After the chaos at NASA, it cuts to New York and immediately we hear rock music. This music illustrates the fact that the city life is very loud and fast paced, which is how the music is. We see normal people, rushing to work, selling something, sitting in a traffic jam, and these are all normal things that you would expect to see in everyday in New York. We noticed that it was a typical American city; yellow city cabs, American news in a shop window etc, and tells the audience that this film is going to focus mainly on the USA, and nothing else. It shows us a bit of comedy with the little dog and even a bit from the taxi driver who says “me too!” This is immediately comedy and everyday life is immediately shattered by the meteorite shower, the music stops, chaos happens and lots of cuts happen between the destruction of different buildings and people dying. It shows us different views, sometimes it shows us from the ground level view, sometimes it is higher up in the sky, and twice it shows a shot of the city from up above. Special effects are used on the meteorites coming down and hitting earth, and so are the buildings. I noticed when people are flying about and falling from eh sky, they looked like real people, so they would have been shot on blue screen and then added to the special effects.
The audience discover what trouble the earth is in because of when Truman and his workers are explaining to the president what is happening, how big the meteorite is, when the shower will stop, and what effects it will have on the earth if it hits. Trueman describes to us that the meterite shower was "just the size of basketballs and Volkswagens”. The president must obviously feel scared because of these words, because although they were very small they caused a lot of damage, and the main meteor will be about the size of Texas. The main shock of the
The camera has several shots of the presidents face, his face is even displayed on eh monitor that Truman is watching. It shows his face and his facial expressions, like when he seems frightened or shocked.
Truman calls the meteorite “a global killer”, because it destroys everything on earth, “Nothing would survive, not even bacteria” as Truman says. These words link to what the film is called, Armageddon, which means the end of the world.
As soon as the scene switches to the oilrig, we see Harry Stamper, who is hitting golf balls at the people protesting in the boat to stop the drilling. This is the middle of the beginning, and signals the next chapter of the film. This is a big leap, a second ago it was the people at NASA being told that they had just 18 days before the meteorite struck Earth, and now it shows us a bit of comedy introducing us to the roll of Harry’s character.
Harry finds out that his daughter is sleeping with AJ, who Harry seems to dislike, and dislikes him even more because he is sleeping with his daughter. AJ obviously has done something wrong before, before because Harry asks aj how long he has been working for him, and AJ replies “five, wonderful years”, in reply to this Harry says “in five years you have never apologised to me that quickly”, which tells us that he has done something wrong in the past. Harry is obviously very protective of his daughter, as he starts shooting at AJ for sleeping with Grace. He even admits to Grace when they talk that he is an immature father, and we find out that Grace has grown up with Roughnecks, and that she herself is like a roughneck.
Although Harry is shooting at AJ, he does not intend to kill him, and when one of the pellets from the gun hits him in the leg, he probably did it by accident. This scene is used to break the tension of the prospect of a meteorite hitting earth in 18 days, and gives the audience the impression that it will not be and disaster film all the way through.
In this film there are two main settings, NASA, and space. NASA is where they get there training, are briefed and is where the people at NASA find out what is happening. This is where Truman is, and where harries daughter is because “I have nowhere else to go” as Grace says.
Harry and AJ are typical American heroes because they are saving the day, there are only a few people saving the world and Harry and AJ are two of them.
Grace in the film is Harry’s daughter and AJ’s fiancée. She is very independent of herself; she does not want her father to treat her like a little girl any more, as she is surprised when Harry starts shooting at AJ because he is very protective of her. She is obviously worried about her dad, he lost his wife and was forced to look after Grace, and she knows that he is an immature father. She is very caring towards AJ, her dad and anyone she loves, as she likes to protect them from anything bad that happens to them.
Rockhound in the film is one of Harry’s employees. He is very intelligent as he manages to find out where and what they landed on when they over-shot there landing point on the asteroid. He even admits to Colonel Sharp that “C’os I’m a genius”. He obviously has a good sense of humour; he manages to break the tension in the film by coming out with stupid or sarcastic remarks, like when Colonel Sharp and Harry are fighting in the shuttle, he comes in and he says “Okay, what did we miss?” These short but humorous lines make the audience laugh and reduce the tension that the film is creating. He also seems to not care whether he will come back or not, as he borrows $100,000 from one of his friends and is so convinced that he wont come back. Even when they are drawing for straws to see who will stay behind and blow up the asteroid, he says that they should “all stay and die, but that’s me”.