Office Ladies - Office Ladies Do: Armageddon!

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

This week on Office Ladies 6.0, prepare yourselves for Armageddon! Not the actual end of days, but Michael Bay’s two-and-a-half-hour disaster film from 1998! Jenna and Angela answer the call of fan requests and dive into a full breakdown of the iconic summer blockbuster. The ladies kick things off by revisiting the deep-cut Office lore surrounding Michael and Dwight’s New Years Eve watch party, before breaking down the facts, stats, and wild behind-the-scenes stories from the movie. Along the way, Angela shares her own real-life Michael Bay encounter, Jenna counts down the eight steps to space mission success, and the crew reflects on why this messy, explosion-filled movie is so hard not to love. So put on your space suit, break out the animal crackers and enjoy! You don’t wanna miss a thing…Office Ladies Website - Submit a fan question for Around the Town, Chit Chat, and Second Drink favorite moment: https://officeladies.com/submitaquestion Follow Us on Instagram: OfficeLadiesPodFollow Us on YouTubeFollow Us on TikTok 

This is the Earth at a time when the dinosaurs roamed a lush, fertile planet. A piece of rock, just six miles wide, changed all that. It hit with a force of 10,000 nuclear weapons. 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. It happened before. Then again.

It's just a question of when. Everyone, buckle in for Armageddon. I'm Jenna Fisher, and I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on the office together, and we're best friends. And now we're doing the ultimate office lovers podcast just for you. Each week, we will dive deeper into the world of the office with exclusive interviews behind-the-scenes details.

and lots of BFF stories. We're the Office Lady 6.0. We have a big, big episode today. We really do. Welcome to our breakdown of the 1998 summer blockbuster Armageddon. Bungung, gung. Explosions! So many explosions.

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. And Kelly B from Westfield, Indiana, who listens with her family, said, I've been listening to your podcast since the first 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, please. Podcasts 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. Yeah. 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. And Jim suggests that he have Dwight do it.

And then we learned this tidbit about Michael and Dwight. Go ahead. Do it? Just have Dwight punch you. Oh, yeah. Well, that would be kind of worthless because I know a ton of 14-year-old girls are going to kick his ass. You know a ton of 14-year-old girls? What belt are they?

Look, Dwight is a wuss. When we rented Armageddon, he cried at the end of it. Michael, I told you. That was because it was New Year's Eve and it started to snow at exactly midnight. Bruce Willis. I could leave him on the asteroid, boo! Okay, I'll punch you. Oh, okay.

Here we go. All right, come on. Go! F! Amazing. So Michael and Dwight watched Armageddon on New Year's Eve. And now, lady, we have watched it. We have.

There's so much to discuss. But let's dive into the facts and stats. Yeah, I'll kick us off. As you said, Jenna was released in 1998 on July 1st. So kind of like around the July 4th holiday. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. 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. Yeah, they do. Want to hear the tagline? I do. It's so good. Ready?

Mm-hmm. It's closer than you think. Hmm. I feel like that's what she said. I have another tagline. What? Explosions and yelling. Oh, that's very good.

Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. It was rated PG-13, Jenna, I haven't told you. We don't know what each other are both sharing today, guys. 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.

Yeah, you needed someone to bear witness. We have been living in a vacuum. But Jenna, I want to 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 disc. I found it online. Amazing. It's two hours and 35 minutes. It's Michael Bay, Bruce Willis, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Ben Affleck. I listened to it. The whole thing? I crapped out at about two hours. Okay, so the last 35 minutes,

I was like, 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. Tell us. Okay. Ask me any kind of random shit as we break this down. Michael Bay said, and I'm quoting him, that his grandfather said to him, if you want to make a lot of money, find something you can sell to Middle America. Okay.

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. it, but then also still make it exciting enough for the adults in the audience. And he thinks he accomplished that. And I think he did too. He did. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this movie is two hours and 31 minutes. Right. The commentary is just a few minutes longer. That's what I was going to ask you. Two hours and 35 minutes. Okay. Yeah. It is real long. Real long. Did you see this in theaters? Do you remember the first time you saw it? I did see it in theaters.

Okay. And I don't have a strong memory of seeing it, and I'm confused by that now because... You're like, how could I not remember? How could I not remember that? I mean, I saw it, and I shared this when we broke down the fight for office ladies, that I saw it with my dad, who is a drilling engineer, a deep sea drilling engineer, like on oil rigs out in the ocean. Like where we meet Bruce Willis and his team.

Exactly. So I went and saw this movie with my dad, and I'm going to share some of his reactions later. I can't wait. But yeah, so what I don't know is how I made it through the movie without peeing like four times. Yeah, you probably went to the bathroom several times. I had to have.

Matt, Sam, do you remember seeing this movie for the first time? Did you see it in theaters? No, I never saw this until a week ago. No, Sam. No, this move, this was all brand new to me. Oh, my gosh. What were your thoughts? I'll let you know as we go.

Okay, I took detailed notes. Oh my gosh, please let us know. Okay. Matt? 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. I know. I was taking notes. I was like, okay, Animal Crackers. No, God, please tell me you. never have recreated this moment. Please tell me I've been busted out animal crackers on a lady's belly. Guys, doesn't Michael Scott reference animal crackers in something about wooing a woman?

I swear. Oh my gosh. Someone Google it. Wait, Jenna, what did you find? She's looking very excited. Okay. According to Dundrapedia, in threat level midnight, there is a flash back scene of Michael Scarn and his wife.

And 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. This is the brilliance of the office, though. You think something's mentioned and just like, oh, will we ever see that again? And then it is woven back in. Yeah. I love that.

From the fight all the way to threat level midnight. All right, Jenna, do you have any stats for us? Well, like you mentioned earlier, Angela, the director of this movie is Michael Bay. Have you ever met Michael Bay? No. Have you? Sort of. Sort of. How do you sort of meet someone?

I can't believe I've never told you the story in all of our years of friendship. No. Okay, here's my Michael Bay story. So I was performing at Improvallympic, and then a friend of ours who also performed there, worked at a restaurant. and if we could get there before 9 p.m. he could get us like free appetizer. But then after 9, they lowered the lights and it turned into like a nightclub.

What is your age? I'm like 25, 26 years old, somewhere in there. So we do our improv show and we haul ass over there so we can get in before 9. To get that free apps? Free apps. We're in a booth and it is like 9 o'clock hits.

The lights lower. And all of a sudden music's like, diz, dez, d'ez. And I'm like, oh my gosh. in walks, Michael Bay and Dan Aykroyd. No. Together. What?

With like a group of cows. Michael Bay had hair like long, wispy hair, parted on the side, kind of feathered. It was very Fabio. Very fabio. Just wispy feathered hair. Yeah. He had on a suede Western jacket with like fringe. Okay.

And jeans. Okay. Is this pretty? Ormageddon or after Armageddon? Was this pre-1998 or after 1990? Pre. This is like maybe the rock. Yeah.

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. Yeah. And then when the music started, the gals got up.

They were dancing. People dance too. This place turned into a club. But yeah, Michael Bay and I set back to back. Wow. Yeah. That's a nuts story. It's a nuts story. Like you're like just sitting there eating your cheese sticks and Dan Aykroyd and Michael Bay walk in. Yeah. And Michael Bay looks like a character out of like a 70s Western movie. I can't believe this story doesn't end with an explosion of some kind. Well, we had to leave because that after nine o'clock, the tables were reserved. So we got. food it out. Okay.

But I was there long enough to see that crazy duo. That's amazing. Anyway. I'm glad we watched this movie just so I could hear that story. All right. Let's talk about the writers of this movie. In the credits at the beginning of the movie, it lists screenplay by Jonathan Hensley and J.J. Abrams. J.J. Abrams.

Yeah. That was a surprise. But on IMDB, there are a lot of other people listed under the writing category with additional multiple titles. Yeah. I had a writing professor that said, tip of the hat, if a script went through a ton of changes, is if you have adaptation by, story by, we had all of this. In this movie. Yeah. Yeah. We had adaptation by Tony Gilroy and Shane Salerno. We had story by Robert Roy Poole and Jonathan Hensley as well. A lot of chefs here. Yeah. Well, this movie has a lot of

stars. Pretty much all of the men, they are Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck, Will Patton Steepyshemi, Owen Wilson, Michael Clark Duncan, William Fitchner, and also Liv Tyler. I can't really imagine anyone else, but Bruce Willis in this role of Harry Stamper as the lead oil driller guy. 100%. He really held this movie together for me, but did you know that Sean Connery was originally considered for the role?

But 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 okay. Oh, yeah. They did their homework. I will tell you that. Yeah. They did. They did.

They did their homework about NASA, the space program, and oil drilling, and then they were like, fuck it. They threw it all out. We learned all about it. We're going to put any of it in the movie. They did. They had, you know, had real, like, but with real drilling engineers, they had Joe Allen, who's an astronaut, like, consult.

And Ben Affleck, like, will say in the DVD, we use some of it. You know what I mean? 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. No sense. Also, Jerry Bruckheimer shares that they offered this role to live Tyler five times before she accepted it. It was on the fifth time that she finally was like, other actors have been added by that point, Billy Bob, you know, and she was like, okay. I thought she was great. I did too. I actually really liked her. I know. Bradley Cooper auditioned for the role of A.J. Frost. Can't imagine anyone but Ben Affleck.

I know. I don't know. I thought everybody was very well cast in this movie. Same. 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. Okay. So it was a hit. It was a hit at the box office. Angela, what did the critics have to say? Well, they have a lot to say. I'm just going to share basically Roger Ebert,

who gave it one star. I'm quoting him. He said, The movie is an assault on the eyes that 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 basis 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. Oh, Deep Impact was like a whole thing. It had just come out. Two giant movies about asteroids hurling themselves towards Earth. Yeah, I watch some of the press junket

of the actors promoting this. This movie, yes, and they kept getting asked about deep impact. Oh, my God. And 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 like 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. Did they hate each other? other? Did the two of them made each other? I don't know. Is that Siskel punking Ebert? Because he knows how he hated it? 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. 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 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 it was terrible. He said his visual effects supervisor had a nervous breakdown. I'm not surprised. 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 was saying, but the movie did fine. So, okay. It got 43% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatoes Tomatoes tomato meter, but a. 73% on the popcorn meter. Folks liked it. 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 Want to 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, worst director, worst screenplay, and worst original song. Oh, no. I guess there's also something called the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards. Oh my God. 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-Streen 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, first you texted me. And I said, this is the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. I don't know how I'm going to watch the whole thing. But then as it went on, I found, myself saying, I fucking love this movie. Yes. So I both hate it and think it's terrible, and I also think it's one of the best movies ever made.

I took several guesses at what the parts were that turned your viewing of it around. Yeah, it was a real journey. Yeah, because I also hated it at the start. And then did you love it? 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. Yeah.

I don't know. there's something about it. Matt, what about you? It didn't hold up as well for me. I feel like watching it this time, the story felt really ridiculous, but I did admire the scale and the shots of it. And yeah. Yeah. And for me, it reminded me, I'm sure how much bad improv have you seen where the actors commit to being pimped out on stage? This is what it reminded me of, like, everybody's commitment to this is insane. Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis, they all commit to this as if it's really happening. The commitment of the whole movie to the premise is really impressive. It takes itself

very seriously. Listen, if full blown out wispy hair, suede tassel jacket man is walking up to you, he's going to take the movie to the next level. This is the only movie that man is making. This is it. He's making a 110% movie. He is all in. Yeah, and he refers to it as a film, not a movie. Yes, it's a film. My thoughts after watching it are, let's see. You're choosing your words so carefully. It was such a commitment.

I am tired. I am tired. I appreciate all the special effects. Oh, my God. The way they made some of this will get to it. I really appreciate what the crew did. I really do. Yeah.

And at the same time, I don't ever need to see this again, ever. But I would listen to that DVD commentary again. 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. I have six clips of it. Great. And I will also share in stories for anyone who wants to listen to it.

Well, listen, why do we take a break? And then when we come back, We are going to break down Armageddon. All right, we're back. It's time to break down Armageddon. This movie is going to open with a menacing voice. Well, we open an outer space. Yeah.

We see the Earth. Yeah. Something is hurtling toward it. We find out that we're back in dinosaur times, and this meteor hit the Earth back then. Yeah. And you heard us earlier in this podcast, recreate this opening narrative.

that was originally done by Charlton Heston. That's right. 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. 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. Yeah.

We're not in dinosaur times anymore. I did love that when the letters of the movie come up, then they all blow apart. Because everything in this movie is going to explode eventually. including the title of the movie. And if you pay attention, it's right after they say a Michael Bay movie. It explodes. There's an immediate explosion. 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 like cords. Yeah, he's fixing a satellite in space. 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? His heart is racing in space. They're monitoring him. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, hey, buddy, we got plenty of time. So don't you worry. Oh.

That's it. This guy's gone. Yeah. If someone says, don't you worry, you better get the hell out of there. Did you notice Pete's blue eyes? Yes. I was like, is this Josh Lucas? Is this a young Josh Lucas?

I thought the same thing. I looked it up. It's not. I did too. It's not. It's a stunt actor named Ian Quinn. With the most beautiful blue eyes. Gorgeous.

Gorgeous. He's going to get hit by something falling from the sky. They don't know what at first, but all this shit starts raining down. We're 45 seconds into the movie. Things are already exploding. The shuttle explodes. And then the satellite explodes. All of it.

It explodes. Down on Earth, the military thinks these are bogies. They could be getting attacked. I'm sorry I'm calling bullshit. We're getting attacked from space. Well, this is what they say. They said, is it missiles? Is it an internal malfunction?

Is it a glitch? Is it a wild card? They create little pods of people for all of these different scenarios. Figure out what it is. I have a clip from the DVD commentary. I want to play for you guys about this opening number. Opening number. What do you call it?

Opening sequence. I don't know. Michael Bay said he hired a young writer to do a rewrite. He doesn't say the name of the person. He says this young guy rewrote 53 pages in two days. And then Bay read the new script. and I quote, Michael Bay said, it was pure shit. 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 them by the balls? And he came up with this, this idea that this whole thing goes cibluy right away. Well, now we're going to 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.

He's got a homemade telegraph. He's got a homemade telescope, guys. He was played by John Mahon, and his wife, Doddy, played by Grace Zabritsky, is going to throw the door open, and she's really mad because he hasn't come in for dinner. I mean, his Stouffer's pot pie sat on the table for 10 hours. She wants a divorce.

She's pissed. This character of Doddy is going to set the tone for all women in this film. If you are a woman in this film, you are either a shrew wife, a stripper, a bitch with no sense of humor, or live Tyler. These are the four categories of woman in this film. Well done.

Good breakdown. 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 going to disappear forever after just a few scenes. 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.

He calls NASA and tells them about it. He tells him about it. He tells Billy Bob Thornton, I want to name her Dottie after my wife. And then his wife is like, oh, and then he says, because she's a vicious life-sucking bitch from which there's no escape. Yeah. So there's that. All right, back at Command Center, everyone, it's DefCon 3.

Remember the Def-Con? Oh, I mean, Billy Bob Thornton is like, you're going to wake up 11,000 people. Let's get going. Yeah. I want to remind you what Def-Con 3 means. Oh, Michael Scott would be so excited. 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. One, 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 Def Korn. on three in Crimson Tide and Independence Day. Mm-hmm. And also war games. Okay.

We reached all the def-cons and war games. War games. So stressful. Yeah. Yeah. 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 the way through the city. Yes. This is a bike messenger played by Eddie Griffin. Mm-hmm. Per Michael Bate, this scene, he gave a nod to the movie Godzilla. Did you catch it, guys? Is it because Eddie Griffin's dog is going to buy a lot? some little Godzilla toys.

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 shit out of those dolls. So. Amazing. 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 shit, 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. 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. These effects right here were on car flippers and we had TVs that were shooting. through the window at high rates of speed. And this was basically being a kid in a candy store,

deciding you can flip and blow up whatever you want. And 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 size space rocks coming in. It wouldn't just blow 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, I had Rob Legato, who did Titanic do these shots. This was a model that was 16 feet wide, and there were photographs of Grand Central Station with green-screen people. There were a lot of very dangerous stunts done here, and these are people around flying cars, and we invented a flipper system that was quite accurate,

and I was able to put people in very very... close proximity to these cars. And we shot this New York sequence literally in four days, and that's quite a bit of shooting. Well, this scene won the MTV Movie Award for Best Action Sequence. I believe it. Well deserved. Well deserved. 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. I do have a background catch for us at 10 minutes and 26 seconds, Michael Bay put himself in the movie. I saw it. I know.

He's trying to figure it out. He's one of 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. In meeting with the people at NASA, I realize that they're simple guys. They're extremely smart. They're 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 50s. 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 try to do with NASA was to sexy it up, to think the best and the brightest are going to be at this facility. And in reality, they do have the best in 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're not the guys you saw in the movie of the right stuff. Astronauts are just, they're scientists.

Astronauts are scientists. I wish that was the tag in this movie. I wish the posters in Armageddon. We made NASA sexy. I mean, you guys, I've been holding on to that. That's not the last time he's going to mention the unsexiness of us. Oh, my God, I have to listen to this whole thing. You really do.

It is worth it. We go on a road trip and just listen to it. Yes. Please. Okay. 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. All right, guys. Shit just got real.

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 to cut to an oil rig in the South China Sea where we meet Bruce Willis, a.k.a. Harry Stamper, and he's playing golf. He's hitting golf balls off a rig at the Greenpeace boat. Who's protesting the rig.

Yes. Yes. We also meet Ben Affleck, who's A.J. He works on the rig. Yeah, he's gone rogue, right? Yeah, can't find him. Well, he did something with number two, whatever that is. Pump number two. He turned it on when he wasn't supposed to.

That's right. And Bruce Willis is now pissed and looking for him. Yeah. Guess what? He's been working on this rig for five years. When is Bruce Willis going to trust his gut? You know, AJ has a gut, and he thinks that pump number two is fine. Yeah.

And they get in a little argument about it. And this is when Bruce Willis discovers that his daughter played by live Tyler is sleeping with AJ. She's in his bed. Yeah, and he is not happy about that. So he's going to get a gun. Mm-hmm. And he is going to start firing a gun on an oil rig.

This is like a big gun. It's like a shotgun. Is this safe? This feels unsafe for so very many reasons. 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, never happened. They were going to happen. Right?

He called BS on it. I found an article on mailmagine.com where they had three drilling engineers fact-checked 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. Yeah. Well, it did do that in the movie.

I mean, there was a lot of ricochet. A lot of ricochet, something ricochets into Ben Affleck's leg. Yeah. And this whole thing is stopped because a helicopter approaches. There's a lot of father-daughter tension, a lot of arguing. Grace is saying that it's her life. She can date who she likes. Ben Affleck said, you know why we had a helicopter in this movie?

Why? 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. Yeah, these are the people who are financing this oil drill. And they're going to give them a little tour. or Liv Tyler clearly has some role in this business, family business, her dad's rig.

It's like she's like the sort of 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. Right. 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. And they're trying to figure out how are we going to stop this giant meteor? And 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 firecracker and it goes off, it'll blow your hand off. Right. So this is what they have to do. They have to drill a hole and then put a nuclear bomb in the hole of the aspirational. Right. 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, that would never happen. He called bullshit. I'm doing such a bad impression of my dad. But he would say never happen. 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 Derek. 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. Well, for the plot, I guess this had to happen because it proves that AJ's gut was wrong about drill number two. Right.

Now, you guys, another helicopter is going to come. This time, it's General Montgomery. Mm-hmm. And he's going to say, you've got to come with me. It's a matter of urgent national security. Harry's like, the crazy Willie put you up to this. And the general's like, I'm afraid I don't know who crazy Willie is, sir. I'm dead serious.

And then I think this is when Steve Buscemi's character gets the creeper award. Yeah, he gets to make a weird underage sex joke. Yeah. He comes up to Bruce Willis when he sees the helicopter and he says, I swear, I didn't know how old she was. This is going to be the beginning of the creeper runner. That is Steve Buschemy's character. Yeah. And Harry's like, fine, I'll go, but I want to take my daughter because he's wanting to get her

away from AJ. Yeah. So they arrive in Houston. Harry Stamper meets Dan Truman. And 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, it's because they're going to 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. 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? By the way, in terms of people looking up at the sky,

I googled how far, because the asteroids, it's the size of Texas. Hypothetically, NASA would know about that decades to centuries before impact, not 18 days. 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. At NASA here, we tried to sexy it up. This is not a building. This is 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 60s, 50s kind 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 just 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? Amazing. You guys, I'm telling you, could you not listen to that all day?

Yeah. And look, I'm not kink shaming. I know there's a kink out there for everyone. Everybody, this is the first time I've ever seen anybody be horny for NASA, just as the building itself. Well, not the original building. Yeah, exactly. So now they're going to take Harry down to this airplane hanger 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. And they need him to fix it so that they can take it into space so they, they can drill into this asteroid. And they have these eight astronauts that they've been training to use the drill and they're messing it up. And this leads to Ben Affleck's famous DVD commentary about this scene. Let's hear it. I asked Michael why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers.

And he told me to shut the fuck up. So that was the end of that talk. He was like, you know, Ben, just shut up. Okay, you know, this is a real plan, all right? I was like, you mean it's a real plan at NASA to train oil drillers? He was like, just shut your mouth. 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.

He did a piss. See, he's a salt-of-the-earth guy, and the NASA nerdanauts don't understand his salt-of-the-earth ways, his rough-and-tumble ways. Yeah, that's right. Well, that's because your cans are all... Like, somehow they can build rocket ships, but they don't understand, like, what makes a good tranny. We've had some training for eight months solid now.

Eight whole months? Well, pretty much, yeah. Oh, gee, weird. 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 how to be astronauts. A one hole 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'm only the best because I work with the best. You don't trust the men you're working with. You're as good as dead. You want to send these boys into space, fine. I'm sure they'll make good astronauts. They don't know Jack about drilling.

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're going to know about, and when you're going to 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 and your EVA suit and your zero gravity?

You know, didn't you see a bottle 13, boy? You guys, this commentary is one of the best things I've heard in a long time. I do want to say something, though. I want to 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. 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? Yeah.

Listen, they didn't have to fly. No, they had pilots. They were passengers. Yeah. So they were all like, no, it's just you've got to know so much about like geology and like all the pressure and all of that. And it takes years and years. I think they were right to take the drilling engineers up into space. Ultimately, I do. I mean,

they didn't have to learn how to be astronauts. They just had to learn to like get to space. Get to space. Bruce Willis is like, he's 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. Boy, you. You know, 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. It's so sad looking. It has like a wooden sign that he's gray painted. Like, AJ's drilling on it. It looks like a homemade lemonade stand. Jenna, I got to ask, is this the scene that turned the movie around for you? No.

It was actually the scene before. Okay. was the scene of Bruce Willis being like, I'll do it. Because this is the moment, I found myself enjoying the movie, like smiling and realizing I had no longer hated it. I love assembling the crew montage. The thing about this one, though, is like, I was still very unclear about what the people could do.

They're like, this guy's the best. And they're like, we don't need to know what they're the best at. We don't need Owen Wilson at all. They're just the best. If she comes in Andy zero times. Yes, this is when we introduce Owen Wilson. and it's never clear to me what he's good at. Steve Bouchemey, we come to find out, is some sort of genius.

He is a genius. He taught at MIT. Yeah. He has multiple doctorates. And he's very useful when they get out there. And the big guy getting the tattoo operates the drill at the end. So he's relevant. Yeah.

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. Oh. He joined them a month into filming. And he tells them about the asteroid. And 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? Oh, that's a good line. I know. Way to go, Bruce Willis. Well, they all agree to do it, but they do have some requests. 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. I thought that was a really smart request. Yes, he said that got a really big cheers in the movie screenings he went to. No one wants to pay taxes.

One of the guys has 56 parking tickets that he would like resolved. Another person wants them to bring back eight-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. And this is their medical psychological exam montage. What is happening in this? What is happening? They're all in hospital gowns. Yeah. Someone brings a big giant syringe with yellow liquid. What is that for?

What is that for? Some of them have bags with IVs. Some look like they're getting, is that like an anal probe? Yeah. What? I know. Then they dance and then they fuck around with a hospital equipment. The doctor doing the anal probe is the only woman in this whole movie that has a sense

of humor. 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-launched enemas to clear their bowels before. So they don't shit themselves? Yep. Yeah. Oh, well, there you go. There is a psychiatrist who does some type of inkblot test and a Rubik's Cube thing. Yeah. When I watched this part of the movie with Lee, he said, I can't believe this is still going on. He said this was unnecessarily long.

I agree. Agree. At the end, the doctor says 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, quote, personally, I don't know how they survived the tests, but he does approve them.

He does. Now you guys, we get to see the space shuttle. And there's this whole simulation in the swimming pool in like the spacesuits. I mean, it's pretty amazing what they were able to do. Michael Bay talks about it. They actually shot in the NASA weightless simulation tank that you see in the scene. So they shot in the actual pool?

Yes. In the suit that Ben Affleck's wearing that they shot in was a million dollars. And later, when we get to the actual launch, they were able to have access there and shoot as well. Pretty amazing. Wow. Well, there's a couple things we learn, by the way, in the scene. First of all, this is a brand new shuttle. And it has a special armor on it, everybody.

And it's new. And this is why later, when this shuttle is being pummeled by various things in space and it's not breaking, it's because it's special. Okay? The main pilot is played by William Fitchner. And his co-pilot is a female pilot who was played by Jessica Steen. She is the only woman besides Liv Tyler in this movie in a major role. And 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. Yeah. They're not really listening to her. She does call them out, though. She is like, hey, I'm trying to keep you alive here. Yeah. Apples. Yes.

Well, this whole scene reminded me of an interview. that I once saw with the very first female mission control officer, Francis. Her nickname was Poppy Northcutt. She joined NASA's mission control in 1968 at the age of 25. She's a fucking badass. She was a mathematical analyst, and she helped to plot the return to Earth trajectory software that brings astronauts back from the moon. Amazing. 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. How much problem does a woman have working in a dominantly male environment like mission control? I don't think she has any problems. How much attention do men pay to a pretty girl on a miniskirt working in their midst? Not much. They're too busy with their consoles. Yeah, those are the two questions that this interviewer asked her. I'm glad he asked the NASA astronaut about a miniskirt. Are you kidding me? this woman is rad.

So I got completely fascinated and I read a bunch about her. And 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. Yes. And so they had to create this new system just. for her. And she said, 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. And then 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 Northcut and she's totally awesome. I mean, what a badass. What a total badass. All right, let's see, Ang, what is next? Well, back now at NASA, Billy Bob's character is going to explain the flight plan to them. Oh, I loved this scene. I loved this scene. He's got two little space shuttles on sticks, like the little toy space shuttles.

Yeah. And then he's got the moon, and he's going to explain this lunar gravity slingshot that they're going to need to do to come around the moon and slingshot onto the asteroid, right? Yeah. 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. Yeah. Billy Bob Thornton has the two space shuttles because, guys, they're sending up two shuttles. Yes. With two drills. and two nuclear bombs.

They're going to split them up. They're going to each land on different parts of the asteroid. Whoever drills the whole first puts the nuclear bomb in, and then both shuttles will fly away. Yes, it's the freedom and the independence for our two shuttles. Right. 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.

Mm-hmm. 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. Oh. So there you go. Well, Harry is going to find Grace and AJ and they are sitting in a satellite? A thruster? A booster.

A wine picnic and making out. 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. Yeah. That's what it is. There's no makeout.

Yeah. Sloppy shoulder kissing. I do have a clip from Michael Bay. I would like to play for you all. Michael Bay has talked a little 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. 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 says, we did it to him. Why not do it to Ben? So my dentist had Ben sitting in a dentist chair for a week, eight hours a day. So basically they made Bonafelic get veneers for this?

Yes. Because he didn't like his little baby teeth. That's right. You wanted him to have big, shiny white teeth. Yes. Wait, so had they shot some of the movie with his baby teeth and some with the veneers? They must have. I mean, they shot a month before Bruce Willis got there.

So there must have been, like, early in the movie, the baby teeth. Oh, I wish I'd known this. I would have tried to track it. I would have looked for baby teeth versus white teeth. I tried to look for baby teeth. I don't see them. Okay. 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. I'm sure we could figure that out. I know. Well, listen, Harry doesn't interrupt this weird snuggle session, but he does get with all his guys. And the guys are like, listen, Harry, Grace has grown up. She's also a real haughty, and 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. Yeah. By the way, this is now actually when they're going to go to the test site and test the armadillo underwater. And this is important because they've divided up into their two crews. And the armadillo, we should say, is this like special kind of. of vehicle where the wheels can rotate multiple directions. It's like 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. Right. Exactly. And 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. And 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. The computer doesn't know what's real. Yeah. So they get in a whole fight about it.

This leads to a conversation where, you know, Bruce Willis's 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. Yeah.

They're blasting off tomorrow and they need a night out so that they can quote remember what they're fighting for. Yeah. This is what that montage is going to look like. Yeah. 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 the shack. What is this shack? 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 a little. animal crackers. I saw no water. Those crackers make me so thirsty. Yeah, well, and then Ben Affleck has to have his clever dialogue 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. Well, there was a lot of improv there. So some of that. Oh, boy. And then he does like sexy cracker going down her belly stuff. The song playing in the background, you know, we've talked about it, Aerosmith.

So basically, Liv Tyler's dad, Steve Tyler, is singing in the background of this scene. Yes. And then the other guys go do stuff.

No surprise. Steve Buschemy's character goes to a strip club. One of them goes to see their kid, but the kid doesn't know him. Well, first he goes and borrows a hundred grand from the mob. Oh, right.

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's so good, why do you have to borrow money from the mob all the time?

I don't know. Aren't these guys rich? I thought they were rich. I don't know. Well, listen, AJ lives in a shack by a swamp. Right. But he has a BMW convertible. Maybe they don't make good choices.

Okay. Oh, well, the one guy you said, Angela, you started to say, chick, he is going to go visit his son who doesn't know who he is. But he's going to leave him a little shuttle toy. Yeah. Exactly. He's sorry that he hasn't been there for his son. And we're going to meet who I assume is his ex-wife or ex-girlfriend. We're not sure.

Right. She's another just like minor character played by a woman and she is annoyed. 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. I can't remember. I couldn't remember anybody's name in this movie except for Steve Bouchemmy's character

whose name is Rockhound. I never knew his name, but I knew Harry and AJ and Grace. Okay, but anyway, we learn, okay, Michael Bay said that Billy Bob was like, I want to have something about me that's like revealed. So we find out he can't go to space because he has a leg like in a brace. Yeah, right? He always wished he could actually be an astronaut in space. Yes, so.

He has a heart to heart with Bruce Willis. That's right. But also right now, guess what? Part of the asteroid hits Southeast Asia and 50,000 people are killed. And now the whole world knows about the asteroid. They can't keep it a secret anymore. People are panicked. Guess what, everyone?

You are over 45 minutes into the movie and you haven't left for space yet. No, everyone get up and go pee because we have an hour and 30 minutes more. Maybe we should take a break. And when we come back, we're going to finally launch this. Into space. We're going to launch into space. Back and during our break, Sam uncovered a delicious nugget to continue the conversation about Ben Affleck's teeth.

Oh, gosh. Okay. Ben Affleck gave an interview about it, lady. And this is also going to 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, quote, a glistening male torso in oil, and he was like, that's going to go in the trailer and sell tickets.

I'm telling you, I think the song that runs like rent-free in Michael Bay's head is, I'm bringing sexy back. What? I mean, for sure. All right, 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. Yeah.

First, Grace and Harry have a very serious. sweet scene where they apologize to one another. Grace is like, Dad, I'm sorry. He's like, honey, I'm sorry. And she's like, just promise me you're going to come back. Promise me. And he promises her. Yes. And she says, please bring my fiance home. Yes. He's like, you got it. You got it. We have a slow motion montage of everyone's suiting up. Then we have what I'm pretty sure is the cringiest moment of the whole movie that was really painful to watch. And it is Ben Affleck singing leaving on a jet plane to live Tyler. They talk about it in the DVD commentary.

Basically, they were like, this was either going to work or it was going to bomb. It bombed. Why did they include it? I think they thought it worked. Really? Michael Bay did say that they all sang 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 letters. around him but can't because he's in a space suit. Yeah. So awkward. Now we're going to have a president's 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 to come together. Yeah. But this is the moment you hear the title of the movie. I'm always kind of a geek for that. Yeah. Like I think it's cool if you're the character that gets to say the title of the movie. Yeah.

And there's a montage, big montage people all over the world are listening to this. 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. I mean, I was waiting for like that little kid to be like,

Paul, Paul, come. It's so weird. 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 Ushammy's space suit is Rockhound. They put his nickname.

They put Rockhound on his official space suit. I mean, that's what. Not his name. You know what? I mean, when you're bringing sexy back to NASA, this is what you do. I guess so. 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?

For the launch. I had a question, can you launch two space shuttles side by side at the same time? Is that safe? 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 like spinning out. You're correct. It is not safe. Real shuttles could not launch side by side due to, quote, catastrophic acoustic and debris risks.

Well, there you go. But I was able to put 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 going to shift pretty much every two minutes between hope or destruction. We're never going to live in one of these two places for very long. It really is intense.

Well, here's the thing, guys. The first thing they have to do is they have to dock onto a Russian space station. This is step two. They have to refuel. They have to refuel. Michael Bay said that they actually talked to the astronauts on the mirror space station. And he said they call it, quote, the glove box of an old car. Because everything gets lost in there.

I guess it smells like leaky sewage and there's mold. And he said the people up there that have to live there do get a little loopy. Well, the Russian who is there, he seems like he's alone and he's Krez. He's a little Kray. He insists that Ben Affleck go down into this, I don't know, tube and watch the pressure gauge for the fuel. And if it gets to this certain number, it's bad and he's got to hit this button. And then he has to pull this lever, which, guess what? Four seconds into refueling, the pressure gauge goes past 200 and everything starts sparking.

Well, Ben Affleck breaks the lever. point out, our quote, heroes have been on this Russian space station for not a minute and they blow it up. Like, truly, like 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 like seconds to spare before the whole thing explodes. There is no more space station. No, that's it. It's a goner. Luckily, they let us know they got 90% of the fuel they needed. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, not all of it, but enough. I guess.

I guess. 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. At nine Gs. Step four is land on the asteroid.

Step five is drilled the whole. step six is put the nuclear bomb inside. Step seven is fly away from the asteroid. And step eight is blow up the asteroid. So we're at step two, which was refuel, and it's already a fucking shit show. So now we're going into step three, which is slingshot around the moon.

Yeah. This is the only step that goes well besides blast off. I did look up if you can survive at 9Gs. Uh-huh. I guess you can, but only for a few minutes. They are going to be at 9 G's for 11 minutes. One of the astronauts says, this is what we train for, suck it up. Yeah.

For Michael Bay, they shot this on a huge gimbal. It was an advanced hydraulic platform that was shaking the actors, in his words, quote, quite violently, forwards, backwards, sideways. It was also similar to being in a car accident. Wow. Yeah. I mean, they didn't look well. I know. During this scene.

I thought they looked like they were being shaken quite violently. Yeah. 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 like 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. Yeah.

How do you feel after you're in a gimbal being shaken quite violently? I don't know. I don't know. But you have new teeth, so. I guess you have that. You've got that. 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. They're flying through space. You're like flying through space. You're like flying through. all of this debris to land on a moving object that's all jaggedy.

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.

They've got special reimbled. Forcements and they can fly like all this shit. Yeah. But guess what happens as they're trying to land on the asteroid? Well, they lose the independence aircraft. That one's a goner. Can I just say something? Immediately at the beginning of this movie when they told me that they were going to be dividing into two shuttles.

Yeah. You know. I'm thinking to myself, dear God, let me be on the one. With Bruce Willis? Yeah. Because we know the other one is going down. But AJ's on the other one. Ben Affleck's on the other one.

He is, and it goes down. Mm-hmm. 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. Oh, I miss that. So there's tragedy all around, okay? Even back at NASA, things are breaking. Oh, my gosh.

I'm surprised it doesn't burst into flames. Exactly. Like that it didn't like spill onto the control center. Yeah. Same. All right, 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, shit. I think Owen Wilson just died. Bruce Willis' ship is now getting hit with debris from the other shuttles. and Bruce Willis says, quote, what is that? Is that the independence?

And right after that, an astronaut is hurled into his window. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, yes, the independence has crashed onto the surface of the asteroid, but I think Ben Affleck is still alive. Well, we find out. We find out that Ben Affleck, so A.J., Bear, and the Russian, they made it somehow.

But back at Houston, it's assumed they're all dead. Yes. Nobody knows this. There's some montages back in Houston of like worried, sad people. Yeah. But now Bruce Wallace's team, they get out that big buggy thing, you know, the armadillo. They land. They land.

But they overshot their landing field, lady. Oh. They overshot it. I was like, there's a landing field. By 26 miles. I mean, my God. They didn't even know what the asteroid looked like up close. How do they know there's a landing field?

I don't know. But also now their communication system is. not going well. 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. Can't drill through it. Yeah. So now we're going to start on step five, which is drilling the hole and they have eight hours. Eight hours, they have to get 800 feet.

Guess what? They break their first drill bit in 10 feet. Mm-hmm. 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. But no one is using the thrusters. No one's using them. You never see evidence of these thrusters.

Yeah. 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. And NASA shows this film during their management training program. And new managers are given the task of trying to spot as many errors as possible. So far, they've spotted at least 160. So NASA uses this movie the way human resources uses an episode of the office of how not to behave at the office.

Yes. And 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. Right. I guess there was a moment where they had to kind of pretend like they were spacewalking. then Michael Bay was like 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 it and faking it. And he was like, no, Michael Bay. I didn't learn like floating clown walking.

Like, you know. Anyway, oh my gosh. Wow. All right. So now the three remaining members of the independents, they're going to get into their armadillo. They're going to shoot through the wall of their shuttle. they're going to bust out.

Shoot through their wall. Ben. AJ has like, I don't know, like a Gatlin gun. Yeah. Why did they bring this? I don't know. And he just goes, rat da-ta-ta-da-rat-da-rat-ta-da.

And he just blows a hole through the side of the shuttle. Now they're driving onto the asteroid. Where do they think they're going? They've decided to try to find the freedom. Oh, he's got a tracker. He said he has a tracker. He's, oh, I missed that. That's like tracking him to the freedom.

They can't talk to Houston, but his tracker works. Yeah, and freedom doesn't know. I guess they're not looking at their tracker. Yeah, they don't know. So now they're on the way. You guys, at the same time, lunar gravity is making the asteroid start to spin, and Houston is not going to have any communication with them. 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. Uh-huh. If they lose the ability to communicate, they lose the ability to remotely detonate the nuclear bomb. And this is going to send us into, ready? What? For my dramatic delivery? What? Secondary protocol.

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? like my current depth is 57 feet. They're not going to get it done in time. Yeah. So the president has to

decide, do you want to 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 going to happen. Should you just blow them all up on this asteroid and hope that it does something to the asteroid? So Angela Kinsey, survival guide tip. What is it? If they send you out there, they're going to have plans to blow it up no matter what. This is a one-way mission, okay? Don't get on the shuttle. 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. Yeah. No sooner does he hang up the elevator door dings and 50 military men walk into the Houston Command Center. Yeah, their secondary protocol. They're taken

over. Where were they? Were they in the lobby waiting? Where they is like these guys got there so fast to take over. Yeah. And 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. Yeah. Kill the uplink. The military guys take over and they turn on the bomb. It's ticking down. Yeah. And so now you see this guy. He's flipping through a binder. He's reading some code. He's punching stuff in, the sneaky sneaky punching in. 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. Yes. Okay. They're all fighting. Yeah.

Harry grabs a giant wrench, like a wrench, but like the size of an arm. The pilot pulls out a gun. Harry says you're going to 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. And suddenly, the bomb stops ticking because Billy Bob Thornton's unsexy NASA guy turned it off. He stopped the uplink. 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. That's a big wrench.

It's so big. And here's the thing. Billy Bob Thornton only bought them a few minutes because while they're still arguing, the bomb starts ticking again. And Harry begs the pilot to turn off the bomb. He's like, you need to trust me. Here's the audio clip.

For God's sakes, think about what you're doing. Why are you listening to someone that's 100,000 miles away? We are here. Nobody down there can help us. If we don't get this job done, everybody's gone. One minute. I've been drilling holes in the earth for 30 years. And I have never, never missed the depth that I have aimed for.

And by God, I am not going to miss this when I will make 800 feet. 42 seconds. But I can't do it alone, Colonel, I need your help. You swear on your daughter's life on my families that you can hit that mark. I will make 800 feet. I swear to God, I will. And let's turn this palm off. Yeah, that's the big speech.

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. And by God, I'm not going to miss this one. I mean, so good. And then, you guys, this starts a whole super. super stressful de-programming of the bomb. It's like, do I cut the red wire or the blue wire? I know. Red or blue.

Red or blue. And then, thank God, they cut the right one. It was blue. It was blue. They stopped the bomb with two minutes and 46 seconds left to spare. Yeah. And they get enough radio reception for Bruce Willis to tell Houston that basically go f*** themselves.

They've got a hole to drill. Oh, he's got a classic. He says, now I don't know what you people are doing down there, but we got a hole to dig up here. Yeah. 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. Yeah. But they're very white. But clearly, maybe they just made Bruce Willis white in his teeth, but he didn't get veneers for this. He didn't. He only has one that bucks out a little. I think Ben Affleck had like ferret teeth or something. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I mean, no shade.

My teeth are crooked on the bottom. I mean, I'm never going to be in a Michael Bay movies. I don't have to worry about it. Well, Ben Affleck was also the male lead. Yes. I also did write in my document as we watch Ben Affleck and the Russian and bears slowly make their way in this armadillo. They are so hot.

They are sweaty, sweaty, sweaty. So slathered them up. And oiled up. Lathered them up. So they really did oil him up. Yeah, he talks about it in the commentary. I just need to say, too, you know, because there's still a lot of movie left, to fast track this, AJ the bear in the Russian, they come up on a giant like Grand Canyon.

Yeah. But you know what? They have a fuel thruster and they're going to jump it, guys. Yeah. They're going to, you know, freaking jump the canyon. Using anti-gravity. They're going to thrust up. Yeah.

And then float over the canyon. Yeah. But then somehow gravity comes back. And, you know, things go sideways. Not surprising. And then the Russian guy goes outside and he's like trying to fix the fuel thing. Now he's just hanging on to the back of it as they're like hurtling through the canyon. Yes, by like a rope.

Yeah. 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. Yeah. They make it. All of this is going on while Steve Bouchemmy's character finds the Gatlin gun on his armadillo,

starts firing it, and I guess they find out he has space dementia. Yes, I did a mini deep dive on. This was the part that I needed to pause the movie. I wrote down space dementia question mark and then Google, okay. So it's a hypothetical, it's a movie trope based on a real thing NASA was concerned about in the 1950s called space madness. So in the 1950s, 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 most Hollywood and science fiction movies. And this movie was the second time, the first time it was ever referenced, was in a 1991 episode of Renan Stumpy.

Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. Well, he's gone mad and he's shooting this gun. That's not the only problem, though. No. Now the ground is cracking. Things are exploding.

Oh, yeah, like these horrible gases are coming up. And they lose Macs, the guy that was getting the tattoo earlier. Yeah. And their whole armadillo rig. Yeah. So now that's it. They can't drill anymore. Everyone is so dejected.

They're so sad. They can't complete the mission. Yeah. Back on Earth, they announced to everyone that the drilling was unsuccessful. They make an announcement to the world. Yeah. Why are they telling people? I don't know, but in slow motion, everyone starts preparing for the end of life as we know it.

Yeah. Meanwhile, part of the asteroid hits Paris and now most of Paris is gone too. Yeah. So then they're like, should we evacuate these guys who are left? Get them up. To go where? Where are they evacuated to? Exactly.

To live in space for a little bit longer, Earth is going to cease to exist in one hour. Yeah. But Liv Tyler is like super pissed. She's screaming at Billy Bob Thornton. Why won't you let them evacuate? To where, Liv Tyler? I know. She's got some space dementia too.

I guess so, you guys, I can't believe it. I cried three times in this movie. Were you on a plane? No. Did you have altitude thing? No. No, I often do cry on movies. Me too.

That's why I said because I cry when I watch movies on the plane. Yeah. Here's the moment. These guys. They're stuck on this asteroid. It's hurtling toward Earth. They've lost their armadillo. And up on this, like, range, you see the lights from Ben Affleck's armadillo.

You cried? Lady, you cried at that? And 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? Oh, that's so great.

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. I don't know. They didn't let anyone know. 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. 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 it was, you know, sweet. He was, he's a regular, sort of regular guy, guys guy, and just, I had a lot of fun.

He was really, really nice, you know. Well, that's nice. I know. Well, they do reunite. They've taped up Steve Bouchem, by the way. They've taped him to a chair. Yeah, they can't risk him around, you know, weapons. They start drilling again.

They're going to have to go another 250 feet in one hour, and they've hit a rough spot. Yeah. This is just like the training exercise. It is. And all of a sudden, AJ's like, you've got to trust me, Harry.

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 got to 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. Yeah.

So they pushed through it. And he was right. His gut was right, lady. His gut was right. He's oiled up. He's got a great set of teeth. And his gut is right.

And his gut is right. Yeah. 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. Well. They did it. They drilled the hole. They did it.

They have to put the nuclear bomb in. But what they find out is remember when the asteroid started coming apart and there was all that mayhem? They find out that the bomb remote detonated. is broken. 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. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. They're going to have to draw straws. Well, first, Bruce Willis says he'll do it. Yeah. And then they're like, no way, no way. His men won't let him be the one. Also, why? Why? Why can't he be the one? I don't know. I don't

volunteered. But now everybody's volunteering, except for AJ. A.J. A. does not volunteer. No. And Steve Bouchimri really wants it. He's like, guys, I got it. this. I know. Well, you can't let crazy guy do it. No. So I agree with that. Yeah. So they agree to draw straws and AJ gets the short straw. Yeah. So Bruce Willis says, I'll take AJ down. I'll get him set up. And when they get down there, he sabotages AJ's space suit. Yeah, he like steps out of the airlock and then shuts him in or something. I didn't understand this. He does something to a spacesuit that compromises it. Mm-hmm.

And then as AJ's like gasping for air, he shoves him back into the little elevator thing that goes to the ship. And it's airlocked. Yeah. And Bruce is on the other side of it outside on the asteroid. And Bruce is saying, take care of my little girl. Yeah. I cried again. I cried here as well.

Yeah. I cried. Yeah. Second time. Okay. I have an audio clip of Ben Affleck talking about shooting this scene. because he was really sick. Oh, yes, yes.

Let's hear it. When we shot that scene, I had food poisoning. And 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 there. I was literally, it's the only times I've got me in my life vomiting between takes. They had a garbage can. And I probably made the scene better.

I mean, his performance is really good in that. I cried. I didn't cry, but I was like, I felt gutted. I cried. And 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's character here he's able to. He's able to call Houston.

Somehow he gets enough communication. In his suit. Somehow to call and tell him. his daughter, he's not coming home. But he's in his space suit, but on the screen, he's not in a suit. Is that right? I didn't notice that. But it's very sad.

It's very sad. And you know what I thought? He says to her, you know, you get married, you're going to spend your life with AJ. I thought, my God, these two can never get divorced. I know. I thought that too. I thought that too. I'm like, you better stick it out.

You can never break up with this guy. Your dad gave his life so you could marry him. Yes. Well, guess what? It's not the end of the problems. Now, step seven is take off from the asteroid. Yeah. And the engines won't start. No. 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 lift off. Yeah. But the meteor is exploding randomly again. But you guys, they make it. 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, then it's going to split in half, but the two halves are still going to hit the earth. Yeah, there was this line they had to like detonate before they crossed this line. But he presses it. He had only 20 seconds left, but he presses 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. There's no way. When you see the special effect, it's sent like a ginormous sonic wave through space. It just would have obliterated anything.

The space shuttle. Yeah. But they make it. It's okay. We have cheers at Houston and a row. around the world, a lot of slow motion celebration. Yeah. Again, dressed like they live on a prairie in the 1800s. Grace knows her dad is gone and Billy Bob Thornton hugs her. 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, you know, they get off the space shuttle. There's lots of hugging and like you said, right? It's in slow motion. Grace and AJ's slow-motion run to each other. Chick's son is there to greet him with a slow-motion run.

Yeah. And I cried at that. Yeah. I cried at the fact that this dad was going to be back in his son's life. Yeah. Got me. Yeah. And AJ gives Billy Bob's character the shuttle patch.

Yes. 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 shake the hand. of the daughter of the man who saved the world. It's very moving. You know, 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. It was a nice change for me working with an ensemble cast like we had in Armageddon, all really funny guys. My strongest memory of now is how much we laughed every day and just try to keep cracking each other up. So it sounds like they had a really good time. This movie,

It has a tag over the credits. It does. AJ and Grace get married. I loved that. It was lovely. It made me happy. And then the movie's over. And that's it.

That's it. You did it. Two hours and 31 minutes. You have one note. Yeah. 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.

Yeah. And maybe telescope guy and his wife, Doddy hugging or something. Yeah. Just some resolution on those characters that we set up in the cold open of this movie. Oh, yeah. I agree. I would love to have seen the dog with like a Godzilla toy in his mouth shaking it. Something.

And maybe Doddy flipping off her husband, but like with a smile. Yeah. Like, F you, we did it. Yeah. If I had been in the room. Yeah. I would have given that note. Yeah.

I would. No. Otherwise, otherwise. Don't change anything. Don't change a thing. Definitely keeping the leaving on a jet plate sequence. Sam, final thoughts? I love it. It's not good. I love it. That's a great quote. It's not good, but I love it. That's how I feel. Yeah. I'm excited to know that they had a good time, you know? And I really look forward to the road trip you and I take where we listen. to the DVD commentary. Can I add something real quick? Yeah. Yes.

I really admire all of your work breaking down this movie, your attention to detail. I found it so exhausting in the way you really got in there, took the whole thing seriously, looked into everything. I'm in awe. Well done. Oh, thanks, Matt. Thank you, Matt. We love a movie breakdown, guys.

If there's another one you think we got to tackle, let us know. Write to us over at OfficeLadies.com in our general mail folder. And we'll see you next week. See you then. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. Our senior producer is Matt Beagle and our audio engineer is Sam Kiefer. Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis.

Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz. Our theme song is Ruppertree by Creed Bratton.