Movies - Armageddon

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Armageddon (film)

	Movies - Armageddon

Armageddon is a 1998 disaster/science fiction film about a group of blue-collar deep-core drillers who are sent by NASA to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. It was directed by Michael Bay and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and featured Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler. The film's tagline is For Love. For Honor. For Mankind.

Armageddon was released during a period when disaster movies were seeing a comeback. Another asteroid impact movie, Deep Impact
, was made the same year, along with a reprise of Godzilla. The previous year saw a few volcano-based disaster movies.

The soundtrack featured the song "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith (fronted by Liv Tyler's father, Steven Tyler) which was the first number 1 hit of the band's career.

A DVD of Armageddon was re-issued by The Criterion Collection, which releases what it considers to be "important classic and contemporary films"; the film also received the Saturn Awards for Best Direction and Best Science Fiction Film (where it tied with Dark City
).

C. Bolin wrote a novel based on the screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh and the story by Jonathan Hensleigh and Robert Pool.

Plot synopsis

Before the film’s title appears onscreen, a narrator (Charlton Heston) informs us that in the time of the dinosaurs a six mile-wide asteroid struck the earth causing catastrophic damage to Earth’s ecosystem. We are also informed that the probability of a similar disaster in our time is very high.

Disaster

While in the middle of an EVA, the Space Shuttle Atlantis is struck by thousands of tiny asteroids and explodes in space. Shortly after, an area of Earth from Finland to the southeastern United States is bombarded by more meteors. Several destroy landmarks and skyscrapers in New York City.

NASA scientists, led by Dan Truman, determine that the smaller asteroids were forced towards Earth by a much larger one the size of Texas. The team also determines that it will strike the Earth in 18 days causing total destruction of all life. They work frantically to develop a plan to stop it. Most scenarios are dismissed because of the size and speed of the object.

NASA's plan

NASA then decides to recruit Harry Stamper, reputed to be the best deepcore driller in the world. They find him on an oil platform in the South China Sea where he is in the process of drilling for a Japanese company and firing one of his lead crew members, AJ Frost, for insubordination. (Harry also goes after AJ with a shotgun.) We also find out that AJ has been dating Stamper’s daughter, Grace, for several months, a fact that Harry is quite furious to discover.

Harry agrees to take the job of destroying the asteroid. The plan is to approach the asteroid from behind and land on it, drill to 800 feet, plant a nuclear bomb in the shaft and detonate it remotely after evacuation. The deadline for detonation is a distance from Earth called "zero barrier," which will allow the two halves of the asteroid to miss Earth when split apart. Harry recruits a motley crew made up of his best workers and they prepare for the mission through rigorous space travel drills, modification of their equipment and pointed psychological tests to determine if they are able to work in space. Near the conclusion of the training phase Rockhound borrows money from a loan shark and is later arrested in a strip club. Chick attempts to make amends with his estranged wife and their son. AJ proposes marriage to Grace and she accepts. They will marry when (and if) he returns from the mission.

Mission setback

The two crews take off in two separate shuttles, Freedom and Independence, the most advanced spacecrafts ever built. They dock with a Russian space station (most likely Mir, although the name is never mentioned onscreen, it is referred to in the track list in the film score) to load the shuttles with fuel to make the final flight to the asteroid. During the fuel transfer an equipment failure sparks a fire in the space station. The crews are forced to evacuate the station, which explodes. The cosmonaut that was manning the station, Lev, takes refuge on the Independence.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Armageddon (film) ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Armageddon (film); it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Movies - Armageddon

Plot synopsis

Disaster

NASA's plan

Mission setback

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay