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.