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Billed as a standalone sequel, Twisters is set in the same universe as the 1996 blockbuster Twister, and the film features plenty of Easter eggs and references to the original franchise installment. Even though a cheap Helen Hunt cameo in Twisters isn't one of the many nods to the original film, director Lee Isaac Chung finds clever ways to pay homage to the iconic disaster movie. In Twister, Hunt plays Jo, a storm chaser who had a traumatic experience with a tornado as a child and, as a result, dedicates herself to studying the brutal (and terrifyingly random) storms.
Like its predecessor, Twisters' cast of characters is largely made up of storm chasers, including jaded meteorologist Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and thrill-seeking, social media-famous storm chaser Tyler Owens (Glenn Powell). Instead of trying to deploy a tornado research device like Jo, Bill (Bill Paxton), and the rest of Twister's storm chasers, the standalone sequel's group attempts to reduce tornadoes' intensity by launching a sodium polyacrylate solution — aka waterlock — into the storms. Regardless of whether Twister or Twisters is the better tornado movie, it's fun to see the connections between the two films.
12 Kate's Clothes In Twisters
Kate Dresses Almost Identical To Jo
Looking at Daisy Edgar-Jones starring in Twisters as Kate Carter is almost a time capsule that brings back memories of Helen Hunt's Jo Harding. The biggest reason, other than their relationship to tornadoes, is that they dress so much alike. This was clearly a case where the director and costume designer (Eunice Jera Lee) for Twistersensured that the stylistic choices made were similar enough to Jo to make people realize that the two characters matched up at least physically.
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The tank tops and khaki pants that Jo wore in the first movie are back, and Edgar-Jones is wearing them here. This also wasn't the only Easter egg and callback to Twister. Also, in the film, Kate wore an oversized baseball jersey, which was the same style of jersey worn by a young boy in the final scene of Twister. "And because Kate is blonde, I thought it would be interesting, as an Easter egg, to tie these characters together," Lee said (via EW). It’s the same style jersey, with a slightly tweaked graphic."
11 Naked Running During A Tornado
This Is A Call-Back To Bill's Story
There was a story in Twisters that had the same basic punchline as one told in the first film. In Twister, Bill Harding comes into town with his girlfriend Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz), a woman who knew nothing about the tornados and ends up over her head. While she was getting to know Jo's storm team, Dusty shared a story with her about Bill while eating at Aunt Meg's. It turns out that they first met Bill when he was "butt naked" near a tornado they were chasing.
Bill corrects them and says he was "half naked." In Twisters, the movie repeated the joke, this time it was about Kate. Once again, while eating at Kate's home, her mother told Tyler (Glen Powell) a story about how Kate was so excited to see a tornado when she was a little girl that she ran outside naked so she wouldn't miss it. Both cases had someone trying to embarrass someone else (Kate and Bill), and both stories had the same basic gag as their basis.
10 Homage To Dusty's Clothes In Twister
Lots Of Tie-Dye & Over-Sized Shirts
Twisters paid homage to the late Bill Paxton by having his son appear in a cameo. And the sequel also paid homage to the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman played Dusty, a member of Jo's storm-chasing team, in the first film. While there were lots of colorful characters on that team, Hoffman stood out thanks to his incredible acting and his appearance in mostly tie-die shirts, flowery prints, and over-sized clothing. He was impossible to forget.
In Twisters, Tyler's team of "storm wranglers" (Brandon Perea, Sasha Lane, Tunde Adebimpe, and Katy O'Brian) were dressed to pay homage to Hoffman's memory. “Perhaps the most explicit of those homages are on Boone, Tyler’s right-hand man and hype beast, played by Brandon Perea, who rocks some tie-dye," Lee said. "On Lily, played by Sasha Lane, the group’s free-spirited drone flyer, whose pants have swatches of floral fabric, all nods to Dusty’s wardrobe prints.”
9 The Red Trucks In Twister & Twisters
Both Movies Feature Red Trucks Racing To The Tornado
When Bill Harding is racing out to the tornado with his version of Dorothy in his truck, it is an iconic scene with the red pickup tearing through the field, while the storm almost leaves the background a gray shade. The idea of making his truck red was likely a stylistic decision to make it stand out in the scene, especially since one of the movie's most famous shots is of the truck from a distance.
It is also likely that Twisters chose to repeat the truck's color for Glen Powell's Tyler Owens for the same reason—it really helps the truck stand out in the massive wide shot with the storm in the background. However, it was also almost assuredly done as an Easter egg, since the two shots from a distance were framed almost identically, and the red truck in the new movie brought back strong memories of the red truck from the first Twister.
8 Twisters Features Dorothy V
The Device References Jo & Bill's Dorothy In Twister
In Twister, a tornado-obsessed Jo leads a team of storm chasers in Oklahoma when her estranged husband, meteorologist Bill Harding, shows up to get her signature on some divorce papers. Instead of dealing with their impending divorce, Jo shows Bill "Dorothy," a device that contains hundreds of small weather sensors — sensors that Bill conceptualized. Theoretically, Dorothy could revolutionize Jo's field and save lives by potentially allowing for earlier storm-warning alerts. After the first three Dorothy devices fail, Twister ends with Dorothy IV successfully deploying its sensors.
Even though none of Dorothy's creators are name-checked, it's still a fun nod.
According to Twisters, another Dorothy came to fruition at some point, as Kate's team in Twisters has a Dorothy V device. Although Kate is intent on taming tornadoes, her former colleague Javi (Anthony Ramos) is interested in collecting more data on the storms, much like Jo and Bill. It makes sense that the Dorothy capsule has become a mainstay in the Twister universe's field of tornado research. Even though none of Dorothy's creators are name-checked, it's still a fun nod.
7 James Paxton Has A Cameo In Twisters
The Late Bill Paxton's Son Appears As A Nod To His Dad
One of the leads in the original Twister, the late Bill Paxton played Bill Harding, Jo's estranged husband. At the beginning of the film, Bill is introduced as a more down-to-earth meteorologist — a stark contrast to Jo's wild-card nature. Even though Bill shows up with his soon-to-be-wife, Dr. Melissa Reeves (Jamie Gertz), Bill and Jo share an incredibly strong bond that's built on their love of storms.
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Although Twisters only features one original Twister actor, Paxton's son, James Paxton, has a Twisters cameo. "I did this one for Dad," Paxton told EW. "I wanted to be a conduit for his spirit there and cheer everyone in this production on to success because I know he would be. I wanted to do something that really honors his presence in this new chapter and really do something for him."
6 Kate Says "I'm Not Back" — One Of Twister's Most Memorable Lines
Daisy Edgar-Jones' Character Echoes Bill's Sentiment In The First Movie
In Twister, Bill shows up to get Jo to sign their divorce papers. However, her team of stormchasers keeps excitedly exclaiming that Bill is back — meaning he's returned to join their storm-chasing efforts. Throughout the scenes, Bill says again and again that he's, in fact, "not back" to help with the Dorothy capsule. Of course, he does wind up sticking around.
Similarly, Twisters' Kate also claims she's "not back" upon returning to the storm-chasing field. Characters in both films also tell anecdotes about Bill and Kate running outside, completely naked (or, in Bill's case, "half-naked") to greet a storm, cementing Kate's place as Twisters' Bill replacement character. It was a nice call-back and the quote early on in the film sets her up in the role.
5 Storm Par's Codenames Reference The Wizard Of Oz
The Dorothy Joke Is Taken A Step Further
In addition to the Dorothy device, Twisters features a few other fun Wizard of Oz nods as an ode to the 1939 movie's twister-centric plot. At one point, Javi uses code names for his storm-chaser team that reference several Wizard of Oz characters, including Scarecrow, Lion, Tin Man, and Wizard.
Given that the Dorothy capsule is based on a real-life instrument called TOTO (Totable Tornado Observatory), which gets its name from Toto the dog in The Wizard of Oz, the continued references to the L. Frank Baum story. With The Wizard of Oz the most famous early movie to feature a tornado and its damage, it makes sense that the sequel would also pay homage to the classic movie, its characters, and names from the film.
4 A Movie Theater Is Destroyed In Twisters
This Moment Directly References Twister's Iconic Drive-In Theater Scene
One of the most iconic scenes in Twister takes place at a drive-in theater. While the ending of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining plays out on the screen, a tornado bears down on the movie-going audience, forcing Jo, Bill, and the rest of the storm team to seek cover. At one point, the storm even tears through the movie screen. It was a hugely iconic moment, and even the Jurassic World franchise paid homage to this scene.
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Chung's film pays homage to this memorable moment in Twisters' ending, which features a tornado that rips through an indoor cinema that's playing Frankenstein. In both cases, the films playing are horror movies, and in the indoor theater, it is an even older, classic horror film of a rampaging monster, paralleling the rampaging tornado that is sweeping through the town.
3 Muskogee State University Rides Again
Many Of The Twister Films Characters Have Ties To The School
In the opening of Twisters, young storm chasers Kate, Javi, Jeb (Daryl McCormack), Addy (Kiernan Shipka), and Praveen (Nik Dodani) are all Muskogee State University students. While that might seem like a completely throwaway fictional alma mater, it actually holds a lot of resonance for the Twister cinematic universe. One of Jo's storm-chasing teammates, Laurence (Jeremy Davies), wears a shirt that reads, "Muskogee State University."
The team's vehicles are also plastered with stickers boasting the school's name. Clearly, it's the university of choice for wannabe storm-chasing researchers. Of course, in the original Twister movie, Muskogee State University was the one Jo and Bill had an association with and was likely where the weather research program was located, which explains why it is still an important part of the story in the sequel.
2 The Sunflower Fields In Twisters Are A Visual Easter Egg
Twister Also Features The Memorable Image
A striking moment in the 1996 film happens in Twister's action-packed climax. At one point, Paxton and Hunt's characters run through a sunflower field. In a fun twist, Twisters production designer Patrick Sullivan worked on the original disaster flick and even helped plant that iconic sea of sunflowers. Speaking with EW, Sullivan said that adding a sunflower field — this time near Cathy Carter's (Maura Tierney) house — was a must to help the standalone sequel connect to the original movie.
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A fun visual callback, the sunflowers are a perfect way to pay homage to Twister without being overly cheesy. "Fortunately, I had an amazing greensman who can work miracles," Sullivan said. "I was so grateful. It was fun to get sunflowers into the film and use them to immerse all of us, filmmakers and audience, in the world of Twister again."
1 Twister's Standalone Sequel Also Has A Flying Cow
Twisters' Features A Blink-And-You'll-Miss-It Easter Egg
One of the most memorable images from Twister is a flying CGI cow, which a tornado carries across the road. At first, Chung was reluctant to include a cow-related Easter egg, feeling it might be too on the nose. However, Twisters' VFX team managed to sneak a cow into the film's climax. As an F5 tornado barrels down on El Reno, Oklahoma, a blink-and-you-miss-it image of a cow is visible.
It's so well-hidden that Twisters' ending's hidden cow prompted Chung to ask, "Could you freeze that frame?" when the spotted animal flew by. In the original movie, there might not be a more referenced scene for fans, and in the Twisters sequel, it seems like a no-brainer that the film wouldn't homage to this in some way. For those who caught it, the moment was satisfying, and for those who didn't, streaming allows lots of chances to pause and enjoy the cow once again.
A follow-up to the 1996 original film Twister, Twisters is a sequel set years after the original, said to be fast-tracked by Steven Spielberg and Mark L. Smith, with Frank Marshal as producer. Little details exist about the film, but Helen Hunt is expected to reprise her role as Jo, with the film likely to pay homage to the late Bill Paxton.
Director Lee Isaac Chung
Release Date July 19, 2024
Distributor(s) Universal Pictures , Warner Bros. Pictures
Runtime 117 Minutes
In Twister, Bill and Jo Harding, advanced storm chasers on the brink of divorce, must join together to create an advanced weather alert system by putting themselves in the cross-hairs of extremely violent tornadoes. Jo's childhood was stricken by the trauma of losing her father to a deadly F5 tornado, setting her on the path of a storm chaser. Having developed a new technology with her team named "Dorothy," Jo seeks to make Tornadoes more predictable to give people a chance to make it to safety. Jo's obsession created a rift between her husband, but new breakthroughs may bring them back together as the two pursue their greatest challenge yet - an incoming system that will produce yet another F5.
Director Jan de bont
Release Date May 10, 1996
Studio(s) Warner Bros. Pictures
Runtime 113 minutes
Source: Entertainment Weekly
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