Goofs for
Armageddon (1998/I) More at IMDbPro »

• Factual errors: There are numerous errors in Shuttle procedure and in the depiction of space flight. See trivia.
  
  
• Factual errors: There are numerous errors in the depiction of the physics of space and microgravity and of asteroids (their characteristics, their behavior and their effects). See trivia.
  
  
• Continuity: Shots in the shuttle launch sequence alternate between close-ups of the X-71 (metallic, with boosters over the wings) and panoramic shots of a regular shuttle (white, with no boosters over the wings).
  
  

• Continuity: When preparing for launch, the two shuttle crews board from the same gantry tower, but later shots it is obvious that there are two separate gantries.
  
  
• Continuity: The Russian space station simulates gravity when it is rotated. The direction that this force applies to people and objects within the station and the two attached shuttles is inconsistent with the geometry of the station. in reality, when the station is spinning in that manner, gravity can be simulated however the two shuttles would experience the gravity a different way, one crew would be able to walk on the floors of the station, where the other shuttle (being on the opposite side) the other folks would end up walking on the celing, appearing upside down to their friends from the first shuttle.
  
  
• Continuity: Falling objects near the surface of the asteroid fall as if affected by gravity as strong as the Earth's.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Grass is clearly visible at the edge of the cliff when the Armadillo comes to a rest after jumping the canyon.
  
  
• Continuity: The asteroid is supposedly rotating in all three dimensions, yet the view of the Earth from the asteroid remains the same.
  
  
• Continuity: When AJ enters the shuttle after Harry decides to blow the nuke, he is covered in dirt and blood. As he is being strapped in a few seconds later, he is totally clean.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: The shot of people celebrating in Mission Control after the nuclear weapon is detonated is used twice, just longer the second time. Most noticeable is the officer in a beret in the front doing the same motions both times.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Johnson Space Center in Houston is labeled as the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: On asteroid, a puff of smoke reveals/reflects shadow of a camera on crane.
  
  
• Continuity: Two shuttles are launched separately, some minutes apart. But they are shown flying very close when they are leaving Earth atmosphere.
  
  
• Continuity: Early in the movie, Harry and crew "accidentally" strike oil. Immediately following, when the feds arrive, we see a distinct spot of oil on Harry's nose. In the next few shots it disappears and reappears.
  
  
• Continuity: Harry knocks on A.J.'s wall with a golf club, knocking everything off the shelf except a few playing cards. Once he's inside the room, some cans and other things fall off the shelf a second time.
  
  
• Continuity: A dog is seen chewing on a miniature Godzilla toy. In the next shot, he is chewing on a much bigger, balloon type Godzilla. But throughout, a guy has been trying to remove the toy from the dog's mouth.
  
  
• Continuity: AJ's hat disappears when he is in the fuel pod, then reappears when he is climbing the ladder.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When they strike oil on the oil rig, Harry scolds AJ and we hear, "Number 2 relief valve is wide open," but Harry finishes speaking before the end of the sentence.
  
  
• Continuity: When Oscar is riding his horse in the beginning he is riding with a sunset as the backdrop. In a close-up of his face, the background is a bright blue sky.
  
  
• Continuity: A.J. goes down the hole to cut a piece of pipe away. We cut to Harry and the Col. William Sharp yelling at him to come out. Meanwhile, A.J. is just starting to cut the same pipe again.
  
  
• Continuity: When deactivating the bomb on the asteroid and the timer reaches 30 seconds. The next shot of the timer has been flipped so that it seems read 45 seconds with a reversed 4 (i.e. it actually said 24 seconds).
  
  
• Continuity: During the Armadillo jump a yellow ear plug appears and disappears in A.J.'s right ear between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When the countdown timer is at "5 Hours", there is a sequence of communication between Harry and Dan Truman. Between scenes, the timer goes from "5 Hours" to "6 Hours" and then back down to "5 Hours".
  
  
• Continuity: When A.J is singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane", Grace hugs him. She switches sides between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: The movie starts on a Friday and they say that the asteroid will hit in 18 days, which would bring us to a Tuesday. The shuttle is launched on a Tuesday evening at 6:30pm. It takes about an hour (67min) to get to MIR, 60 hours to get to the moon, 12 min slingshot, 8 hours on the asteroid and about 4 hours (3:57) to earth after zero barrier. This timeline projects the asteroid hitting earth Friday evening around 8pm. No where near Tuesday evening.
  
  
• Continuity: During the New York asteroid shower, you see an aerial view of Manhattan with the Chrysler Building. An asteroid shoots from left to right toward the Chrysler Building, but in the shot where the asteroid blasts through the Chrysler Building and the other skyscraper and hits Grand Central Station, the asteroid comes from the right.
  
  
• Factual errors: The Russian space station is an absurdity in itself: initiating a rotation to accommodate artificial gravity would in reality threaten the structural integrity of such a pronged modular craft, and spinning the station before docking would be unpractical, as it renders a normally tricky docking to be nearly impossible since the docking ports are on the external rotating pods. Furthermore, a rotating station would need its docking area along the axis of rotation, plus the docking vessel would have to match that rotation, and match its center of gravity along the docking point approaching along the station's axis of rotation.
  
  
• Factual errors: The woman at NASA (looking at footage with the guys) says that it's "Armstrong bouncing at the surface". That is Aldrin. Almost every shot outside "The Eagle" are of him.
  
  
• Factual errors: It is not Turkish dialect but Azerbaijani Turkish dialect that is heard in all scenes which are from Istanbul, Turkey. Azerbaijani dialect is dominant in Azerbaijan, not Turkey. Also Azerbaijani dialect is not used in Turkish broadcasts.
  
  
• Continuity: When the two ships are docking, the radar shows that both are docking at the same time, but the shot from space shows one docking after another.
  
  
• Continuity: When the crew has landed on the asteroid, Harry says something to the effect of, "Come down here to the flat area, and take readings," twice.
  
  
• Continuity: When Harry shoots at A.J, the wound appears on one leg. However, in the next shot, when A.J is hopping, it is clear that the wound has changed legs
  
  
• Continuity: When Harry is threatening AJ in AJ's room, he holds the golf club to AJ's neck facing the right. In the next shot it is facing to the left.
  
  
• Continuity: Chick Capple's ex-wife is holding the telephone receiver in her right hand, but when she drops the receiver, it falls from her left hand.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The two crews are shown splitting up to walk to and board their respective shuttles. Launch pads 39A and 39B are three miles apart.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As the shuttles pull to a stop to dock with the space station, the engines still appear to be at full throttle.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the scene of the helicopters chasing Oscar on his horse, a Wescam camera pod can be seen on the lead chopper (only visible in widescreen versions of the movie).
  
  
• Continuity: When the asteroid has been destroyed, the footage of a relieved crew at mission control is used twice, most notably with a soldier with his hands to his face, wiping his brow and adjusting his beret.
  
  
• Factual errors: When the space station has a fire and then explodes the fire would not keep burning in the vacuum of space. Once the oxygen is either burned up or dissipated the fire would die, this would only take a few seconds.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The opening sequence of the asteroid, said to have caused a mass extinction 65 million years ago, shows the continental arrangement and exact coastlines of today's Caribbean area. Continental placements and all coastlines were vastly different 65 million years ago. North and South America were not joined as shown, nor even close together.
  
  
• Plot holes: How was A.J. able to start his own company so fast? If the movie started on a Friday, and it had to be assumed it took no more than a couple of days to round up all the guys, there is no way he could have done it.
  
  
• Continuity: Harry had golf shoes and a golf glove on at the beginning of the movie. After he shoots AJ, and he's following Grace, he has work boots and work gloves on.
  
  
• Continuity: The feds show up on the oil rig the very same day the asteroid is discovered. This is done after they discover the asteroid, name it, find out when it is going to hit, called to find out who was the best deep core driller, etc.
  
  
• Plot holes: Harry and Grace are picked up by the military, leaving behind the crew on the rig to go straight to NASA and find out about the asteroid. Presumably, time being of the essence, this trip did not take long. Nevertheless, in the time that it took this trip to take place, the entire crew manages to clean up, shut down operations, leave the rig, and reissue their lives - Bear to South Dakota, Max to a tattoo parlor, Rock Hound to a bar in New Orleans, Oscar to El Paso, Chick to Las Vegas. Best yet, AJ manages to leave the rig and start his own business. There is no way the crew would have had nearly enough time to do any of this.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the psychological examination, Rockhound's solved Rubik's Cube at one point shows a green side adjacent to the blue side. In traditional Rubik's Cubes, the blue and green sides are opposite of each other.
  
  
• Plot holes: If the X-71 is supposed to have a Titanium Impenetrable skin to help it fly through asteroids, how is that A.J. after crash landing on the asteroid is able to use the machine gun on the armadillo and penetrate and crash through the Impenetrable skin?
  
  
• Factual errors: The Commander, Pacific Air Forces is a 4-star General, not a 2-star.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Harry sarcastically asks Colonel Sharp if he has any more bullets left in the gun so he can shoot Rock Hound. But the gun was never fired.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the up link is disconnected, the computer flashes OVERRRIDE - adding an extra R to the word "Override".
  
  
• Continuity: When the space station is on fire, the first shuttle to close up and go (Sharp's, and Harry's) is about to close the door. The fuel hoses are still clearly visible running through the top of the hatch. A second later, the hatch closes and locks - presumably airtight, because it never reopens.
  
  
• Factual errors: In a real space shuttle launch, the Solid Rocket Boosters and External Tank are not released at the same time. The SRBs are released first, followed by the external tank later.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In the movie, the landing zone is constantly referred to as being made of "iron ferrite", by both the drilling crew and NASA themselves. However ferrite is a particular structure for very pure iron, so this this is redundant, like saying "egg omelet". This may be a deliberate error to allow the audience to understand what the material is, much like Rockhound's comment that the landing site was an "iron plate".
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): At the beginning of the movie, when Grace and Harry are arguing about A.J., Harry says that A.J. is the only male on the crew in Grace's age bracket. However, later in the film, when the crew is telling Harry that Grace is a 'hottie', Harry says to Oscar that he is about "5 minutes older than Grace". So clearly A.J. is not the only one Grace's age.
  
  
• Factual errors: After the space shuttle Independence crashes onto the asteroid and AJ is looking for survivors, you see fire burning all around the rubble. There is no oxygen in space, therefore fire cannot burn.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the briefing at the beginning of the movie, Harry is told that only nine telescopes in the world can see the asteroid. This is inconceivable since an asteroid the size of Texas only 18 days away from Earth would be visible to most any amateur astronomer with a good size (12" or better ) telescope, not to mention the hundreds of research quality telescopes around the world.
  
  
• Factual errors: Simulating gravity is possible, but the gravity would be felt only away from the axis of rotation. The way the space station and space shuttles are attached, it would be impossible for gravity to be felt on all normal walking surfaces. And it would not be felt at all at the center. It would be greatest at the walls of the space shuttles farthest from the axis of rotation. NASA has modeled this using 10-30 meter diameter cylinders (like 2001 Space Odyssey), and with large systems of a capsule, a 2km tether, and a counter weight. But the smaller the system, the more chances you'd get dizzy if you bent over because the gravity at your feet and head would differ.
  
  
• Continuity: During the lunar orbit sequence the shuttles are rotating, however the horizontal indicator shown on the dash is stable - showing the shuttle in level flight.
  
  
• Errors in geography: People in numerous locations all over the globe are shown reacting to various events simultaneously - all in daylight.
  
  

• Plot holes: SPOILER: Killing the uplink to the nuclear weapon would not stop the timer. Once the timer has been started on the nuclear weapon, the timer on it would be independent. It would take an override code via an active uplink, not a killed uplink, to stop it. Thus, Truman's ploy to "buy them maybe two minutes" on the comet would have been useless. What he should have done was use the uplink to stop the timer, not kill the uplink itself.
  
  

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