"Prepare for the new West Coast."
—The tagline sums up the whole thing pretty neatly.
10.5 is a Made-for-TV Movie Mini Series for NBC Disaster Movie about a series of increasingly damaging geological events first on the West Coast of the United States and then into the Midwest.
The two-part miniseries opens up when an earthquake strong enough to bring down the Space Needle strikes Seattle. Later a bigger earthquake devours a train and catches some suspicions from our resident Ignored Expert scientist Samantha Hill. She suspects the quakes are only going to get bigger and will eventually sink the entirety of the West Coast. She plans to counter said problem by detonating nukes at precise locations to weld the fault closed.
It spawned a second part titled 10.5: Apocalypse which took the audacity of the first movie and took it up to eleven.
Now say the mantra again and again until you finally regain your faith in humanity.
Tropes used by this series include:
- Artistic License – Geography: Ellensburg is nowhere near Seattle.
- Artistic License – Geology: You could make a drinking game out of how many inaccuracies both miniseries have. For example:
- For one thing, it is literally impossible for an earthquake with a magnitude of 10.5 on the Richter Scale to occur through normal geological processes,note because there aren't any faults long enough.
- A major detail about this trope; an earthquake of high magnitude is A LOT of shaking, and above 6—7 on the scale you cannot run, much less walk. at 8 - 9 you can't even stand up. Yet in the referenced 10.5 events you have people running for their lives. During an earthquake powerful enough to knock down the Space Needle, there’s even one guy who tries to escape by riding a BMX bike! It's as if the Screen Shake was really just a visual effect. Which, uh... it kind of is...
- The ultimate cause of the disasters was described near the beginning of the movie as being below the asthenosphere, i.e. in the mantle itself.
- While the south of the Golden State is certainly due for a big earthquake any day now, it won't be a 10.5, but most likely in the 7-8 region, as if that wasn't deadly enough in such a heavily populated area.
- The San Andreas fault isn't that kind of fault. If anything, its plates are getting closer together.
- In the sequel, it is theorised that seismic events speed up when continents are moving towards each other. Yeah, but aren't the continents only going towards each other at a rate of 2-8 centimetres a year? Going by the sequel's logic, L.A and Tokyo would be next door to each other in less than a month.
- In the sequel, there would be no way that a single earthquake would be the direct trigger for hundreds of other events, even if the Earthquake was that strong.
- Extinct volcanoes will usually never erupt again, even if they're hit by an earthquake, because the magma is no longer close enough to rise out of the crust. However, both Sun Valley and King's Peak do just that in the sequel, despite this glaring flaw.
- In the sequel, the fault line which is moving towards the Gulf of Mexico is doing just that. However, at the end of the film, it has somehow gone north into Canada as well. And the USGS didn't care, nor did they comment on the fault doing this.
- While weather can certainly make earthquake rescue efforts harder, there's no such thing as "Earthquake Weather".
- When one scientist asks another why this earthquake is different to others, she just replies, "It's more volatile". They're not even trying.
- Artistic License – Physics: The massive tsunami which hits Honolulu in the sequel is able to take out the windows of the buildings, but it somehow just glides through the concrete skyscrapers without doing anything serious to them.
- Bittersweet Ending: In the climax of Apocalypse, Sam Hill and her father Earl are able to successfully prevent the fault line from hitting a large nuclear plant, in turn saving 75 million people from radioactive fallout. But by the end, millions of other people are still dead, everything west of the Mississippi River is ravaged, Houston gets destroyed, and the entire North American continent still gets physically split in half from the fault.
- Buried Alive: The second earthquake in the first movie does this to an entire town.
- During the final Big One in the original film, some of the people in the refugee camp can be seen in the background being buried in sand, probably because a sinkhole opened up underneath them.
- The entire Las Vegas Strip ends up like this in the sequel, as a giant sinkhole forms during the earthquake that swallows up casinos right and left.
- Captain Ersatz: The sunken casino scenes in the sequel are a massive Expy or rip-off of The Poseidon Adventure, just set in a building instead of a ship.
- Deadly Gas: Earthquakes in both movies rupture underground gas pockets.
- Deus ex Nukina: In addition to their traditional roles as weapons of mass destruction, nuclear explosions can also apparently stop earthquakes. Who knew?
- Disaster Movie: In more than one way.
- Doomed Contrarian: As seen in the sunken casino scene in Apocalypse.
- Averted in the first movie.
- Dropped A Dam On Him: Jordan Fisher and the helicopter pilot keep too close to the Hoover Dam even as they realize water is pouring over it like a waterfall, until the dam collapses on them.
- Earthquakes Cause Fissures
- Genre Savvy: Zigzagged. In Apocalypse, Jordan and the pilot see with their eyes that the Hoover Dam is mere minutes away from breaking, yet they stay too close and are killed for it. Later, two Rangers on an helicopter check on Mount Rushmore and, seeing Washington's face cracking, they understand it's time to get outta there.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Roy Nolan has to set off the last nuke manually. He had already been mortally wounded by it falling down the drill hole on him after it got damaged.
- Rachel, the assistant of the Governor of California, shields her from the collapse of a roof when they are caught by an earthquake in San Francisco, and is mortally wounded.
- Hope Spot: Near the end of Apocalypse, Sam and Earl's plan to create a new fault that diverts the midwestern one not only saves the Red Plains reactors, preventing a nuclear disaster that would've killed 75 million people, but the fault itself stops moving...at least temporarily.
- Market-Based Title: When this was screened on Channel 4 in Britain it was called Earthquake: 10.5 (presumably because Britain isn't prone to earth tremors so viewers there aren't as familiar with the Richter scale, although even this is a bit of a stretch, seeing as how Earthquakes are readily discussed in Geography and Science classes alike over here). It was also renamed Earthquake for the DVD release in the UK.
- Monumental Damage: The Space Needle, Golden Gate Bridge, US Bank Tower and the Hollywood Sign fall in the first film. Monument Valley gets flooded, the Hoover Dam breaks, Las Vegas sinks, and the faces on Mt. Rushmore get destroyed outright in Apocalypse.
- Nuke 'em: The government sets off a chain of nukes in an attempt to quell the quake, including one in what's alleged to be "Gilroy, California". No more Garlic Festival...
- 1-Dimensional Thinking: A bicyclist is victim to this trope in the Seattle earthquake with the Space Needle falling behind him.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: President Hollister. He encourages Nolan to become this after the latter was skeptical about Dr. Hill's theory.
- Regional Redecoration: 10.5 ends with the titular earthquake, which turns Los Angeles into an island. Apocalypse turns things up to eleven with an ancient fault line that proceeds to split North America in half.
- Shoddy Knockoff Product: The cruise ship which appears in the start of 10.5 Apocalypse is identical to the Queen Mary 2, but under a different name. One would think that they weren't even trying to hide the fact that they stole her design.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Jordan Fisher, who barely survives the end of the first movie, dies halfway into the second.
- Title Drop: The magnitude of the climactic earthquake is... 10.5.
- Too Dumb to Live: The crew of the Queen Mary 2 knockoff could ride out the tsunami if they headed straight for it, but they turn so that they are facing side on to the wave instead, with predictable results.
- Wham Line: When President Hollister asks how big the quake that'll hit Los Angeles will be, Sam responses appropriately.Sam: I believe it will change the geography of Southern California, Mr. President.
