Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson never holds back on the scientific inaccuracies he finds in well-known movies. This is the same man who said Tom Cruise’s character in Top Gun: Maverick should have “splattered” in one particular scene, and shared what he finds nonsensical about Men in Black. So it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that he gives his candid opinion of how Armageddon and The Terminator “violate” science.
There are probably thousands of movies out there that fail to get science right. As a man in this field, Neil DeGrasse Tyson took it upon himself to set the record straight on some scientifically inaccurate movies. Four years ago on X (formerly known as Twitter), he thought the sci-fi disaster film Armageddon was the most scientifically flawed movie out there. But as he revealed on SiriusXM when his thoughts on Armageddon were brought up, he now has a new champion.
Okay, so yes. More laws of per minute than any other movie ever made, ever, okay? That’s what I thought until I saw Moonfall… It was a pandemic film that came out, you know, Halle Berry and the moon is approaching Earth, and they learned that it’s hollow and there’s a moon being made out of rocks living inside of it and the Apollo missions were really to visit, to feed the moon being, and I just couldn’t, so I said, ‘Alright, I thought Armageddon had a secure hold on this crown, but apparently not.’
When you think about it, Roland Emmerich’s sci-fi film does seem to have an outlandish plot. Halle Berry plays an astronaut on a mission to stop the moon from trying to destroy the Earth. I’d like to believe that the moon will never lose control like that. But, it was still important to have movies like Moonfall around during the time of the pandemic. As the film’s star Patrick Wilson said, they’re “escapist” films that help you forget about the times you’re living in and just live in the moment of the movie. Sure, maybe situations like in the Halle Berry-led film may not happen in real life, but maybe that’s all the more reason to watch those movies on the big screen.
Armageddon and Moonfall weren’t the only movies the American author has roasted. He provided his own solution to stopping any large celestial figure from orbiting toward Earth with another sci-fi movie to tie into it, The Terminator.
All you gotta do is just nudge it and if you do that early enough, if you nudge it like one centimeter per second to the right, in space, there’s no friction, so it’ll just keep drifting to the right. If you do that early enough, then you can have the asteroid pass in front of the earth rather than hit the earth or you can slow it down so that it’ll pass behind the earth. Two ways you can adjust it. So, yeah. You know what it’s like? It’s like The Terminator thing where I want to kill your parents so that you’re never born. ‘Really?’ All you have to do is prevent your parents from meeting each other or have them have sex 20 minutes later than the other one. That will create a different zygote and you won’t be born, so the movies go, in some cases, they get hyperbolic on their solutions to problems.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson wouldn’t be the only scientist to notice inaccuracies with the Michael Bay film. Real-life astronomer Jackie Faherty has been asked about the depiction of science in Armageddon, and she said scientists would know in advance if a big rock were to hit Earth. In fact, they would know how to deflect it before it even reaches. So, you can say she’d be in agreement with Tyson. As for what the Death By Black Hole author said about The Terminator, it’s absolutely true that John Connor could have just time-traveled himself into 1984 and prevented his parents from meeting. But then there would be no John Connor or a memorable franchise for fans to see.
While Neil DeGrasse Tyson made some good points in his roast about sci-fi films like Armageddon and The Terminator, it’s important to go into these movies with a clear emphasis on fiction and less on science. It’s the only way audiences will be able to cherish these movies as a source of entertainment. You can currently watch Armageddon and The Terminator with your Max subscription.