Twister (1996)

Bill and Jo Harding, advanced storm chasers on the brink of divorce, must join together to create an advanced weather alert system by putting themselves in the cross-hairs of extremely violent tornadoes.

Director:

Jan de Bont

Writers:

Michael Crichton, Anne-Marie Martin

Stars:

Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Cary Elwes

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 6 wins & 9 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Helen Hunt	...	Dr. Jo Harding
Bill Paxton	...	Bill Harding
Cary Elwes	...	Dr. Jonas Miller
Jami Gertz	...	Dr. Melissa Reeves
Philip Seymour Hoffman	...	Dustin Davis
Lois Smith	...	Meg Greene
Alan Ruck	...	Robert 'Rabbit' Nurick
Sean Whalen	...	Allan Sanders
Scott Thomson	...	Jason 'Preacher' Rowe
Todd Field	...	Tim 'Beltzer' Lewis
Joey Slotnick	...	Joey
Wendle Josepher	...	Haynes
Jeremy Davies	...	Laurence
Zach Grenier	...	Eddie
Gregory Sporleder	...	Willie

Storyline

TV weatherman Bill Harding is trying to get his tornado-hunter wife, Jo, to sign divorce papers so he can marry his girlfriend Melissa. But Mother Nature, in the form of a series of intense storms sweeping across Oklahoma, has other plans. Soon the three have joined the team of stormchasers as they attempt to insert a revolutionary measuring device into the very heart of several extremely violent tornados.

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Plot Keywords:

divorce | storm | tornado | divorce papers | weatherman | 

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Taglines:

Go for a ride you'll never forget!

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 May 1996 (USA)

Also Known As:

Wind Devils

Filming Locations:

Ames, Iowa, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$92,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£11,304,300 (UK) (16 August 1996)

Gross:

ITL 10,363,429,000 (Italy) (15 November 1996)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

113 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

A jet engine from a Boeing 707 was used to generate wind in some scenes.

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Goofs

When Jo and Bill are in the truck on top of the hill, a row boat flies over them, knocking the tailgate of Bill's truck off. When they are driving towards the F-5, the tailgate is back.

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Quotes

[after the twister has passed]
Bill: It's gone... it's gone.
Jo: [looking behind them] Where's my truck?
[cut to road; truck crashes to the ground in front of Melissa in Bill's truck]
Melissa: [screams]

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Crazy Credits

There are no opening credits after the title has been shown.

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Connections

Referenced in The Castle (1997)

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Soundtracks

"Miss This"
Written by David Pirner
Produced by Soul Asylum and Eric Pierson
Performed by Soul Asylum
Courtesy of Columbia Records

User Reviews

The darker side of writing a script for a disaster movie

Twister, one of the most successful movies of the 90's, mainly due to it's special effects and a lot of people's want for a natural disaster movie that is fun to watch, this was an extremely popular movie. I was only 11 when the movie was released and I was absolutely in love with it, in fact right after the movie was done, I wanted to become a storm chaser. That's how much I loved this movie; I grew up and forgot about the movie and decided on a new career. But I saw the DVD on sale and thought about how much I enjoyed the movie when I was younger, I'm sure it would be just as much fun to see it again. I have to say this wasn't as awesome as I remembered, in the theater it was like "Oh, my God! Look at that flying cow! A house just flew across the road! That is so cool!", now on my TV screen I was like "Oh, wow, look at that cow. How the heck does a house fly across the road? Why isn't this as cool as I remembered it?" Not to mention that the story wasn't as good as I remembered, granted I know that they had to fit in some kind of story with the whole plot of the twisters, but a lot of this movie is just plain unrealistic.

In June 1969 on an Oklahoma farm a tornado warning is issued, the family seeks shelter in a storm cellar as an F5 tornado strikes. However, the storm is so strong that the locks on the cellar door fail and the father is caught up in the storm and killed as his daughter struggles to catch a glimpse of the powerful storm. Years later, Dr. Jo Harding, the father's daughter, is reunited with her estranged husband; Bill Harding. Bill is a former weather researcher and storm chaser who has taken a job as a weather reporter. He is planning to marry his new girlfriend, Dr. Melissa Reeves, and arrives at Jo's research lab seeking Jo's signature for the final divorce papers. Bill discovers that Jo has built a tornado research device called DOROTHY based upon his own design; the device is designed to release hundreds of sensors into the center of a tornado to study its structure. The team later meets up with Dr. Jonas Miller, a smug and unscrupulous fellow meteorologist and storm chaser. When Bill discovers that Jonas has "invented" a device almost identical to DOROTHY; he vows to help Jo deploy DOROTHY before Miller can claim credit for the idea. Bill and Melissa join Jo and her eccentric team of storm chasers. Tensions rise between Jo and Bill when they have several close calls with dangerous tornadoes as they try unsuccessfully to deploy the new device.

So how does Twister hold up over these years? Not so well, the effects are still amazing, but that's about it. I do have to admit, even though it's a bad movie, I still enjoy it like crazy. I think because if you let go of how unrealistic it is, you can just have fun with that want of destruction and chaos. Granted I know this movie is a bit stupid: our two leads, Bill and Jo, survive the impossible facing an F5 twister, the twisters always disappear as our "hero's" are in danger, Bill's fiancé puts up with quit a bit before realizing that he is a jerk for putting her through all the danger with him, Jo, a scientist, thinks that tornado's are serial killers, and not to mention that this was a record breaking day with numerous twisters. But still as bad as the acting, as bad as the story, as stupid as some of these situations may be, it's still a fun movie to watch and I think I wanna be fair with the rating just because it is mindless entertainment. It's a classic 90's disaster movie and besides, it has flying cows, what other film will give you that kind of situation? But it's all good I think they were taking the cows to McDonald's anyways.

7/10