“Twisters” might not feature any of the characters from the first movie, but one key plot point remains exactly the same — the innocents living in Tornado Alley still don’t have any early-warning system set up to provide advanced notice when destructive tornadoes come knocking, and it’s up to our main characters to rush headlong into danger so that their research can one day be used to save as many lives as possible. Although the sequel mostly just brushes past this and treats it as a given, it’s a bit strange when you stop to think about it. In almost thirty years of scientific progress, we’re really no better off than we were in 1996?
As it happens, putting climate change at the forefront of the movie would’ve easily solved this little conundrum. For as much as various characters talk about an impending “once-in-a-generation outbreak” of tornadoes and how the destruction caused by them is worse now than ever before (a crucial aspect of the film’s opening scene is that Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Kate Carter vastly underestimates the strength of a tornado, directly leading to tragedy), it almost becomes distracting that nobody ever addresses the elephant in the room. Much like how a warming planet is linked to stronger and more frequent hurricanes, evidence is mounting that climate change is changing the behavior of tornadoes. Even just a throwaway line of dialogue could’ve explained how humanity’s actions have caused tornadoes to grow deadlier in the past few decades and made our usual methods to detect tornadoes outdated (or even completely useless), thus fixing a potential plot hole while also raising the stakes for the action.
Without acknowledging that, “Twisters” implicitly suggests that Jo and Bill’s achievements in “Twister” were all for naught.
Source link
