Line #23 Film/Geostorm


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/geostorm.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''[[TagLine Brave the storm.]]'']]
3	''Geostorm'' is a 2017 disaster film directed by Dean Devlin and starring Creator/GerardButler, Creator/JimSturgess, Creator/EdHarris, Creator/AbbieCornish, Richard Schiff, Creator/AlexandraMariaLara, Creator/RobertSheehan, Creator/DanielWu, Creator/EugenioDerbez, and Creator/AndyGarcia.
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5	TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, when climate-controlling satellites malfunction and release disaster-creating small pods all over the world, Jake Lawson and his other fellow astronauts head into space to prevent the satellites from programming the small pods into creating a storm of epic proportions. They soon discover that the disasters weren't caused by a malfunction, but were done with intention and the only person who has the kill codes to shut down the satellites is President Andrew Palma.
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7	Not to be confused with a 90s arcade game whose sequel is titled ''[[VideoGame/GunForce Geo Storm]]'' in certain regions.
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9	----
10	!!''Geostorm'' provides examples of:
11	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The film is set sometime in 2022, and while most regular tech looks to be on par with what was common in 2017, electric cars (at least some of them with autopilot) seem to be much more prevalent, and space technology is ''a lot'' more advanced than anything available to mankind when the movie was released.
12	* ActionGirl: Sarah starts the movie doing little else but standing around, showing cleavage and generally looking pretty, but once shit starts hitting the fan, she leaves no doubt as to how she made it into the Secret Service. President Palma sums it up nicely after some particularly impressive stunts on her part.
13	--> '''Palma:''' ''[to Max]'' [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Marry her!]]
14	* AdvancingWallOfDoom: Available in a whole bunch of flavors like water, ice, sand, storms, or fire.
15	* AlternativeForeignThemeSong: The theme song for the Japanese release is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jMk3NVatas "Dinosaur"]] by Music/{{Bz}}.
16	* AmericaSavesTheDay: PlayedWith. On one hand, the protagonists are American. On the other hand, they are being helped by a MultinationalTeam. On the ''other'' hand, [[spoiler:Dekkom, Palma's Secretary, is trying to [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt kill off Presidential candidates, and eradicate America's enemies]], and is doing so with the help of his cronies in the Secret Service, and Duncan, an EvilBrit.]]
17	* AmericaTakesOverTheWorld: [[spoiler: Dekkom's ultimate goal is to make America the world's dominant nation with him as its leader. He does succeed with the former but with President Palma likely to benefit from it.]]
18	* AmoralAfrikaner: One of [[spoiler:Dekkom's]] goons has a South African accent.
19	* AndStarring: "With Creator/EdHarris and Creator/AndyGarcia"
20	* ApocalypseHow: ApocalypseHow/Class0 [[FromBadToWorse slowly escalating into a]] ApocalypseHow/Class3A, possibly even a ApocalypseHow/Class4. The Dutch Boy satellites are infected with a virus that is causing them to screw with otherwise pleasant weather over a growing number of cities until they turn into the titular geostorm.
21	* ApocalypseWow: We see cities getting wrecked in detail. And at one point, [[spoiler:Dubai gets swamped by a ''massive tidal wave'' powerful enough to partially topple the Burj Khalifa.]]
22	* ArtificialGravity: The ICSS (International Climate Space Station or ISS IV as it's referred to as [[LicensedGame The Game]]) has solid Earth-like gravity even in [[CentrifugalGravity sections that aren't spinning]], and whatever's generating it can apparently be tuned so precisely that people can instantly go from 1G to zero-G and back simply by crossing any airlock threshold. How that's possible is never touched upon.
23	* ArtisticLicensePhysics: The film was made by one of the guys responsible for ''Film/{{Stargate}}'', so ''Geostorm'' following in its footsteps shouldn't be too much of a surprise. One of the most blatant examples is probably the Hong Kong scene where [[spoiler:a weather control machine ''in space'' somehow manages to heat up subterranean gas pipelines until they glow red-hot and ''melt through the tarmac above'' while the people in the streets merely go through a stifling heat wave instead of being cooked alive]]. Then as people look on, the camera also pans over to a car's computer screen which displays the current temperature - in Fahrenheit, a system not used outside of the US. But hey, [[RuleOfCool it looks awesome, so it's okay]].
24	* ArtisticLicensePolitics: While [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_elections 2022 was an election year]] in the United States, presidential elections take place every four years, with the next scheduled for 2024.
25	* BadassBoast: [[spoiler: When Palma, with the help of the Secret Service, escapes Dekkom's attempt to kill him with a rocket launcher, Dekkom asks how he did it. Palma replies, "How? Because I'm the goddamn President of the United States of America!"]]
26	* BigBad: [[spoiler:[[CorruptPolitician Secretary of State Leonard Dekkom]]]] is revealed to be the one who ordered the hacking of the Dutch Boy satellites and perpetrated the titular Geostorms.
27	* BilingualBonus: After an incident where Jack smashes through solar panels, Hernandez tells him about the damaged stuff, and then adds "''¡Te chingaste los paneles solares papá!''"[[labelnote:Translation]]You fucked up the solar panels dude![[/labelnote]]
28	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The Dutch Boy satellites are restored, the GovernmentConspiracy is thwarted, and the [[TitleDrop geostorm]] is averted, but millions of people are dead because of the chaos. Though the ending scene lines into a more sweet side.]]
29	* {{Bookends}}: The film begins and ends with an off-screen narration from Hannah.
30	* BrickJoke: Jake at one point recounts a tale of him and his brother going fishing with their father when they were young, as a way to transmit a hidden message to Max. In the film's final scene, [[spoiler:Jake, Max and Hannah are sitting on a pier facing Cape Canaveral]], fishing rods in hand.
31	* ChekhovsGun:
32	** Early in the film, Max mentions a code he and Jake used to use as kids. Jake claims to not remember it. Later, however, Jake is able to send a message to Max using the code: [[spoiler:"Proof of sabotage at the highest levels of government. Trust no one."]]
33	** When told to find a car, Max ends up stealing a self-driving taxi that he's set to manual. [[spoiler:They later set it on autopilot and point it at the BigBad, letting him believe they're still inside so they can ambush him.]]
34	* ComputerVirus: [[spoiler:The apparent "failures" of the Dutch Boy Satellites are in truth caused by a virus planted in them by the BigBad's [[TheMole Mole]], with the end goal of obliterating every "enemy" of the USA.]]
35	* CoolStarship: The ICSS is so important and has such a large crew complement that an entire fleet of nifty orbital shuttles is required to keep it supplied, with at least a dozen occupied launch platforms stretching off into the distance at Cape Canaveral. The shuttles themselves look like much more advanced versions of present-days space shuttles, have enough seats for a platoon, are impressively maneuverable, and even come with large panorama windows.
36	* CoversAlwaysLie: While the film really does devastate a major city with a huge tidal wave, a scene like the one on the page image never happens; especially not with what's heavily implied to be the main character and his kid daughter.
37	* DeusExMachina: At no point in the narrative is it even hinted at that [[spoiler:the remote-controlled, 100% automated Dutch Boy satellites have a passenger compartment, let alone one that's big enough to comfortably fit two people in full EVA gear and must take up at least half the satellite's internal space for no good reason]]. It gives the finale a very sudden out-of-left-field twist that borders on AssPull due to the lack of foreshadowing and its scientific absurdity, even by this film's generally low standards in the plausibility department.
38	* DidNotThinkThisThrough: The BigBad's plan is pretty stupid when you stop to think about it. [[spoiler:Dekkom basically wants to rewind history back to 1945 when America was at the height of its global power, by utterly annihilating its rivals and enemies. Thing is, it's hard to be the shining leader of mankind when there's nothing left to lead, and even harder to assert dominance over a planet that's almost completely wrecked beyond recovery, perhaps even covered by a perpetual worldwide monster storm. What's more, he never explains how he intended to stop the geostorm after killing the only person capable of doing so, and there was no guarantee whatsoever that it couldn't have escalated beyond all predictions.]]
39	** [[spoiler: It seemed he did plan to leave some countries unscathed. Except for Washington, which was targeted for a different reason, every single one of the places was a threat to the US either economically (like Hong Kong), culturally (Dubai, Moscow, the desert in Afghanistan), or mix of other complicated factors (Rio, Mumbai). Dekkom would likely leave most of Europe and North America unscathed while targeting second and third world nations. That does not rule out that the countries on his approved list won't suffer any collateral damage.]]
40	** [[spoiler: Not only that, but in being ''stopped'', there's a good chance that the ''objective'' of the BigBad was mostly accomplished, with the worst effects being curbed: Had he succeeded, the US would've likely been dragged down along with the rest of the world. Instead, the damage the satellites likely caused in those hours (based on the amount of devastation in Rio, Mumbai, and Dubai in particular) is likely to knock the rest of the global economy for a loop for some time...possibly for years or decades if the weather takes more than a few hours to "unwind" from the brink of global catastrophe. Dekkom was right: Palma likely gets the world Dekkom wanted to produce, albeit at the price of Dekkom going down for it.]]
41	* DisasterMovie: Not a coincidence given that it's directed by Dean Devlin, who co-wrote ''Film/IndependenceDay'' and ''Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow'' with director Creator/RolandEmmerich.
42	* DysonSphere: A planet-sized variation. The Dutch Boy system is actually a rigid and pretty dense metal framework that completely encapsulates Earth, with the individual "satellites" being mechanically fixated parts of this grid instead of moving through space on standard orbits.
43	* EveryoneKnowsMorse: During the abovementioned DeusExMachina event, [[spoiler:Jake and Ute]] use a Dutch Boy satellite's manoeuvring thrusters to signal SOS to anyone watching. Fairly justified, though - the Morse code for SOS is so simple that pretty much everyone actually does know it.
44	* ExactTimeToFailure: As soon as Dutch Boy really starts messing things up, the protagonists have exactly 90 minutes to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Pretty impressive calculation for something as chaotic as a global weather catastrophe nobody has ever witnessed, let alone studied before.
45	* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Jake and Max, respectively.
46	* GaiasLament: Provides the story background. The climate balance on Earth had deteriorated so much so rapidly that rampaging weather disasters were threatening the survival of humanity as a species, which ultimately convinced the most powerful nations to team up and build Dutch Boy.
47	* GiantWallOfWateryDoom: One of these hitting [[spoiler:Dubai]] is [[spoiler:one of the last disasters caused by the hacked Dutch Boy Satellites.]]
48	* AGodAmI: Dekkom outright admits to playing god with the world's weather, claiming that it was the whole point of Dutch Boy in the first place. Palma is predictably not amused, and has Dekkom arrested on the spot.
49	* GreenAesop: ''Stop messing up the world climate before it's too late''. While it's left ambiguous to what degree mankind was responsible for Earth's climate becoming inimical to human life, the movie still doesn't even try to be subtle about the threat any form of rampant climate change poses to our continued survival on this pretty blue planet.
50	* HeKnowsTooMuch: [[spoiler: Cheng got pushed by an oncoming car by Dekkom's [[TheDragon hired mercenary]].]]
51	* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: [[spoiler:Duncan]], TheMole aboard the ICSS, [[spoiler:tries to shoot Jake with a pistol when he's found out, only to hit a window instead which promptly shatters and offers him a front-row experience of Earth's low orbit, although not before Jake had safely left the room.]]
52	* HolographicTerminal: Used quite extensively, from nifty pens that unfold into holographic [=PDAs=], over average-sized computer monitors, to the giant holo-screen aboard the ICSS. Most of them are composed of HighTechHexagons for that extra bit of cool.
53	* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Might as well be Jake's CatchPhrase, with a dash of ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight thrown in. It seems to be the main reason for his eventual falling-out with his ControlFreak brother.
54	* INeverSaidItWasPoison: How the BigBad outs himself. [[spoiler:Dekkom asks Max if Cheng told him anything else about the project. Max didn't mention Cheng at all.]]
55	* ItsAllAboutMe: Considerable parts of the US administration come across like this every time they're bitching about how they'll have to relinquish control over Dutch Boy to the international community soon.
56	* KillSat: A ''very'' unconventional example. The Dutch Boy satellites are orbiting {{weather control machine}}s that are meant to ''save people'' by changing the weather in a specific area. The plot revolves around them doing the opposite (which is made blatantly clear by the trailers). The Moscow satellite plays it particularly straight by attacking the city with a massive heat ray very akin to the (in)famous one in ''Film/DieAnotherDay''.
57	* LampshadeHanging: When [[spoiler:the ICSS' self-destruct system suddenly activates]], one of the guys in the control room asks incredulously why such a system even exists. [[JustifiedTrope Justified example]], though - Jake offers a pretty reasonable explanation.[[note]]This version of the ISS is ''enormous'', and the self-destruct was meant as a failsafe to prevent a minor ColonyDrop in case of uncontrolled atmospheric reentry.[[/note]]
58	* LiterallyShatteredLives: The first sign that something's up with Dutch Boy is a UN convoy in Afghanistan stumbling upon a [[HailfirePeaks snow-covered, flash-frozen village in the middle of the scorching-hot desert]]. One of the Blue Helmets can't resist poking one of the frozen villagers, which results in the latter's hand snapping off at the middle of the forearm. It's later mentioned that about 300 Afghanis died in the incident.
59	** Several of the beachgoers in Rio suffer this during the literal freeze-wave as a result of falling over or being struck by falling ice/debris after being frozen.
60	* LittleMissSnarker: Hannah Lawson.
61	* LivingMacGuffin: Of the MacGuffinSuperPerson variety - [[spoiler:US President Palma]] is the only one capable of deactivating Dutch Boy because the system is coded to his biometrics, which makes him a pretty sought-after person during the finale.
62	* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Not a single named female character in the film dies, and even the sole surviving RedShirt of the [[KillItWithIce Rio de Janeiro incident]] happens to be a [[FanserviceExtra scantily-clad young woman]]. Men, however, drop like flies left, right and center.
63	* MonumentalDamage: Inevitable due to being a DisasterMovie. The Burj Khalifa is toppled when Dubai is flooded, and the Kremlin/St. Basil's Cathedral gets fried by a heat laser. Even the new World Trade Center isn't safe from flood and it is implied to be destroyed during a massive flood in Lower Manhattan, though it isn't shown for [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror obvious reasons]].
64	* MoodyTrailerCoverSong: One trailer features a slow, creepy cover of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" sung by a mournful female voice. There's meant to be a juxtaposition between the sweetly optimistic lyrics and the gratuitous scenes of MonumentalDamage and at the hands of the HostileWeather.
65	--> ''I see skies of blue and clouds of white''
66	---> dozens of tornadoes bearing down on a village as terrified people flee for their lives
67	--> ''The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night''
68	---> 30 story tall tsunami sweeps through a coastal city, toppling buildings like dominoes
69	--> ''And I think to myself what a wonderful world.''
70	---> birds falling out of the sky, followed by an airplane careening wildly towards the ground
71	* [[MrExposition Ms. Exposition]]: Max' young daughter Hannah opens the movie with an off-screen narration about the Dutch Boy project's history, [[BookEnds and does so again]] at the end, although with some words about the future this time.
72	* MultinationalTeam: Given the ICSS evolved from the ISS, it's no surprise. Yet for all the international representation (Germany, UK, Mexico, Nigeria, France, Japan), there's the conspicuous absence of spaceflight potency Russia.
73	* NaturalDisasterCascade: Earth's [[WeatherControlMachine weather-controlling satellites]] going haywire causes them to inflict ApocalypseWow level natural disasters around the world, including a GiantWallOfWateryDoom that rivals the Burj Khalifa in height and a heat wave that ignites gas pipelines. Worse yet, the malfunction threaten to create a [[TitleDrop massive geostorm]]. It turns out that [[spoiler:the weather satellites didn't malfunction but were programmed to behave as they did by an {{Eagleland}} villain]]. Also worthy of note, freak weather disasters were already occurring in the setting's backstory due to GlobalWarming, before the satellites were built to stabilize the climate.
74	* NeverTrustATrailer: The trailers focused on the [[DisasterMovie disaster footage]], which is actually largely incidental to the plot and mostly exists to show off the awesome graphics. The real plot is a technothriller.
75	* NoOntologicalInertia: [[spoiler: Once Dutch Boy is rebooted, all the disastrous weather goes away instantly, from flood waters draining to [[KillItWithIce freezing temperatures]] rising back to normal.]]
76	* NoPartyGiven: Averted. The third act of the film begins at the Democratic National Convention in Florida, when President Palma is to be re-nominated and [[spoiler:Dekkom plans to kill him and everyone else in the line of succession.]]
77	* OhCrap: Take a shot every time someone's facial features derail spectacularly in the face of some imminent disaster. You'll be hammered by the time the credits roll.
78	* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Jake is forced to put up with an extremely obnoxious specimen when he's HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee at the beginning of the movie. The whole scene serves as the EstablishingCharacterMoment for him, his brother, and the greater political situation they're working in.
79	* OpenSecret: Max and Sarah's relationship.
80	* OutrunTheFireball: In a way - a heat wave strikes Hong Kong and makes the underground gas lines explode, forcing Cheng to outrun the "ring of fire".
81	* PresidentEvil: US President Andrew Palma is the man behind the misuse of Dutch Boy as a WMD. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope Or so the heroes think at first]]. It's actually Leonard Dekkom, his Secretary of State.]]
82	* PublicSecretMessage: While on the ISS IV, Jake sends a video message to Max, a long diatribe about their father regarding a fishing trip. However, with the help of his hacker friend, Max uses [[ChekhovsGun a code he and Jake developed as kids]] to discover a hidden message regarding a set number of words within: [[spoiler:"Proof of sabotage at the highest levels of government. Trust no one."]]
83	* RammingAlwaysWorks: Jake comes up with the plan of taking out the hacked Dutch Boy satellites by deploying the replacement satellites without retrieving the ones already in place. [[spoiler:It works, but after the first one, TheMole starts the ISS' SelfDestructSequence.]]
84	* RightBehindMe: When Jake is in the virtual conference room, he starts complaining about the politicians he's going to be talking to, just as the screen comes on behind him.
85	-->'''Jake:''' All right so, who are the yahoos in Washington we're gonna deal with on this?\
86	'''Dekkom:''' I guess I would be the head yahoo.
87	* SassyBlackWoman: Max's partner-in-crime Dana fits the trope to a T.
88	* SceneryGorn: [[spoiler:Hong Kong explodes, Mumbai gets devastated by a pack of monster tornadoes, Rio de Janeiro gets flash-frozen, Dubai gets hit by a massive tsunami, Moscow gets targeted by a nasty heat ray...]] If you expect anything ''but'' gorgeous destruction porn, you're watching the wrong movie.
89	* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: The movie's series of satellites, Dutch Boy, are a network of various satellites working together to affect the climate. Some of the technologies depicted are plausible, such as seeding the atmosphere to manipulate water vapor. However, the movie goes into egregiousness by showing that the Dutch Boy network is an actual NET. [[EpicFail A PHYSICAL NET OF SATELLITES STRUNG TOGETHER IN LOW EARTH ORBIT]]. The resources needed to BUILD such a colossal structure would take centuries to collect, without even going into processing and manufacture, and that's assuming Earth even has the raw iron, semiconductive materials, and copper to construct a metal net larger than the Earth itself.
90	* StuffBlowingUp: Wouldn't be a proper disaster movie without it. Hong Kong and [[spoiler:the ICSS exploding spectacularly]] are the most memorable examples, with the latter taking up much of the final chapter.
91	* TheBadGuyWins: {{Downplayed}}, [[spoiler: While Dekkom doesn't become president and his plan was stopped before it could result in the complete destruction of civilization, he still accomplished his goal of ending every perceived threat to America and when human civilization does recover it will definitely be [[AmericaTakesOverTheWorld a U.S. led world.]]]]
92	* ThrownOutTheAirlock: Played with. One guy aboard the ICSS falls victim to the station's sabotaged systems when the corridor he's in gets sealed, then vented into space. [[KarmicDeath Appropriately]], the one responsible for it suffers a very similar fate later, [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard and by their own hands no less]].
93	* TitleDrop: Dozens of times.
94	* TooDumbToLive: Whoever allowed large-bore handguns aboard a civilian (read: unarmored) space station deserves a hefty kick in the nuts. There's a reason even most softer works of fiction arm their space station security personnel with shotguns at best - their projectiles won't compromise the integrity of walls or windows in case of a miss, which is exactly what happens the moment some idiots starts shooting up the ICSS.
95	** The South-African henchman who chases after Sarah, Max and Palma in the middle of a super lightning storm that is destroying the buildings around them for no apparent reason but zealous devotion to his job.
96	* {{Tuckerization}}: Jake's daughter Hannah, named after Dean Devlin's one who gave him the idea for the movie.
97	* WeatherControlMachine: The "Dutch Boy" satellites which are meant to control the climate. The plot revolves around them being turned into [[KillSat weapons]] and [[RaceAgainstTheClock the efforts to restore them]].
98	* YoureInsane: [[spoiler:President Palma]] accuses [[spoiler:Secretary of State Dekkom]] of genocide after learning that he masterminded the titular Geostorm by having the satellites hacked, which will cause billions of deaths, so he could [[spoiler:wipe out every non-American nation]].
99	-->'''[[spoiler: Palma]]:''' This is genocide!\
100	'''[[spoiler: Dekkom]]:''' What you call genocide, ''I'' call preemptive strike.
101	----
102	->''[[Music/LouisArmstrong I see skies of blue and clouds of white\
103	The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night]]\

Context Film / Geostorm