Michael Bay has some extremely Michael Bay Moments, and Ben Affleck drags everyone

Nobody who truly loves you will ever say the words “You should listen to the DVD commentary.” DVD commentaries are largely a thing of the past, an add-on that came with the industry’s shift away from VHS that was meant to be both a technological flex (because look at all the stuff we can fit on one disc!) and a bonus glimpse into filmmakers’ minds (because you just gotta know how the Farrelly brothers got Cameron Diaz’s hair to look like that in There’s Something About Mary!).

DVD commentaries aren’t really a thing anymore, partly because no one really buys DVDs (or Blu-rays)—but also because the “wisdom” shed on DVD commentaries rarely feels essential. It’s mostly self-important directors patting themselves on the back or out-of-touch actors overemphasizing the power of their “craft.” If you’ve seen a movie, rewatching that same movie only with the volume turned down and a bunch of people spewing platitudes instead will likely not be a rewarding experience.

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But there are exceptions to every rule. In this case, I’m talking about the DVD commentary for the Criterion Collection edition of the Michael Bay film Armageddon. Twenty years ago, Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer, Bruce Willis, and Ben Affleck each separately got into a booth and recorded commentary for Armageddon, a movie about a group of oil drillers who are recruited to become astronauts so that they can save the world by traveling into space to drill a gigantic asteroid headed for Earth into less perilous pieces. The resulting product is stunning—simultaneously a snapshot of Michael Bay’s utter assholery (and admittedly, low-key genius), a glimpse into the humorless soul of Bruce Willis, and one of the best performances ever given by Ben Affleck. The commentary is somehow more entertaining than Armageddon itself, which is saying a lot because Armageddon is a movie in which OIL DRILLERS GO TO SPACE TO DESTROY AN ASTEROID.

With Armageddon celebrating its 20th anniversary this past weekend, it only feels right to acknowledge the anniversary of one of the only worthwhile DVD commentaries ever recorded. (The Criterion Collection edition of the movie technically came out only 19 years ago, but we’re still going to consider this past weekend its 20th anniversary, since DVD commentaries are traditionally recorded before a movie’s release.) Before we drill into Michael Bay, or consider whether Ben Affleck is this generation’s greatest movie critic, it’d probably help to answer a few questions and establish a foundation.

Q: Is Armageddon the one where American and Russian astronauts go to space and plant nuclear bombs on an asteroid headed for Earth?

A: No, that’s Deep Impact. Shame on you for confusing two movies about destroying extinction-level-sized asteroids that both came out in a two-month span in 1998.

Q: But hang on, Armageddon is part of the Criterion Collection?

A: I know, but yes, it is. It’s right there on Criterion’s website:

Ah yes, Michael Bay and John Huston grouped together, as they should be.

Look, I can’t explain why Criterion immediately decided to canonize Armageddon. Maybe it’s because, in the ’90s, Bay made the platonic ideal of blockbuster action movies. Or maybe it’s because Criterion just really liked Mark Curry’s performance as “Stu the Cabbie.” Anyway, the important thing is not why. Don’t worry yourself with this question—just be thankful, because if Criterion didn’t add Armageddon to the collection, we might have never heard this DVD commentary.

Q: Does Michael Bay liken making films to war?

A: I can’t believe you’re even asking this—of course he does! “Making films is like a war” is a sentence Michael Bay says on the DVD commentary before the opening scene of Armageddon even starts. And that’s probably a good segue into our next segment, a ranking of Michael Bay’s most Michael Bay Moments on the Armageddon DVD commentary.

A Ranking of Michael Bay’s Most Michael Bay Moments on the Armageddon DVD Commentary

5. “I know there’s no fire in space, but it is a movie, and most people don’t know that.”

4. “This writer begged me to rewrite the script. He rewrote 53 pages in two days, and when I read the script, it was pure shit.” (There is a one-in-six chance that the writer Bay is referring to here is J.J. Abrams.)

3. “I’m the kind of director who doesn’t like effects.” (Now feels like a good time to remind you that Bay’s last movie was Transformers: The Last Knight, which features this shot.)

2. “Making films is like a war.”

1. “I was very unimpressed when I went to NASA.”

A Close Examination of the Ben Affleck “Baby Teeth” Story

Pretty early on in the DVD commentary, Michael Bay tells an incredible tale. “We paid for a set of $20,000 pearly white teeth,” he says. “Ben’s gonna hate that story.” (Just FYI, minutes before this, Bay says that they also paid $20,000 for a dog that was specifically trained to attack Godzilla dolls; there is a decent chance that Bay assumes all things cost $20,000.) “I always liked low shots that kinda come right under your chin and make you a little bit heroic and he kinda had these baby teeth,” Bay continues. “So I told Jerry Bruckheimer, ‘God, he’s got these baby teeth, Jerry, I don’t know what to do!’ Jerry used a very famous star in a plane movie that he replaced teeth with so he said, ‘We did it to him, why not do it to Ben?’ So my dentist had Ben sitting in a dentist’s chair for a week, eight hours a day.”

Alright, that’s … wow. A few things right off the bat: First of all, that “God, he’s got these baby teeth, Jerry, I don’t know what to do” is a line from the Armageddon commentary and not Seinfeld is shocking. Second of all, Michael Bay obsessing over the size of Ben Affleck’s teeth and consistently dragging them as “baby teeth” is one of the odder directorial tics you will ever see. David Fincher does an exhausting number of takes; Michael Bay … has a deep dislike of small teeth. Third of all, I’d be remiss if I didn’t try to figure out who the anonymous small-teeth haver in this story is. Before 1998, Jerry Bruckheimer had produced two films that could be reasonably described as “plane movies”: Top Gun and Con Air—I believe you’ve heard of them? There are only two “very famous” stars in Top Gun and Con Air: Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage, respectively. Here is a photo of Tom Cruise in 1983’s The Outsiders:

Here is a photo of Tom Cruise in Top Gun, three years later:

Verdict: Michael Bay was talking about Tom Cruise, who smilebydesign.com calls “a walking billboard for great dental work.”

Now back to Ben: Just how small were his teeth pre-Armageddon, really? What did these diminutive chompers look like, so minuscule that the great Michael Bay couldn’t fathom filming them from a low angle? Well, here’s Ben in Dazed and Confused in 1993:

Can we see those babies from a little closer?

Hmm, I can’t believe I’m saying this but … I can kinda see where Michael Bay was coming from? The upper, central incisors aren’t abnormally small, but Ben’s lateral incisors certainly aren’t the lateral incisors of a hero. One could say they even resemble “baby teeth”? You definitely wouldn’t believe those teeth would be attached to a man who tucked animal crackers into Liv Tyler’s underwear.

Anyway, here’s what Ben’s teeth looked like after the alleged 40 hours of dental work, if you’re wondering:

Holy fuck. Now there’s a set of teeth you can get behind.

The Greatest DVD Commentary Performance of All Time

Maybe it was a newfound confidence due to the sparkly, not-baby-like-at-all incisors; maybe it was profound anger over the fact a guy with a Farrah Fawcett haircut made him get new incisors; or maybe it was just one too many mimosas consumed at a pre-recording brunch. Whatever it was, Ben Affleck came into the Armageddon DVD commentary on fire.

“This is where I first come into the movie,” Affleck lazily blurts out as his character first comes into the movie, a sentence that really sets the tone for the rest of the commentary and lets you know just how little he will be trying to do a satisfactory job. What follows is magic: For most of the scenes in which Billy Bob Thornton appears, Ben does a Sling Blade impression:

“Can’t you see it—Sling NASA?” Affleck asks no one in particular. Immediately after, this shot appears on screen, and Ben mercilessly makes fun of how unnecessarily expensive Armageddon’s production was: “This is where you just have a random helicopter in the background for no real reason, just because you’re a big movie and you’re expensive and you can,” he says. “You have no idea how much of a headache having a helicopter in the background causes us—safety this and money that, only so many hours they can fly, they’re on walkies, winds blasting everywhere. If I hadn’t brought it up you probably would’ve forgotten about that yellow helicopter in the background by now.”

Moments later, during an action scene on the oil rig, Ben dubs in goofy noises for a couple of stunt guys sliding down oil slicks:

Five seconds later, Bruce Willis chimes in, soberly mentioning how those stuntmen nearly died filming the scene.

But that’s all just an appetizer for the entree that is Affleck’s ruthless, succinct summary of how logically ridiculous Armageddon is. “You ever notice how everyone in these movies, they always have to be the best?” Ben observes, sounding nothing at all like one of the biggest stars of the movie. He continues, barely holding back his laughter. “Bruce Willis is the best deep-core driller? I didn’t know they rated deep-core drillers. You know what I mean? Like, if you went around and asked somebody, ‘Who’s the best deep-core driller?’ How do you know? Who keeps track of these things?” And then Ben and his beautiful teeth launch into a perfect rant:

I asked Michael why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers and he told me to shut the fuck up. So that was the end of that talk. [Does Michael Bay voice] “You know, Ben, just shut up, OK? You know, this is a real plan.” I was like, “You mean it’s a real plan at NASA to train oil drillers?” and he was like, “Just shut your mouth!” See, here’s where we demonstrate that, because Bruce is gonna tell the guys that they did a bad job of building the drill tank. [With extreme sarcasm] See, he’s a salt-of-the-earth guy and the NASA NERDONAUTS don’t understand, uh, his salt-of-the-earth ways, his rough-and-tumble ways. [Just straight up laughing now] Like somehow they can build ROCKET SHIPS but don’t understand what makes a good tranny. Eight whole months? As if that’s not enough time to learn how to drill a hole, but in a week we’re gonna learn how to be astronauts? [Impersonating Willis’s character, Harry Stamper] “Oh one whole week? We’re gonna learn how to fly into space? I need my guys.” Why do you need ’em? “They’re the best.” Everyone’s the best. Why are they the best? “I don’t know, they just are.” I mean, this is a little bit of a logic stretch, let’s face it. They don’t know jack about drilling? How hard can it be? Aim the drill at the ground and turn it on.

At this precise moment, we should’ve known that Ben Affleck was going to become an Academy Award–winning director and an ultra-famous movie star loaded with contradictions. His observations are excellent, eloquent, and funny; his impressions of Michael Bay, the jerk director, and Bruce Willis, the “serious” movie star, are spot on. It is a distillation of everything that is gloriously ridiculous about Armageddon, delivered in less than two minutes.

And yet, Affleck is offering this sharp, witty criticism about a movie, again, that he stars in. This short rant is a surprisingly fitting encapsulation of Ben Affleck and his disparate poles. There’s the movie star, the one who takes paycheck roles in movies like Armageddon, Daredevil, and a movie literally called Paycheck. But there’s also the film buff, the guy who made The Town, Gone Baby Gone, and Argo, who knows how to tell stories that are both grounded and engaging. In that rant, there’s a thoughtful creator, someone who might stare into the distance thinking of a failed project with a look of utter existential dread. There is also an impulsive man-child, the sort of person who might get a full back tattoo of a phoenix.

This is the power of the Armageddon DVD commentary, a historical Hollywood artifact that has everything: a bevy of Michael Bayisms, a good story about baby teeth, and a window into the odd, confounding soul of one of the most famous people on the planet.

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