Armageddon
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Armageddon is a 1998 American disaster/science fiction-action film directed by Michael Bay, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and released by Disney's Touchstone Pictures. The movie tells of a group of blue-collar deep-core drillers sent by NASA to stop an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. It featured an all-star cast including Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Will Patton, Peter Stormare, Michael Clarke Duncan and Steve Buscemi. It has now been released on Blu-ray.
Armageddon opened in theaters only two-and-a-half months after a similar impact-based movie, Deep Impact, which starred Morgan Freeman. Astronomers described Deep Impact as being more scientifically accurate, but Armageddon fared better at the box office. They were about equally received by critics. The film was an international box-office smash, despite
the mixed to negative reviews from the critics. The film became, worldwide, the highest-grossing film of that year, surpassing the Steven Spielberg war epic Saving Private Ryan.
Plot
While fixing a satellite in orbit, the Space Shuttle Atlantis is destroyed by a meteor shower, killing the entire crew. Meteorites then bombard New York City and several other parts of the world, and NASA discovers that an asteroid (named Dottie, after the asteroid's discoverer's wife) the size of Texas, traveling at 22,000 miles per hour, will collide with Earth in 18 days, effectively destroying the planet. The scientists at NASA—in cooperation with the Russian, Japanese, and other European space agencies—plan to detonate a nuclear bomb at a precise point into the asteroid's core, which will split it in two, and cause it to miss the Earth. However, the bomb must be planted at least 800 feet below the surface within eight hours of landing and no later than four hours before the Earth impact. The mission is not revealed to the public, fearing panic.
NASA locates Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis), one of the world's best deep-core oil drillers to help them drill a hole on the asteroid. When invited to NASA, Harry brings his daughter Grace (Liv Tyler) to keep her away from A.J. (Ben Affleck), a young, rambunctious member of his crew who, he has just discovered, has been sleeping with her. This disappoints and infuriates Harry because he did not want his daughter to marry an oil driller like himself or remain in the blue