A rodeo crowd waves cowboy hats as a man rides a bucking horse. Then comes a shower of leaves, a chorus of mobile phone rings and a wail of klaxons. Horses run wild and cars collide. One vehicle is whipped into the air by what a weatherman calls a once-in-a-generation tornado outbreak.

This is a scene from Twisters, starring Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones, in which rivals come together to try to predict and possibly tame ferocious storms in central Oklahoma. A sequel to the hit disaster movie Twister from 1996, it is a Hollywood summer blockbuster designed to entertain – but also a lost opportunity to raise awareness of the climate crisis.

“I just wanted to make sure that with the movie, we don’t ever feel like [it] is putting forward any message,” director Lee Isaac Chung, who grew up in Oklahoma’s tornado belt, told CNN. “I just don’t feel like films are meant to be message-oriented.”

That may not come as a surprise to scientists and climate activists. Despite global heating’s existential threat to humanity, and despite Hollywood’s left-leaning tendencies, the subject rarely makes it to the big screen.

A study published by the nonprofit consultancy Good Energy and Colby College’s Buck Lab for Climate and Environment analysed whether the climate crisis was present in 250 of the top-grossing fictional films between 2013 and 2022. In only 32 of the films (12.8%) was it clear that climate change exists, and in only 24 of them (9.6%) was it clear that a character knows it.

  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOPM
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    3 months ago

    “I just wanted to make sure that with the movie, we don’t ever feel like [it] is putting forward any message,” director Lee Isaac Chung, who grew up in Oklahoma’s tornado belt, told CNN. “I just don’t feel like films are meant to be message-oriented.”

    Has the whiff of cowardice about it.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      3 months ago

      Looks at every film ever made - and then every other piece of media

      If media isn’t supposed to have a message, what the hell has he been watching/reading?

      • Jazzy Vidalia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        It’s newspeak for “I don’t want messages that I disgree with in my media.”

        Just like when conservatives complain about something being “political” they mean “progressive” and by progressive I mean “they saw a minority.”

        It’s a way of saying something without saying it.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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          3 months ago

          Oh yeah, sorry a bit of tongue in cheek sarcasm there. We all know films have always had messages, storytelling has always had a message. It’s just they had a weather disaster movie and now (and going forward) it’s going to be pretty much impossible for hollywood to avoid climate change when doing a weather disaster story.

    • UKFilmNerd@feddit.ukM
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      3 months ago

      As I said elsewhere, I think in reply to you again Emperor 😁, Twisters mentions there are more tornados than ever and its the worst they’ve ever seen.

      I can’t remember them mentioning if it has been getting worse year after year, but to me, it feels like they almost want to mention climate change but not cross the line.

      Despite that, it is two hours of wonderful entertainment. Wasn’t expecting that from a legacy sequel!