What’s Aged the Worst?
The 150-minute runtime, Twin Towers image, training premise, Affleck’s replacement teeth, weaker romance, Rockhound’s sexual behavior, and the Godzilla swipe have aged poorly.
In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:57:57Read transcript
- Criterion inclusion is jokingly treated as an objection and then defended as recognition of an important movie.
- At roughly 150 minutes the film could lose about 20 minutes, despite a playful desire for even more.
- A burning Twin Tower in the opening destruction now reads as eerie and sobering.
- The failure to train astronauts as drillers is a premise-breaking problem that Bay never resolves, though one defense distinguishes mathematical space training from embodied drilling instinct.
- Bruce Willis’s hairpiece is mostly defended, but Affleck’s $20,000 set of enlarged white teeth is a conspicuous Bay-driven transformation.
- One host rejects the Affleck/Tyler love scenes, while Rockhound’s repeated interest in barely adult women is described as not surviving to 2020.
- Bay’s extended opening insult aimed at the competing Godzilla film remains inexplicably petty.