Unclear and Present Danger - Armageddon

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

On this week’s episode of the pod, Jamelle and John cover Michael Bay's 1998 asteroid movie Armageddon — the one where oil drillers, not astronauts, are sent to save the world. They discuss why it reads as the most right-wing film they've covered: a movie that valorizes blue-collar white masculinity and treats scientists and bureaucrats as obstacles, an opening sequence that prefigures 9/11, and a worldview that anticipates George W. Bush–era conservatism. Also covered: the Michael Bay auteur-versus-slop debate, "space dementia," the movie's cynicism about government, and how impossible the physics actually is. Plus listener feedback and a look at what's ahead.Next on the main feed (new episodes every two weeks): the other 1998 asteroid movie, Mimi Leder's Deep Impact, with Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Morgan Freeman, and Vanessa Redgrave.Support the show at patreon.com/unclearpod — $5/month for roughly six episodes a month, including a weekly politics show and discussions of the political and military thrillers of the Cold War. You can reach us for feedback at: [e-mail].

Life is short. I love you. Love is forever. Will you marry me? But you never know what the future holds. Till it hits. A meteor shower. This new one you're tracking.

How big? It's what we call a global killer. Nothing would survive, not even bacteria. The United States government just asked us to see. This government just asked us to save the world. Anybody want to say no? Do you think we'll get hazard pay out of this? United States astronauts trained for years.

You have 12 days. You stick that in me, I'm gonna stab you in the heart with it. On July 1st, tell me you've never let anybody down before. I never quit yet. How's that? Earth's darkest day. Hey feeling. Good. Considering I've never been this scared in my entire life.

Will be man's finest hour. Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Will Patton, and Steve Busemi. Whoa, this is so much fun, it's freaky.

All the time in the world. We have 18 minutes to zero barrier. He's all they've got. We all got to die, right? I'm like, I guess to do a saving the world. Hello and welcome to Uncleared and Present Danger, the podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade.

My name's Jamal Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. My name is John Gans. I write the Substack Newsletter on Popular Front. I'm the author of the book When the Clock Broke. And I can now announce that I've begun work on a new book called Crackpot Empire, Lyndon Lerush, and the Conquest of America. I'm very excited about this.

As someone who was once accosted by Lerner, Lerush sites in Washington, D.C., this excites me. But also, it feels like a natural progression from when the clock broke, just sort of like. Yeah. Yeah. There's a way to keep thematically similar without really doing a sequel. It's a very strange story. It was a very strange guy, very strange movement.

And they had ended up in a lot of weird places. And I'm very excited. I mean, I've already gotten a lot of people who are members of Lerush's organization, reach out to me and want to talk. So I think I already am a little overwhelmed. by the reception I'm getting, which is great, but I'm going to have to do a lot of interviews. Yeah, I mean, I think that's really exciting. I mean, there aren't, as far as I know, there really isn't any work of kind of like either

history or like ethnography or anything about the LaRushite movement. And so this might actually, I mean, this, between the interviews and the archival research, this could be sort of like a real like addition, right, to sort of like our knowledge of American politics in a way that kind of hasn't been done before. So I'm very excited. Yeah, me too. I'm really hoping. There's one book. It's old. It's almost 40 years old. It's a little polemical. And, you know, obviously I have a take on these people. But I'm really hoping that this is going to be like, I know, a work of scholarship as well. So I'm excited about it, too. So, yeah. Okay. Well, that's what I got going on.

On this week's episode of the podcast, for you're not discussing England and LaRue, We are talking the 1998 to Michael Bay action picture. Armageddon, a movie I saw in theaters. I remember this very distinctly. I was at summer camp. I was on base. I grew up basically on a military base. Long time listeners know this.

New listeners may not know this. And for on base summer camp, we went to see Armageddon. And I have a distinct memory of seeing that movie in this. movie theaters. During my Michael Bay, like I said, a screenplay by Jonathan Hensley and J.J. Abrams. Adaptation.

Adaptation. Of what? Yeah, that's true. The book, Armageddon the novel by Tolstoy. Adaptation of the of the apocalypse of St. John. Yeah, right.

I don't know what this is an adaptation of, but it says adaptation by Tony Gilroy. You know what? It may be that they work, that's what they're called, did they like work on the script after, they might have worked on a rewrite.

Yeah, rewritered the script. If the script was Hensley and Abrams, and they might have rewritten it. So Tony Gilroy, past and hopefully future guests for this podcast. Yeah.

And Shane Salerno did the adaptation. And the story is by Robert Roy Poole. So I, All this is telling me is that a lot of people worked on this movie. Yeah, and probably it was passed around for a lot of different production. Yeah. Cinematography by John Schwartzman, who I'm looking at his background real quick.

Kind of just like a guy who works, you know. A lot of blockbusters, a lot of Hollywood stuff. He's worked with Michael Bay just a couple times on Armageddon. and then Michael's follow-up, Pearl Harbor, which we will do on this podcast, a movie I've never seen, but I hear it's terrible. It's terrible. Oh, my God, all right.

I guess we gotta do it. It's so bad. I saw it in theaters. It's so bad. He also worked with Bay on the Rock. So Armageddon stars, it's just about everyone. This is very much a Bruce Willis picture. He is top of the list.

Shares Bruce Willis, Billy Bob, Thornton, live Tyler, Ben Affleck, Will Patton, Peter, Stormare, Keith David, Steve Boshemi. And then you'll also see in this movie Owen Wilson, Michael Clark Duncan. Who else? But William Fichter, who has one of my favorite lines in this whole movie. He has space dementia. Eddie Griffin shows up as a bike messenger randomly. You got, who else?

Udo Kier as a random psychologist. A lot of people, a lot of people in this movie. Shawnee Smith, who degenerates will recognize from the Saul franchise, and I include myself in that number. And Jason Isaacs also shows up. This is a massive cast, a lot of people in it. And I think it's part of the fun of the movie. a very quick plot synopsis of Armageddon.

A meteor shower destroys the space shuttle Atlantis and bombarded cities, including New York, after which NASA discovers a Texas-sized asteroid which will hit Earth in 18 days ending all life. NASA comes up with a plan. They're going to drill into the surface of the asteroid and detonated nuclear bomb to split it so that both halves miss Earth. They recruit the oil driller, Harry Stamper, and Stamper. and Stamper brings his entire crew, including A.J. Frost, his Benapult's character, who is dating Harry's daughter, Grace. This is Luke Tyler's character. After two weeks of astronaut training, two shuttles launch. They refuel at a Russian space station, which is destroyed in an accident. They crash on the asteroids, or one of the shuttle's crashes, independence, killing most of the crew. And then the other shuttle lands. And then, they are in a race against time to drill a hole into the middle of the asteroid in which they

will deposit a nuclear device to blow it up. They managed to do it when the independence team, including Ben Affleck, shows up to provide additional equipment. They drill the hole, turns out the detonator for the nuclear bomb is damaged and someone needs to stay behind and detonate it. AJ draws the short straw, but Harry takes his place, sacrificing himself. to detonate the bomb just before the asteroid reaches the zero barrier, the point at which it will hit Earth, and they save Earth, and the survivors return home. I skipped a lot. There's a lot that goes on in this movie, but that's basically what happens. Critical reception, oh, first, before I get in the critical reception, the tagline for Armageddon was Earth. It was fun while it lasted.

And I suppose there were other taglines as well, but that was the main one. The critical reception for this film was not great. Roger Ebert gave it one star and called it one of the worst films of 98, quote, an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense, and the human desire to be entertained. Janet Madison of the New York Times called it, quote, jingoistic, overblown. and Tom McCarthy, a variety likened the editing in the film to a machine gun stuck in the firing position for two and a half hours. On the other hand, quite famously, the Criterion Collection released, the director's cut of this film. Yeah, what is up with that?

I never understood that. Well, there's, I mean, this is actually, I wouldn't say this is divisive, but this is like a running argument among film critics, which is like, what is Michael Bay? is he just sort of like a meathead dumbass? Yes. Or is he an autore? No. Or is he both? My view is that he's both.

Well, he has a style, I guess. Is that the only thing you need to be an auture is to have an identifiable style? I think he has an identifiable style and point of view. But I think criterion is on the Michael Bay is an autore side. And so they have a director's cut, a director's cut, which includes a famous director's commentary with Ben Affleck and Mike. That's very good. So critics were very mixed on this film, but audiences were not.

This movie cost $140 million. It grossed $554 million. It was a big box office smash in a year of box office smash. It's 98 was a good year for the movies. So it had the third highest, fourth, July opening weekend at the time behind two Bull Smith vehicles, Men in Black Independence Day. It held the record for four months, but that was eventually surpassed by the Waterboy in November. It grossed $200 million in the U.S. and Canada, $352 million worldwide.

And it was the highest grossing film of 1998 worldwide and the second highest grossing film of the year in the United States, just behind saving private Ryan. Yeah, this was a big hit. Armageddon was released into theaters on July 1st, 1998. So let's check out the New York Times for that day. Here's one what's in our wheelhouse. McVeigh letters before blast show the depth of his anger. previously undisclosed letters by Timothy J. McVeigh to his younger sister before the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City reveal him as a deeply frustrated at one point suicidal over his inability to confide the extent of his own anti-government activities to his family.

Sort of a weird construction, but I guess we'll find out what they mean. Mr. McVeigh's letters along with conversation in his father in house in upstate New York revealed so much anger and alienation that once. the bomb exploded on April 19, 1995, eventually killing 168 people, members of his family suspected him almost immediately, they later told the Farad O' Bureau of Investigation. Mr. McVeigh's younger sister, Jennifer McVeigh, told investigators she had an eerie feeling that he was involved. His father, William McVe, said he had worried that his son would do something to get himself in serious trouble, and added that his former wife, Mr. McVeigh's mother thought her son

did the bombing. In a letter to Jennifer McVeigh dated October 20th, 1993, Mr. McVeigh said he was tormented by not being able to tell it all about his lawless behavior and anti-government attitude. He did not elaborate. At one point, he had gone to the house of their grandfather, who has since died and considered killing himself there. I have an urgent need for someone in the family to understand me. I will tell you and only you. Copies of the letters and summaries of interviews by investigators were obtained by the New York Times. They provide new insights into Mr. McVefei, who committed the deadliest act of terrorism in the United States soil.

Materials never presented as trial last year. Interviews conducted by the FBI after the bombing show that members of the McVeigh family differed in their beliefs about what sparked the hatred, but they agreed that it began before the federal raid that ended with the deaths of 80 people at the Branch Dividian Complex near Waco, Texas, an event that clearly aggravated Mr. McVeigham. Yeah, I mean, you know, the fact of the matter is, is McVeigh was already kind of into white nationalist and extreme ideology. And that's why he went to observe Waco to begin with.

And that idea that, you know, O Waco is what pushed him over the edge is sort of slightly propagandistic because it's meant to imply that, you know, he was just a normal citizen. And then he was so upset by this Waco thing that he went and bombed a federal building. but that's not exactly what happened. They did a similar, you know, like, they did a similar kind of saint,

not sane washing, but, but what's the word? I guess you just say whitewashing of, of, um, of Ruby Ridge guy, uh,

whose name I should absolutely know, considering I wrote a book about him, or there's a whole chapter of my book about him. Um, God damn it. Randy Weaver. Randy Weaver. Um,

I watched even a PBS documentary about Randy Reaver where they basically don't, they, take his word for it that he wasn't really a neo-Nazi and he was just I was just you know wanted to live and be left alone and it's just beggars belief. Yeah, why would

you take you? Why would you take it? I mean, I don't think that what happened to him and his family was right but you know in order to tell the truth about the thing you got to say what he was doing out there. We should we should for

the Patreon because it's It's going to be a while before we get to it on the main feed. We should do the movie The Order. Oh, yeah, we should. Yeah, we should do that. We should do the order and we should do talk radio. Yeah, good idea. Great, great combination.

Hong Kong surprise, politics, steady, but economy falters. His hometown is marking the first anniversary of its return to China on July 1st, but Lunewe Ting is in no mood to say. celebrate. Mr. Loon has spent the year without a job. On a recent sauna like afternoon in the teamy neighborhood of Monkok, he stood before government labor office fruitlessly searching a bulletin board for job listings. When the British were here, there was a lot of business in Hong Kong, said Mr. Loon, a 51-year-old merchant seaman whose deeply lined face, speaks about a lifetime at sea, and a worrisome year as the unemployed father of four. When the British

left the businesses left with them. Of course, Britain's exit from Hong Kong has little to do with the economic downturn of its former colony, which sits at the crossroads of a becom to Asia and has suffered along with its neighbors. But Mr. Lund speaks for many Hong Kong people who are being ravaged by rising unemployment at 20% drop in the stock market and a 40% decline in the property market. For this embittered, embattled outpost of commerce, celebrating the passage of a year under Chinese rule seems almost behind the point. Besides the point. Yeah, so in 1997,

Hong Kong returns to Chinese control under the one country, two systems agreement. Economically and politically, it stays more or less the same for that time, but there was a massive, the Asian Tigers collapsed in 1997. There was kind of a recession all across East Asian, in economies that had been running very hot up until that point. President sees risks to growth for China.

President Clinton told American business leaders in Shanghai that corruption, environmental neglect, weak financial regulation, that's pretty funny. And restrictive trade practices threaten China's growth and full entry to the globally economic system. In address to the American Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Clinton, so the dynamic growth of the last 20th year had changed the lives of Chinese citizens, bring more opportunities. but also breaking the system of guaranteed lifetime employee as payrolls that government-owned enterprises are slashed. China's economy is still burden with complicated and overlapping barriers, Mr. Clinton said.

He specifically cited the problems of inefficient state monopolies, weak legal and regulatory systems, wasteful and polluting energy patterns, corruption, closed markets, and poor supervision of the nation's banks. He added that he hoped that Beijing would make the difficult decisions needed to bring China into the World Trade Organization on the same terms that govern the other members of the global trading body. Well, they really showed him, huh? I mean, I think, you know, China did make a lot of institutional changes and improvements in the way the economy worked. But, you know, it's really funny to read these kind of condescending statements of American politicians

and statesmen towards China about what China really needs to do. And now China is, you know, an absolute behemoth in the world economy and perhaps overtaking the United States. I'm always skeptical of that though. I mean, not getting to get into China policy, but the extent to what should of China's dealing with its own sort of like demographic issue. I mean, like China has its own from, I feel often from the American perspective, it seems like China's unstoppable, but it faces its own serious sort of internal economic

and demographic issues. And it has a quite like brittle political system. She has also built a cult personality. that does not want to challenge him on things. Yeah. And my understanding is that that has actually made it, like, quite difficult for the Chinese state to respond to some of its own challenges. So there's not to say that, like, we could, the United States is clearly fucking things

up seriously, kind of engaging in sort of like hege him on suicide. So we, China could come out ahead just by default. but it's not hard to imagine an alternative world in which the U.S. does kind of reorient itself and China can't necessarily work past its own challenges. I mean, for sure. The country has, I mean, governing a country of that size and has deep issues. And, you know, they've already run into problems managing the economy. But the fact of the matter is, I mean,

you know, the productivity of their economy and creating manufactured goods, which are extremely high quality. Like, you know, what's happened in the United States since the industrialization is serious because, like, you know, we have lost the know-how, the concrete knowledge of how to do complex manufacturing. That knowledge was, it used to be that, you know, people come and visit American plants to learn how, you know, to manufacture things. now and, you know, we had a lot of kind of embedded knowledge that way. And since the closures of

those plants, the people who knew how to do those things are gone. And the, the institutional knowledge is gone. So, and yeah, I mean, China obviously overproduces. It creates too much housing. It does all these things. But, I mean, if you look at Chinese city and how they're easy to make all this high-tech transit, you know, it does make us look pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say like, yeah, I don't think that China's like an invincible. They have their own problems. But like, I do think that the U.S. has really neglected just remembering how to build things properly.

And as a result, we have a very bad infrastructure in this country. And they have the advantage and the disadvantage of a very tightly controlled directed economy. So the state can be like, all right, we're going to build a bunch of shit. shit basically and direct people do that. We don't have that luxury. So yeah, I hear you, but I just really think like at this point, especially with this leadership and what they're doing, China looks much stronger. So, but, you know, they again, they could run into serious problems. Anything else? Yes, one thing. Birth rate falls to 40-year low among unwed black women. education and contraception are seen as crucial.

The birth rate for unmarried black women long a focal point in the debate over the causes of poverty among African Americans has reached the lowest point in 40 years, federal health officials said today. According to figures compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, there were 74.4 births per 100 per 1,000, sorry, unmarried black women in 1996. The last year for its complete data are available. That rate is significantly below the peak of 90.7 per 1,000 unmarried black women. Black women reached in 1989. Today's report showed that the out-of-wedlock birth rate has been dropping for all age groups of black women. Demographers and health officials said that some of the possible reasons an increase in

contraceptive use, sex education, and in efforts by some community groups to encourage abstention should allow the trend to continue. Now, a few thoughts. A few thoughts here. The first is that the out-of-wedlock burst among black women was like a bit of a political obsession in the 1990s, I think exemplified by welfare reform, which was framed primarily as an effort to stop giving handouts to black women with too many children, as illustrated famously by the cover of the New Republic, I believe in a 96 cover.

You can look it up. It's very, it's an infamous cover. I believe this is the Andrew Sullivan era, but. Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably, yeah, yeah. So point number one, just wanted to make that observation. The second thing is it's just funny to me that out of wedlock births were seen as the major cause of poverty among black families. It kind of gave rise.

I mean, first of all, you have the infamous, you're infamous a bunch of here, the Moynihan Report from, 67, which kind of is the genesis of a lot of the elite obsession with this. But the, the, sort of 10 years ago, what was in Fogam and conservative social policy types, the marriage, a sequence of events, you graduate high school, you get married, then you get children. That comes out of all of this concern with out of wedlock births. I told you this, John, but I was in an event not long ago where I overheard a guy who works for the Manhattan Institute, say something to be effective.

One of the things that got him interested in politics was concerned over the black family. This guy, I should note, was not black. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it was odd. I think I know who it was. I'm not going to say his name out loud. We can talk about it later. Okay, later. But this sort of concern with the black family is often a euphemism for out of wed like

Byrds, despite the fact that I think a pretty, if you just a straightforward reading of American history would strongly suggest that the reason for higher poverty rates among black Americans has actually like relatively little to do with out of wed like burst and much more to do with deindustrialization and like segregation, right? Like deindustrialization destroys the economic base for black communities, which are already segregated in the concentration of segregation and poverty from deindustrialization. is kind of like a social killer. Like it fucks things up and you can look around the world and find similar conditions

and you get similar results. If you look in the United States in white communities that have both have no economic base and also are segregated from opportunity, you have many of the same social ills. And it's noteworthy that in the past 20 years, there's been much more attention to that. but no attempt to say, oh, these are two groups of people kind of experiencing the same equivalent set of social conditions with the same

set of results. Well, except if you're, you're, what's his face? Charles Murray? J.D. Vance. Oh, J.D. Vance. Yeah. They both are lazy. That's this whole fucking book.

People forget is just shitting on his hillbilly relatives. But that's the Charles Murray. Yeah, it's a Charles Murray, yeah. The Charles Murray argument is, oh, no, whites are becoming an underclass too, like the blacks, right? Right. So that's their fault. But I think, I think the structural explanation does way more to explain than out-of-wedlocked birds.

Yeah. For sure. It just, I've always found it really unconvincing. And the one consequence of the relentless focus on out-of-wed-like birds is this idea that, like, every single black family like lacks a father. John, you would not believe how many people when they try to insult me or like, or at least I know who my dad is. And it's like, I know what my dad is too.

I live with him for 18 years. I see him multiple times a year and I talk to him every week. He lives with my mother. And like I myself, you know, I, I big surprise. I grew up around a lot of black people. And I actually don't know anyone from when I grew up who didn't live in a two parent household. Like I don't, I don't, that wasn't my experience. Um, and I, I think there are, there are many, many, many black people who have that experience as well. So, um, it's funny with the cultural kind of

stereotypes that come out of this, uh, is, is, uh, is interesting to me. The last thing, I'm running long, but the last thing I'll say is, uh, we're kind of, it's big fertility crisis rhetoric these days. And, you know, you have Republican policymakers trying to encourage teen pregnancies at this point, but not among black, not among black teens. No. They don't want the black babies. They want, they want the white ones. Yeah, they didn't want teen pregnancies for so long. And now they want teen pregnancies. They got to make up their mind. Got to make up their mind. Yeah. And then they're like, oh, kids aren't, kids aren't going. They were so scared. Kids aren't going out and doing drugs and drinking anymore.

They're upset about that now. I thought this is what you wanted. Anyway. Now, Armageddon. John, you've seen this before, right? Yeah. I saw this in the theaters, and I don't think I've seen it since, honestly. I obviously, like this movie was like a big event.

It was a huge movie. Had the song, the Aerosmith song. You know, Liv Tyler is Stephen Tyler's daughter. She was a giant star. That fact was huge in the 90s. So, yeah, I've seen it. And I hadn't seen it since. I always got a kick out of the fact that it was a Criterion movie.

I did watch clips, many clips of Ben Affleck's very funny commentary on the movie, talking about what it was like to work with Michael Bay. And, yeah, watching the movie again, I was just like, okay, this is obviously better from like a technical standpoint. and from a like, okay, this is a more entertaining, compelling movie. It's not like a drag to watch like Godzilla. But I felt like dumber. Like I felt like this movie was like the killing brain cells. And from the beginning, there's something about the editing.

It was like that comment about the editing of the movie, like the machine gun. It was like something about the editing. I didn't even know how to describe it. It moves in such a way that's almost like that feels. like a stupid person's understanding of the world. I realize that that's a little inarticulate, but it's just like, it's just this like very, it works in the same way of the script where it's these kind of like quips that don't quite land. It's just like all of these like quick cuts that are supposed to be like impressive and you're just like, oh God, man. I would say on the whole,

what I was really, okay, there was a lot of other disaster movies at this time. So there was Deep Impact was the same year. You know, there's Independence Days not too long before this. There's all these fantasies about the world being destroyed, which become to be really interesting when you think about 9-11 isn't that far away. This movie is the most Republican movie we watched in a while. It's like this movie is spiritually libertarian and Republican. And this movie, I would say, the real object that was heading towards Earth, which nobody knew

at the time, was I think this movie. In many ways, presages is a preview of the mentality that brought George W. Bush to the president. This is a George W. Bush-ass movie before George W. Bush. And I will describe why I think that. And it just kind of has this combination of libertarian, of kind of stupid libertarianism and, you know, belief in America. belief in a kind of populism, although it's very different from contemporary populism. Anyway, I just thought this is a very right-wing movie for a lot of reasons. What do you think? So before getting into the, well, yeah, okay, a couple of things.

Yes, this is a very right-wing, right-wing movie in its sort of like racial humor such that it is. And in the objects of its contempt, right, in who it valorizes, this is 100% a right-wing movie. I mean, the world is saved by, you know, men who represent kind of like the most caricatured version of blue-collar white masculinity imaginable. and at every turn, they are shown to be superior in their, in their courage, in their intuition, and everything to scientists, to bureaucrats, to the extent that there is a villain in the film beyond the asteroid, which is very funny, the asteroid gets kind of anthropomorphized as the movie goes on. but Keith David's character is the one who's pressing to end the mission and just detonate the nuclear weapon. Keith David, famous black actor.

And to sort of like the, to the extent that there is an antagonist in this film, it is Keith David's sort of black general, you know, person of authority. You could imagine Pete Hague Seth sort of nodding in affirmation when Keith David's character is proven wrong. it's interesting to me that you described this as a George Saby Bush movie, and I really want to hear about that because my, you know, the first 15 minutes of this film, which first show the asteroids destroying a shuttle and then show an initial asteroid strike on New York City. Yeah. I was like, that's 9-11. Yeah, exactly. That three years prior, you know, three years and some change prior to actual 9-11, that whole sequence was just sort of like that's that. I remember watching that on television on September 11th, you know, like that was 9-11.

And there's even a brief moment where a character, a big character says, we're under attack by Saddam Hussein. Like it's very, which is what people were saying on 9-11. Yeah. Like that was a thing that was in the air infamously. I'll use the word again. But I was just so struck by how eerily that's, I mean, it was so, it was so, evocative of 9-11 that I almost had a double take about when the movie was made.

Yeah. No, I mean, this is the weird thing. Like, there is something that we've seen this kind of stuff before where these movies almost seem to be for predicting, prophesizing, or just for imagining, or there's some kind of attractor of the future. And probably, you know, what the more, you know, empirical scientific explanation is actually these movies may have influenced, you know, the plans for these terrorist attacks because of how spectacular they looked. But there's definitely some weird fantasizing in the United States about these kinds of disasters coming, which probably made it all the more traumatic when it actually did happen because we had kind of a script in our mind about how it would go. But yeah, okay, the reason why I think it's George W. Bush movie is just the particular kind of conservative. in the movie. It's like, yeah, you know, like, these, these downhome guys and they're all, they're all like cowboys or, you know, different kinds of sort of blue collar guys. And they're,

they, they don't like the science, like a lot of the movies from this period that are disaster movies or like, you know, have some, it's a scientist or a person who's kind of like a, I don't know, a professional managerial class person who's like the hero and he's got to like win out over dumb-ass military people who won't listen to him. This movie's class politics are way different. It's all these kind of like, we're oil drillers and we know what we're doing. We're practical. Yeah, the movie begins with him like hitting golf balls at Greenpeace protesters who are protesting as oil rig. So it's just like, yeah, extractive industry, oil, Texas, cowboys, showing up the the, hoity-toity scientists. And it was just felt, but,

It's not Trumpian populism yet because it's still like, oh, well, America has a global role. It's very like, it's this kind of neocon coalition where it's like America is still like the last best hope of earth. We're still in cooperation with other countries. We're trying to save the world kind of linked to this kind of stupid jingoism, stupid, stupid. kind of right wing populism about like, oh, well, you know, the bureaucrats and the, you know, that, that feels very Bush era to me. Like, there was this, there was this anti-elitism. And it was like, oh, if you think that Bush is an idiot because the way you talk, he talks, like, you're dumb. I mean, you're a liberal, like, latte-sipping elite. It just felt very of that era,

of that kind of rhetoric. And, you know, yes. I just like I want to talk about some of my issues with the movie before we return to this actually. He begins the movie. He's shooting a shotgun at the fucking, at, he's shooting a shotgun at Ben Affleck because he catches him in bed with his daughter, Bruce Willis, by the way.

What is he shooting at? He's like shooting on an oil rig and he's shooting like buckshot at him or like bird shot? Like he's destroying him. Like he's, that's extremely dangerous. And like he could have any of those, even if you're not aiming directly to somebody with a shotgun,

like you can, easily kill somebody. Like what what is that that scene? I was like this is insane dude like he's gonna fucking like anybody who fires a shotgun in somebody unless it's bird shot from a very long distance you could easily kill him and and you're firing a firearm on an oil rig and just blowing open things. That just struck me as absurd immediately. And it was like this movie's addiction to addiction to cliches. So it's like oh yeah like the farmer like catches it. So the boy in the bed with his daughter and he chases after him a shotgun. Like there's just so many cliches like that that the audience is supposed to be like,

yo, like that's just like, you know, well, John, I was like, that's right. I mean,

no, on a gut level, it is very satisfying because it's almost like looney tunes or something like that. Where it's like, yeah, I've seen these tropes before and I kind of enjoy it and I know what to expect and I can know where the one liners are going. Like it's,

it's, goes down smooth. But yeah, I don't know. It was driving me. I was just like, oh, my God, I cannot believe this. And the very funny thing was during that Ben Affleck, and I could not stop thinking about this one thing. Ben Affleck said to him, like, he was like, he was like, wouldn't it be easier for the oil drillers to train the astronauts to become oil drillers than for the, for the astronauts to train the oil drillers to become astronauts? And Michael Bay told him to shut the fuck up. So like I just think it's just, yeah, it's hard to believe that they would send these like blue collar misfits into space to do the oil drilling because oil drilling was so special and so particular that only they could do it. It's just very flattering to the American audiences.

And I mean, I think you're going to strongly disagree with me here, but I have to say it. I don't think there's like everyone complains about AI slop. I don't think there's that much dividing a Michael Bay movie movie. from AI slop, frankly. I think it's almost as bad. And I get, yeah, he's kind of got a fun, recognizable style. But I would say Jerry Brockheimer and Michael Bay, to me, are like great artistic villains. I really don't.

I really don't like their movies. I really, and I was, I was, I felt this way in the, as, even at this young age, I was like, these are crap. And I wasn't like, reflexively anti-Hollywood. I just think that these were low. This was not a good period for Hollywood. You're more than willing to, I'm more than welcome to, you know, refute that, but that's my feeling about it. No, people, people, people have their taste.

The fun thing about this podcast is, in fact, that I totally love this slap. Yeah. Part of it is just sort of like, I'm a military brat. And like, there is something, you know, I grew up going to like Blue Angel shows. Like there's something like Michael Bay style in his whole thing. Yeah. Is like very kind of like, oh, yeah, I know. this. This is sort of like, this is like the milieu in which I was raised or in which I grew up.

But the, I mean, the other thing is I do find myself, like for me, what constitutes cinematic slop is a movie like triple X state of the nation, which is the sequel to the first triple X movie. You know, I haven't seen that one. Well, I have. Yeah. And it's just sort of, it's just like generic, right? There's nothing distinctive about it. It's sort of like it's not, it's neither so bad that you're like, man, you have to see

this movie. It's a terrible. Like Madam Webb last year, which is awful. But it's like awful in a captivating way. It's just kind of like bad, like a kind of a waste of time. And the thing I do appreciate about, appreciate about Bay, who is not some high artist, but who does have a perspective, does have a style. And I think that if you can vibe with sort of like the insane music video, kinetic, of his best work, which I think, I mean, Bay's best work, but like Armageddon, pain and gain,

and the recent ambulance are three movies that I think I find actually really compelling. And sort of like Bay, like Bay style really works, like the gonzo-ness of it really works. If you can kind of vibe with that, then like, I think you can have a lot of fun. In part because the guy can't direct actors. The scripts are often quite bad. And like, he relies a lot on tropes. Like the movies are vehicles for his visual stylings and not really anything more than that. Bad Boys is another good one.

And you can get like, there are times in his career where you get the sort of harmony, both sort of like the people on the screen who kind of get what he's doing and play to it and the stylings. I think it can be really compelling. I think this is an example of it being compelling. And the tropeiness of it, the kind of the fact that like these are all just stock characters. works for me. I also, I don't know. It's not difficult to watch. It's really, I think this is a very easy movie to watch.

I mentioned my favorite, I mean, it has a lot of just, like, stupid lines that I find really enjoyable. You know, why do you have a gun in space is very funny to me. I already mentioned William Figner is very dramatic. He has space dementia. I brought Steve Pisholny's character. It's just, I don't know. I fight, I like,

yeah, it's not a serious movie. You're right. It's very self-consciously sort of like a big dumb blockbuster. Yeah. And I, I kind of, I can vibe with it.

I understand people who don't, but I myself can really vibe with it. And I'll say, you know, this is actually really the second time I've watched this in the year, the first because I was at a hotel and just had nothing to do. And it was like on hotel TV. So I had it on while I was doing some work.

Um, but I say having what then I kind of is passively watching it. This time I was like actively watching it and trying to sort of like, you know, think about it. And to get back to your original points like this, this movie, this movie does like it, it captures some of the conservatism of the 90s, the political conservatism of the 90s. Um, and I think I think you're very right to say that I kind of. very much kind of presages sort of like Bush Republicanism, which is, right? Like is not this, it's not this inward facing, you know, retrenchment. It is this, we are the global leaders and have to act like it. I don't remember exactly what it's called. But Dick Cheney, I believe wrote a paper in the late 90s that's basically like lamenting the fact that it would take some kind of Pearl Harbor like disaster. to get Americans on board with a project of national greatness.

And this movie very much is sort of like, this is a project of national greatness. And what makes America great are our kind of like blue collar, roughneck, white men. Like, they're the ones who... Specifically who do oil in the oil industry. Right. Yeah. And the oil, yeah. I mean, this does feel like it was written by some like Houston oil tycoon.

These are very high paid blue collar jobs, which the movie is very keen to point out to you. Yes. Yes. Yeah, Steve Bishemi has a whole thing where he's like, yeah, I'm a genius, but I do this because it pays me a lot of money and I can travel a lot. And there's a line where Bruce Willis says, you know, when you have $5 million of your own money invested in this. Yeah, right. And it's like, yeah, these are these are like wealthy guys. I mean, if you transpose these guys to the president, these are all Trump voters.

Oh, for sure. This is like the MAGA base. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's like a, you know, you know, petty bourgeois businessmen who, you know, have like a specialized company, but not necessarily a college degree. A family business. What was I going to say? Oh, the funny, the most like libertarian, Republican. in like applause line in the movie is I never want to pay taxes ever again.

Like as in return for like his services, he's like demands no longer paying taxes. And I bet like the audiences were just supposed to like hoot and holler at that. Be like, yeah, no more time. So it's just like, yeah, I was like this movie. And it's it's not, it's a little different. I mean like, you know, Hollywood movies definitely skew a little bit liberal. And this movie was notably, I was like, yeah, this is something that Republicans. And the fact that it was so popular, it really does have this eerie, yeah, presaging of both Bush and 9-11.

It was just like, this movie kind of like encapsulated the aesthetic of the coming era and the themes or something of the coming era before it did. This massive disaster, this idea of national unity, there's certain types of politics. takes of the movie. And yeah, it's just, it's very difficult to understand unless you believe in something called like zeitgeist or something, how that actually happens. But, um, yeah, I mean, I guess I was just a little less entertained obviously by this than you. And I was just a little bit like, I also just find a lot of, like this movie, like this is two and a half hours long. Like it's a long. It is a long movie. It doesn't need to be this long, in my opinion. And I'm a little closer to Roger Ebert's view who said, what did he say about this? Critical. Roger Ebert said the movie is an assault on the eyes,

the ears of the brand common sense and the human desire to be entertained. I guess I would agree with everything except the last one because it is pretty entertaining, I suppose. Also, The scientific accuracy of this movie, which I was interested in. So the idea of the movie is they drill a hole in the asteroid and put an hydrogen bomb in it. And apparently they did actually study the idea of whether this was feasible in the telegraph. And it says a mathematical analysis of the situation that found that for Willis's approach to be effective, he would need to be in possession of an H-bomb a billion times stronger than the Soviet Union's big. Ivan, Yvonne, the biggest ever dead day on Earth, using estimates of the asteroid size.

The asteroid is enormous. It's supposed to be like the size of Texas in the movie, which is way bigger than it needs to be to destroy the earth, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I mean, an asteroid the size of like, I don't know, fucking Maine. A road island would do a pretty good job of like wrecking our shit. Using estimates of the asteroid size, density, and speed, a distance from Earth, based on information in the film, the postgraduate students from Lester University found that to split the asteroid in two, with both pieces clearing Earth, would require 800 trillion

terajoules of energy. In contrast, the total energy output of Big Ivan, that's the big Russian H-bomb, which was tested by the Soviet Union in 1961, was only 418,000 teradjoles. So, yeah, this would not have actually worked. Surprise, surprise. What was I going to go with that? Oh, I don't know. Wait, I had a follow-up point to this.

I just, that's gone. The other thing, this is like a minor note in the movie, but there's a, when they're being asked, when the oil dealers are being asked, what is this they want out of the government? One of them says the true story of how JFK died. And I just, you know, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the through lines of the movies we've done on this show is simply the kind of, mainstream conspiracyism, which is like part of like a larger cynicism about government and like what

what the oil drillers are just profoundly cynical about government. There is this scene where Bruce Willis's character almost freaks out. He's like, what do you mean you're telling us that you want us to do this? Don't you guys have like scientists, fancy people and the like to do this kind of thing? And the movie is like, no, they don't, right?

The movie is the movie's perspective on government is somebody that like, actually no, there is a there is all of the expertise and competence you assume must be there are not actually there. And although that is a very conservative coded message, it's not entirely wrong. So Lindsay Graham died on Sunday. Oh, yeah. We will discuss this on our politics show. But Lindsay Graham died on Sunday.

And there's a quote that was circulating from him that was in a Richard Fontaine piece in the Atlanta. about Graham as foreign policy guy. And this is, this is Graham speaking. Quote, when I was first elected to the House, I look for the they, they who run things, they who know how things really work, they who know what they are doing. But I couldn't find the day. I went to the Senate, but there's still no they. And then I started to get invited to the White House and to close-door briefings and to meetings with top officials. No they. What I finally realized is that there is know they. There's only we, and we usually don't know what the fuck we're doing. And that's true. That's not wrong. And I think that this movie very much like encapsulates that as kind of a

perspective. Where it becomes like right wing, it's sort of like, well, the people who we should trust are blue collar subtle the earth white men. They're the ones who have. They're the ones who have the knowledge necessary to do what needs to be done. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, it's that, that is extremely like, yeah, private sector and these and people who do things with their hands is very, very of a piece with that, with the, with the underlying politics of the movie. And, yeah, I think that I was going to say is, also, I have a question for you before I say this.

Yes. I didn't catch this. Is this, did they put, because I know that there was some editing thing. Did they edit out the scene where the actually the world trade centers are like in flames in this movie and in the version we watched? They might have because there is supposed to be a scene where an asteroid hits the world trade centers. There's there's a still I'm looking at that shows. Oh, yeah, it shows both of them like in flames and having hit. So I didn't catch it, but it might have been taken out.

Um, but yeah, okay, the other thing is, it's like, I could see if you're, if you just have these like images in your head and you kind of like, these things kind of feel familiar. I can understand how this almost feels this would contribute to the conspiracy theory, um, tendency of people around 9-11 because you're like, it's a little too, it's a little too on the nose. It feels a little too familiar, right? It's just like there's something that since it's so close to the fantasy, you're like this feels like, um, it was planned or it feels a little uncanny in that way. That was the only thing I was going to say. It sort of contributed to the sense of unrealness of the whole thing. Yeah, I mean, I think that's right.

And you mentioned earlier the way, you know, the potential that there's sort of a relationship between this Hollywood spectacle and the actual plots, right? That like the guys plotting this stuff, they watch Hollywood blockbusters too. And when 9-11 happened, it was like, it was metabolized as something out of Hollywood, like something out of a Jerry Brookheimer film. Or a Tom Clancy novel. There's a, there's a was a deep state, not deep state rising, dead of honor, which is a 94 Tom Clancy book in the Jack Ryan series where someone flies a plane into the White House. kills the president, Jack Ryan becomes president.

Isn't there Michael Crichton to? Wasn't there Michael Crichton? I don't know. Maybe I'm getting them confused, but yeah. But I mean, what you see throughout the 90s is first this fascination with the idea of like major landmarks

in the United States being destroyed, which I kind of attribute just as sort of, it's like the, it's a product of the feeling of invincibility. Right? So like, you know, we've won. this great conflict. We're not worried about nuclear war anymore. And you can like almost like

fantasize about what it would be like if, you know, if aliens destroyed the Empire State Building, like we've seen Independence Day or if asteroids destroyed Midtown Manhattan, which is what happens in in this movie. So I think there's some of that. But then also, I mean, I suppose, I don't know, there's like this, there is this throughout kind of like pulp, like literal Pulp Fiction in Hollywood, this kind of constant returning to terrorist attacks, destroying major American landmarks that obviously isn't, you know, I think we think realistically about this. It's all just a big coincidence. But it does feel like there's just something in the air that because of 9-11, we recognize

as being like significant. I will say as I look at the plot synopsis for Dead of Honor, I'm kind of surprised they haven't tried to, they haven't tried to adapt this one into a movie. Oh, this is the Japan is involved in this one. Right, right. Yeah, this is, I mean, this is very early 90s, Japan panic. Yeah. Japan is going to do 9-11. Japan, Japanese people are going to do 9-11.

That's funny fantasy. Right, right, right. So, I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to read, I'm going to, I'm going to read the concluding paragraph of this Wikipedia entry. And honestly, John, I might find an audiobook of this and listen to it because I'm fascinated by it. Okay. Throughout the book, President Durling faces another political crisis. Durling. Vice President Ed Kilty is forced to resign after being accused of rape.

Parenthetical, that wouldn't happen. With the crisis over, President Durling nominates Ryan as vice president for successfully handling the crisis. However, an embittered Japan Airlines pilot driven mad by the deaths of his son and brother during the conflict flies his Boeing 747 directly into the U.S. Capitol during each special joint session of Congress. the president, as well as nearly the entire Congress, Supreme Court, and many other members of the federal government are all killed in the attack. Did you ever watch the show Lone Survive?

Not Lone Survivor. Is it what I call it? No, Lone Survivor is a bad movie. Designated Survivor. There we go. This is a political, this is a television series from like 10 years ago about a terrorist attack destroying the Capitol during the same. of the union and keeper Sutherland, who's like the education, he's a secretary of housing and urban development, which white guy? Interesting. Because Trump always makes a black person.

Yeah, that's like the Department of Blacks. Yeah, it's Department of Blacks. He becomes president. And I believe the plotters were like crazed white supremacist. Anyway. Yeah. So that's just. It's in the air. I think Armageddon is very much an example of how this is all in the air. And it's like obviously like a particularly stupid example of it. But I think you're right to point out the kind of the way this very much seems to sort of be in line of like Bush conservatism. But I will say the way that the opening is very evocative of 9-11.

Okay. I think we've already set our piece on this movie. I feel like most of the people listening this have seen Armageddon, so I don't think there's any need to kind of do a final, you should watch it, you should not. I think it's been, I think it's very much a movie that is sort of like it is, it is in the pantheon of like prototypical 90s blockbusters, whatever you think of it. Interestingly enough, there has not been like a recent restoration or a 4K release, which I find, I do find interesting. but it's easy to find if you want to watch it. I have, obviously, I own a copy of it. And it's easy to view.

Thank you, as always, for listening. Please rate and review us wherever you find this, whether that's Apple Podcasts or whatever service, Spotify. The ratings and reviews really do help people find the show. You can reach out to us for feedback at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. That's unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. For this week in feedback, interestingly, all of our feedback is from our Patreon show. But I think we have one that is relevant for the main feed.

This is from Raphael. Hello, guys. I'm a great fan. And because you're going to talk about Ronin soon and I never come around to write in a timely manner after you release an episode, I thought I should write in early. Frankenheimer's 1998, Ronan is a great movie, but it also has two special links to East Germany, the former GDR. After reunification, a kind of soft purge of elites happened, which was welcomed by most East Germans at first. But eight years after the event, there was a notable need for persons the population could look up to and claim as their heroes. This was the time of Henry Mask, Jen's, I'm sorry, I cannot pronounce these German names, Jen's White Blog.

and Katerina Witt. All the three dominated their sports, had records for the ages, and brought specifically East German biographies into the international spotlight. They also all three had a pronounced image of cleanliness, gentlemanliness, and humble modesty. East Germans could point to them and say, we, not the West Germans, are bringing home the Olympic gold medals. We are the ones who bring fame and glory and respect to Germany as a whole. Katie Witt being in a Hollywood movie was a big thing at the time.

interestingly, she's playing a Russian. Stellan Scars' guard's identity, on the other hand, it's never really made clear. At least I don't think they ever say out loud what he is. But by all indications, it is obvious that he is playing a former Stasi agent. This is the other connection to East Germany. And I wonder how many former citizens of the GDR saw the movie for Katie Witt and were appalled by the Stasi goon and how many is secretly rooted for the compatriot.

Thank you, Raphael. We are getting to Roning quite. soon, although we might have to make a bit of a detour. I was adjusting the list a little bit. And we might be, we might be, we might be, we might have a couple episodes before Ronan, but Ronan is coming up, which we did at a live show, well, like two years ago. Yeah. But Ronan will be up on the podcast soon.

Thank you for the email. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that movie. I can't wait to watch her.

We'll discuss it. Yes. episodes come out every two weeks. And so our next episode is going to be the other asteroid movie of 1998, Deep Impact. Great. Directed by Mimi Letter. I've actually never seen that. Oh, really?

Yeah. Mimi Letter, Mimi Leader. I did not quite remember how you say her last name. But she directed a previous movie in our series, The Peacemaker. Also a movie that I like, we're not going to do for the show, but I enjoy. enjoy it. It's called Marks for Murder and stars Powers Booth and Billy D. Williams. And it's a, it's a TV movie, kind of a failed pilot, but I enjoy quite a bit. It has Michael Ironsided it too. Really listen. What I'm saying is if you just need to watch 90 minutes of

something, that's just kind of trash. This is the kind of thing you want to watch. So we're going to do deep impact. A quick plot synopsis, a seven-mile. while wide space rocket is hurtling towards Earth, threatening to obliterate the entire planet. Now it's up to the President of the United States to save the world. He appoints a tough-as-nails veteran astronaut to lead a joint American rushing crew into space to destroy the comet for impact. Meanwhile, an enterprising reporter uses her smarts to uncover the scoop of the century. This stars Robert Duvall, Taye Leone, Elisha Wood, Vanessa Wedgrave, Redgrave, Morgan Freeman, John Favreau, Lee Lee, Sobiesky, Blair Underwood, a lot of folks.

Another movie with lots of guys. And so that should be good fun. And we can compare and contrast the films. So that's next up on the main feed. Over at the Patreon, we have an episode on Hannah Arendt, the 2012 kind of biopic. Upcoming episodes is going to be Sydney Lumet's, the pawnbroker. We're doing kind of post-war Holocaust series. And I guess as I said,

what we will do. We will at some point watch both the order and talk radio movies about 80s white supremacist. So stay tuned for that. The Patreon, you can reach it unclear, rather you can reach that patreon.com slash unclear pod. And it's $5 a month for basically, basically at this point, we're doing like a weekly politics show and then two episodes a month. So sort of like six episodes a month, a lot of extra content. highly recommend it. All right. I think that's all. As always, thank you for listening for John Gans. I'm Jamal Bowie. And we'll see you next time.