90 thoughts we had while watching Armageddon and Deep Impact back to back

Previously on Deja View: Drama! Intrigue! Dogs appearing out of nowhere! Selfish grandmas burning in acid! John Carroll Lynch in a fanny pack!

I am back on my late-'90s disaster movie bulls***  and this time we're in 1998 for a double-feature of apocalypse with a side of wacky! Ostensibly these are similar movies but make no mistake: only one could easily be subtitled "Toxic Masculinity: The Movie!" Please enjoy the second part of our two-part double-feature Cli-Fi FANGRRLS edition of Deja View, Armageddon and Deep Impact!

Credit: Buena Vista Pictures

Armageddon

1. Ah, 1998. When all movies were scored with a penny whistle and a dream.
    
2. So first there was the ice age and then there was Billy Bob Thornton and that's history according to Michael Bay.
    
3. Not even five minutes in and it’s our first SPLODEYTIME. And then a man yelling at his shrill wife and then military men and then RAWK and then poorly handled Black characters because BAY MUST BAY.
    
4. …Screenplay by J.J. Abrams? …I did not know that.
    
5. This movie is just so very racist already and it just started.
    
6. There is so much happening and it just started.
    
7. We open in medias res but like BIGGER THAN THAT. It's medias TOO MUCH MAN.
    
8. "She's a vicious life-sucking bitch from which there is no escape." OK, MOVIE, WE GET IT, JESUS. 
    
9. Armageddon is 12 minutes of IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AND WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE and way more of Bruce Willis effing around on a rig and Ben Affleck putting cookies down Liv Tyler's pants.
    
10. You see, it's funny because Liv Tyler is Bruce Willis' property.
     
11. Isn't shooting guns on an oil rig, like, dangerous?
     
12. The world is about to end in 18 days but Bruce Willis being a bad dad and leaving his daughter's period education to Steve Buscemi is of equal importance. The speed of back-and-forth cuts between these two plots is neckbreaking.
     
13. You see, it's funny because Steve Buscemi's character is a statutory rapist.
     
14. For all of modern history, people have thought of astronauts as heroes and this movie presents the argument that "astronauts can eat butts, the only hero is Ben Affleck and Hudson damn Hawk."
     
15. Liv Tyler's only purpose to yell at her dad like a broken Little Mermaid.
     
16. You see, it's funny because Steve Buscemi's character is a chronic and relentless predator. 
     
17. Liv had more lines when she was in the Guilty Remnant.
     
18. This movie is just Con Air but the plane is way bigger and goes way higher.
     
19. Boss lady Cher just called me and I thanked her for interrupting Affleck sucking on Liv Tyler's shoulder. #blessed
     
20. What I've learned from movies is that men are weird about buttholes.
     
21. You see, it's funny because Steve Busc—you know the rest.
     
22. OH LOOK, A WOMAN. THANK YOU FOR THE KERNELS, BAY.
     
23. OH LOOK, SHE'S BEING OBJECTIFIED, THANK YOU FOR THE PREDICTABLE THING.
     
24. Bruce Willis being surly in front of an American flag is the Michael Bayiest thing I've ever seen that doesn't involve t*ts.
     
25. I will tell you Affleck's post-Phantoms chompers are a thing of beauty. WORD, B*TCH, Phantoms teeth like a mawf*****.
     
26. (Seriously, Bay made Affleck get new teeth to be in this movie. $20,000 American Tooth Dollars.)
     
27. Yes, I'm distracting myself with tooth facts to not watch him put animal crackers in Liv's underwear.
     
28. Going from heartwarming deadbeat dads to strip clubs is DEEPLY Bay. It's what we call The Total Bay.
     
29. But it’s all worth it for Buscemi in a sparkle shirt.
    
    
    

    Credit: Buena Vista Pictures

    
     
30. "That man's not a salesman. That man’s your daddy." Kid: "…Wait, wtf, Mom?"
     
31. Can NASA not afford lights? I mean 1998 NASA, not today NASA who, tbh, probs can't.
     
32. I love that this is all just what Michael Bay thinks liftoff SHOULD look like. "MAKE IT STROBEY LIGHTY LIGHTY BOOM BOOM," he says while lunging and lifting an entire side of beef.
     
33. The ship is breathing smoke out its nostrils like a dragon. 
     
34. See they're wearing the hats so we know they are RUSSIAN and DIFFERENT and WEIRD. 
     
35. There's still over an hour left of this movie. Everything is on fire and there's still an hour left of this movie.
     
36. Liv is apparently only in this movie to feel things silently.
     
37. So it's honestly hard to tell what's happening. It's sad but very busy because BAY. The real pilots died because the working class doesn't need your elitist "years of training" according to the Bay method. Bruce Willis is all "thoughts and prayers."
     
38. Stevie B. is the smartest one in the room and also the only actual person I'd trust in an actual armageddon.
     
39. "Cue this iron bitch up." - me ironing
     
40. Look it feels VERY weird that the villainous "secondary protocol" is lead by Black soldiers and on the order of Keith David and I'm just saying Bay has been bad with race since DAY EFFING ONE.
     
41. "This just turned into a surrealistic nightmare." Oh wow, this movie predicted 2020.
     
42. "Guns in Space" would be a really good Michael Bay movie tbh.
     
43. "The override. It's been overridden." lol this is what happens when you only kind of understand things but feel safe writing a whole movie about them.
     
44. THERE ARE 42 MINUTES LEFT OF THIS MOVIE.
     
45. Bruce bludgeoned William Fichtner but now they're super totes cool to the max. FRIENDSHIP!
     
46. Peter Stormare is from Sweden not Russia and Michael Bay was like THAT’S CLOSE ENOUGH. *AIR GUITAR ON FIRE*
     
47. Ben Affleck is our dreamy leading man and yet he's had less screentime than Fichtner and his murder eyes.
     
48. What Michael Bay’s subconscious looks like:
    
    
    

    Credit: Buena Vista Pictures

    
     
49. I honestly have lost track of who's all dead. We haven't seen Owen Wilson in a bit, so, probs him.
     
50. WHO HAS TIME TO COUNT YOUR WORDS? EVERYONE IS ABOUT TO DIE.
     
51. "Our friends are dead but it's time to get sassy! USA! USA!"
     
52. I'm not certain that I heard "it's not over till we get a thumb down that hole" but I'm not not certain.
     
53. "Everything's gonna be OK because only France exploded" is for a VERY SPECIFIC TYPE OF AUDIENCE.
     
54. All the spikes on this asteroid are giving it a real Land of the Lost vibe.
     
55. I'm not sure who Gruber is but the movie doesn't seem to be either? So I guess it's fine.
     
56. Looking up who Gruber is, I learned that only five female characters have names and the rest, including Shawnee Smith, get names like "redhead" or "Asian tourist." SHAWNEE DIDN'T SURVIVE AND JOIN JIGSAW FOR THIS MISTREATMENT.
     
57. Liv Tyler has eyes made for TEARS and making me have TEARS ALSO.
     
58. AJ saved us and he couldn't have done it without those $20,000 TEETH.
     
59. Look, Steve Buscemi wanted to die — why not just let him do the thing, make him the hero? "BECAUSE THE WOMAN MUST CRY FOR THE AUDIENCE TO SEE THE IMPORTANCE," Bay hisses while throwing kettlebells affixed with truck nuts at me.
     
60. Peter Stormare just Fonzied the ship into working. BUT RUSSIANLY.
     
61. "YAY BRUCE WILLIS IS DEAD" - all the people at NASA in this movie and also Kevin Smith watching this movie.
     
62. Glad we got in a final sex worker joke. MOLLY MOUNDS DESERVED BETTER.

Credit: Paramount Pictures

Deep Impact

1. This movie opens with some magical-ass music.
    
2. And Leelee Sobieski and Elijah Wood's magical-ass bangs. If I don't end quarantine with bad 1998 Leelee bangs, did I even quarantine? 
    
3. Anyway, this music is very jaunty for the end of the world.
    
4. And we go immediately from twinkle music to opera. The first two stages of apocalypse. The third? Calypso, presumably. Apocalypso.
    
5. That is the worst pizza I've ever seen. It's like a half-cooked DiGiorno. It's the biggest disaster in this movie, tbh.
    
6. He saved his info on a floppy disk and is using his cellular phone to make a call because TECHNOLOGY. 
    
7. And that’s why you don’t text and drive.
   
   
   

   Credit: Paramount Pictures

   
    
8. Tea Leoni: Conversation killer. Relatable.
    
9. This movie is about the end of the world but also how men are sh*tty, both at the same time. LIKE LIFE.
    
10. Tea's here to get the SCOOP. The James Cromwell SCOOP, and I don't mean what he uses to clean up after Babe. 
     
11. This is a wacky Three's Company misunderstanding but with the destruction of the planet.
     
12. The series of leaps this movie takes to make this Ellie/ELE confusion work is some Simone Biles sh*t.
     
13. "I know what this can do for your career." I mean, only one of them knows that there won't BE a career to have at the end of this so that's a real power move tbh.
     
14. Damn, even Alta Vista and Netscape were better than the browsers they have at 1998 MSNBC.
    
    
    

    Credit: Paramount Pictures

    
     
15. Tea Leoni is like fuuuuuuuuuuuuuh I wish it was a lady.
     
16. WAIT IS THAT GUY COMPOSING A SONG FOR THE ENDTIMES? DOOMSONGS!
     
17. *extreme Windsong voice* I can't seem to forget you / Your doomsong stays on my miiiiind.
     
18. Tea made Morgan Freeman mad and now that's why she's going to die at the end. Making Morgan Freeman mad is punishable by death.
     
19. Leelee's bangs are gone and Elijah Wood discovered the comet. Elijah Wood is CONTINUOUSLY responsible for saving the world and frankly, that's a lot to ask of a smol boy.
     
20. OMG TINY BABY LOGAN ECHOLLS.
    
    
    

    Credit: Paramount Pictures

    
     
21. Now Red Foreman's here. He’s gonna call the comet a dumbass and save everyone, I know it.
     
22. So many tiny babies! Tiny baby Jon Favreau! Tiny baby Ron Eldard! Tiny baby Blair Underwood! Tiny baby Mary McCormack! TINIES BABIES.
     
23. OK, I'm just saying calling this thing "the Messiah" was a bit on the nose.
     
24. This movie's timeline is on a dang TRAJECTORY. One year later, five months later, IS IT PRESENT DAY YET? COME THRU, COMET.
     
25. Tea Leoni's sassy flippy bob will save us.
     
26. So quick pause for the cause to tell you that Mimi Leder who directed this movie is INCREDIBLE and also she was a director on ER, which starred Laura Innes and Ron Eldard, THIS IS AN ER SEQUEL. It is still less sad than the episode where Dr. Greene dies.
     
27. See the problem is they sent astronauts instead of oil rig workers.
     
28. RIP Jon Favreau. HE DIED 10 YEARS BEFORE IRON MAN, THEREBY ENSURING THE MCU NEVER EXISTS. That is truly the darkest timeline.
     
29. "The Messiah has failed." AIN'T THAT 2020 IN A NUTSHELL.
     
30. You know at this point in Armageddon, Bruce Willis was still chasing Ben Affleck around a giant buoy.
     
31. This extinction-level event is promoting child marriage, THIS IS RECKLESS.
     
32. Apocalypse stage: baby wedding.
     
33. Robert Duvall is reading Rob Eldard Moby Dick and it's adorable and also more interesting than Ghost Ship.
     
34. THEY HAD THEIR TODDLER WEDDING FOR NOTHING.
     
35. Elijah Wood leaves safety to go save Leelee Sobieski honestly because kids are stupid and make bad decisions and his parents are letting him because WHAT THE F***?
     
36. OK, I understand that might sound very cold but seriously if my kid pulled that sh*t I'd knock them out with a candlestick, Wadsworth-style, and pull their ass into that cave. 
     
37. Morgan Freeman is done officially and you know it because he is wearing a long-sleeved ribbed polo shirt and that is the televised sartorial choice for presidents who are DONE OFFICIALLY.
     
38. "Here's how you're going to die" is honestly just normal television for us today hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahajklfhkdshgjkdfhgjkfdhjgkhfdjhgjfhdjh *descends into madness and despair*
     
39. It's 1998 so which famous people do we think were selected to go into the caves? Definitely Puff Daddy, the Goo Goo Dolls, and Jim Carrey, for sure.
     
40. Jay Leno definitely also went into the caves still making Monica Lewinsky jokes. YOU DESERVE TO BE SAFELY IN THE CAVES, MONICA.
     
41. This movie is truly a promotional video for skateboards and Vespas as a means of outrunning the end times.
     
42. OK, this is a heartbreaking scene and all BUT HOW DID THEY NOT FORCE LEELEE ONTO THE BUS IN THE FIRST PLACE? These parents in this movie are WILD.
     
43. Seriously, put Leelee on the bus, stick the baby in her backpack. Other parents? KNOCK ELIJAH OUT WITH A CANDLESTICK. KEEP YOUR DAMN KIDS SAFE.
     
44. "When you were a baby, I once dropped you on your head." Tea, your dad sucks. He's not worth dying with. 
     
45. These people running away from a giant tidal wave are... more hopeful than I've ever been in any situation.
     
46. This is a whole ship of Bruce Willises. Bruces Willis. That alone makes this movie superior. Granted the child wedding is MILDLY creepier than Liv and Ben but again only MIDLY.
     
47. Hold please, pause for tears.
     
48. How did this boy get cast in a movie where all he does is walk? Leelee is holding a baby and doing fine, this guy is flailing around like a broken Buster Keaton.
    
    
    

    Credit: Paramount Pictures