The likelihood of someone watching a movie a second time with the commentary is improbable unless they are absolutely obsessed with that particular film or its director. Despite receiving unfavorable reviews from critics, a commentary track for Ben Affleck’s film, Armageddon has started to circulate once again.
Big-budget blockbusters often have plot holes, and 1998’s Armageddon is certainly no exception. But since it is 2023, Affleck’s sarcastic commentary about a specific plot point he brought up to the director, Michael Bay and his 1998 film has also come to light.
Affleck spends two minutes in the Armageddon commentary criticizing Bay for sending an oil drilling crew to stop a huge asteroid from hitting Earth.
Ben Affleck’s Remarks on Michael Bay’s Movie Are Going Viral
Even though it received a mixed bag of reviews from critics, the thrilling science-fiction disaster, Armageddon was a commercial hit. The 1998 movie received criticism primarily for its over-the-top action sequences, and scientific inaccuracies, which were even brought up by Ben Affleck, the star of the movie.
When director, Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer chose to cast Ben Affleck in Armageddon, he had just started his rise to Hollywood stardom. The commentary track also makes it clear that he entered the world of action movies with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Thus, he naturally had questions from the director.
For those who are unfamiliar, here is a brief flashback. Affleck recalled in the DVD commentary track how he had once questioned the movie’s logic. The 51-year-old actor claimed that Bay’s response was a curt “Shut the f**k up.” The Flash star can be heard telling hilarious stories for almost two minutes in the commentary video that was posted to Twitter:
“I asked Michael why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers, and he told me to shut the f**k up. So that was the end of that talk. [Does Michael Bay voice] ‘You know, Ben, just shut up, OK? You know, this is a real plan.’ I was like, ‘You mean it’s a real plan at NASA to train oil drillers?’ And he told me to just shut the f**k up!”
Michael Bay Expressed Regret For Armageddon?
Armageddon’s director, Michael Bay, appeared to apologize for the film in a previous interview where he discussed the iconic 1998 release as he said:
“I will apologize for Armageddon because we had to do the whole movie in 16 weeks. It was a massive undertaking. That was not fair to the movie. I would redo the entire third act if I could. But the studio literally took the movie away from us. It was terrible. My visual effects supervisor had a nervous breakdown, so I had to be in charge of that. I called James Cameron and asked ‘What do you do when you’re doing all the effects yourself?’ But the movie did fine.”
Despite the negative feedback from the audience, the Transformers director is still extremely proud of the work he produced in Armageddon. As he went on:
“Still today Armageddon is still one of the most shown movies on cable TV. And yes, I’m proud of the movie. Enough said.”
But, soon after the article was published, Bay changed his stance and claimed that his apology only applied to the editing of the movie and not to its entire production. To quote him:
“What I clearly said to the reporter, is I wish I had more time to edit the film, specifically the third act. He asked me in effect what would you change if you could in your movies if you could go back. I said, I wish we had a few more weeks in the edit room on Armageddon.”
The movie was a critical and financial success, earning over $553 million globally against a $140 million budget. However, critics’ reactions to the movie were contradictory.
You can stream Armageddon on Max.
Source- Twitter
