The film, which follows storm chasers chasing an outbreak of Midwest tornadoes, is similar plot-wise to “Twister,” the 1996 hit film starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. The new film had a huge opening weekend, hauling in more than $70 million and breaking U.S. records for a disaster-themed film.
One stark difference from the original “Twister” and “Twisters” is a quarter-century of environmentalism. In that time the term “global warming” has evolved into a newer term, “climate change,” the belief the Earth is warming and hurdling toward an apocalyptic-like future because of human activity.
Severe weather patterns such as hurricanes and droughts are supposedly evidence of a warming planet, which is why “Twisters” director Lee Isaac Chung is being criticized for not dropping a climate change message in a film about an outbreak of deadly tornadoes.
A story by the Hollywood Reporter, the entertainment website, complains that Chung didn’t use a film about natural disasters to preach about climate change. Even though a character in the film, a farmer, mentions storms and floods are becoming more frequent, that wasn’t on the nose enough for the website.
CNN also complained about the lack of preaching.
“I just don’t feel like films are meant to be message-oriented,” Chung told CNN, when the cable news outlet demanded to know why climate change is not mentioned in the film.
Even after demanding an explanation from Chung, the CNN story admits there is “scientific justification” for not mentioning the topic, since “scientists are the least certain about the connection between tornadoes and climate change…”
The story by the Hollywood Reporter made a similar admission, stating the “possible impact of climate change is complicated and still being figured out.”
Regarding the pressure Chung was under to include climate change in the film, Morano credits the director for sticking to a fun disaster film plot. By doing so, he resisted pressure from Hollywood and its “virtue signaling” and political activism.
“Even though you might think the almighty dollar is going to win out,” Morano says, “I still think they're going to say, 'We still need to preach.' This is an outlier. I don't think this is a new trend."
