Twister Film Critique- Science and English

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Director- Jan de Bont
Starring- Helen Hunt
Bill Paxton
Jami Gertz
Cary Elwes
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Alan Ruck
Zach Grenier
Release date- May 17, 1996
Running time- 113 minutes
Budget: US$92,000,000

TV weatherman Bill Harding is trying to get his tornado-hunter wife, Jo, to sign divorce papers. A series of intense storms is sweeping across Oklahoma. Soon they have joined the team of stormchasers as they attempt to insert a revolutionary measuring device up some verry violent tornados.

Scientist point of view:
Hi, my name is Dr. Howard Bluestein and I am a professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. You might have heard about my work with Dr. Al Bedard and Carl Ramzy on TOTO (TOtable Tornado Observatory), a large, instrumented barrel-shaped device that was suposed to enter the path of a tornado. Our objective was to place TOTO directly in the path of a tornado, where it could, theoretically, record valuable information about the tornado's structure. TOTO was used several times during the 1980s, but unfortunatly, we had repeatedly failed to position it for a direct hit. On April 29, 1985, TOTO was left near the edge of a developing tornado near Ardmore, Oklahoma. However, it was blown over, even though the tornado had relatively weak winds. Many people have told me that “TOTO was the inspiration for an instrument package named Dorothy in the film, Twister.” For this reason I decided to watch the film and critisize it.


Watching the film was a great idea because it showed how people developed our ideas and tried to make it usefull. Dorothy was a remake of our own TOTO. This film showed some reasons why our model did not work. One of two main problems in TOTO that became evident was putting it in the field. Putting TOTO directly in the path of an oncoming tornado required an astronomical amount of luck. The probability of perfect placement was decidedly low. The other problem TOTO presented was the danger it posed. Unloading and setting it up may have taken 30 seconds, a long time when a twister is bearing down on you. Despite TOTO's 400 pounds, a tornado could easily take the device along, transforming TOTO from a tool of science into a flying barrel of death.
The film had only one unrealistic theme to it, when the two observers were flying in the middle of the tornado. There is no way somebody could survive that. In a real F5 tornado there should have been multiple cars and houses in there smashing into them. With all of that, as the expert I am, I only give them a 0.1% of surviving.

My only problem with this film is that they show us the main character angry that they stole his idea without giving him credit, they shouldn’t expect me to be a little ticked of. Depsite that, the film was very correct in many cases eg. The dritfting of the tonado. I would like to congratulate the director for an outstanding film. Almost everything was realistic. WELL DONE!
9/10


This is another video of me with my new invention in order to fight against tornados.