If you thought Michael Bay’s 1998 disaster flick Armageddon – about a team of oil drillers hired by NASA to deflect an asteroid the size of Texas from hitting Earth – was preposterous, well, you’re right. But as it turns out, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has another pick for the most inaccurate sci-fi movie he has ever seen: 2022’s Halle Berry-starring Moonfall.
Appearing on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show (via Deadline), the host brought up Armageddon as being the movie that “violates more laws of physics per minute than any other film ever made.” But Tyson went for another director who doesn’t exactly take the time to adhere to scientific accuracy: Roland Emmerich. “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.’”
Neil deGrasse Tyson has no problem pointing out inaccuracies in movies and TV, to the point where a lot of his social media posts just make him seem like a buzzkill. But since it’s apparently so hard to take off his astrophysicist hat (they wear hats, right?), we’ll go along for the ride. For Tyson, Armageddon held its title for more than two decades. But prior to that, Tyson actually considered Disney’s The Black Hole the least accurate movie of its kind. Hey, it doesn’t make it into our Awfully Good series for nothing! Come to think of it, Roland Emmerich has his share of entries, too…At this rate, Tyson won’t find another insult to his field on the big screen until the 2040s when he’s in his 80s.
Do you think scientific accuracy matters when it comes to blockbuster entertainment along the lines of Armageddon or the works of Roland Emmerich? What do you think is the most absurd sci-fi movie you’ve ever seen? Let us know below!
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