Opinion: The deafening silence at the heart of ‘Twisters’

Editor’s Note: Noah Berlatsky is a freelance writer based in Chicago. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author. more reviews articles on CNN.

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Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters isn’t a direct sequel to the 1996 near-classic Twister , but it shares many similarities with its predecessor. Both feature cowboy scientists traveling through Oklahoma trying to gather data on tornadoes. Both are empty action movies with tragic protagonists and a romantic subplot.

And yet, despite focusing on extreme weather events, both avoid directly mentioning climate change.

The refusal to discuss global warming, even in passing, is certainly partly due to Hollywood’s habit of avoiding political controversy. By the mid-1990s, the right was already moving toward climate change denial.

But discussions of climate change have become much more common in recent years, and the failure of this more recent iteration to bring it to the forefront suggests another dimension to the problem of both films’ notable silence on the issue. Part of the reason we’re struggling to deal with climate change—both One of the main reasons horror movies are so popular on and off screen is that climate action doesn’t come with individual heroics or an easy, immediate payoff. Decades after “Twister,” Hollywood and the culture at large still don’t know how to create a narrative payoff that’s measured in decades, rather than two hours of runtime.

The heroine who achieves a narrative outcome in the allotted time in “Twisters” is Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a brilliant physicist and meteorologist from Oklahoma who is working on a project to extract moisture from tornadoes and make them collapse in their tracks. After an experiment goes awry, Kate retreats to New York, but is called back by her old friend Javi (Anthony Ramos) to gather information on storms for his new company. Javi and Kate end up in a friendly storm-chasing competition with YouTube thrill-seeker Tyler Owens (Glen Powell).

Kate thinks she’s given up on her dream of instantly drying tornadoes…but you can probably guess that the path to healing her guilt and doubts involves high winds and unlikely super-science.

One of the contextual aspects of the film, largely explained by the weather reports that are broadcast, is that Kate, Javi, Tyler, and the unfortunate residents of Oklahoma are facing a season of tornadoes of unprecedented violence. Climate change is never mentioned as context. But of course, in real life, outside of the film, climate change has been linked to an increase in the intensity and frequency of weather events such as hurricanes, heat waves, wildfires, floods, and droughts in some areas.

Scientists aren’t yet sure how much climate change will influence tornadoes. But some studies suggest that the conditions that produce tornadoes are likely to become more common as global temperatures rise.

The expert meteorologists in the movie would all be aware of this. If this were real life and not Hollywood, they would be talking about it all the time. In collecting data on tornadoes, they should be particularly interested in determining whether global warming is contributing to them. Are the storms likely to get worse and worse? Is this a fluke or a new status quo? Why aren’t they asking these questions?

The characters’ silence is all the more powerful at a time when, in real life, many Republican leaders continue to deny that climate change is a problem. The current Republican platform doesn’t mention global warming at all, and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has denied the scientific consensus on climate change. In a 2022 poll, only 23% of Republicans thought climate change was a major threat.

Furthermore, the film, like Twister before it, is designed like all action films, that is, there is a main protagonist and his narrative duty/destiny is to solve every possible problem the film throws at him. Hero scientists track down tornadoes, collect data, figure out how to stop them, and that’s the whole adventure. If the protagonists have to fight oil and gas interests for scientific funding, if stopping tornadoes involves public action rather than individual genius, well, it’s a problem film, with a smaller budget, lower box office receipts, and a less positive outcome.

Some aspects of the film can be interpreted as very oblique references to the problem of global warming, which is never addressed. It shows a shady businessman who profits from the damage caused by tornadoes; if you squint, you might see him as representing the big fossil fuel interests that have worked to derail climate solutions.

Additionally, a catastrophic tornado scene takes place in a movie theater that is showing the lightning scene “It’s Alive!” from James Whale’s 1931 film “Frankenstein.” No doubt the parallel weather events were a major reason for this choice. But “Frankenstein” was also about humans creating monsters that destroy them. The juxtaposition of the mega-tornado and the mad scientist may be a hidden nod to the fact that human technology can be the cause, rather than the solution, to weather nightmares.

The other latent clue is the ages of the characters. In the first “Twister,” the main characters (played by Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt) were ex-partners and both were mid-career 30-somethings. In the new film, Kate is still coming into her own. She seems close to Daisy Edgar-Jones’ real age, 26.

There are many reasons to highlight younger protagonists, not least because Hollywood, in general, loves young people. But perhaps another, subliminal reason, is that as time has passed and the climate crisis has continued, it has become increasingly clear that it is young people who will have to face the worst effects of a crisis whose time horizon is not measured in hours, or even years, but potentially centuries.

As you might expect, young people are very concerned about the kind of world they will live in. A 2021 survey by The Lancet of young people aged 16 to 25 in 10 countries found that 59% were extremely concerned about climate change.

“Twisters” offers a cute story about Kate’s childhood passion for weather, but by casting a young actress, the film perhaps acknowledges that young people in general have plenty of reason to think about the climate and how it will affect them.

In response to these anxieties, “Twisters,” like “Twister” before it, assures people of all ages that the solution to all problems lies in smart, brave, and attractive heroes who will save us all. This provides a neat, comforting plot — but neat, comforting plots are not well-suited to addressing collective or political crises.

No tornado-stalking hero is going to save us from climate change. We’re going to have to do it ourselves, through the ballot box, through protest, and through building power. “Twisters” could have been a movie about that, but this is the kind of storm Hollywood runs from.