Twister(1996)

Plot Summary

• In June 1969, a family that includes a five-year-old girl called Jo seeks shelter in a storm cellar as a powerful tornado strikes. The storm is so strong that the locks on the cellar door fail, and Jo's father is caught up in the storm and killed. Jo and her mother emerge from the cellar the next morning to find a devastated landscape. Their home is utterly destroyed.27 years later, Jo (Helen Hunt), who is now a meteorologist leading a team of storm chasers. Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite track the tornado activity across the nation. GOES satellites are a collaborative program between NASA and NOAA that provide data and imagery on atmospheric conditions and solar activity. Jo manages her own equipment to track tornadoes on the ground, however she is running out of grant money. Her crew includes Dusty (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Rabbit (Alan Ruck), Joey (Joey Slotnick) and others.Jo is reunited with her estranged husband, Bill Harding (Bill Paxton), who is a former weather researcher and storm chaser who has since become a weather reporter. He is planning to marry sex therapist Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz) and arrives at Jo's field station for her signature for the final divorce papers. Jo is excited about the weather, with NSSL predicting the biggest series of storms lined up one after the other. Bill realizes that Jo has not signed one page of the papers.Jo shows Bill the realized "Dorothy", a device containing hundreds of small weather sensors that he conceptualized. Dorothy could revolutionize tornado research and potentially provide an earlier storm-warning system, but the device must be deployed dangerously close to a tornado to work. Dorothy is designed to take measurements from inside a tornado funnel and provide insights into how a tornado works. Jo's team rushes off to chase a developing storm with her failing to sign the papers, forcing Bill and Melissa to follow.The team encounters Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes), a smug and sponsored meteorologist and storm chaser. Miller is a rival storm chaser and former colleague with corporate funding, has stolen his idea for his own Dorothy-like device, Dot3, with plans to deploy it first and claim credit for its design. Enraged, Bill agrees to accompany Jo and the team for one day to launch Dorothy.Tensions rise between Jo and Bill when they have several dangerous encounters with tornadoes as the team tries unsuccessfully to deploy the new device.As the team pursues a developing tornado, Bill drives Jo's truck into a ditch, attempting to get in front of the damage path. However, the tornado strengthens into an F2, and after destroying a barn, it corners the truck in front of a bridge. Jo and Bill shelter under the bridge as the tornado destroys the vehicle and one of the four Dorothy prototypes. They continue chasing in Bill's truck, with Melissa in the back.They find a second tornado and head off on a back-road when it shifts its track. They soon find themselves driving through heavy rain and before long the same storm drops satellite tornadoes onto a lake. The team follows the F2 now with a group of waterspouts on Kaw Lake, and one of them develops another vortex, which spins the truck around before disappearing. Jo and Bill are elated by the thrill, but Melissa becomes traumatized in the process.They have lunch with Jo's aunt Meg (Lois Smith) at Wakita, Oklahoma. Dusty, a member of Jo's team, tells stories about Bill's crazy past career as a storm chaser to Melissa, but Bill claims that he had killed his old personality.The chasers take off to chase yet another storm. As they track the storm, they learn the tornado is on the ground, but they have trouble finding it. Approaching a hill, they run into a hailstorm, and Jo drives ahead of the chasers to intercept the oncoming tornado. Jo and Bill intercept an F3 with unpredictable movements, and it soon knocks over power-lines that crush Dorothy II. With the truck damaged, Bill forces them to retreat, but Jo undergoes an emotional breakdown over the failure, and unloads about her motivations and her father's death. Bill admits his feelings for Jo, unaware that Melissa is overhearing them through the CB radio.The team overnights in Fairview to repair their vehicles, while Jo signs the papers. A nocturnal F4 wedge tornado unexpectedly appears, and it forces the team and others into a garage pit near a drive-in theater for protection. The tornado destroys the garage and two team vehicles as the result of tossed debris and injures several people before proceeding toward Wakita.Melissa, frightened by the dangers of storm chasing and recognizing the unresolved feelings between Jo and Bill, leaves. The tornado moves on and hits Wakita, devastating the community and injuring Meg. Bill and Jo rescue Meg from her collapsing house.The National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) forecasts that a potentially record-breaking tornado will form the next day. Inspired by Aunt Meg's wind-vane sculptures, Bill and Jo add aluminum "wings" to the last two Dorothy prototype sensors, making them more aerodynamic.True to the forecast, a mile-wide F5 tornado forms the next day, and the team pursues it. Bill and Jo attempt to place Dorothy III in its path; however, the device is knocked over and destroyed by an airborne tree. Meanwhile, Jonas attempts to deploy Dot3, ignoring Bill and Jo's warnings that the tornado is changing direction and headed straight at them. The tornado sweeps Jonas's truck away, killing him and his driver.With the last remaining Dorothy affixed to the truck bed, Bill and Jo drive directly at the tornado, then jump out, sacrificing Bill's truck to ensure that Dorothy IV can release its probes into the wedge. The gamble is successful, as Dorothy IV's probes provide immediate scientific data, but without their truck, Jo and Bill are forced to run as the tornado shifts toward them.Inside a nearby pump-house, they strap themselves to deep pipes. As the building rips away, the F5's core passes over them. After the tornado dissipates, the team celebrate their success and Jo and Bill reconcile.

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. — Martin H. Booda <booda@datasync.com> The year is 1969. In Oklahoma County, thunderstorms roll across an open plain, and in a remote farmhouse young Jo and her family are about to go to sleep, but her father is watching a tornado warning on TV. The TV warns that the imminent tornado may be an F5, the strongest known. Not long after the family reaches the storm cellar the huge twister hits, passing right over top of them & killing her father. 27 years later, Jo is now a storm scientist, trying to develop a tornado warning system with her soon-to-be-ex, Bill Harding. Multiple attempts fail for one reason or another, and their team sees a tremendous amount of damage & death. Then, one time, they find themselves In the damage path of a huge F5 tornado. Can they succeed in launching their test equipment, then escape the deadly storm in time? — Medic249a2 In 1968, in Oklahoma, the girl Jo loses her father in a twister. In the present days, the weather man Bill Harding and his girlfriend Dr. Melissa Reeves meet the storm chaser, Dr. Jo Harding, to sign the divorce papers. Bill and Jo were storm chasers and her team salutes him. Jo has developed the "Dorothy" project idealized by Bill, with a tank with several small sensors to provide information about the twisters. Her rival Dr. Jonas Miller has stolen the idea and developed a similar project. However, both systems need to be close to the tornado to work. Bill decides to go with Jo and her team to launch Dorothy and face dangerous situations, while Melissa is scared with the adventure. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil When Bill goes to have Jo sign the divorce papers so he can marry his new girl, Melissa, Jo finds a collection of record breaking tornados and Bill follows along, soon his duties shift from divorcing Jo to helping her with record breaking technology to create a better warning system. — Joe Kibler <Jkibler01@earthlink.net>