I Revisited Armageddon Recently, And I Owe One Specific Character A Huge Apology

Revisiting a movie, 10, 20, or 27 years after first seeing it can be an eye-opening and game-changing experience. I recently experienced this very thing when I went back and watched Armageddon and showed it to my kids. Though they checked out whenever asteroids and meteorites were destroying landmarks in New York City, Shanghai, and Paris, I came to a major realization about halfway through Michael Bay’s iconic 1998 disaster film: I got one character totally wrong.

I don’t know how this happened or when my whole misconception of one of the movie’s key characters started, but I’ve spent the past 25-plus years thinking that one character was one of the meanest ‘90s movie villains when in fact they were honestly one of the biggest heroes of this incredibly patriotic blockbuster. But since I’m always the first to call myself out when I make a mistake, I have to share this with you all...

First Of All, I Have To Admit I Got Two Stories Mixed Up

I’ll be the first to admit when I’m a big dummy! I’ve watched clips and revisited a few scenes over the years, but I watched Armageddon all the way through for the first time in like 25 years recently, and it was an eye-opening and honestly embarrassing experience. And no, it’s not because the CGI hasn’t aged well (this movie did come out in 1998) or the various issues with the movie’s science, but more to do with two major characters and their respective arcs. Specifically, I totally mixed up William Fichtner’s Colonel William Sharp and Steve Buscemi’s Rockhound, two very different characters with opposite personalities, motivations, and stress-management skills.

My recollection of the movie had Sharp going crazy and being confined to a seat on the space shuttle instead of Rockhound, who came down with a serious case of “space dementia” and tried to sabotage the whole mission. I’m not defending my misconception and poor memory, but I think I know where this came from.

At one point, Sharp does pull out a gun in order to make sure the drillers follow through with their mission (still don’t know why you’d bring a pistol to space), but he isn’t duct-taped to a chair. It’s only after Rockhound loses his mind and starts to jeopardize the mission, and billions of lives, that I saw the fault in my ways.

I Was Looking At Armageddon Through The Wrong Lens

Revisiting Armageddon wasn’t a case where I got the famous quotes wrong, but instead, one where I totally misremembered a character. And you know what my problem was? I was looking at the movie through the wrong lens. Being so wrapped up and obsessed with the drillers led by Bruce Willis’ Harry Stamper, I was more focused on seeing the movie from the point of view of the rag-tag group of outcasts, misfits, and borderline criminally insane. I saw astronauts like Sharp and his fellow pilots, mission commanders, and specialists as cold, distant, and by-the-books experts who would do anything and everything to fulfill their mission. And what was their mission? Oh, just saving Earth from total annihilation.

That mindset must have sullied my view of Sharp all these years and painted false memories that made me remember him as a villain and not one of the biggest heroes on what could best be described as a suicide mission. And for that, I owe Sharp and the rest of the Independence and Freedom crews a big apology.

In Fact, I Have A Whole New Appreciation For Sharp After Revisiting Armageddon

Boy do I feel like a big dumb dumb because William Sharp wasn’t one of the villains of the movie (if you can call any of them that), but instead one of the major heroes. Outside of the whole situation of sneaking a gun onto a space shuttle, he did everything he could to make the mission a success and save the planet from being turned into a floating debris field. It’s just that he wasn’t as colorful, chaotic, or memorable as Harry Stamper or his wild and crazy crew of off-shore oil drillers.

This man, who clearly cared about his crew, the drillers, the mission, and most of all, the survival of humanity and Earth in general, dedicated his life to being a pilot and astronaut, and that should be celebrated more than it probably is. In fact, I’d put Sharp up there with Stamper and A.J. Frost (Ben Affleck) in terms of heroics. He was willing to put his life on the line to make sure everything worked out.

There’s the whole sequence near the end when Sharp and the other surviving astronauts attempt to turn off the timer to the nuclear warhead after the United States government loses hope that the team will set it off in time. Coming down to the final seconds of the timer, Sharp pulls through. He was also instrumental in helping Harry Stamper pull off the unlikely task of blowing up the rock in time to split it in two, which cost Stamper his life.

The Scene At The End Where Sharp Asks Grace's Permission To Shake Her Hand Really Drove Home I Wrong I Was

But you want to know what really made me realize I had it all wrong? Oh, it was just the scene where William Sharp approaches Grace Stamper (Liv Tyler) and asks permission to shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man he ever met. The whole arrival sequence in itself is great, but that moment in the final moments of the movie (just before Aerosmith’s all-time great movie song, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” comes on) was just the cherry on top and way more emotional than I remembered.

This man was clearly so moved by Harry’s act of self-sacrifice that he felt inclined to speak with Grace before anyone else. Before celebrating with NASA, before seeing his own family, before anything else, he was there to recognize and honor Harry for all he did to save the world by approaching his daughter.

William Fichtner, hell, Michael Bay, if you’re reading this, accept my deepest and most sincere apologies for getting this wrong for so long.