I have a real appreciation for natural disaster flicks. Volcano, Dante’s Peak, 2012, I love them all and it doesn’t matter how absurd they may be. One personal favorite is Twister. This film came with a whole bunch of destruction with a baked in love story between Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. Because nothing says I love you better then sharing the moment of running scared from a category five tornado.
Even with the success of his show Big Love, Paxton wants another Twister film. Some may scoff at the idea but I’d love to see a sequel. Paxton said the inspiration for the the film came to him while retracing the path of the 1925 Tri-State Tornado. This massive tornado left a path of destruction 219 miles wide and killed 700 people. Paxton said:
“There’s actually footage that I found in Murphysboro at their historical society. They had footage from a biplane that the government sent down, just to do aerial footage of all of the destruction and the damage. So we just did that to kind of get some ideas, and from that I kind of extrapolated an idea for a sequel. And I kind of put that together into a format, and now we’re kind of waiting to see if that’s going to move forward.”
One thing to consider about doing a film like this is how it would be accepted by audiences. Until 2012, the disaster film genre kind of disappeared (Cloverfield doesn’t count, it was a monster after all). In that time the real world has suffered some major disasters of its own (e.g. Hurricane Katrina). This is not to say we didn’t have major disasters when Twister was originally released, but I feel there’s a higher social awareness surrounding the tragedy of the events rather than the sensational nature of them.
Twister 2 (or any film in this type of genre) would have to strike a delicate balance between the spectacle of the disaster with the tragedy of human loss. That could be easier said then done. I should also note that 2012 gets a pass on this one. The fantastic nature of that world-destroying event was so far removed from real life it’s a little easier to focus just on the destruction instead of the victims.
Fortunately, it sounds like Paxton recognizes this distinction, “I always thought the first ‘Twister’ was an exciting ride, but I thought a sequel could explore it in a more enthralling way, getting into more of the history and the lore, more of a darker version of the first one.”
Alright, all my nay-saying aside I’d still be on board for Twister 2 and think it could redefine (and re-introduce) disaster films. By “redefine” I’m speaking of course about 3-D, and Paxton is right there with me, “I think the 3-D applications of that could obviously be pretty amazing.” If you’ve seen Avatar (and who hasn’t by now) you can quickly imagine how awesome a twister would be in 3-D.
The only question now is what to call it. Seeing as how Paxton was in Aliens (which came after Alien) my vote would naturally be for Twisters. That would be a double-feature I’d be all over.
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