. There's this whole simulation in the swimming pool, in the space suits. It's pretty amazing what they were able to do. Michael Bay talks about it on the DVD commentary. They actually shot in the NASA weightless simulation tank that you see in the scene. 

    Jenna [00:47:24] So they shot in actual pool? 

    Angela [00:47:26] Yes. The suit that Ben Affleck's wearing, that they shot in, was a million dollars. Later, when we get to the actual launch, they were able to have access there and shoot as well. Pretty amazing. 

    Jenna [00:47:41] Wow. Well, there's a couple things we learn, by the way, in the scene. First of all, this is a brand new shuttle. It has a special armor on it, everybody. It's new. This is why later, when this shuttle is being pummeled by various things in space and it's not breaking, it's cause it's special, okay? The main pilot is played by William Fichner. His co-pilot is a female pilot, played by Jessica Steen. She is the only woman, besides Liv Tyler, in this movie in a major role. In her main scene, where she speaks, she's trying to describe crucial information about their space suits. But behind her back, they're basically just snickering and talking about how she's hot. They're not really listening to her. 

    Angela [00:48:36] She does call them out though. She is like, "Hey, I'm trying to keep you alive here, a**holes."

    Jenna [00:48:44] Yes. Well, this whole scene reminded me of an interview that I once saw with the very first female mission control officer, Frances "Poppy" Northcutt. She joined NASA's mission control in 1968 at the age of 25. She's a f**king badass. She was a mathematical analyst and she helped to design the return to earth trajectory software that brings astronauts back from the moon. 

    Angela [00:49:10] Amazing. 

    Jenna [00:49:11] She first worked on the Apollo 8 mission. She was also in mission control during the Apollo 13 emergency. Her team figured out how to bring the astronauts home. They were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award. So I would really love for you to hear this interview with her. This is an interview from 1968 after she started working at NASA. This extremely intelligent, accomplished woman. This is what the interviewer asked her. 

    audio clip - Interviewer [00:49:43] How much problem does a woman have working in a dominantly male environment like mission control? 

    audio clip - Frances Northcutt [00:49:49] I don't think she has any problems. 

    audio clip - Interviewer [00:49:53] How much attention do men pay to a pretty girl in a miniskirt working in their midst? 

    Angela [00:49:58] Ugh! 

    audio clip - Frances Northcutt [00:49:58] Oh, not much. They're too busy with their consoles. [laughs]

    Jenna [00:50:04] Yeah, those are the two questions that this interviewer asked her. 

    Angela [00:50:09]  I'm glad he asked the NASA astronaut about a mini skirt. Are you kidding me? 

    Jenna [00:50:14] This woman is rad. So I got completely fascinated, and I read a bunch about her. One of the things that she also talked about was that the pay grade was so different for men versus women, and they wanted her to be in this very important position, but they had no category to pay a woman the salary that she would deserve. So they had to create this new system just for her. She said that this whole experience made her a feminist and made her fight for the Equal Rights Amendment and fight for equal pay for women in the workplace. She also helped to pass a law that prohibited hospitals from charging women who came in for a rape kit. In 1984, she graduated summa cum laude from the University of Houston Law Center and became a criminal defense lawyer. Once again, her name is Poppy Northcutt and she's totally awesome. 

    Angela [00:51:12] I mean, what a bad**s. 

    Jenna [00:51:13] What a total badass. Alright, let's see, Ange, what is next? 

    Angela [00:51:18] Well, back now at NASA, Billy Bob's character is going to explain the flight plan to them. 

    Jenna [00:51:23] Oh, I loved this scene. I loved the scene. 

    Angela [00:51:25] He's got two little space shuttles on sticks, the little toy space shuttles. Then he's got the moon, and he's going to explained this lunar gravity slingshot that they're going to need to do. To come around the moon and slingshot onto the asteroid, right? Owen Wilson's character is going to speak and say, "What's it like on the asteroid if we land on it?" And Billy Bob's character says, "200 degrees in the sunlight, minus 200 in the shade, canyons of razor sharp rock, unpredictable gravitational conditions, unexpected eruptions, things like that." And Owen Wilson says, "So the scariest environment imaginable. Thanks, got it." 

    Jenna [00:52:05] Billy Bob Thornton has the two space shuttles. Because guys, they're sending up two shuttles with two drills and two nuclear bombs. They're gonna split them up. They're going to each land on different parts of the asteroid. Whoever drills the hole first puts the nuclear bomb in, and then both shuttles will fly away. 

    Angela [00:52:24] Yes, it's the Freedom and the Independence, our two shuttles. 

    Jenna [00:52:28] Right. 

    Angela [00:52:29] I have a background catch because Harry is going to go looking for Grace and he finds Owen Wilson's character just kind of playing on the PA system. Background catch at 45 minutes and 38 seconds. Michael Bay wants you all to know that this is the actual very unsexy real NASA control center. So there you go. 

    Jenna [00:52:51] Well, Harry is going to find Grace and A.J. And they are sitting in a satellite? 

    Angela [00:52:57] A thruster? A booster?

    Jenna [00:53:01] Having a wine picnic and making out. 

    Angela [00:53:02] But not making out, lady. Not making out! This scene was so cringy to me. He's behind her, right? And he's taking her dress strap down and then really sloppy kissing her shoulder. That's what it is. There's no make out. It's sloppy shoulder kissing. I do have a clip from Michael Bay I would like to play for you all. Michael Bay has talked a bit about what Ben Affleck did to get ready for the movie. They got him a personal trainer, but there was something that wasn't taken care of and Michael Bay wanted to take care of it. Let's hear it. 

    audio clip - Michael Bay [00:53:36] We 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. So I told Jerry Bruckheimer, I said, "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 said, "We did it to him. Why not do it to Ben?" So my dentist had Ben sitting in a dentist's chair for a week. 8 hours a day. 

    Jenna [00:54:07] So basically they made Ben Affleck get veneers for this? 

    Angela [00:54:10] Yes. 

    Jenna [00:54:11] Because he didn't like his little baby teeth? 

    Angela [00:54:13] That's right. 

    Jenna [00:54:14] He wanted him to have big, shiny, white teeth. Wait, so had they shot some of the movie with his baby teeth and some with the veneers? 

    Angela [00:54:21] They must have. I mean, they shot a month before Bruce Willis got there. So there must have been,  early in the movie, the baby teeth. 

    Jenna [00:54:30] Oh, I wish I'd known this. I would have tried to track it. I would've looked for baby teeth versus white teeth. 

    Angela [00:54:36] I tried to look for baby teeth, I don't see them. 

    Jenna [00:54:38] Okay. 

    Angela [00:54:39] I think whatever they shot, they were like, "Let's pull him and get these teeth done." And there's some famous actor that Jerry Bruckheimer had do this that played a pilot. 

    Jenna [00:54:51] I'm sure we could figure that out. 

    Angela [00:54:52] I know. 

    Jenna [00:54:53] Well, listen, Harry doesn't interrupt this weird snuggle session. But he does get with all his guys. The guys are like, "Listen Harry, Grace has grown up. She's also a real hottie. We all kind of raised her, and we think AJ is a great choice." But you know what? Harry did not raise her to marry a roughneck. She's better than all of them. She deserves better than this. 

    Angela [00:55:18] Yeah. 

    Jenna [00:55:19] By the way, this is now actually when they're gonna go to the test site and test the armadillo underwater. This is important because they've divided up into their two crews. 

    Angela [00:55:33] The armadillo, we should say, is this special kind of vehicle where the wheels can rotate multiple directions. It's an all-terrain vehicle that they're going to be able to drive with the drill and the nuke on the face of the asteroid. 

    Jenna [00:55:47] Right, exactly. AJ is doing his test, and they're like, "Pull back, pull back" and he's like, "No, it can take it." And he blows up his drill simulation. They have to get in another argument where AJ is like, "Why don't you trust my gut? Their simulation doesn't know what this drill can really do." 

    Angela [00:56:10] "The computer doesn't know what's real." 

    Jenna [00:56:12] Yeah, so they get in a whole fight about it. 

    Angela [00:56:15] This leads to a conversation where Bruce Willis' character Harry is like, "Maybe these guys have been working too hard. They need to blow off some steam. You know what? This might be their last night on Earth." So we find out this is the final day of their training. 

    Jenna [00:56:30] Yeah, they're blasting off tomorrow and they need a night out so that they can "remember what they're fighting for." 

    Angela [00:56:38] This is what that montage is gonna look like. There's the famous animal cracker scene where Grace (played by Liv Tyler) and AJ, they drive a convertible BMW to a shack by a swampy field. Who lives in this shack? What is this shack?! 

    Jenna [00:56:56] What is this location? 

    Angela [00:56:56] There's some white lights in a tree, like, twinkly lights. They don't go in the shack. They go outside of the shack with only animal crackers. I saw no water. Those crackers make me so thirsty. 

    Jenna [00:57:08] Yeah, well, and then Ben Affleck has to have his clever dialog where he says, "Are these really crackers? I mean, I think they're cookies. Because they're sweet and because you don't put cheese on them." 

    Angela [00:57:23] Well, there was a lot of improv there. So some of that... 

    Jenna [00:57:25] Oh, boy. 

    Angela [00:57:27] Then he does sexy cracker going down her belly stuff. The song playing in the background, we've talked about it, Aerosmith. So basically Liv Tyler's dad, Steve Tyler, is singing in the back ground of the scene. Then the other guys go do stuff. No surprise, Steve Buscemi's character goes to a strip club. One of them goes to see their kid, but the kid doesn't know them. 

    Jenna [00:57:48] Well, first he goes and borrows 100 grand from the mob. 

    Angela [00:57:51] Oh, right. 

    Jenna [00:57:52] Which I'm confused about. I'm sorry, there's this whole thing about like, "Why did you become an oil driller if you're so smart?" And he's like, 'The money's good, and I like going to different places." If the money is so good, why do you have to borrow money from the mob all the time? 

    Angela [00:58:06] I don't know.

    Jenna [00:58:07] Aren't these guys rich? I thought they were rich. 

    Angela [00:58:09] I don't know. Well, listen AJ lives in a shack by a swamp. But he has a BMW convertible. Maybe they don't make good choices. 

    Jenna [00:58:19] Okay. Oh well, the one guy you said, Angela you started to say, Chick, he is gonna go visit his son who doesn't know who he is. 

    Angela [00:58:28] But he's gonna leave him a little shuttle toy. 

    Jenna [00:58:31] Exactly, and he's sorry that he hasn't been there for his son. We're going to meet who, I assume, is his ex-wife or ex-girlfriend. We're not sure. She's another just minor character played by a woman, and she is annoyed. 

    Angela [00:58:46] Yes. Then we have this scene back at NASA between Billy Bob and Bruce and - I'm sorry I keep saying their names. I can't remember who's who. 

    Jenna [00:58:56] I couldn't remember anybody's name in this movie except for Steve Buscemi's character whose name is Rock Hound 

    Angela [00:59:01] See, I never knew his name but I knew Harry and AJ and Grace. But anyway. Michael Bay said that Billy Bob was like, "I want to have something about me that's revealed." So we find out he can't go to space because he has a leg in a brace. Right? 

    Jenna [00:59:23] He always wished he could actually be an astronaut in space. He has a heart to heart with Bruce Willis. 

    Angela [00:59:29] That's right. 

    Jenna [00:59:31] But also right now, guess what? Part of the asteroid hit Southeast Asia, and 50,000 people are killed. Now the whole world knows about the asteroid. They can't keep it a secret anymore. 

    Angela [00:59:46] People are panicked. 

    Jenna [00:59:47] Guess what, everyone? You are over 45 minutes into the movie and you haven't left for space yet. 

    Angela [00:59:55] No, everyone get up and go pee because we have an hour and 30 minutes more. 

    Jenna [01:00:00] Maybe we should take a break and when we come back, we're gonna finally launch 

    Angela [01:00:05] In to space! 

    Jenna [01:00:06] We're gonna launch into space. 

    audio cue [01:00:10] [musical sting] 

    Jenna [01:00:10] Alright, everyone, we're back. During our break, Sam uncovered a delicious nugget to continue the conversation about Ben Affleck's teeth. 

    Angela [01:00:20] Oh gosh, okay. 

    Jenna [01:00:22] Ben Affleck gave an interview about it, lady. This is also gonna focus on how important it was to Michael Bay that this movie be sexy. Here is what Ben Affleck said. "Michael Bay made me fix my teeth and work out and be sexy. Be sexy. How do I do that? Go to the gym. Running in the gym and putting oil on my body and stuff, and it just turned out to be a long-form version of one of those male topless calendars. In a garage, carrying a tire kind of greased up." According to Affleck, Michael Bay had a very specific vision for the movie that included "a glistening male torso in oil" and he was like, "That's gonna go in the trailer and sell tickets." 

    Angela [01:01:07] I'm telling you, I think the song that runs rent-free in Michael Bay's head is "I'm Bringing Sexy Back." 

    Jenna [01:01:15] I mean for sure. Alright everybody, it is launch day. Don't worry, it's going to take so long before we're finally in the air because we have some more montages. 

    Angela [01:01:26] Yeah. First, Grace and Harry have a very sweet scene where they apologize to one another. Grace is like, "Dad, I'm sorry." He's like, "Honey, I am sorry." She's like, "Just promise me you're going to come back. Promise me." And he promises her. 

    Jenna [01:01:40] Yes, and she says please bring my fiancee' home. 

    Angela [01:01:44] Yes. 

    Jenna [01:01:45] He's like, "You got it." We have a slow motion montage of everyone suiting up. Then we have, what I'm pretty sure, is the cringiest moment of the whole movie that was really painful to watch. It is Ben Affleck singing "Leaving On A Jet Plane" 

    Angela [01:02:01] Mm-hmm. 

    Jenna [01:02:01] To Liv Tyler. 

    Angela [01:02:02] They talked about it in the DVD commentary. Basically, they were like, "This was either going to work or it was going to bomb." 

    Jenna [01:02:10] It bombed. Why did they include it? 

    Angela [01:02:11] I think they thought it worked. 

    Jenna [01:02:13] Really? 

    Angela [01:02:13] Michael Bay did say that they all sang in different keys, and it was a little tough to edit. I thought the biggest cringe, though, wasn't the song. It was when his character picks up Grace and then she tries to wrap her legs around him, but can't because he's in a space suit. So awkward. Now we're gonna have a president speech and he says, "The Bible calls this day Armageddon, the end of all things, but you know, we're going to fight. We're going come together." 

    Jenna [01:02:44] Yeah. 

    Angela [01:02:44] But this is the moment you hear the title of the movie. I'm always kind of a geek for that. Like, I think it's cool if you're the character that gets to say the title the movie. There's a montage, big montage, people all over the world are listening to this.  

    Jenna [01:03:00] What year is it in this montage? Why does America look like it's 1934? Why is everyone listening to the president's speech on the radio? There's children in dresses. There's a boy in overalls and no shirt. Nobody has shoes on. 

    Angela [01:03:16] I mean, I was waiting for like that little kid to be like, [in a deep Southern accent] "Paw! Paw! Come listen! The president is on the radio!" 

    Jenna [01:03:23]  It's so weird. Also, as they're suiting up, did you notice? Everybody, their spacesuit has their name? Bruce Willis' says "Harry," and the name they put on Steve Buscemi's spacesuit is "Rock Hound." They put his nickname, they put Rock Hound on his official spacesuit. Not his name! 

    Angela [01:03:43] You know what? I mean when you're bringing sexy back to NASA, this is what you do. 

    Jenna [01:03:50] I guess so. 

    Angela [01:03:51] Well, it is blast off time. Chef's kiss. I thought this was beautifully done. Michael Bay shared that he found out a month after they filmed the daytime scenes of them walking out onto the ramp and all the things, right? Which NASA gave them permission to film there. Oh my god. That a month later, there was going to be a night launch. He was really excited about that because it lights up so much better and looks more vibrant on the screen. So he was able to go back, I guess, and get some of that night launch footage. 

    Jenna [01:04:23] I had a question. Can you launch two space shuttles side by side, at the same time? Is that safe? 

    Angela [01:04:30] I'm going to say no, because of how much it kicks up when it takes off. I feel like it would send the other one spinning out. 

    Jenna [01:04:37] You're correct, it is not safe. Real shuttles could not launch side by side due to "catastrophic acoustic and debris risks." 

    Angela [01:04:46] Well, there you go. 

    Jenna [01:04:48] But I was able to divide this mission into eight steps and I'm excited to talk about each step. Step one is blast off and it goes great. Here's the thing about the rest of the movie. It's gonna shift, pretty much every two minutes, between hope or destruction. 

    Angela [01:05:08] Mm-hmm. 

    Jenna [01:05:09] We're never gonna live in one of these two places for very long. It really is intense.  

    Angela [01:05:15] Well, here's the thing, guys. The first thing they have to do is they have to dock onto a Russian space station. 

    Jenna [01:05:21] This is step two. They have to refuel. 

    Angela [01:05:24] They have to refuel. Michael Bay said that they actually talked to the astronauts on the Mir space station. And he said they call it "The glove box of an old car," because everything gets lost in there. I guess it smells like leaky sewage and there's mold. He said the people up there, that have to live there, do get a little loopy. 

    Jenna [01:05:46] Well the Russian who is there, he seems like he's alone and he's crazy. 

    Angela [01:05:52] He's a little cray. 

    Jenna [01:05:54] He insists that Ben Affleck go down into this, I don't know, tube and watch the pressure gage for the fuel. 

    Angela [01:06:04] If it gets to this certain number, it's bad and he has got to hit this button. 

    Jenna [01:06:08] And then he has to pull this lever, which guess what? Four seconds into refueling. The pressure gage goes past 200 and everything starts sparking. 

    Angela [01:06:20] Well, Ben Affleck breaks the lever. I want to point out, our "heroes" have been on this Russian space station for not a minute and they blow it up. 

    Jenna [01:06:31] Truly, the entire station starts sparking and catching fire. But luckily they all get back to their respective shuttles and they blast away from the space station with seconds to spare before the whole thing explodes. There is no more space station. 

    Angela [01:06:46] No, that's it. It's a goner. 

    Jenna [01:06:49] Luckily, they let us know they got 90% of the fuel they needed. 

    Angela [01:06:53] Not all of it, but enough. 

    Jenna [01:06:56] I guess. 

    Angela [01:06:56] I guess. 

    Jenna [01:06:57] I want to say that, in my estimation, I really felt like step two seemed like the easiest step after blast off. Should I go through the steps? Step one was blast off. Step two is refuel at the Russian space station. Step three is enter lunar orbit and slingshot around the moon 

    Angela [01:07:17] At nine G's. 

    Jenna [01:07:18] Step four is land on the asteroid. Step Five is drill the hole. Step six is put the nuclear bomb inside. Step seven is fly away from the asteroid. Step eight is blow up the asteroid. We're at step two, which was refuel, and it's already a f**king sh*t show. So now we're going into step three, which is slingshot around the moon. This is the only step that goes well, besides blast off. 

    Angela [01:07:49] I did look up if you can survive at 9G's. I guess you can, but only for a few minutes. They are going to be at 9G's for 11 minutes. One of the astronauts says, "This is what we train for, suck it up." Per Michael Bay, they shot this on a huge gimbal. It was an advanced hydraulic platform that was shaking the actors, in his words, "quite violently, forwards, backwards, sideways. It was also similar to being in a car accident." 

    Jenna [01:08:20] Wow. I mean, they didn't look well. 

    Angela [01:08:24] I know. 

    Jenna [01:08:25] During this scene, I thought they looked... 

    Angela [01:08:29] Like they were being shaken quite violently? 

    Jenna [01:08:31] Yeah. 

    Angela [01:08:31] Yeah. I mean, lady, I think about how sometimes on The Office, we would do a scene and they would be like, "Angela Martin whips her head and gives Kelly a mean look." And I would have to, for eight takes in a row, whip my head and give Kelly a mean look. And I'd whip my head back, and I'd be sore. How do you feel after you're in a gimbal being shaken quite violently? 

    Jenna [01:08:59] I don't know. 

    Angela [01:09:00] I don't know. But you have new teeth, so... 

    Jenna [01:09:02] I guess you have that. 

    Angela [01:09:04] You've got that. 

    Jenna [01:09:05] Step four, we're at step four now. They need to land on the asteroid. Here is what I wrote. "How, literally how." Because little asteroids are kind of falling off the big asteroid. 

    Angela [01:09:18] Flying through space. You're flying through all of this debris to land on a moving object that's all jaggedy. 

    Jenna [01:09:25] I wondered, can space shuttles really fly like this? Because they're flying these two space shuttles like they're the Millennium Falcon. Guess what? The answer is no. Real space shuttles are gliders. They cannot take off or maneuver around an asteroid. They don't fly like that. But that's why we learned, early in the movie, that these are special. 

    Angela [01:09:49] They're special, mhmm. 

    Jenna [01:09:49] They've got special reinforcements and they can fly and all this s**t. But guess what happens as they're trying to land on the asteroid? 

    Angela [01:09:58] Well, they lose the Independence aircraft. That one's a goner.  

    Jenna [01:10:02] Can I just say something? 

    Angela [01:10:03] What? 

    Jenna [01:10:04] Immediately at the beginning of this movie, when they told me that they were going to be dividing into two shuttles, 

    Angela [01:10:09] Yeah, you know. 

    Jenna [01:10:10] I'm thinking to myself, "Dear god, let me be on the one -" 

    Angela [01:10:13] with Bruce Willis? 

    Jenna [01:10:14] Yeah. 

    Angela [01:10:14] Yeah, me too. 

    Jenna [01:10:15] Because we know the other one is going down. 

    Angela [01:10:17] But AJ's on the other one, Ben Affleck's on the other one. 

    Jenna [01:10:19] He is, and it goes down. One of my favorite moments is that as the asteroid hits the Independence, we cut back to NASA and you see Billy Bob Thornton's coffee mug drop and it hits the side of the table and it breaks. 

    Angela [01:10:37] Oh, I missed that. 

    Jenna [01:10:38] So there's tragedy all around, okay? Even back at NASA, things are breaking. 

    Angela [01:10:44] [laughing] Oh my gosh. 

    Sam [01:10:45] I'm surprised it doesn't burst into flames. 

    Jenna [01:10:48] [laughing] Exactly. Like, that it didn't spill onto the control center. Yeah, same. Alright, I want you to know what I wrote down during this scene. Here's what I wrote. "How did they imagine it was ever possible to land on this asteroid? Oh my god, they're hit again. Now astronauts are being sucked out of the windows. But wait, are some of them escaping? Oh s**t, I think Owen Wilson just died. Bruce Willis's ship is now getting hit with debris from the other shuttles." Bruce Willis says, "What is that? Is that the Independence?" And right after that, an astronaut is hurled into his window. 

    Angela [01:11:26] Mm-hmm. 

    Jenna [01:11:28] So yes, the Independence has crashed onto the surface of the asteroid, but I think Ben Affleck is still alive at this point. 

    Angela [01:11:36] Well, we find out. We find out that Ben Affleck (so A.J., Bear, and the Russian) made it somehow. 

    Jenna [01:11:45] But back at Houston, it's assumed they're all dead. Nobody knows this. 

    Angela [01:11:47] Yeah, so nobody knows there's some montages back in Houston of worried sad people. But now Bruce Willis' team get out that big buggy thing, you know the armadillo -

    Jenna [01:11:59] They land. 

    Angela [01:12:00] They land. 

    Jenna [01:12:01] But they overshot their landing field, lady. They overshot it. I was like, "There's a landing field?" 

    Angela [01:12:07] By 26 miles. 

    Jenna [01:12:08] I mean, my god. 

    Angela [01:12:10] They didn't even know what the asteroid looked like up close. How do they know there's a landing field?

    Jenna [01:12:13] I don't know, but also now their communication system is... Not going well. 

    Angela [01:12:19] Yeah, and they've also landed on mostly iron rock, which as we all know at this point is horrible to drill in. Iron rock. 

    Jenna [01:12:27] Can't drill through it. 

    Angela [01:12:28] Yeah. 

    Jenna [01:12:29] So now we're gonna start on step five, which is drilling the hole, and they have eight hours. 

    Angela [01:12:34] Eight hours, they have to get 800 feet. Guess what? They break their first drill bit in 10 feet. 

    Jenna [01:12:41] They do. Here was another question that I had. Which was, how are they walking on the asteroid? How is this rover thing staying stuck to the surface of the asteroid. Why is it not floating away? Why is there gravity on the asteroid? I looked it up. There would not be gravity on the asteroid. Again, early in the movie, we have this little moment where they explain that their suits... Remember when they're not paying attention to the woman? She's explaining that their suits have special little thrusters that will keep them stuck to the asteroid. 

    Angela [01:13:15] But no one is using the thrusters. 

    Jenna [01:13:17] No one's using them. You never see evidence of these thrusters. It's very strange. Neil deGrasse Tyson said that until the release of the 2022 film "Moonfall," Armageddon was the movie which violated more laws of physics per minute than any other movie ever. NASA shows this film during their management training program. New managers are given the task of trying to spot as many errors as possible. So far, they've spotted at least 168. 

    Angela [01:13:49] So NASA uses this movie the way human resources uses an episode of The Office of how not to behave at the office. 

    Jenna [01:13:57] Yes. This is, can you tell me everything that's wrong from a scientific point of view? And one of the things is that there would not be gravity on this asteroid. 

    Angela [01:14:10] Right. I guess there was a moment where they had to kind of pretend like they were spacewalking. Then Michael Bay was really perturbed at Ben Affleck because he was like, "Didn't you learn this in acting school?" Because I guess he was really bad at faking it. And he was, like, "No, Michael Bay, I didn't learn floating clown walking."

    Jenna [01:14:36] Wow. Alright, so now the three remaining members of the Independence, they're going to get into their armadillo. They're going shoot through the wall of their shuttle. They're gonna bust out, 

    Angela [01:14:50] Shoot through their wall! AJ has a, I don't know, a Gatling gun. 

    Jenna [01:14:54] Why did they bring this? 

    Angela [01:14:55] I don't know. And he just goes ratatata ratatatata, and he just blows a hole through the side of the shuttle. Now they're driving onto the asteroid. 

    Jenna [01:15:06] Where do they think they're going? They've decided to try to find the freedom. 

    Angela [01:15:10] Oh, he's got a tracker. He said he has a tracker.

    Jenna [01:15:11]  Oh, I missed that. 

    Angela [01:15:13] Tracking him to the Freedom. They can't talk to Houston, but his tracker works. 

    Jenna [01:15:18] Yeah, and the Freedom doesn't know. I guess they're not looking at their tracker. 

    Angela [01:15:22] Yeah, they don't know, so now they're on the way. At the same time, lunar gravity is making the asteroids start to spin, and Houston is not going to have any communication with them. 

    Jenna [01:15:34] Yeah, the asteroid is going to hit the Earth in (now) about six and a half hours, but they're going to lose contact with them in the next seven minutes. If they lose the ability to communicate, they lose the ability remotely detonate the nuclear bomb. 

    Angela [01:15:51] And this is gonna send us into, ready? 

    Jenna [01:15:55] What? 

    Angela [01:15:56] For my dramatic delivery? 

    Jenna [01:15:59] What? 

    Angela [01:16:00] [serious voice] Secondary protocol. 

    Jenna [01:16:00] Yes. Harry and the pilot of the Freedom are arguing. The pilot wants an update. You've been drilling for two and a half hours. You're supposed to be reaching 800 feet. You should be 200 feet by now. How far are you? And Harry's like, "My current depth is 57 feet." 

    Angela [01:16:18] They're not gonna get it done in time. 

    Jenna [01:16:20] Yeah, so the president has to decide, do you wanna remote detonate the bomb in the next five minutes? It doesn't matter they haven't drilled a hole. I don't think the hole is gonna happen. Should you just blow them all up on this asteroid and hope that it does something.

    Angela [01:16:37] So, Angela Kinsey Survival Guide Tip. 

    Jenna [01:16:40] What is it? 

    Angela [01:16:41] If they send you out there, they're gonna have plans to blow it up no matter what. This is a one-way mission, okay? Don't get on the shuttle. 

    Jenna [01:16:51] Well, one of my favorite things about this is that no sooner does the military guy on the phone with the president hang up, the president says, "Do it, blow it up." 

    Angela [01:17:01] Yeah. 

    Jenna [01:17:02] No sooner does he hang up, the elevator door dings and 50 military men walk into the Houston command center. 

    Angela [01:17:10] Yeah, they're secondary protocol, they are taken over. 

    Jenna [01:17:13] Were they? Were they in the lobby waiting? 

    Sam [01:17:16] They were on first protocol. 

    Jenna [01:17:16] These guys got there so fast, to take over.

    Angela [01:17:21] Yeah. Meanwhile, Billy Bob's character is being sneaky and he grabs one of the NASA dudes, one of the very unsexy NASA guys, and he says, "Kill the uplink."

    Jenna [01:17:35] The military guys take over and they turn on the bomb. It's ticking down.  

    Angela [01:17:42] Yeah. So now you see this guy. He's flipping through a binder. He's reading some code. He's punching stuff in, sneaky, sneaky punching in. 

    Jenna [01:17:50] Exactly. Through this whole bomb-ticking thing, the pilot and Harry, and I started calling him Dad Guy; the guy with the kid back on Earth. 

    Angela [01:18:02] Yes. 

    Jenna [01:18:03] Okay, they're all fighting. Harry grabs a giant wrench, a wrench but the size of an arm. The pilot pulls out a gun. Harry says, "You're gonna have to shoot me or turn off this bomb." Harry's got his giant wrench. The pilot has the bomb. It's a total standoff. Suddenly the bomb stops ticking because Billy Bob Thornton's unsexy NASA guy turned it off. 

    Angela [01:18:30] He stopped the uplink! 

    Jenna [01:18:33] So Harry takes this opportunity to hit the pilot with the giant wrench and then he puts the wrench around the pilot's neck. Dad Guy grabs the gun. 

    Angela [01:18:44] That's a big wrench. 

    Jenna [01:18:45] It's so big. Here's the thing, Billy Bob Thornton only bought them a few minutes because while they're still arguing the bomb starts ticking again. Harry begs the pilot to turn off the bomb. He's like, "You need to trust me." Here's the audio clip.

    clip from Armageddon - Harry [01:19:04] God sakes, think about what you're doing. Why are you listening to someone that's 100,000 miles away? We're here. Nobody down there can help us. So if we don't get this job done, everybody's gone. I've been drilling holes in the earth for 30 years, and I have never, never missed a depth that I have aimed for. By God, I am not gonna miss this one. I will make 800 feet. But I can't do it alone, Colonel, I need your help. 

    clip from Armageddon - Colonel [01:19:38] You swore on your daughter's life, on my family's, that you can hit that mark. 

    clip from Armegeddon - Harry [01:19:45] I will make 800 feet. I swear to God, I will. Now let's turn this bomb off. 

    Angela [01:19:52] Yeah. 

    Jenna [01:19:53] That's the big speech. 

    Angela [01:19:54] It has one of my favorite lines in it, you know? When he's like, "I have never never missed a depth that I have aimed for him by god I'm not gonna miss this one." I mean, so good. Then, you guys, this starts a whole super stressful deprogramming of the bomb. It's like, Do I cut the red wire or the blue wire?" 

    Jenna [01:20:12] I know. "Red or blue? Red or blue?" 

    Angela [01:20:14] And then, thank god, they cut the right one and it was blue. 

    Jenna [01:20:18] It was blue. They stopped the bomb with two minutes and 46 seconds left to spare. And they get enough radio reception for Bruce Willis to tell Houston, basically, go f*ck themselves. They've got a hole to drill. 

    Angela [01:20:30] Oh, he's got a classic. He says, "Now I don't know what you people are doing down there, but we gotta hold a dig up here."

    Jenna [01:20:38] I know this is probably not the takeaway they were hoping for in this moment, but it's very ironic to me because what I wrote in my document is "Bruce Willis has kind of crooked teeth. But they're very white." Maybe they just made Bruce Willis white in his teeth, but he didn't get veneers for this. 

    Angela [01:20:56] He didn't. He only has one that bucks out a little. I think Ben Affleck had ferret teeth, or something. You know what I'm saying? [Sam and Jenna start laughing really hard] I mean no shade. My teeth hurt crooked on the bottom. I mean I'm never going to be in a Michael Bay movie so I don't have to worry about it. 

    Jenna [01:21:17] Well, Ben Affleck was also the male lead. I also did write in my document, as we watch Ben Affleck and the Russian and Bear slowly make their way in this armadillo. "They are so hot. They are sweaty." 

    Angela [01:21:34] Sweaty, sweaty. Lather them up. 

    Jenna [01:21:36] Sweaty and oiled up. So they really did oil him up. 

    Angela [01:21:40] Yeah he talks about it in the commentary i just need to say, too, because there's still a lot of movie left. To fast track this, AJ, Bear, and the Russian come up on a giant grand canyon. But you know what? They have a fuel thruster and they're gonna jump it, guys. They're going to freaking jump the canyon. 

    Jenna [01:22:04] Using anti-gravity. They're going to thrust up and then float over the canyon but then somehow gravity comes back. 

    Angela [01:22:13] And you know, things go sideways, not surprising. Then the Russian guy goes outside and he's trying to fix the fuel thing. Now he's just hanging on to the back of it as they're hurtling through the canyon. 

    Jenna [01:22:22] Yes, by a rope or something. 

    Angela [01:22:24] Yeah. 

    Jenna [01:22:24] The the whole thing is literally spiraling. It's running into all kinds of debris. But guess what? They land on the other side of the canyon and the Russian is alive. 

    Angela [01:22:35] They make it. All of this is going on while Steve Buscemi's character finds the Gatling gun on his armadillo, starts firing it, and I guess they find out he has space dementia? 

    Sam [01:22:47] Yes, I did a mini deep dive on this. This was the part that I needed to pause the movie. 

    Angela [01:22:51] Okay. 

    Sam [01:22:51] I wrote down "space dementia?" And then hit google. Okay so it's a hypothetical. It's a movie trope based on a real thing NASA was concerned about in the 1950's called "space madness." So in the 50's, medical experts feared space could cause severe psychological damage, impulsive behavior, or hallucinations. But they found in reality, space missions showed that the human minds will adapt well to orbit, leaving space madness as a trope for Hollywood and science fiction movies. This movie was the second time it was referenced, the first time it was ever referenced was in a 1991 episode of "Ren and Stimpy." 

    Angela [01:23:27] Oh, okay. 

    Sam [01:23:29] Yeah. 

    Jenna [01:23:29] Alright. Well, he's gone mad and he's shooting this gun. That's not the only problem, though. Now the ground is cracking. Things are exploding. 

    Angela [01:23:38] Oh yeah, these horrible gasses are coming up and 

    Jenna [01:23:41] They lose Max, the guy that was getting the tattoo earlier, and their whole armadillo rig. 

    Angela [01:23:48] Yeah. So now that's it. 

    Jenna [01:23:49] They can't drill anymore. Everyone is so dejected. They're so sad. They can't complete the mission. Back on Earth, they announced to everyone that the drilling was unsuccessful. They make an announcement to the world. 

    Angela [01:24:03] Why are they telling people? 

    Jenna [01:24:05] I don't know, but in slow motion, everyone starts preparing for the end of life as we know it. 

    Angela [01:24:10] Yeah. 

    Jenna [01:24:11] Meanwhile, part of the asteroid hits Paris, and now most of Paris is gone, too. So then they're like, "Should we evacuate these guys who are left?" Get them up. To go where? Where are they evacuated to? 

    Angela [01:24:27] Exactly. 

    Jenna [01:24:28] To live in space for a little bit longer? Earth is going to cease to exist in one hour. But Liv Tyler is super pissed. She's screaming at Billy Bob Thornton, "Why won't you let them evacuate?" To where Liv Tyler? To where? 

    Angela [01:24:41] She's got some space dementia, too. 

    Jenna [01:24:43] I guess so. You guys, I can't believe it. I cried three times in this movie. 

    Angela [01:24:49] Were you on a plane? 

    Jenna [01:24:50] No. 

    Angela [01:24:50] Did you have the altitude thing? 

    Jenna [01:24:53] No, I often do cry on planes when I watch movies. 

    Angela [01:24:55] Me too, that's why I asked. Because I cry when I watch movies on the plane. All the time.

    Jenna [01:25:01] Here's the moment: these guys, they're stuck on this asteroid. It's hurling toward Earth. They've lost their armadillo. Up on this range, you see the lights from Ben Affleck's armadillo. 

    Angela [01:25:15] You cried? Lady, you cried at that? 

    Jenna [01:25:18]  I legit cried. I was like, "What is happening?" And this is when I wrote, "This movie swings between Hope and Tragedy every two minutes. I've never seen anything like it. What's happening to me?" 

    Angela [01:25:30] Oh, that's so great. 

    Jenna [01:25:32] Then I wrote, "They tell Houston that we can start drilling again. Why don't they tell everyone on Earth that there's still hope?" They don't tell anyone on Earth. 

    Angela [01:25:41] I don't know. 

    Jenna [01:25:42] They didn't let anyone know. 

    Angela [01:25:44] They didn't let anyone know. I do have a really great clip from Ben Affleck talking about working with Bruce Willis because they're about to have this really amazing scene together. Let's hear it. 

    clip - Ben Affleck [01:25:55] Bruce was actually a really, really nice guy. He liked hanging out with everybody. He made all the actors feel comfortable. He could have been really intimidating and difficult, but instead he was, you know, sweet. He's a regular, sort of regular guy, guy's guy, and just, I had a lot of fun. He was really, really nice, you now? 

    Jenna [01:26:13] Well, that's nice. 

    Angela [01:26:14] I know. 

    Jenna [01:26:15] Well, they do reunite. They've taped up Steve Buscemi, by the way. They've tape him to a chair. 

    Angela [01:26:22] Yeah, they can't risk him around weapons. 

    Jenna [01:26:24] They start drilling again. They're gonna have to go another 250 feet in one hour and they've hit a rough spot. This is just like the training exercise. 

    Angela [01:26:34] It is and all of a sudden AJ's like, "You've got to trust me, Harry." 

    Jenna [01:26:38] "I know it can take it." Bruce Willis is screaming, "Back off, back, off" and Ben Affleck is like, "I can push through it. You gotta trust me." And Bruce Willis is like, "This is our last drill bit. If this one breaks, it's not good." You know what, Bruce Willis is like, "Fine. I trust your gut." So they push through it and he was right. His gut was right, lady!

    Angela [01:27:02] His gut was right. He's oiled up. He got a great set of teeth. 

    Jenna [01:27:07] And his gut is right. 

    Angela [01:27:08] His gut is right. 

    Jenna [01:27:10] This is when I said, "I feel like they really did need real drillers up there. I don't think astronauts could have done this." They did it. They drilled the hole. 

    Angela [01:27:19] They did it. 

    Jenna [01:27:20] They have to put the nuclear bomb in. 

    Angela [01:27:22] But what they find out is, remember when the asteroid started coming apart and there was all that mayhem? They find that the bomb remote detonator is broken. 

    Jenna [01:27:33] The trigger is dead. They can't get on the space shuttle and fly away and detonate it. Someone has to stay behind and do it by hand. 

    Angela [01:27:41] So, yeah, they're gonna have to draw straws. 

    Jenna [01:27:44] Well, first, Bruce Willis says he'll do it. 

    Angela [01:27:46] Yeah, and then they're like, "No way, no way." 

    Jenna [01:27:48] His men won't let him be the one. Why? Why? Why can't he be the one? 

    Angela [01:27:52] I don't know, I don't know. 

    Jenna [01:27:53] He volunteered. But now everybody's volunteering, except for AJ. AJ does not volunteer. 

    Angela [01:27:58] No, and Steve Buscemi really wants it. He's like, "Guys, I got this. I will do it." 

    Jenna [01:28:03] Well, you can't let crazy guy do it. 

    Angela [01:28:05] No. 

    Jenna [01:28:05] So I agree with that. 

    Angela [01:28:06] Yeah. 

    Jenna [01:28:07] So they agree to draw straws, and AJ gets the short straw. So Bruce Willis says, "I'll take AJ down. I'll get him set up." When they get down there, he sabotages AJ's space suit. 

    Angela [01:28:22] Yeah, he steps out of the airlock and then shuts him in or something? I didn't understand this.  

    Jenna [01:28:26]  He does something to his spacesuit that compromises it. Then as AJ's gasping for air, he shoves him back into the little elevator thing that goes to the ship. 

    Angela [01:28:39] And that's air-locked and Bruce is on the other side of it, outside on the asteroid. 

    Jenna [01:28:44] And Bruce is saying, "Take care of my little girl." I cried again. I cried here as well. I cried. 

    Angela [01:28:49] Yeah. 

    Jenna [01:28:51] Second time. I have an audio clip of Ben Affleck talking about shooting this scene, cause he was really sick. 

    Angela [01:29:00] Oh, yes. 

    Jenna [01:29:02] Let's hear it. 

    clip - Ben Affleck [01:29:04] When we shot that scene, I had food poisoning. I wasn't an experienced enough actor, at that point, to know that you can just pick up the phone and be like, "I'm too sick to work today." I was like, "I better come in." And I went in and I was literally, it's the only times I've ever had this in my life, vomiting between takes. They had a garbage can. And I probably made the scene better. [everyone laughs]

    Angela [01:29:28] I mean, his performance is really good in that. 

    Jenna [01:29:30] I cried! I cried. 

    Angela [01:29:32] I didn't cry, but I felt gutted. Then, well, here's the part that made me sad. I got a little teary, because now I don't really know how he did it, but Bruce Willis' character here is able to... 

    Jenna [01:29:46] He's able to call Houston. Somehow he gets enough communication 

    Angela [01:29:50] In the suit, 

    Jenna [01:29:53] To somehow to call and tell his daughter he's not coming home. 

    Angela [01:29:56] But he's in his space suit, but on the screen, he's not in a suit. 

    Jenna [01:30:00] Is that right? [laughing] I didn't notice that.  

    Angela [01:30:03] But it's very sad. 

    Jenna [01:30:05] It's very sad. You know what I thought? He says to her, "You get married. You're gonna spend your life with AJ." I thought, "My God, these two can never get divorced." 

    Angela [01:30:14] I know! I thought that too. I'm like, "You better stick it out." 

    Jenna [01:30:19] You can never break up with this guy. 

    Angela [01:30:21] Never. 

    Jenna [01:30:21] Your dad gave his life so you could marry him. Well guess what? It's not the end of the problems. Now step seven is take off from the asteroid. The engines won't start. 

    Angela [01:30:36] No. 

    Jenna [01:30:36] The female pilot and the Russian go down to try to fix the problem. She's trying to do some official things. The Russian fixes it by banging something with a wrench, and they have liftoff. But the meteor is exploding randomly again. 

    Angela [01:30:52] But you guys, they make it! 

    Jenna [01:30:54] They do get off the thing, but Harry is now out of range of the detonator because of all the things that are exploding randomly and the meteor is about to cross the threshold of the barrier where they can detonate it. Because here's the thing, if they detonate It too late it's gonna split in half, but the two halves are still gonna hit the earth.

    Angela [01:31:17] Yeah, there was this line. They had to detonate it before they crossed this line. 

    Jenna [01:31:22] But he presses it, he had only 20 seconds left. But he press it, the meteor splits in half. Somehow the blast radius from this nuclear bomb does not reach the shuttle, which is still very close to it. 

    Angela [01:31:36] There's no way. When you see the special effect, it's sent a ginormous sonic wave through space. It just would have obliterated anything. 

    Jenna [01:31:46] Including the space shuttle. 

    Angela [01:31:47] Yeah. But they make it. 

    Jenna [01:31:48] It's okay. We have cheers at Houston and around the world. A lot of slow motion celebration. Again, dressed like they live on a prairie in the 1800's. Grace knows her dad is gone and Billy Bob Thornton hugs her. 

    Angela [01:32:05] Yeah. The line that Harry said to her that got me, before they lost radio contact, he says, "I'll look in on you from time to time." And that got me. That got me. You guys, once they land, they get off the space shuttle, there's lots of hugging and like you said, right? 

    Jenna [01:32:22] It's in slow motion. 

    Angela [01:32:23] Yeah. 

    Jenna [01:32:23] Grace and AJ slow motion run to each other. Chick's son is there to greet him with a slow motion run, and I cried at that. I cried that the fact that this dad was going to be back in his son's life. Got me. 

    Angela [01:32:38] Yeah, and AJ gives Billy Bob's character the shuttle patch. Yes. 

    Jenna [01:32:44] And oh, I also cried when Colonel Sharp wanted to shake Grace's hand because her dad was the hero. He said, "I wanted to take the hand of the daughter of the man who saved the world." 

    Angela [01:32:57] It's very moving. I have a clip from the DVD commentary, where Bruce Willis talked about what it was like to work on this movie, let's hear it. 

    clip - Bruce Willis [01:33:05] It was a nice change for me, working with an ensemble cast like we had in Armageddon. All really funny guys. My strongest memory now is how much we laughed every day and just try to keep cracking each other up. 

    Angela [01:33:19] So it sounds like they had a really good time. 

    Jenna [01:33:23] This movie, it has a tag. Over the credits. 

    Angela [01:33:25] It does.

    Jenna [01:33:26] AJ and Grace get married. 

    Angela [01:33:28] I loved that. 

    Jenna [01:33:29] It was lovely. 

    Angela [01:33:30] It made me happy. 

    Jenna [01:33:32] And then the movie's over. 

    Angela [01:33:33] And that's it. 

    Jenna [01:33:34] That's it. 

    Angela [01:33:35] You did it. Two hours and 31 minutes. 

    Jenna [01:33:38] I have one note. I just think that during that final slow motion montage of everyone on Earth being happy that the meteor was destroyed, it would have been really nice if we could have just seen Bike Guy hugging his dog. 

    Angela [01:33:53] Yeah. 

    Jenna [01:33:53] Maybe Telescope Guy and his wife Dottie hugging, or something. Just some resolution on those characters that we set up in the cold open of this movie. 

    Angela [01:34:02] Oh, yeah, I agree. I would love to have seen the dog with a Godzilla toy in his mouth, shaking it. 

    Jenna [01:34:09] Something. 

    Angela [01:34:09] Maybe Dottie flipping off her husband, but like with a smile. Like, "F you, we did it." 

    Jenna [01:34:16] If I had been in the room, I would have given that note. [starts laughing] Just the one. 

    Angela [01:34:24] Otherwise, don't change a thing. 

    Jenna [01:34:27] Definitely keeping the Leaving on a Jet Plane sequence. 

    Angela [01:34:35] Sam, final thoughts? 

    Sam [01:34:37] I love it. It's not good. I love it. 

    Angela [01:34:39] That's a great quote. "It's not good, but I love it." 

    Jenna [01:34:42] That's how I feel. 

    Angela [01:34:44] Yeah. I'm excited to know that they had a good time, you know? I really look forward to the road trip you and I take where we listen to the DVD commentary. 

    Matt [01:34:54] Can I add something real quick? 

    Jenna [01:34:55] Yes. I really admire all of your work breaking down this movie, your attention to detail. I found it so exhaustive. The way you really got in there and took the whole thing seriously, looked into everything, I'm in awe. Well done. 

    Jenna [01:35:10] Oh, thank you, Matt. 

    Angela [01:35:12] We love a movie breakdown, guys. If there's another one you think we gotta tackle, let us know. Write to us over at OfficeLadies.com in our general mail folder. 

    Jenna [01:35:20] And we'll see you next week. 

    Angela [01:35:22] See you then. 

    Jenna [00:00:17] Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. 

    Angela [00:00:19] Office Ladies is a presentation of Audacy and is produced by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. 

    Jenna [00:00:24] Our senior producer is Matt Beagle. Our audio engineer is Sam Kieffer, and our associate producer is Aynsley Bubbico. 

    Angela [00:00:32] Audacy's executive producer is Leah Reis-Dennis. 

    Jenna [00:00:35] Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz. 

    Angela [00:00:37] Our theme song is "Rubber Tree" by Creed Bratton.