How do you do,
Before I get too deep, I'll tell y'all a story about the song and two weddings. I knew the groom from college, we were in Circle K together, and he once dated another woman who was into this movie. The said woman lost her father long ago, and has a mother and a stepfather, which explains the relations to it. Now, she and my friend broke up earlier in the decade and married another. The bride lost her mother also. I do not know how much she was into the movie, but I will say at the wedding, which I attended, they played the song "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" at the reception. Even today, the bride still remembers her mom and she gave a moment of memory for her at the reception. In a connection, I would hear this song again in another wedding, which happened in May of 2017. This time, it was the groom who lost a parent (his father) and the song was played prior to the main part of the reception, but I did tell others I knew it was almost twenty years old (we heard "My Heart Will Go On" which was twenty years old). It does seem strange to think of the song connected to the loss of a parent, especially as it sounds more like a man singing about how he enjoys every moment with his lover, never wanting to miss it. Could it be that it was sung by Steve Tyler, whose daughter is in the movie? I don't know. What I do know is the song is connected the movie and thus is connected to the loss of a parent, which is where I get to the movie.
The film's plot is a large asteroid, similar to the one that may have killed the dinosaurs, is heading for earth and it's going to hit within eighteen days of sighting. With lack of time for a proper defense, it would seem everyone would prepare for the End of the World in any form possible. Not really. NASA creates a plan to send a team of oil drillers to drill holes into the rock, shove in explosives, and destroy the asteroid before it hits. Might be easy, but problems happen along the way that add more tension, several of the drillers turned astronauts are killed, and some equipment destroyed, and it almost seems that they are going to fail.
There are a few things to mention. In the key point of the movie, the President of the United States, who has no name, gives a speech to the world, during which he says, "the Bible calls this day 'Armageddon', the end of all things." It's false, however. Armageddon comes from the the Israeli name Meggido, the place where in the Book of Revelations, after the sixth angel pours his vial upon the Euphrates river, the Devil's side gathers all humanity to wage war against God and His followers, after which the seventh vial is poured[1]. It's not really the end of all things, but a climatic battle fought in the named area that is followed by scenes great destruction, ending with the Devil imprisoned for a thousand years. Meddido has been a battlefield three times in history, two of which happened centuries before Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth, while the third happened one hundred years ago, this September. In each case, the defender did witness the end of his world (in the third's case, this was the end of the Ottoman Empire's rule over the Holy Land). This perhaps has something to do with the misconception.
Not only that, the connection is lost when the President adds that Man has something dinosaurs lacked, the technology to prevent his demise. And they pull through, after losses of brave men and equipment, with earth allowed to live another day. Destroying an asteroid, or deflecting it, doesn't really count as "preventing Armageddon" in my opinion. If anything the characters have only removed one hazard to all life on earth, yet we have others to deal with. We still have to curb pollution in the world, come up with alternatives to fossil fuels and reduce the carbon footprint connected to global warming, find a way to feed what will one day be eight billion people on this planet, handle the rampant diseases that have broken out, and so on. All of these are threats to humanity that the human race hasn't been able to triumph over, and yet the movie us trying to stop a rock from hitting the planet. No doubt, we are trying to create something to deflect or destroy such rocks, but that technology is years away. In the meantime, we have astronomers around the globe watching the sky and they have told us of many threatening space objects zooming through. One or two of them have been predicted to come near us in ten years, though the chances of an impact have slackened with each new calculation made as the day gets nearer. Unlike in the movie, most of these lethal asteroids can be detected long before they can hit, unlike the actual Armageddon that will come to us "as a thief in the night."
In the meantime, there is something that came from the movie where when the news of the asteroid is released, all of humanity is suddenly united and looking up. Only when word comes that there was critical failure in the mission does civilization begin to break down. Yet, when the good guys pull through, there is global rejoicing and one could only hope that sense of unity could last long, even knowing that it will not.
It does have an impressive cast. I mean, we get the new Batman kissing up to Arwen, much to John McLane's disapproval; the last leads a team of drillers consisting of Coach Bill Yoast, Lightning McQueen, John Coffey, and Mr. Pink, while NASA is headed by Sling Blade guy (he calls it a Kaiser blade, mmm hmm), with Lucius Malfoy supplying the world saving solution, and Dr. Falicier is that four star Air Force general to represent the government. Rounding things our are Eric Slates and Slippery Pete. (I bet you got a real kick out of reading this paragraph.) Here's something you might not know, the movie is directed by the same man who brought us Transformers (2000s, live action, not the animated ones from the 1980s) and J.J. Abrams, later director of the Star Trek movies and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, was screenwriter.
The Old Glory appears frequently in the movie, adding a sense of it becoming patriotic. It is an American film, after all, but we do see internationals involved. Truman mentions working with French, Russian, and Japanese space agencies, for one. Lev Andropov, the Russian cosmonaut on what is supposed to be the Mir is the token minority, to whom non-Americans can relate to. He certainly boasts of becoming a hero and actually does so by the end of the movie (though why he wasn't killed off is beyond me. I mean, his character is reduced to scenary after the asteroid is destroyed and we see nothing of him and his people brought up in the celebration).
Early in the movie, we see a dog attack a Godzilla toy, an obvious shout out to Godzilla, which came out that year (making one think there was a competition between Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich) and had plenty of shout outs. I didn't mention this with Godzilla but the movies from 1990s sometimes had a Godzilla shout out of their own, that now seem silly today, usually with Japanese characters running from a monster and saying something like "This is why I left Japan." As a clever shout out to Emmerich's other movies, a black taxi driver claims that anything could happen in New York, thus foreshadowing the destruction (some of it is dated now, especially realism in wake of the 9/11 attacks). We also hear plenty of mentions to Star Wars in a few scenes ("Have you ever heard of Evil Keenvil?" "No, I never saw Star Wars.") The way Harry Stamper goes after AJ with a gun makes one think of some bad flick on mountain people while his oil drilling empire is basically Dallas for blue collared men. Rockhound even quotes Star Trek at one point. The list of references goes on.
On theme that ties in the story is Stamper's relationship with his daughter and his men. In her, he is the father, while almost like a father to his men. The reason in the latter is he knows how to take care of them and prefers to work with his boys than with strangers. When each dies on the asteroid, he gets upset like any real father would over the loss of his children. His daughter, Grace, is raised as a tomboy, apparently, yet has a college education, possibly a masters in business, which elevates her above the roughnecks, yet she dates A.J. over some CEO sort, which Stamper really hates. It basically adds in a story like that of The Man From Stony River where a stubborn old man has a daughter seeing a younger protege who constantly tries to prove himself a man in the older man's eyes. Unlike in that one, A.J. doesn't seem to do so until he returns from being supposedly dead and having the bomb, but doesn't get to blow it up. Instead, Stamper tells A.J. to take care of his daughter and blows the rock up instead. At the same time, we see Chick Chappal, a divorced father like Stamper, who visits his estranged wife and son once to smooth things over. His wife tells the boy he is only a sells man out of shame, but when they find him on the mission, all hostility ends, and the boy greets his father as a hero in the end, which to me is one of the best subplots in the movie. Stamper even uses an emotional appeal to another father, Colonel Sharp, when asking for one night off before they leave earth, since Sharp would want to spend time with his little girls. In the end, Stamper even reconciles with his daughter via video chat before meeting his end. Considering how the movie reflects the challenges of being a father, I could have done this in June, but it wasn't planned out that way.
The movie does have some flaws, not just scripture but also scientific. Of course, I don't have to give an example. Plenty have done that already. Still, it makes a good movie that is built on entertainment. Sometimes, realism is not necessary, since movies are to be entertaining and not realistic.
[1]. Revelations. 16:16.
There are a few things to mention. In the key point of the movie, the President of the United States, who has no name, gives a speech to the world, during which he says, "the Bible calls this day 'Armageddon', the end of all things." It's false, however. Armageddon comes from the the Israeli name Meggido, the place where in the Book of Revelations, after the sixth angel pours his vial upon the Euphrates river, the Devil's side gathers all humanity to wage war against God and His followers, after which the seventh vial is poured[1]. It's not really the end of all things, but a climatic battle fought in the named area that is followed by scenes great destruction, ending with the Devil imprisoned for a thousand years. Meddido has been a battlefield three times in history, two of which happened centuries before Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth, while the third happened one hundred years ago, this September. In each case, the defender did witness the end of his world (in the third's case, this was the end of the Ottoman Empire's rule over the Holy Land). This perhaps has something to do with the misconception.
Not only that, the connection is lost when the President adds that Man has something dinosaurs lacked, the technology to prevent his demise. And they pull through, after losses of brave men and equipment, with earth allowed to live another day. Destroying an asteroid, or deflecting it, doesn't really count as "preventing Armageddon" in my opinion. If anything the characters have only removed one hazard to all life on earth, yet we have others to deal with. We still have to curb pollution in the world, come up with alternatives to fossil fuels and reduce the carbon footprint connected to global warming, find a way to feed what will one day be eight billion people on this planet, handle the rampant diseases that have broken out, and so on. All of these are threats to humanity that the human race hasn't been able to triumph over, and yet the movie us trying to stop a rock from hitting the planet. No doubt, we are trying to create something to deflect or destroy such rocks, but that technology is years away. In the meantime, we have astronomers around the globe watching the sky and they have told us of many threatening space objects zooming through. One or two of them have been predicted to come near us in ten years, though the chances of an impact have slackened with each new calculation made as the day gets nearer. Unlike in the movie, most of these lethal asteroids can be detected long before they can hit, unlike the actual Armageddon that will come to us "as a thief in the night."
In the meantime, there is something that came from the movie where when the news of the asteroid is released, all of humanity is suddenly united and looking up. Only when word comes that there was critical failure in the mission does civilization begin to break down. Yet, when the good guys pull through, there is global rejoicing and one could only hope that sense of unity could last long, even knowing that it will not.
It does have an impressive cast. I mean, we get the new Batman kissing up to Arwen, much to John McLane's disapproval; the last leads a team of drillers consisting of Coach Bill Yoast, Lightning McQueen, John Coffey, and Mr. Pink, while NASA is headed by Sling Blade guy (he calls it a Kaiser blade, mmm hmm), with Lucius Malfoy supplying the world saving solution, and Dr. Falicier is that four star Air Force general to represent the government. Rounding things our are Eric Slates and Slippery Pete. (I bet you got a real kick out of reading this paragraph.) Here's something you might not know, the movie is directed by the same man who brought us Transformers (2000s, live action, not the animated ones from the 1980s) and J.J. Abrams, later director of the Star Trek movies and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, was screenwriter.
The Old Glory appears frequently in the movie, adding a sense of it becoming patriotic. It is an American film, after all, but we do see internationals involved. Truman mentions working with French, Russian, and Japanese space agencies, for one. Lev Andropov, the Russian cosmonaut on what is supposed to be the Mir is the token minority, to whom non-Americans can relate to. He certainly boasts of becoming a hero and actually does so by the end of the movie (though why he wasn't killed off is beyond me. I mean, his character is reduced to scenary after the asteroid is destroyed and we see nothing of him and his people brought up in the celebration).
Early in the movie, we see a dog attack a Godzilla toy, an obvious shout out to Godzilla, which came out that year (making one think there was a competition between Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich) and had plenty of shout outs. I didn't mention this with Godzilla but the movies from 1990s sometimes had a Godzilla shout out of their own, that now seem silly today, usually with Japanese characters running from a monster and saying something like "This is why I left Japan." As a clever shout out to Emmerich's other movies, a black taxi driver claims that anything could happen in New York, thus foreshadowing the destruction (some of it is dated now, especially realism in wake of the 9/11 attacks). We also hear plenty of mentions to Star Wars in a few scenes ("Have you ever heard of Evil Keenvil?" "No, I never saw Star Wars.") The way Harry Stamper goes after AJ with a gun makes one think of some bad flick on mountain people while his oil drilling empire is basically Dallas for blue collared men. Rockhound even quotes Star Trek at one point. The list of references goes on.
On theme that ties in the story is Stamper's relationship with his daughter and his men. In her, he is the father, while almost like a father to his men. The reason in the latter is he knows how to take care of them and prefers to work with his boys than with strangers. When each dies on the asteroid, he gets upset like any real father would over the loss of his children. His daughter, Grace, is raised as a tomboy, apparently, yet has a college education, possibly a masters in business, which elevates her above the roughnecks, yet she dates A.J. over some CEO sort, which Stamper really hates. It basically adds in a story like that of The Man From Stony River where a stubborn old man has a daughter seeing a younger protege who constantly tries to prove himself a man in the older man's eyes. Unlike in that one, A.J. doesn't seem to do so until he returns from being supposedly dead and having the bomb, but doesn't get to blow it up. Instead, Stamper tells A.J. to take care of his daughter and blows the rock up instead. At the same time, we see Chick Chappal, a divorced father like Stamper, who visits his estranged wife and son once to smooth things over. His wife tells the boy he is only a sells man out of shame, but when they find him on the mission, all hostility ends, and the boy greets his father as a hero in the end, which to me is one of the best subplots in the movie. Stamper even uses an emotional appeal to another father, Colonel Sharp, when asking for one night off before they leave earth, since Sharp would want to spend time with his little girls. In the end, Stamper even reconciles with his daughter via video chat before meeting his end. Considering how the movie reflects the challenges of being a father, I could have done this in June, but it wasn't planned out that way.
The movie does have some flaws, not just scripture but also scientific. Of course, I don't have to give an example. Plenty have done that already. Still, it makes a good movie that is built on entertainment. Sometimes, realism is not necessary, since movies are to be entertaining and not realistic.
[1]. Revelations. 16:16.
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