Imagine being a teenager in 1996.
The Sony PlayStation just came out, the Nintendo 64 is on its way, “woke” just meant not asleep, and there were no unseemly legacy discussions about Michael Jordan versus LeBron James.
Oh, and the box office was booming — perhaps not tickets-wise, but in terms of quality films to watch.
“Independence Day,” “Mission: Impossible,” “The Rock,” “Space Jam” and “Jerry Maguire” are just some of the classic, enduring films to emerge from 1996.
Another iconic movie that helped shape that year at the box office? “Twister,” a harrowing natural disaster movie about a team of scientists who — via movie logic — need to get into the center of a tornado to study it.
It’s a campy romp that never takes itself too seriously, while still offering enough drama to keep viewers at the edge of their seats.
Now, imagine being a teenager in 2024.
The PlayStation 5 is still ludicrously expensive and tough to track down, Nintendo is apparently embracing DEI, “woke” is an infestation, and there are a tragic number of delusional people who think James is better than Jordan.
Oh, and the box office stinks — in every way imaginable.
Did you like the original 1996 film?
But wait! Perhaps amid all the doom and gloom of the current day, could a sequel to “Twister” be the callback to the halcyon ’90s that people so desperately want these days?
In short, no.
In long, it’s because “Twisters,” the forthcoming sequel to “Twister,” looks to be packaging nostalgia and the thrills of a natural disaster movie to subtly push a climate change narrative to viewers.
And that’s not some right-wing concern campaign. It’s from the mouth of the director himself.
“I feel that we are losing our understanding of where we are in our relationship with nature,” director Lee Isaac Chung told The Hollywood Reporter. “I would love to see more stories in which our identity is defined in relation to the Earth, and I felt like this film was a chance to do that.”
“Anytime Hollywood is doing anything with climate change, I think we have to stay positive and let people have fun,” Chung added. “As a production, we want to inspire people to embrace the natural world.
“That can go quite a long ways toward influencing people to make good choices in their relationship with nature, to study what’s happening on this Earth and to figure out how can we become better caretakers of the planet.”
And if your eyes need to roll any further, the Reporter added, “Chung says that he hopes his summer blockbuster will inspire people to regard climate scientists as the real superheroes.”
Further adding to the concern for “Twisters,” whereas the original ’90s film focused on the pursuit of knowledge, this film appears to be glorifying people who want to play god.
Per the Reporter, “Twisters” will focus on “a new crew testing a hypothesis on how to ‘tame’ cyclones when they strike.”
Of course the movie is focused on that because climate alarmists love to suggest that humans — and not, oh say, the Almighty — ultimately control nature.
To be clear, a disdain for climate alarmism does not equate to a disdain for being good stewards of the earth. This is the only planet God gave us, so we should take care of it the best we can.
But shoveling this sort of “science” into a schlocky disaster film, with the intent of indoctrination via entertainment, and having outlets like The Hollywood Reporter laud it is the exact problem with climate alarmism.
Namely, climate alarmists are annoying and preachy (in the bad way), and their ideas should be challenged at every step given how profoundly impacting climate change regulations are. Massive restrictive changes like that shouldn’t come at a whim — especially a whim of a filmmaker.
“Twisters,” should you go see it out of morbid curiosity, comes out July 17.
