Michael Bay, known for his distinctively explosive filmmaking style often referred to as “Bayhem,”first gained prominence as a director with the 1995 action film Bad Boys. This marked the beginning of his collaboration with stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. Following this success, he directed The Rock in 1996, featuring a powerhouse cast including Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery. Since then, Bay has solidified his reputation in Hollywood as a master of high-octane action films.
In 2007, Bay launched the Transformers franchise, which significantly shaped his career trajectory over the next decade. As the helmsman for five Transformers films, he remained actively involved as a producer even as he pursued other projects such as 6 Underground (2019) and Ambulance (2022). Looking ahead, Bay’s next endeavor is an adaptation of Robopocalypse, assuring that his legacy will continue to be anchored by his past works, including the 1998 disaster classic that grossed over $553 million globally.
Despite the generally favorable reviews for Ambulance, the film struggled at the box office, reflecting a challenging period for Bay in a competitive market.
Armageddon’s Questionable Realism Score
Skeptical Analysis from an Astrophysicist
Astrophysicist Paul Sutter recently scrutinized the scientific elements of Bay’s iconic release Armageddon, which premiered in 1998. The film follows oil drillers, portrayed by Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck, on a perilous mission to prevent an asteroid from obliterating Earth. Although Armageddon faced mixed critical feedback, it resonated with audiences, offering a captivating blend of action and science fiction, particularly in its dramatic third act set in space.
Sutter’s detailed video analysis for Insider highlights several inaccuracies, notably in a sequence where the characters slingshot around the Moon. He explains that the spacecraft’s portrayal suggests an encounter with air resistance, which is fundamentally incorrect in the vacuum of space. He emphasizes that the intense gravitational force of 9.5 Gs experienced during this maneuver would likely be fatal for the astronauts involved.
“When they’re approaching the moon to do that lunar roll, as they called it, they turned their spacecraft towards as if they were fighter jets banking into a turn. But this is space, there’s no air, there’s nothing to bank against. You can just go with it. You’re fine. You’re going to go around the moon, it’s all good.
“So 9.5 G’s means that the pressure you’ll feel, the weight you’ll get pushed up against your chair, is nine-and-a-half times stronger than our normal experience of gravity. This is generally going to be miserable. 9.5 strikes me as a very unrealistic number, especially for that length of time. They’re just going to pass out and be starved of oxygen for 10 minutes, which is death.
“The astronauts are getting a gravity assist from the Moon so that they can get a speed boost to land on an asteroid. The idea is you need to catch up to it, you need to match speeds with it, otherwise you’re just going to crash into it. So, launching from the surface of the Earth, we can do this. We’ve done rendezvous missions with moving asteroids and comets.
“There’s no reason for them to experience g-forces during a slingshot maneuver. The whole time you’re doing a slingshot maneuver, you’re in space. There’s hardly any gravity. You don’t feel any gravity when you’re in space. And when you’re doing this slingshot maneuver around the Moon, or any object, the Moon is big. Yes, you’re accelerating, but that boost is taking place over the course of hours as you orbit around the Moon. So it’s a very slow and gentle process, so you don’t feel anything extra.
“And I saw them in that clip, they’re like burning their rockets, and I was like, ‘Man, that takes a lot of fuel.’ I was like, ‘If you have enough fuel to be already in space and then do this accelerated boost maneuver, just skip the Moon and you can just go right to the asteroid. That’s why they don’t put me in charge of writing movies. I would rate this clip a three [out of 10].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO886VqoC00https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO886VqoC00
Implications of Armageddon’s Scientific Critique on Its Legacy
The Film’s Success Amidst Flawed Science
Despite its evident silliness and implausiblities, Armageddon has garnered a significant fan base. Ben Affleck, portraying A. J. Frost, has publicly critiqued the film’s central premise; he humorously suggested it would be far more logical to train astronauts to drill than vice versa. This insight underscored the film’s penchant for prioritizing visual spectacle over realistic storytelling, resulting in a dismal Rotten Tomatoes score of 43%.
Nevertheless, audience reception tells a different story. The film’s Popcornmeter score stands at 73%, indicating that viewers are generally willing to overlook its scientific miscues and narrative weaknesses. Armageddon remains a hallmark in the disaster film genre, alongside titles like The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Twister (1996), and Independence Day (1996). As Sutter’s critique illustrates, sometimes it’s best to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride.
Source: Insider