‘Armageddon’ is So Inaccurate an Astronaut Calls it ‘Tragic Comic’

Some movies are created for pure entertainment. There is nothing remotely realistic about these movies. Armageddon (1998) is one example of these unrealistic, albeit entertaining movies. Even a real astronaut had a few words to share about the accuracy of Armageddon.

‘Armageddon’ tells the story of a giant asteroid racing toward Earth

Armageddon (1998) is a disaster film starring big names like Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Owen Wilson, and more. 

According to IMDb, while attempting to repair a satellite, the Space Shuttle Atlantis is destroyed by a meteor shower leaving the entire crew dead. The meteor shower then hits New York City and other big cities around the world.

This event alerts NASA of a giant asteroid that is racing toward earth. This asteroid is the size of Texas and travels 22,000 miles per hour. It would only take 18 days for it to reach earth and destroy all life as we know it. 

While working alongside Russia, Japan, and France, NASA created a plan to detonate a nuclear weapon in the asteroid to break it in two and force it to miss Earth. The details of this mission have to be done perfectly for it to work and were not to be revealed to the public to prevent panic. 

A team of deep-core oil drillers is recruited to travel to the rapidly approaching asteroid and drill to plant the nuclear bomb. Time is of the essence, and this team must be trained quickly and perform their mission. The tension is high because the fate of Earth depends on this rag-tag team. 

Chris Hadfield just laughs at ‘Armageddon’ 

Astronaut Chris Hadfield sat down with Vanity Fair on YouTube to discuss the accuracy of several space movies. With how big Armageddon was in its day, it had to be discussed. Hadfield starts the Armageddon segment by just laughing. Perhaps that is an indication of how he feels about that movie. 

Hadfield starts by saying, “This movie is Armageddon, which is the disastrous end of everything, and I think that’s an appropriate name for this movie. I haven’t seen it since I turned away from it when it first came into the theaters.”

One unrealistic part that Hadfield points out is how the drill team in space can speak with Mission Control. He says,

“Let’s start with the fact that they’re talking to Mission Control in real-time. There’s no lag. How did suddenly time and space change you get instantaneous communication all the way out to this asteroid with no lag?”

He goes on to say, “And there are these weird video game displays in the space shuttle that allows you to … like suddenly you’re flying in the game Asteroids.” Hadfield sums up his opinion of Armageddon by saying,

“It is as atrociously bad as any space movie that was ever done. It’s so bad, it’s tragic-comic. I’m glad they safely landed on the asteroid, but it’s just atrocious.”

‘Armageddon’ still did well in the theaters 

Hadfield obviously did not like Armageddon and neither did movie critics. But, that didn’t stop theatergoers. It was a huge commercial success and grossed just over $36 million on opening weekend in the United States and Canada. It went on to gross over $553 million worldwide. 

While Armageddon is not respected for being scientifically accurate by scientists, it is still popular to watch. Even NASA uses Armageddon as part of its management training. Recruits to NASA are given the task to see how many inaccuracies they can find. So far, a total of 168 factual errors have been found.