Twister Film Critique - Science & English

When I, Dr. Montage Van Wetherchaysrr, watched the 1996 movie ‘Twister’, I was both impressed and a little put off. Being a meteorologist myself, I’ve got some opinions about the dramatic, cyclone movie.

Twister is directed by Jon de Bont starring Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, and Carey Elwes as tornado chasers. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) became a storm chaser after her father died during a tornado storm when she was very young. Bill (Paxton) was also a storm chaser before he chose to become a successful weather man. Bill and Jo had invented DOROTHY, a design that would release thousands of tiny sensors when a tornado passes over it, when they were working together but when Bill decided to leave, his relationship with Jo was destroyed and they decided for a divorce. They hoped that DOROTHY would give them the information they, and the world, needed for an accurate and early warning of tornadoes as well as more important and wanted information. The catch is that their rival group of storm chasers created another of the same design. Both groups, anxious, set off to be the first to test their design. On his way to get the divorce papers from Jo, Bill shows up with his new fiancée Melissa (Jami Gertz) while a tornado is spotted and decided he would come with to see how DOROTHY handles. Throughout the rest of the movie, the tornadoes become worse and worse while they attempt to gather the information that seems so important to them.



After seeing his movie I had many questions to think about and I was certain that many other viewers had the same in mind. First of all, a tornado can vary in intensity regardless of shape, size, and location. This is very greatly shown throughout the movie where the viewer can see the different sizes and damage of tornadoes and I was very delighted to have seen the amazing F5 tornado. What some people might debate on would be the damage the tornadoes in the movie made and how many times Jo and Bill would survive going through one.
In my opinion, towards the end of the movie, it became more of a love story than about the fact that they were running away from an F5 tornado. F5 tornado’s wind speed can reach up to 261-419 mile per hour and the relative frequency is less than 0.1%. One thing that made this scene very unreal was the fact that F5 tornadoes inflict damage like no other tornado known; Strong frame houses lifted off foundations and carried considerable distances to disintegrate, automobile sized missiles fly through the air in excess of 100 miles, trees debarked, steel reinforced concrete structures badly damaged, and incredible phenomena will occur. So how is it possible, two people tied to a pipe going 30 feet (or meters) underground survive an F5 tornado passing directly over them? Sure, the pipes would hold perfect, but there is the substantial amount of debris in any tornado, even more an F5, that seemed invisible in the movie. It is almost certain that Jo and Bill would’ve been impaled or stricken by some form of debris in the tornado. This also happened many other times during the movie where they had passed directly through a live tornado and survived with minimum damage. This is a photo my dear friend Mike Branick took while passing through an area hit by a tornado with F5 damage.


This is a chart of the different intensities of tornadoes to give you an idea of where an F5 tornado stands. (The graph might be small, so click on it to enlarge)

However the many twisted facts of this movie, I did have my fair share of favorite scenes. One of my favorites includes the very beginning of the movie where it shows how technology was back then with tornadoes and the little amount of time given for people to just about be able to get to their tornado cellar or wherever they would stay for shelter and protection. People literally had 3 seconds to 3 minutes of warning before they would be eaten up by these devastating storms. Technology advances from then and today have changed all that and the death rates have dropped dramatically, which was part of what Jo and Bill aimed for.

All in all, I find this movie to be a jaw dropping, eye raising, educational movie that should be watched throughout science classes. It shows dramatic scenes of tornadoes that any student would be captivated to learn about. Thank you Mrs. Fuller for letting me enjoy this movie with your science class and allowing me to insight you on my opinion and perspective about the movie.

Tribal People in Pakistan - By Logan & Linnea

There are many tribes in Pakistan some ancient some more recent but the main ones are older. Before the religion Islam came to be, mass migrations took place and many people went to Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia. Which lead to the forming of the main tribe the Huns, they are also known as the Iranian Huns because they come from mainly Iranian descent and to be known different than the Mongolian Huns. The Huns are one of the thirty six clans of the Rajputs. But the main group of the Huns were absorbed into Hinduism and converted into another group leaving the smallest group of the Huns the only trace left of their tribe.

The second most important tribe is the Punjab. The majority of the Punjab tribe consists of many clans such as the Rajputs and the Jats, another large tribe in the Cholistan tribal area, and their clans such as the Awans, Kkokhars, Ghakkars, Khattars, Janjaus, Arains, Gujjars and many others. Many people from this tribe “claim common ancestry from Otub Shah who is said to have core from Chazni. But geologists say that they were probably told to believe that by one of their previous ruling kings. Almost all tribal people there frequently claim about having ancestry of famous ruling kings and conquerors of India and other Arabian pioneers. But a large number of them do have ancestry from Afghanistan, Iranian, Turkish, and Arab invaders and immigrants. As you can see the tribal people of Pakistan have a very interesting and knowledgeable ancestry.

One of the greatest migrations of Central Asian nomadic tribes in the history of Pakistan are the Huns. White Huns or Epthalite and they had been in the Oxus Valley and came to Pakistan. Around the 5th and 6th Centuries was a turning point in Pakistan’s history because of the mass migrations of the Huns. Politically, it was a turning point because before the arrival of Muslim, they were the ruling class in Pakistan and most of Northern India. Socially, the turning point was because most of the tribes of Pakistan are traceable to them.

When entering the Medieval Period there was confusing. The hordes of foreign invaders were being absorbed into Hindu body politic which began a new grouping of states. Until the arrival of Muslim Turks, this period was known as the Rajput period. Invasions and consequences of the Huns broke historical traditions and those traditions are rarely seen beyond the 8th century.


Interview:

1. Have you ever met any tribal people In Pakistan?

The tribal people we knew were Gujjars (also spelt gujar). While some Gujars have settled down and are living a modern lifestyle, others remain in the traditional extended family tribal groups of 15-30. They wander the northern areas of Pakistan and cross into Afghanistan and India (Kashmir) with their flocks of mostly goats, but also sheep and camels. The camels are used as transport animals. They used to wander freely across borders searching winter and summer pastures (lots of snow forces them south), however, what with the current political problems between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, their migratory patterns have been curtailed. I believe that many small groups do still wander between India and Pakistan crossing at out of the way points on the border.
The women tend to wear long skirts (like many Roman ladies here in Europe) and generally are in fairly colorful clothing. The men wear the traditional shawar chemise of Pakistan/Afghanistan men. Both men and women generally keep their heads covered. The women wear cheap bangles and necklaces. The unwashed children tag along behind their parents. (Washing children is believed to cause the bad spirits—the jinn—to want them, so if you never wash a kids’ hair (yuck!) then evil will be kept from them.

The gujars we know lived in small tent encampments—sometimes circular in formation—and would stay in one area grazing their cattle until they moved on either from over grazing or forced to move by local inhabitants.
One group of gujars (probably about 20 people) stayed each year for maybe 3-4 years in the late 1980s near the famous archaeological site of Axial (which I led tours of over 115 times.) They made the most amazing huts because they stayed all winter—maybe 4 months at the one site. The huts were formed with a circle base with packed mud/mud bricks (maybe stone in them???) about 4 feet high. A narrow mud platform extended from this outer wall. (Used for sleeping/shelf) Then a teepee like structure was built up from that with long poles. Over the poles there was a little plastic sheeting (not perfect like the American Indian teepees). On top of the plastic and bound into the poles was thatch. The fire for cooking and heating was in the center of this teepee hut with smoke escaping where the poles came together. Inside the hut was very dark, smoky but warm and snug on a 40 degree night.
WE were privileged to go into the hut because their was a very sick (dying) infant and my husband being called Dr. Mates, they took that to mean he was a doctor of medicine. We provided them with a little money to take the baby to a near-by famous missionary hospital.
This group of Gujjars were obviously not in the best of health.

2. What are the main rituals that they do?
This I cannot tell you. Some Gujjars are non-practicing Muslims, while others are Hindus. They probably keep some of the religious traditions of the areas visited. In Pakistan there are a number of Muslim religious shrines (not approved of by Saudi Arabian Wahhabi sect) and they could worship at those sites. While I have seen Gujjars at the shrine sites, they were watching their flocks and not in active worship.

3. Do they have a specific religion?
Varies between Muslim and Hindu depending where they live (Pakistan or India) However the groups are uneducated and have only simple beliefs rather than a formal set religion. That is why I would call them “nominal believers” in Islam or Hinduism.
4. Did they live In houses or some other type of shelter?
See above. Their tents were not “official” tents (ask your Dad!) but rather makeshift affairs made out of poles and various old thick cloth pieces which your mother would call a dirty old rag.

5. Do they welcome foreigners?
Not really. They did not mind when we took pictures, but as all peoples they just wanted to be left alone.

6. Do they sacrifice people to the gods?
No.(Only Muslim terrorists do that in Pakistan.) The tradition among these people would be to sacrifice an animal from their flocks.
But perhaps not educating your children, or giving them basic shots or giving the matted hair dirty kids a bath, is sacrificing them to tradition. I am sure the death rate is high for kids in those families. Imagine having no clean water to drink.