Twister (film)

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Twister

Twister theatrical poster
Directed by Jan de Bont
Produced by Ian Bryce
Michael Crichton
Kathleen Kennedy
Written by Michael Crichton
Anne-Marie Martin
Starring Helen Hunt
Bill Paxton
Jami Gertz
Cary Elwes
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Alan Ruck
Music by Flea
Mark Mancina
Anthony Kiedis (uncredited)
Dave Navarro (uncredited)
Chad Smith (uncredited)
Gioacchino Rossini
Ennio Morricone
Cinematography Jack N. Green
Editing by Michael Kahn
Distributed by Warner Bros. (USA)
Universal Studios (non-USA)
Release date(s) May 10, 1996
Running time 113 minutes
Country USA
Language English
Budget US$92,000,000 (estimated)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Twister is a 1996 disaster film starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as storm chasers researching tornadoes. It was directed by Jan de Bont. The film was based upon a script by Michael Crichton and his wife, former actress Anne-Marie Martin.

In the movie, a team of "storm chasers" try to perfect their new instrument, while competing with another team.

Twister currently ranks 48th in all time box office gross with USD 494,471,524. Twister also has a famous scene of a flying cow, a scene that was the subject of many parodies. The film also became the theme of a ride at Universal Orlando Resort called Twister... Ride it Out.

According to IMDb, Twister was the first movie commercially released on DVD.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film starts in a rural farm, where a man is watching a TV news report warning about a tornado. He grabs his wife and daughter and takes off for the storm cellar. His daughter screams that their dog is still outside, and the man opens the cellar door just in time for the dog to get in, and closes it. However, the tornado turns out to be too powerful, and after a struggle, rips the door (and the man) off into the vortex.

Many years later, the story revolves around two married storm chasers, Dr. Jo Harding (Hunt), and her soon to be ex-husband Bill Harding (Paxton). As the film begins, Bill has gone into the fields of Oklahoma to find Jo and her team of storm chasers. Bill is a former weather researcher and storm chaser who has taken a job as a weather reporter and is about to marry his new girlfriend, Dr. Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz), a Reproductive Therapist. Bill is seeking Jo’s signature for the final divorce papers.

When they meet, Bill discovers that Jo has built DOROTHY, a device that Bill invented. DOROTHY is designed to release hundreds of sensors into the center of a tornado. He also meets up with Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes), a smug fellow meteorologist and storm chaser. Miller is a savvy fund raiser but has little instinct for field work and has questionable professional scruples. When Bill discovers that Jonas has “invented” a device almost identical to DOROTHY called D.O.T. 3, Bill is enraged and vows to deploy DOROTHY before Miller can claim credit for his idea.

He joins Jo and her eccentric team of storm chasers which includes Dustin 'Dusty' Davis (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Robert 'Rabbit' Nurick (Alan Ruck). Jo's team enjoys the thrill of the chase but to Jo, it's personal. She had been the girl in the beginning of the story whose father was blown away. If successful, DOROTHY will help increase warning times and save lives.

Tensions rise between Jo and Bill as they have several close calls with dangerous tornadoes as they try to implement the new device. Through these ordeals, it becomes obvious to everyone but them that they still have strong feelings for one another. Melissa also sees it and leaves Bill.

Jo's team stops in a small town for the night. An F4 hits the town shortly while they are in a drive-in movie theater (the movie playing is The Shining). The squad doesn't have time to prepare for it so they seek refuge in a car garage near the drive-in. The powerful F4 tornado next moves on to the town of Wakita, Oklahoma, where Jo's Aunt Meg (Lois Smith) lives, injuring her and many others. The team then attacks their goal with even more fervor, wanting to succeed to prevent more injuries and deaths. They modify the sensors with an idea inspired by the windmill sculptures that Aunt Meg had in her front yard to create a sort of wing on each sensor so the tornado will pick them up more effectively. Soon hot on the trail of another tornado, they next witness Jonas, with his smugness at an all-time high, and his driver Eddie (Zach Grenier) drive right next to an F5 tornado. Jo and Bill try to warn Jonas that the tornado might shift its track and come at him and Eddie, but Jonas won't listen. The tornado changes course and a metal radio tower from the tornado flies through the truck windshield, impaling Eddie and then the twister sucks the truck up. The truck then crashes back to ground, killing both men in an explosion.

Jo and Bill decide that they will have to come dangerously close to the tornado in order to successfully release the sensors. They successfully release the sensors into the tornado, but to avoid DOROTHY being blown away too early, they leave it strapped to the back of the truck to increase the weight and they jump out, leaving the truck on cruise control. The idea works, but they lose their truck in the process. Suddenly the tornado comes in their direction, and while running they take cover from the tornado in a farm pumphouse, tied to a water pipe by leather drive belts. After the tornado passes, the team begins to get the results they were hoping for, proving that DOROTHY was a success.

[edit] Cast

Image:USF Twister Ride It Out Logo.png

[edit] Theme park attraction

Twister... Ride It Out is an attraction located at Universal Studios Florida. It is based on the 1996 blockbuster film staring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton. The attraction takes guests to a small mock-up of the Oklahoma town of Wakita. Video monitors show home movies of tornadoes shot, and signs carry information about the Fujita Scale.

As guests walk into the "Twister filming center", Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt talk about filming the movie. As soon as they are done, guests walk into a new room which is a square model of Aunt Meg's house after the twister. When guests walk into the kitchen, televisions are stuck into the wall, supposedly by force. Bill and Helen appear on the TV and talk about what is ahead. The moment they finish, guests walk into a scene, resembling the Drive-In scene in the movie. Suddenly, sirens go off, scenes from The Shining (which is being shown at the drive-in in the movie) appear on the screen, and then winds in the room get stronger. All of a sudden, a tornado drops from the sky, and a tree is split in half by lightning. Guests suddenly notice handlebars and grab on. Soon, the tornado wrecks the Screen, the food station, the car, and makes a thrilling effect with fire. As the storm dies, the stage drops, giving guests a final scare to remember the tornado's fury. There is a giftshop at the end named Aftermath.

[edit] Trivia

  • A very young Alexa Vega , star of the Spy Kids films, plays Helen Hunt's character when she was little in the prologue. (The establishing caption at the start of the prologue reads 'JUNE 1969', and young Jo is confirmed as being '5 years old' in the closing credits.)
  • Working titles for the film were Catch The Wind and Wind Devils.[citation needed]
Bill's Dodge Ram in action
Bill's Dodge Ram in action
  • This movie features an instrumental by Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen called Respect the Wind. It is the only song throughout his entire career on which the elder of the two brothers, Alex, has worked on something without the band Van Halen (The song was credited to Eddie and Alex Van Halen).[citation needed]
  • A DirecTV commercial was made that digitally manipulated a scene from the movie to contain Bill Paxton advertising for their product.[1]
  • The original tagline for the movie was "It Sucks", but the producers ultimately decided to go in a different direction, thinking that this tagline would provide critics with ammunition if they didn't like the movie. The tagline that was eventually agreed upon was "The Dark Side of Nature".[citation needed]
  • The oil tank truck that narrowly misses Bill and Jo's truck during the final tornado sequence bears the logo of Benthic Petroleum, a fictional company that appeared in The Abyss. The same special effects company worked on both films.
  • The movie received a PG-13 rating for "intense depiction of very bad weather".
  • The music that was used in the movie would be later used as incidental music in several Chinese television shows.[citation needed]
  • Many references were made incorrectly to the Fujita scale. For instance, the weatherman in the beginning of the movie (a flashback scene that is supposed to be to 1969 – see later errors) made reference to an F5 tornado. This is a mistake; the Fujita scale was not introduced until 1971. In several occasions during the movie, the storm chasers also diagnose a tornado's intensity while it is occurring. In reality, a tornado's intensity is measured by the damage it leaves behind, generally after ground and aerial surveys are conducted by the National Weather Service. People can make a guess a tornado's intensity by considering its size, speed, and debris cloud, but such predictions are just ballpark guesses.
  • The sound of the tornado was produced by recording a camel's moan and slowing it down.[2]
  • Several actual television meteorologists from Oklahoma are featured throughout the movie. In the film's prologue, Gary England of KWTV-9 Oklahoma City can be seen on a small television in actual footage from the early 1970s. He can also be heard later in the movie reporting over the radio, and even delivering his (locally) famous closing tagline, "Stay with News 9; we'll keep you advised." Gary also served as a technical advisor on the film. Former KFOR-4 Oklahoma City (and later KJRH-2 Tulsa) meteorologist Jeff Lazalier is seen on television interviewing Cary Elwes's character, Jonas Miller, during the meal scene at Aunt Meg's. Soon after, Rick Mitchell of KOCO-5 Oklahoma City can also be heard giving a weather report over the radio. (On a related note: in the film's prologue the year is given as 1969, however, Gary England did not actually work as a meteorologist until 1972.)[citation needed]
  • Sega Pinball released a pinball machine based on this movie. [3]
  • An urban legend arose shortly after the film's release that an actual Drive-in theater had been showing the Twister movie when an actual tornado ripped the screen away. The legend was most likely inspired by the drive-in sequence in the film. [1]

[edit] External links

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