Don't breathe. Don't look back. The tornado's vision is based on movement.
An iconic film of 1996, at the height of the Disaster Movie revival. Twister tells the story of a Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits who chase tornadoes for a living. The main duo are scientist Dr. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) and her former husband Bill Harding (Bill Paxton). Among the many others is Dr. Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz), Harding's current fiancée, providing a Love Triangle of sorts. Also a tale of vengeance against the tornadoes that deprived a little girl of her father. Also a villainous evil team of tornado chasers that seek to beat Our Heroes to the punch at a scientific breakthrough.Twister was popular not because of its groundbreaking or interesting plot. The love-story is hackneyed and loaded with instant characterization and tornadoes do not work that way. The real draw of Twister was its ground-breaking special effects featuring some of the most realistic and thrilling images of tornadoes ever created for film. This isn't The Wizard of Oz (though the film does feature a "Dorothy" in it...)The film went on to become the number-two top grossing film of 1996 and its special effects won it numerous awards. While remembered these days with less fondness due to the lack of an interesting plot, it is credited for spawning a whole new generation of tornado chasers. Twister was also the first film ever released on DVD AND the last film put out on HD DVD in the U.S. (though the very last HD DVD worldwide was a German release of Death Proof).Not to be confused with the party game or the otherfilm from 1989 with the same name, which happens to be a comedy.
Tropes:
Anachronism Stew: The first scene is set in 1969 and contains numerous errors of the time period. Jo's father mentions the tornado bearing down on his home as possibly an F5, when the Fujita scale wasn't established until 1972.
Black Van: The corporate storm-chasers drive a fleet of black vehicles, presumably to show they're the bad guys.
And to show that their crew is rich enough to afford a fleet of matching, brand-new vehicles.
Car Meets House: In the final tornado chase sequence, Bill and Jo drive their truck through a house that had been torn off its foundations and rolled onto the road in front of them.
Bill:[as the house rolls in front of them with no time for them to evade]: I think we're going in!
Bill:[afterwards]: Maybe we should get off this road.
A tornado does this with a station wagon into the side of a service center garage the protagonists are taking cover in.
Car Fu: Bill and Jo do this to make sure the last Dorothy probe makes it into the tornado; setting the truck on cruise control and jumping out, looking on as it plows head-on into the F5 tornado.
Bill[noticing truck has drifted off the road and is about to run into a parked combine harvester]: Whoa!
And of course, "We've got cows!"
Chekhov's Truck: Jo's truck in the first tornado chase sequence, that gets picked up and dropped onto the road, is a foreshadowing of how they'll eventually need to get their project "off the ground".
Dusty:[laughing] Well, there's some good news... I mean, it did fly...
City Mouse: Melissa is very out of place among the rest of the cast primarily for this reason.
Comedy of Remarriage: The main drama of the film is about how long it will take before Bill and Jo get back together - Bill arrives at the start of the film to collect the signed divorce papers from Jo and brings his fiance with him.
Cool Old Lady: Jo's Aunt Meg. Artist, inspiration to Jo, awesome cook, beef farmer, and has just enough Bad Ass in her that she insists she'll drive herself to the hospital after a twister completely devastates her house and puts her car in a tree.
Developing Doomed Characters: While the film opens with a tornado destroying a farm, much of the film is filler with the "kooky" team and the relationship drama instead of tornadoes destroying things. Hey, they only have so much money to spend on the effects.
Everythings Better With Cows: The iconic scene was so popular that the real-world NOAA named their cafeteria the Flying Cow Cafe after the film.
Evil Twin: Used as a joke when Bill's buddies are telling embarrassing stories to his fiance. He blames the stories on Evil Bill, who he killed.
Face Plant: Bill slams face-first into the back window of the truck when Jo slams on the brakes while he's in the back prepping the Dorothy probe during the third chase.
Fake American: The very British Cary Elwes as the very southern Jonas, though he's supposed to be from the Midwest and his accent is hard to place.
Foot Dragging Divorcee: Bill Harding is only there in tornado-alley at the time because he came there to badger his wife Jo into finally signing the divorce papers. Subverted in that they wind up back together and never do get the papers signed. (She did sign them...but only after Bill's new fiancee leaves him.)
An Oklahoma example. Several weathermen and news anchors actually have those in real life.
The most famous of these (at least in the Oklahoma City area) was KWTV chief meteorologist Gary England, a pioneer in television weather reporting, who also served as a technical consultant. England's weather reporting has labeled him as one of the most trusted people in Oklahoma.
Large Ham: Cary Elwes hams up pretty much every scene he's in.
Love Cannot Overcome: Melissa breaks up with Bill before he goes chasing after the final tornado because, in her words, "I can't compete with this."
Major Injury Underreaction: Even though she and her dog have just been rescued from a house so badly damaged by an F4 tornado that the structure collapses shortly thereafter, and she herself has suffered numerous injuries related to same, Jo's aunt continues to insist that she can drive herself to the hospital right up until Rabbit informs her that her car is in a tree around the corner. While this seems silly, it's also plausible that she's suffering from shock or a concussion from the experience and thus isn't thinking logically.
Product Placement: At times, the movie feels like a two hour Chrysler commercial.
Dodge Ram — when you absolutely, positively have to drive into a tornado.
Plus, when they give the Dorothy probes wings by using every aluminum can they can find, all of the cans are Pepsi. Which may not be that big of a stretch when it comes to soda brand loyalty, but it's unlikely that every house in the general vicinity of an area that uses "Coke" as a generic term would be Pepsi drinkers.
Protagonist-Centered Morality: Jonas' villainy is largely an Informed Trait. He does nothing legally wrong (unlike the heroes), and is only guilty of being a tremendous douche. Keep in mind though, this was a mid-90's film, and selling out to "The Man" was a mortal sin in 90's pop culture. No wonder he took a cell tower to the chest.
Ragtag Band of Misfits: The team run by Cary Elwes' character are corporate sponsored, and all drive matching black vans, wear uniforms and act professional. The team run by Helen Hunt, on the other hand, drive their own cars, dress in street clothes and act insane.
Reality Is Unrealistic: The film received some flack from film critics for the number of tornadoes to appear in a short time frame. While this is unusual, the current record for tornadoes in a single 24 hour period is 206. This was in 2011. Before that, the record was 148 in 1974, which the movie, made in 1994, likely used for their reference point. While a large number of tornadoes at once is unusual, storms that spawn multiple tornadoes aren't uncommon either.
Real Place Background: Jo's aunt Meg lives in Wakita, an actual town in northern Oklahoma. Shooting took place in the actual town and several buildings were demolished to give the look of the community getting decimated by a tornado.
Running Gag: The device that the group came up with getting knocked over and its sensor bulbs getting spilled everywhere whenever they try to use it near a tornado.
The tornado device is called Dorothy. Of course, real scientists also do this kind of thing. Case in point, Dorothy is based on a real tornado device called TOTO
The flying cows that twist in distress as they're blown around may be a Shout Out to a silly shot in The Wizard of Oz, in which a cow floats past that's just standing placidly in mid-air.
The Red Stapler: Sales of red Dodge Ram pickup trucks increased notably after this film's release.
Too Dumb to Live: Jonas, who pointedly ignores Jo and Bill's warning about his vehicle and the placement of the oncoming Twister just because they don't like each other. He even ignores his own driver who expresses the same concern and has even less motivation to see them both die a windy death.
Don't forget Jo's father at the start of the movie. You're safe in storm shelter, but you look at the door and see it rattling. What do you do? If you answered with stay the frell away, congratulations! You're smarter than he was. His wife and daughter do exactly this and live.
Trailer Park Tornado Magnet: Notably averted here, of all movies. Although tornadoes devastate several farmhouses, two towns, a drive-in theater and a whole bunch of empty fields, they never once whack a trailer park.
True Companions: If the breakfast scene at Aunt Meg's house doesn't show that the stormchasers are this, nothing does.
Villainy-Free Villain: Jonas, for daring to accept funding for his experiments and "copying" the design of a tracking device he probably helped develop in the first place. Really, the only thing that makes him a villain is his rudeness. It becomes doubly silly when you realize that most storm chasers out there would kill to receive actual funding, and that there's a corporation out there wealthy and interested enough in storm chasing to fully outfit a team of 20 people with state-of-the-art equipment!
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