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Twister (I) (1996)
Trivia
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Spoilers (11)
After Bill Paxton died in 2017, Spotter Network choreographed 200 storm chasers to spell out "BP" with their GPS tracker blips on a radar display to honor him. This kind of tribute had only been done five times before, and it was the first time it had been done for someone who wasn't a storm chaser.
Filming in Oklahoma was briefly delayed due to the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Many of the crew went to the site to help with recovery efforts.
With a very loud and bass-heavy surround channel, this film was notorious for destroying surround speakers in theatres worldwide.
The production bought eight blocks of houses in the old downtown area of the real town of Wakita, Oklahoma, for $7,000 to $10,000 per house. These houses and an additional 30 homes built by the production were subsequently demolished by the film's crew for the scenes after the twister passes. The town later rebuilt the downtown area, and also kept the new fire truck used in the film.
Tom Hanks was the original choice for the role of Bill Harding. Hanks read lines with the cast and even chose the character's wardrobe, which stayed in the final film, but dropped out of pre-production and said "it wasn't what I was trying to do with my career at that time...it called for an eccentric man with a southern flair, and that wasn't me". While on the set for Apollo 13 (1995), Hanks felt co-star Bill Paxton was perfect for his part in this film and helped Paxton land the role. Mel Gibson, Kevin Costner, Dennis Quaid, John Travolta, Richard Gere, John Cusack, Nicolas Cage, Bruce Willis, Val Kilmer, Kurt Russell and Michael Keaton were other possible considerations.
In a public Q&A; at a screening of the film, Bill Paxton said he didn't meet executive producer Steven Spielberg until a year and a half after finishing the movie. He said Spielberg greeted him with, "Thanks for making me a lot of money."
(at around 42 mins) According to the book on the making of the movie, the CGI cow picked up by the twister sisters was originally a CGI zebra from Jumanji (1995).
Days with sunshine posed a problem because they did not make the background skies look suitably stormy. In order to fix this and prevent delays, several scenes such as the truck cab sequences had to be flooded with high-intensity klieg lights for better contrast. As a result, Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton suffered minor retinal burns through much of the filming.
According to urban legend, a tornado hit a drive-in theater in Stoney Creek, Ontario, while this movie was playing. In reality, a tornado hit a drive-in theater in Thorold, Ontario, on May 20, 1996, damaging a screen. The movie was not playing when the tornado hit, but it was scheduled to play that evening.
The explosion of the oil tanker was originally mistimed and was not caught on film. De Bont decided not to tell the studio immediately and the stunt was reset and filmed again, costing a rumoured $500,000.
In the town of Wakita, the building the actors used to get ready for filming was turned into a museum for the movie where they have "Dorothy" on display as well as many other items from the movie.
Was shot as an R rated film that featured profanity and grislier wound details. The film was edited down to a PG-13 in post-production which caused additional scenes with Cary Elwes and Philip Seymour Hoffman to be left on the cutting room floor due to content alone. Other profanities throughout the film were muted or replaced to secure the PG-13 rating.
(at around 53 mins) After the team leaves Wakita, there is a seemingly impossible helicopter shot in which the camera descends several hundred feet in a matter of seconds, ending up mere feet from Jonas's convoy. This was achieved by having the cars drive slower than usual and then speeding up the film.
Helen Hunt was injured while filming the scene where the truck drives through the corn, when the door was forced back into her head. For later shots, the door was wedged open.
It was Steven Spielberg's idea to kill off the father in the opening scene. Originally he would have survived but it was decided his death would establish how dangerous tornadoes can be and the reason for Jo's obsession with them later in life.
(at around 58 mins) Jan de Bont said he regretted thinking of the hail sequence because it took so long to do and was very difficult. Also the crew couldn't find ice blocks big enough in Oklahoma for the hail making machine. They ended up having to find them in other states and some were obtained from the Burlington Ice Company in Burlington, Iowa. The ice blocks were made special by pouring milk in with the water, so the hail would show up better on film.
Michael Crichton and his wife Anne-Marie Martin were paid $2 million for their script, which at the time made it the single most expensive screenplay ever purchased.
The instrument package used in the movie, "Dorothy", is an homage to the instrument pack real tornado researchers attempt to place in the paths of tornadoes, the "TOtable Tornado Observatory" (or T.O.T.O.). Dorothy and Toto are both characters from The Wizard of Oz (1939) who are also sucked up by a giant tornado.
The town of Wakita (Aunt Meg's town) created the Twister Museum to celebrate and pay tribute to the movie, with memorabilia including photos, movie posters and a replica of a Dorothy machine.
The project was a co-production between Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures. That is why the drive-in marquee shows Psycho (1960) a Universal release and The Shining (1980), a Warner Bros. release.
The opening scene featuring Jo as a child wasn't in the film's original cut. Instead, a nightmare sequence was shot with adult Jo flashing back several times to her traumatic childhood experiences, as well as multiple moments where Jo sees hallucinations of her dead father. One such scene would have shown Jo being visited by her dad, who gives her the strength and motivation to take on the final tornado. These scenes were cut because De Bont felt they "took away" from the overall feel of the movie. However, he also felt the film was missing something when these scenes were removed, so he compensated by going back through re-shoots and filming a full sequence that showed the entire event.
Both Joss Whedon and Steven Zaillian were brought in as script doctors at a fee of $100,000 a week.
The base camp (where the crew trucks and equipment are staged) for the end sequence was at a pig farm down the road from the well-house. Every morning the cast and crew were greeted by the smell of a 2-acre pig-waste holding pond in the middle of all the trucks.
Trailers contain a shot not in the film: a truck tire hurtling towards the viewer. This was supposedly one of the test shots that was created during pre-production to prove that CGI was capable of executing the effects sequences with the necessary level of realism.
In an early scene when Philip Seymour Hoffman is sitting on a lawn chair, he lifts his leg in the air while laughing. His genitals were fully visible for a split second. It was edited out of the DVD and VHS releases, but it was leaked from VHS screeners sent to industry professionals.
Many of the news reports spread throughout the movie are actual weathermen from Oklahoma news stations, including Gary England, chief meteorologist at KWTV in Oklahoma City, and Rick Mitchell, chief meteorologist at KOCO in Oklahoma City. The "1969" footage of Gary England giving the televised tornado warning to Jo's family is actual archived footage of him issuing a tornado warning; however, Gary England did not join KWTV until 1972.
One of the Dorothys used during filming is now located 650 feet underground in the Underground Salt Museum in Hutchinson, Kansas. They also have the original film reel.
Cary Elwes's role as written was cut back significantly in the editing room.
Filming began on May 1, 1995 and ended on July 22, 1995 after 2 month, 11 weeks or 82 days of filming.
The instrumental rock song in the ending credits is "Respect the Wind", written and performed by Eddie and Alex Van Halen.
In her introductory scene Helen Hunt clearly says the f word but you don't hear it. This was edited out for home video, presumably to secure a more family friendly rating.
Winds on the plains in Oklahoma change and gust regularly, and wind speeds are typically higher than much of the rest of the country. Several characters are shown deeply contemplative about or reacting to a relatively gentle wind picking up outside (e.g., Aunt Meg before the Wakita tornado). While this makes for suspenseful storytelling, people in this region would be much more likely to notice the wind stopping as a sign that a storm is fast approaching.
"It sucks" was originally going to be used as one of the taglines for the film, but the producers felt that it worked too much to the advantage of disappointed audiences and critics.
One of the reasons Jan de Bont signed on to direct the film was that, given the rapid rise of CGI in the 1990s, he saw this as perhaps the last opportunity to direct a large-scale film with practical effects. Time proved that he was right, after the CGI's fast evolution in later years caused the almost total abandon to make large-scale movies with practical effects.
Included among the American Film Institute's 2001 list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Movies.
The reason Dustin is wearing the OU (University of Oklahoma) hat is because the producers wanted to spite OU for not letting the OU symbol be on Dorothy.
(at around 1h 30 mins) The name on the tanker truck that pushes Bill's pickup off of the tree is "Benthic Petroleum" which is the same oil company that Ed Harris' crew works for in The Abyss (1989). Ed Harris majored in theater at the University of Oklahoma where the National Severe Storms Laboratory is located.
The unique siren sound made by Dorothy is achieved by combining the sounds created by a standard police, fire, ambulance siren control head. These control heads have modes called yelp, siren, and phaser. This same sound would later be heard during the chase scene from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), with the fire truck, crane, ambulance, police cars, all chasing the Toyota Tundra. In the latter movie the sound was created accidentally. In this movie on purpose.
The laptops used in the film are Silicon Graphics Indy Presenter LCD screens (not real laptops) that have been modified to look like functional laptops when in fact the screen image is generated by a computer off-screen.
(at around 1h 14 mins) Lois Smith's character is reading Dante Alighieri's Inferno when the twister hits Wakita. The book also features a tornado in the second circle of Hell that punishes people ruled by Lust.
Director Jan de Bont didn't wanted to work with famous actors because of their notoriously demanding nature and diva behavior, instead going for lesser known actors in order to not draw away the attention from the tornadoes. He said that the hardest actor to cast was Helen Hunt: de Bont really wanted her to play the lead because he loved her strong persona and ability to boss people around, which reminded him of a whirlwind. However, the studio was puzzled over de Bont's choice, since Hunt was only known for doing TV sitcoms at the time, so they pressured him into holding additional auditions. De Bont said that these auditions were really embarrassing, since he had to tell every actress who turned up that he had already set his mind on Hunt, and afterwards inform the studio that he was unable to find a more suitable actress.
Jonas is vilified for selling out to 'corporate sponsors', which is ironic considering Pepsi's very prominent product placement. When the team is making the 'wings' for the sensors, all of the cans are Pepsi products. In almost all the shots showing the 'Doppler', the colors spiral inward and morph into the Pepsi symbol.
The Dodge Ram used in the film was part of deal with Warner Bros and Chrysler. The deal was originally sold to Ford, who began testing with the Ranger, when Chrysler was instead sold the deal. Chrysler also allowed the use of several Dodge Grand Caravan's which are used by Jonas's gang, as well as Jo's 1982 Jeep Honcho.
Jan de Bont is a fan of singer Tori Amos, and decided early on he wanted to include some of her music in the film. Oddly enough, Amos filmed a music video, inspired in The Wizard of Oz (1939), which includes a twister: Tori Amos: Cornflake Girl - UK Version (1994).
Although Amblin Entertainment has collaborated with both Warner Bros. Pictures and Universal Pictures on many occasions (Amblin co-founder Steven Spielberg directed films for both studios), as of 2021, this film marks the only time Amblin collaborated with both studios on the same film.
Several incidents during filming made the papers, such as an altercation where director Jan de Bont had supposedly pushed a crewmember into the mud. De Bont later explained that they were filming a particularly difficult scene, one that involved actors doing physical and dangerous performances with lots of wind and objects flying around. He suddenly noticed a crew member walking towards the front of the camera, so he dashed towards the man and pulled him away just in time to save the shot. There were also reports of friction between de Bont and the original director of photography (DoP), veteran Don Burgess, which led to Burgess and 20 other disgruntled crewmembers walking out a few weeks into shooting. De Bont (who is a former DoP) had to operate the camera himself until Burgess was replaced by Jack N. Green.
Mira Sorvino was considered to play Melissa Reeves, Bill's uptight fiancee. However, Sorvino didn't want to dye her hair brown for the part, so Jami Gertz was cast instead.
Twister floated around the industry for several years and was seen as a very sought-after project before moving into production. Very early on in development, before Jan de Bont was hired, Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Tim Burton, John Carpenter, James Cameron, and John Badham, were considered, approached, or attached to direct the film at various points in pre-production.
Laura Dern and Tom Hanks were considered for the roles of Dr. Jo and Bill Harding.
(at 55:21) at the car-chase, there's a naked man in the cornfield at background, who surprisingly stands up to look what's going on there.
At the beginning of the movie (at around 7 mins) there is a little and apparently non-important discussion between Rabbit (Alan Ruck) and Allan (Sean Whalen) about "roll the maps" instead fold the maps. In a time (mid 90s) where GPS and Internet were still in its infancy and not in common use, dependence in paper maps was crucial for getting by to any place. Fold and unfold a map repeatedly for a long time causes cracks and fissures in the paper, making that the map be useless.
Jan de Bont, a vegetarian, has stated that he hated filming the scene at Aunt Meg's house when everyone is eating steak and eggs.
The film's flashback scene shows a young Jo having the same breed of dog as Dorothy's Toto in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
(at around 59 mins) As one of the characters looks at the screen of their weather computer, he screams "That's no moon, it's a space station!" This is a reference to Obi-Wan Kenobi's line when he, Luke, Han, and Chewbacca first discover the Death Star in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).
Two of the character's names are Stanley and Kubrick, after legendary director Stanley Kubrick.
The 21 August 1995 draft of the screenplay credits Joss Whedon and Jeff Nathanson as writers. Neither are credited in the final film.
Christopher McDonald was considered for the role of Dr. Jonas Miller, but was already committed to Happy Gilmore (1996) where he coincidentally plays a similar arrogant, smug villain. Alec Baldwin, Peter Greene, and Hugh Laurie were also considered.
The roadside cafe featured early in the film is called the "Blue Tulip", which is the name of Jan de Bont's production company.
Jami Gertz's first acting role was a school production of The Wizard of Oz, in which she played Dorothy.
Early in the film during a storm chase, the chasers quote dialog from Repo Man (1984) to each other over the radio.
The drive in movie before the tornado tears it down is The Shining starring Jack Nicholson. Helen Hunt would star opposite and win an Oscar with Nicholson the following year in As Good As It Gets.
The production went through countless cans of hairspray to keep the actors' hair modeled in shots without tornadoes.
Tom Hanks, Kevin Costner, Richard Gere, John Travolta, Mel Gibson and Dennis Quaid were considered for the role of Bill Harding. Very interesting, a part of these actors have worked in later years with Helen Hunt in another movies: Hanks in Cast Away (2000), Gere in Dr. T & the Women (2000), Gibson in What Women Want (2000) and Quaid in Soul Surfer (2011).
The first music video played by Dustin in the TV of his van is Eric Clapton "Motherless Child". Later, he played Deep Purple "Child in Time".
(at around 25 mins) When Jo and Billy's team are chasing a tornado in the cars, they play some songs: Dustin plays "Child in Time" of Deep Purple in a TV; Preacher hears "William Tell Overture" on the radio car; and Beltzer and Haynes sing "Oklahoma".
(at around 41 mins) It can be seen a funnel cloud on the left side of the bridge and another funnel cloud to the right of the bridge. Neither Jo nor Bill acknowledge that there are two funnel clouds until the one on the left splits off seconds later into two then Bill says, "Ok we got sisters."
All of the computers in the movie are Silicon Graphics workstations. This highly unlikely (albeit not impossible), especially for the main characters' unsponsored team, since the average price for a Silicon Graphics workstation was around $40,000 at the time. ($73,296 in 2022 money, adjusted for inflation). Furthermore, the Silicon Graphics laptop did not exit in reality. It was created specifically for the movie by Silicon Graphics as a prop, and was not actually a functioning computer. Needless to say, Silicon Graphics was a sponsor of this movie.
The name "Dorothy" and the picture on the side of the device are an homage to Judy Garland in her role of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939), who is famously sucked up by a huge tornado.
Early on Bill (Bill Paxton) calls Jonas a "Nightcrawler". Paxton would go to co-star with Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler (2014), though in this film the remark refers to Jonas's competence as a stormchaser, where in Nightcrawler it means an independent or stringer cameraperson capturing bloody footage for news stations.
Joey Slotnick would later have a supporting role in Hollow Man (2000), directed by Paul Verhoeven. Twister director Jan de Bont was director of photography on many of Verhoeven's earlier films, such as Turkish Delight (1973), The 4th Man (1983), Flesh+Blood (1985) and Basic Instinct (1992).
The two films shown at the drive-in (Psycho and The Shining) are both referenced in Steven Spielberg's and Michael Crichton's previous team-up, Jurassic Park. Nedry's death scene ends with the camera focusing on his stolen embryos, just like Psycho focuses on the stolen money. The raptors-in-the-kitchen scene references The Shining with the way the children outwit the animals.
Despite the fact that this was filmed in Panavision (anamorphic), "Lenses and Panaflex Camera by Panavision" is listed in the end credits.
Jami Gertz's role as Melissa Reeves comes more important for the plot than apparently does, beside her character as Bill's fiancee: since that she is the only one unfamiliar with tornadoes, storm chasers and meteorologic science (unlike Jo, Bill and the rest of the team), her questions about it help the audience to understand the work they do and why they do. This allows not only to explain the details about the nature of the tornadoes and their attempt to study from inside using "Dorothy" machine, but the audience to empathize with Jo and the team.
Debut of Melanie Hoopes, Sharonlyn Morrow, Jennifer L. Hamilton, April Warren, Anneke de Bont. In addition, this is the only movie for Morrow, Hamilton and De Bont (Jan de Bont's daughter, director of the movie). Oddly enough, almost all Warren roles have been uncredited in more of 20 years of carrier.
An important subplot in the movie is the rivalry between Bill (Bill Paxton) and Jonas (Cary Elwes): Bill had the original idea for the design of Dorothy machine (a tank full of little plastic bubbles with chips inside to measure and analyze tornadoes), but Jonas was hired for a great company and he did make a copy of it, claiming it as his own and naming Dot to "his" machine. Their confrontation exposes two different points of view: while Bill tries to make pure science and investigation to study nature and save lives, Jonas makes science and investigation just for fame and money, no matter if someone dies in the process, and looking for put end to fieldwork for making investigation only from a lab.
Spoilers
(at around 1h 40 mins) At the end of the movie Bill remarks that the tornado didn't take the house. In fact, it was originally supposed to. The Hardin County, Iowa, Historical Society and many citizens objected to the house being blown up so it was spared. The area is now a tourist attraction as the rubble from the barn and fences is still there exactly as it was in the movie.
The set-piece where the F5 tornado begins hurling farm machinery into Jo and Bill's path was achieved by suspending the equipment from powerful helicopters and then releasing them on cue. The red pickup was then driven through the wreckage as it hit the ground and CGI was used to add debris including the steel wheel that bounces in front of the camera. The collision of the truck's window with one of the parts of the harvester is real and was not intended, hence the continuity error where it appears intact in the following shots.
(at around 50 mins) During Aunt Meg's lunch, Bill explains to Melissa that a tornado's destructive force is measured with Fujita's Scale. It was named after Ted Fujita, who in 1971 in collaboration with Allan Pearson created a scale to differentiate a twister according to the wind speed:
-F0: 60-117 km/h or 45-72 mph (light damage).
-F1: 117-181 km/h or 73-112 mph (moderate damage).
-F2: 181-250 km/h or 113-157 mph (significant damage).
-F3: 250-320 km/h or 158-206 mph (severe damage).
-F4: 320-420 km/h or 207-260 mph (devastating damage).
-F5: 420-510 km/h or 261-308 mph (incredible damage).
-F6: 510-610 km/h or 309-379 mph (although the Fujita scale initially had five levels, in May 3, 1999 a tornado in Bridge Creek-Moore, Oklahoma, devastated with a force more powerful never seen before. It was the only "F6" in history. However, the United States National Weather Service reduced its initial report to consider it officially F5, not F6).
-F0: 60-117 km/h or 45-72 mph (light damage).
-F1: 117-181 km/h or 73-112 mph (moderate damage).
-F2: 181-250 km/h or 113-157 mph (significant damage).
-F3: 250-320 km/h or 158-206 mph (severe damage).
-F4: 320-420 km/h or 207-260 mph (devastating damage).
-F5: 420-510 km/h or 261-308 mph (incredible damage).
-F6: 510-610 km/h or 309-379 mph (although the Fujita scale initially had five levels, in May 3, 1999 a tornado in Bridge Creek-Moore, Oklahoma, devastated with a force more powerful never seen before. It was the only "F6" in history. However, the United States National Weather Service reduced its initial report to consider it officially F5, not F6).
Despite the severity and frequency of the tornadoes in this movie, there are only three known deaths: Jo's father, Jonas, and Eddie.
(at around 1h 14 mins) In the scene right before aunt Meg's house gets hit by the tornado, you can see a movie playing on her TV. The movie is A Star Is Born (1954), and the actress you see is Judy Garland, who plays Dorothy in the The Wizard of Oz (1939). "Dorothy" is the name of the research device the crew is trying to get sucked up by a tornado (which happens to Dorothy in Wizard of Oz as well).
(at around 1h 35 mins) A real 120,000-pound, two-story house was rolled in front of Bill and Jo by a 50-foot-high crane. The farming equipment that falls out of the sky just before that was also real, made out of special lightweight aluminum and dropped from military helicopters. The teddy bear that hits Bill and Jo's windshield right after they come out of the toppled house was a CG effect, just as the fuel truck that crashes on the ground a few minutes before.
(at 1:18:50) When the Bill, Jo and the rest of the team back to Wakita for saving Aunt Meg, there is a brief moment where Jo looks a family (father, mother and little girl) holding each other stand up between the ruins of their house. Their look resemble strongly Jo's parents at the prologue, as symbol of a neverending tragedy.
The huge oil tanker that is hurled towards Jo and Bill in the finale is mostly real. A full size tanker was mocked up and hung from a suspension rig where it could perform controlled collisions with their red pickup. Production stills of the stunt can be seen online.
