LMNOP

If you're just joining in, you should know that @DaveG34 and I are debating the merits of the movieArmageddon. The opening statements are here and here; this is my rebuttal to Dave's. His rebuttal is posted here. We agreed to keep our rebuttals to 500ish words.

As the next (and final) step in this debate, @EmGusk, who has declared herself fully neutral regarding this movie, has agreed to evaluate our arguments and choose a winner.

Alrighty, Dave. I don't have a lot of space (due to the arbitrary space restraints that I myself mandated), so I'll get right to the point. This movie is a Serial Happening of AWESOME Things, as in, "so good i SHAT myself." (Two can play at the clever acronym game!) And I'll gladly accept your Scrapple analogy, because this movie DOES contain head and heart. So there. Your first paragraph is now invalid. Moving on.

(Also, I never saw Deep Impact, but I feel compelled to parenthetically address that piece of your argument as well. After reviewing the IMDB page for DI, all I can say is, WOW--there is NO WAY Armageddon copied this movie! Deep Impact is about a comet hurtling toward the Earth; Armageddon is about an asteroid! And DI's female lead's initials are TL, whereas in Armageddon it's LT. So I think we can all agree that this was just a huge misunderstanding.)

I don't see what the big problem is with the acting is in this movie. I've already acknowledged the film's one true vulnerability--its writing/dialogue--and I think what are commonly perceived as acting problems in this movie are actually just amazing actors like Bruce and Ben and Liv and Owen and all my other BFFs just kinda momentarily choking on a line that they know isn't soooo super great. Aside from that, I think you get some pretty good performances in this film. I agree that I would have loved to see more of some of the supporting actors, like Owen Wilson, but it's kind of hard to focus on their development too too much with the master-weave of epic shit going on.

Instead of a weakness, I posit that the lack of attention to the minors in this movie is just grounds for an amazing sequel, Armawedding In Las Vegas, a hilarious bachelor party movie taking place the night before Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler's wedding. This movie would basically just be The Hangover with all the Armageddon drilling guys doing everything instead, and it would be amazing.*

Dave, I've done my best to refute your key arguments, and my opening statement offers a host of reasons to love this movie--but at the end of the day, it's up to you to suspend your disbelief and join the fun. But if you can't enjoy it, it's not the movie's fault. It's yours. Basically, as the hottie NASA lady (whose hair is down by the end of the movie in accordance with the rule that all women must get hotter as movies go on) says to the crazy Russian cosmonaut while trying to fix the shuttle launching mechanism: YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE COMPONENTS!

*I know that the credits for Armageddon already technically show Liv and Ben getting married, and that to get Owen and a few other characters in this movie would require ignoring the fact that they absolutely and definitely died in the first movie, but I feel we can overlook that in the interest of creating one of the more amazing comic romps of all time.