I was never worried that "Into the Storm" would generate more yahoo storm chasing activity or even general interest in storm chasing. Parallels to "Twister" are not valid because there is a whole lot more general awareness of storm chasing now than there was in 1996 - from "Twister," from "Storm Chasers" on Discovery, from The Weather Channel's "Tornado Hunt," from media coverage of VORTEX2, and the overall prevalence of social media, YouTube video, etc.
I knew that "Into the Storm" would not be authentic, but still I was really looking forward to seeing it. There seemed to be a lot of cynicism among us about this movie prior to its release, but come on - storm chasing is what we love, so how could it not be a great thing to be able to see a mainstream Hollywood movie depicting chasing on the big screen, however ridiculous, campy and comic-book-like that depiction might be??? I even thought seeing the movie with my wife was some small way to share my love for chasing with her - far easier than getting her to sit through my chase vacation videos!
Having seen the movie, I guess I have to say it was generally as I expected - lots of silliness and not a faithful representation of chasing by any means. And the acting was somewhat flat with no compelling human angle or character development, but like Stephen Henry said above, I wasn't there for that anyway! But still fun to watch something chaser-centric for an hour and a half on a Sunday evening.
Not to "bitch about the movie" but it is fun to point out some of the silliness. Again, not that I expected it to be authentic, but it's still fun to talk about - like analyzing a sports game to death afterwards:
1. Allison seems almost surprised when a very large tornado watch comes out - it almost appears as if that's her very first inkling it is going to be a big day
2. Multiple references to the "system" expanding and increasing the threat. To me a "system" is a synoptic reference. What does it mean to be "expanding"??? If you're talking about an expansion of storm coverage, then that decreases the likelihood of a discrete supercell with a violent long-track tornado. In at least one instance, "system" seemed to be used to refer to a supercell, which I do not think is appropriate nomenclature.
3. Chase team almost seems surprised to find large hail falling on them while they are jerking around back at their hotel retrieving some equipment left behind. Are you chasing a storm or not?!? How would you be surprised to find that hail is coming down, as if it just happens to be a pocket of large hail coming out of some stratiform precipitation!
4. In numerous scenes, the characters are out running around in debris fields. Trees and cars flying everywhere, yet the characters are impervious to any of the shrapnel. Same goes for the vehicles; the "Titus" was supposed to be a tank, so fair enough - but the radar truck was following right behind, somehow also impenetrable to the flying debris.
5. The number of tornadoes in the one area (scene when the firenado formed) seemed ridiculous. There was one shot of a multiple vortex tornado that looked decent, but then to have that many independent tornados around seemed far-fetched if not impossible. All of these looked like relatively narrow, drill-bit style satellite tornadoes, yet there are vehicles flying through the air!
6. Conversation between Allison and one of the videographers: there's a wall cloud - "but no vortex"... Say what?!?
7. Allison tells one of the videographers: "there's that vorticity stretching I was telling you about" - well I guess that might be technically correct, a visibly rotating supercell is a manifestation of vorticity stretching, but still seems an odd reference to make!
8. There were TV monitors in the mobile radar truck, and I could have sworn they had the same audio playing in the background twice - a TV meteorologist talking about it shaping up to be a "dangerous afternoon." The second time I heard this, the background voice also made reference to "sunshine... all the ingredients are in place." This might have been a valid comment if heard earlier, but this was at a point when the town had already been hit by at least two tornadic supercells and there was a constant backdrop of clouds.
9. The Titus goes sailing up above the clouds - even if it went sailing up through the tornado, and into the mid-level mesocyclone, is it at all possible that a vehicle could continue up and out of the updraft to the clear skies above the anvil? And even if it could, Pete should have already died or passed out from lack of oxygen and/or cold temperatures.
10. As the "eye" of the tornado passes over them, Allison refers to winds being even stronger on the back side of the tornado. Seems like a perverse amalgamation of hurricane and tornado terminology!
11. How could a high school be used as a shelter even after its structural integrity has been compromised by an earlier tornado? And getting in the buses? Come on!
12. At least one of the wall cloud / funnel formation shots looked decent, but a missed opportunity to show some realistic and impressive supercell structure. Most of the movie took place under a featureless cloud deck.
13. The chasers seem to have gotten caught by surprise by tornado formation a couple of times while within "downtown" areas. Again, are you chasing this thing or not???
I'm sure there's more, but I'll leave some for others to point out.
Some miscellaneous observations:
- Humorous depiction of the yahoo chasers and nice to see a distinction between these guys and the "serious" chasers.
- I watched all the credits to see if any names I recognized were involved as consultants or whatnot. The only name I saw in this regard was Martin Lisius, and credit was given for his stock photography, not for consultation.
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You can see from the get go they tried to morph Reed Timmer and Sean Casey into the character Pete.
Agree completely, I had the exact same thought. And I couldn't help but wonder if they modeled Allison after Karen Kosiba - even bore a slight resemblance to her. Google her if you don't recognize the name.
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Did anyone else notice the jump cut? I can't remember the scene it was in, but it was pretty obvious. I was like, did I just see a jump cut edit in a Hollywood movie? I don't know if it was a projector glitch or not, but it was there.
Dan, I noticed that too - it was one of the scenes where the guy and girl were trapped under that old paper mill. I couldn't tell if it was a sloppy edit, or if it was meant to be that way as part of the whole found-footage thing...
