I can’t decide if this is the best or worst possible timing, but a new trailer for Twisters dropped yesterday, just two days after tornadoes devastated parts of northeast Oklahoma, leaving one person dead and another missing in the town of Barnsdall. This following the tornados that struck Nebraska just two weeks ago, which is just the US’s part in a wicked global outbreak of severe weather. (Everything’s fine! Nothing at all weird happening with the climate!) So is it the best or worst time for a movie about monster tornadoes and the people who chase them?
I’m tempted to say “worst” because people have died, and the scale of destruction is immense, but at the same time…after I experienced an open-field tornado, the first thing my friends and I did was rent Twister and have a movie night. There is catharsis in experiencing danger within the confines of cinema, it’s the same reason people love violent action films and shark films and the disaster genre, in general. We like experiencing these things from the safety of a movie theater, even if we dread them in real life.
Twisters’ new trailer sets up more of the context, with Daisy Edgar-Jones playing the egghead scientist drawn back into the field after a previous bad experience. Glen Powell (who is SUPER busy with new films from John Lee Hancock, Edgar Wright, AND JJ Abrams in the works) heads the scrappy team made up of no-degree-holding storm chasers who appeal to the social media generation. I deeply, DEEPLY detest the strain of anti-intellectualism that has infected any movie that remotely touches on real-world science over the last twenty years (scientists are only unchallenged if they’re also billionaires single-handedly saving the world).
In Twister, the divide between the rival chasing teams was just funding—one team had money, and the other didn’t, and that was enough. Now, though, we have to specifically mention that the good ole boy chasers “don’t need PhDs”. They’re just down-home country boys chasing on a wing and a prayer! I’m sure there are storm chasers who don’t have PhDs—just as I am equally sure there are storm chasers who do—but like, why even mention it? Why isn’t it enough to just say, “We don’t have fancy tech”? If you think this sh-t doesn’t matter, I invite you to look at the state of everything in the US up to and including belief in climate change.
Anyway, Twisters looks good, I’m just super annoyed by that one line because it’s part of a larger trend in entertainment that is having a deleterious real-world effect, but besides that, I’m into it. And I think, despite the recent devastation left behind by tornadoes, Twisters could be primed to be one of the big hits of the summer. I could be wrong, I have been before, but after the last couple weeks…I dunno, people might like the feeling of control a movie with a determined ending provides.
If you would like to support disaster relief from the recent tornadoes, the Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma is providing hot meals to those living in shelters, and the Omaha Community Foundation set up the Nebraska Tornado Recovery Fund to direct resources to local non-profits aiding those affected by the storms.
