The Disaster Movie Thread

[urnofosiris]

I´ve been meaning to start a thread for this for a while now. I want to share in my guilty pleasure: disaster movies (not to be confused with disastrous movies, we have another thread for those ).



I love em. They are like a roller coaster ride, a taste of danger but still safe and no one gets hurt. I do not necessarily care for plots, though a good plot is definitely a bonus, I mostly love the movies with great special effects. This means I some of the older movies I have seen have lost their charm. Towering Inferno and the Poseidon Adventure being exception to that.



Some of my favorite ones (they aren´t all considered disaster movies, but some scenes are, so I count them as well) are:



(as mentioned: Towering Inferno and the Poseidon Adventure)

- Dante´s Peak: almost perfect, it has a volcano *and* Linda Hamilton, what´s not to love?

- Deep Impact: seen it many times now, still love it.

- Twister: nice effects, very cheesy ending.

- Independence Day: well about 10 minutes of it anyway, you know the minutes I mean.

- The Core: ridiculous plot, but I just loved the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge and I really love the Golden Date Bridge and I love San Francisco. I actually saw it last year on the plane on the way to LA (a few days later I went to San Francisco). It was also fun to hear them talk about planes dropping from the sky.

- Titanic: the sinking...



I know I am forgetting quite a few, but I will probably go ´oh yeah´ when I read about some of your favorites. So what are they? Spill!



Btw, this thread does not mean you can´t start a separate thread for a specific disaster movie, even if it gets talked about here. If you want to start a thread for any of them, go right ahead. I might do it myself as soon as I have seen the newest edition to the disaster family: "The Day after Tomorrow"

[Lindy]

I .. I watch them, because I am fascinated by the destruction of cities I know like I would be watching a car accident. You know it is awful, but still you keep standing and staring.



Some days ago there was this really bad movie with, whatshisname? The guy who was Superman together with Terry Hatcher? And it was about how Berlin is the center of a new ice age. And seeing the Brandenburg Gate totally covered in ice and snow was weird.. but the movie was done so badly, that hurt even more.

[Jennpurr]

Um... Critters.



*Whistles and walks away*



Jen

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Phoebe: Be vewy, vewy quiet. We're hunting demons. ~ Charmed: Season 2, "P3 H20"
Quia ego cognosco cogitationes meas, quas ego cogito super vos, dicit Jehova, cogitationes pacis, et non in malum; ut dem vobis finem et expectationem. ~ Jeremiah 29:11

[ivygort]

I can't wait for this movie! I live in NC and we have had so many hurricanes the past few years that I can't wait to see NEw York get theirs. Even if it just a fantasty. Am I the only person that s disappointed when the main characters survive? I want to see mother nature paying back mankind for its abuses!

[Boomstick79]

I've just watched Day After Tomorrow and I quite liked it I have to say. Ater ID-4 and Godzilla I'd given up on Roland Emmerich but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared.

I too take guilty pleasure in watching disaster movies. It all started when I was little and Towering Inferno used to be on ITV and Dad made me watch it. I've been fascinated with destruction and fire ever since



Some are shite, Godzilla and ID-4 having been previously mentioned but my favourite have to be:



Twister - Just for the part where Helen Hunt asks where her truck is, and then it gets dropped out the sky - "Oh, there it is"



Daylight - Explosions, fire, burning, one of my favourites. Dunno what it is I like so much about it, I just compulsively watch it.



Armageddon - Better than Deep Impact IMHO, because DI just bored the arse off of me. I cheered when Tea Leoni got washed away. But Armageddon, yeeha. As much as I am a cynical Brit and can't stand half of the 'God Bless America' flicks there are (no offence intended) I love Armageddon. Shame on me



The Core - So implausible you just have to watch it. And so enjoyable. Guilty pleasure ahoy. Oh yeah, and Hilary Swank *coughs*



I am a disaster movie ho I am afraid. Schadenfreude anyone?



~Lou

[concrete]

The movie “Rollercoaster” –1977. With this awesome bit where one of the cars of the crashing ferris wheel flies through the air and in mid-air turns upside down and the unfortunate people in it literally land on their sculls Vintage stuff........

And who can forget “Towering Inferno” ? And the “Airport” saga? They don’t make movies like that anymore!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. ...

[urnofosiris]

Oh the rollercoaster, I knew I was forgetting something. They don´t make those, but they do make the Day after Tomorrow. We gotta go see that.

[Gatito Grande]

This is slightly OT, but those classic 70s disaster movies coincided (in my wild mispent youth) w/ my love for MAD magazine. Parodies of movies were a staple of MAD, and I remember ones like "The Poopsidedown Adventure" .



One thing in particular sticks: song parodies! To wit, this snippet:



(to the tune of "Maria," from West Side Story)



"Inferno---we're stuck in this awful inferno.

Can anyone believe

They've billed me under Steve

McQueen?"



[that's Paul Newman singing]



[bridge]

"Inferno! See the flames lighting up San Francisco!

While us lesser paid stars burn like Crisco . . .



Inferno---we will die in a Towering Inferno!"







Finally, a MAD salute to disaster movies:



[to the tune of "Climb Every Mountain"]



"Burn up big buildings!

Plant bombs on planes!

Go for devastation---

That's what entertains.



Show ocean liners

Turned upside-down;

Show a giant earthquake

Leveling a town.



[bridge]



Every studio knows

What the public expects:

A ridiculous plot

With great special effects!



[big finish]



Stick with disaster!

Rake in the cash!

You may not win the critics

BUT - YOU'LL - HAVE - A - SMASH!!!"







Ah, memories . . .



GG Also looking forward to The Day After Tomorrow: hoping that the flick will deliver a little environmentalist Bush-bashing along w/ the special effects Out

[Sheridan]

I'm sorry but I can't ever take the Posiedon Adventure seriously. not because its such a bd movie but because it has Leslie Neilsen as the captain and I will always associate him with 'Airplane'; the greatest spoof disaster movie ever.

Willow: ...I have to tell you....

Tara: No, I understand you have to be with the person you l-love

Willow: I am

[concrete]

Shelley Winters should have won an OSCAR for that movie !!! And I personally consider The Poseidon Adventure an absolute classic in its genre.....

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. ...

[maudmac]

I saw this thing on TV recently about the cult of fans. They seem a much, much smaller bunch than Rocky Horror fans, but they have the same level of dedication and do a lot of the same things. It was interesting. I had no idea there was a Poseidan Adventure cult. Nothing should surprise me anymore.



Disaster movies! I'm off to see The Day After Tomorrow in a few minutes. I predict massive suckage. Yay! I can't wait! I've already read plenty of grumbling from science-types about how impossible all that shit is. Okay, I understand their frustration, sure. The inaccuracies in Twister drive me insane. It is also one of my favorite movies of all time. That's part of the appeal - the ridiculousness of it. Just enough "Oh my God...could that really happen?" to make it interesting, but totally over-the-top destruction. Perfect.



Also love Volcano, Dante's Peak, The Core, and Deep Impact. But Twister is definitely my favorite. I am a tornado freak and I felt like that movie was made for me.

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and i don't really care if you think i'm strange   /   i ain't gonna change

[justin]

My understanding is that while the makers of The Day After Tomorrow have greatly exaggerated the danger there is a distinct possibility that global warming could lead to an ice age in the northern hemisphere.



The biggest mistake they've made is they set the film in the wrong place. Since if the events of the film did happen (The gulf stream stopping working due to water coming from the ice caps as they melt) then the place that would be worst affected is Britain, which is dependant on the gulf stream for most of it's climate.

"To mess up a Linux box you need to work at it; to mess up a Windows box you just need to work on it."

[urnofosiris]

Ah but that would not be as interesting, no offense to the UK kitties. In all fairness, you got infected with a horrible incurable virus last year that spread throughout the body in a matter of second to turn you all into living zombies.

The timeframe in which the day after tomorrow takes place makes it a work of pure fiction, but things like this could happen in the decades or centuries to come, just like the earth could get struck by a huge meteorite again. The chances of winning the lottery may be greater, but there´s still that teeny tiny chance that it could happen...

Edited by: DrG at: 5/28/04 1:18 pm

[justin]

Yeah, and this year we were struck by another virus that turned people into actual undead type zombies.



So what is the deal with Britain and zombies at the moment?

"To mess up a Linux box you need to work at it; to mess up a Windows box you just need to work on it."

[urnofosiris]

Well, I am going to see it anyway, the scenes I saw in the previews are too good to miss. Those twisters and that tidle wave alone are worth it for me. I love twisters too, which is why I love Twister so much. Hmm, what a coincidence . Anyway, I´m curious to see if I will agree with you on this.

[Warduke]

I just love disaster movies I have many on DVD and will get many more.





Speaking of The Day After Tomorrow, I thought it would make a big showing at the box office, around 30 to 40 million, but it opened with 70 million!



And what's even more amazing is that it wasn't even #1. Shrek 2 was with 73.1 million.



I think that's the biggest opening for a movie that isn't #1 I've ever seen.

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[WiccansIllusion]

Well I just got back from The Day After Tomorrow, and it had a great message and slammed the Bush Administration but that was about it. If you've seen the extended trailers then you've seen the movie.



Yes a lot of the Manahattan massive storm stuff was cool, but otherwise eh. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened in Chicago or Ohio or the other midwest cities as well as the major ones in DC, LA and NY...

..this song is my anthem and it makes up my ideals and who I am... cause we pay for the stupid things we've done..if we ever use common sense it comes pretty cheap...Tegan and Sarah

[xita]

I want to see the day after tomorrow even if it does suck. IT's a disaster movie and I love disaster movies.



I love them all!



I love the old ones, earthquake, poseidon adventure, airport, etc. THose are awesome! I love the nuclear disaster movies of the eighties The Day After, Threads etc. I love modern disaster movies, Twister and Deep Impact are the class of them. Idependence Day is pretty good too. THose would be my favorites. I am sure I am missing one or another.

- - - - - - - - - - -
"Trust is a risk masquerading as a promise."

[TaraBaby77]

I just got done watching that movie today. I like the effects and it has a understandable good story line. The concept of the movie, itself, kinda scares me. I do think that acting was pretty good as well. But all in all, I liked it and would probably watch it over and over. I don't really know how to review a movie, but that is just my opinion of it. I'm going to stop talking now.... =)

Aaron

'Tarababy77'

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"Don't buy into all the media crap. Love yourself for who you are, not what others THINK you should look like. It's DEFINITELY more important in this life to love each other despite our imperfections." - Amber Benson

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[urnofosiris]

Quote:

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If you've seen the extended trailers then you've seen the movie.

---

That is basically true. The Tokio hailstorm scene was very brief, it was in the trailer. The twisters ripping apart LA, also rather brief, were in the trailer too. The tidal wave and freezing of NY, in the trailer too. I did like the movie, for a disaster movie lover I think it is a must see. It has all the cliches any disaster movies has in them. Brave boy/man loves girl/woman, brave boy saves girl, brave father saves son, brave doctor won't abandon patients, a beloved pet survives all disasters, the message of we are one big human family in the end etc.



I don't mind these cliches, they belong in this movie (except the one with the wolves, that was just bleh). The flooding scenes in NY and the freezing were very well done, but the twisters in LA were a tad disappointing. The ones in Twister were far superior. It all happened a bit too fast. I missed a sense of impending doom that you had in Deep Impact and Twister (the outdoors cinema scene). I missed a build up of tension. I would have loved to see more of what was going on in the rest of the world (and the US). In the Core you get to see Rome blown away by a huge thunderstorm for example. In this movie there is the brief Tokio hailstorm and three helicopters freezing over Scotland and that is it.



Concluding, I liked it well enough, but for me it does not come close to movies like Twister, Deep Impact (which has even less disaster scenes) and Dante's Peak. Nevertheless, I will get the DVD when it comes out. Oh and did anyone else feel like yelling "that's Bilbo". I am such a 5 year old sometimes.

Edited by: DrG at: 5/31/04 2:28 am

[concrete]

Erm....what he said -see above! (Didn't know who or what "Bilbo" is but got an explanation this morning). I sometimes had the urge to laugh out loud over some cliche's but managed to control myself. All in all I did enjoy the movie as a whole but it's not really a classic like -see above again plus The Poseidon Adventure. Absolutely not a waste of time and indeed a must-see if you're a D.M.L. (=Disaster Movie Lover)

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. ...

[BBOvenGuy]

NPR has been making a big deal over the recent American release of the original Japanese version of the original Godzilla, without the Raymond Burr scenes that they shot for the 1950s American release. Has anyone heard about this?



As far as disaster movies go, I think Deep Impact is probably my favorite. I'd vote for Morgan Freeman as President any day.

"The stories we tell - that's us explaining how we think the world works. Once we speak it, once we say it aloud, that makes it real for us - and real for everyone else who hears it too. When we tell a story, we invite people to visit our reality. We invite them to move in. Our stories are the reality we live in." - David Gerrold, The Martian Child

[urnofosiris]

That´s funny, I was watching Deep Impact again the other day and I was thinking just that. He´s an actor, but so was Ronald Reagan, so that should not have to stop him. Morgan Freeman has such a commanding presence, I´d vote for him any day and I am not even an American.

[seurat]

Morgan Freeman, I suspect, is far too smart to want anything to do with the job.



Ive been searching the dark recesses of my mind for disaster movies that haven't been named yet, but apart from disturbing the dust bunnies back there about all I can come up with is a couple of possibles. Tremors I've always liked for some reason, even the stereotypical characters appeal to me. Love the plucky girl scientist and the redneck gun collector couple. And surely giant worms tearing up a desert town and eating the inhabitants qualifies as a sufficent disaster!



Last Night is another kind of film altogether. More of an art film really, and typically Canadian. It is about the end of the world though - literally. No big special effects, no tidal waves, or huge explosions, just a lot of people doing what they feel they need to do before everything just...stops. It doesn't really belong on this list, but I;ll give it a plug anyway.You may find it stays with you a long time, as it has with me.

"Life's complications and frustrations/they disappear when the music starts playing/I found a place where it feels alright/I hear a record and it opened my eyes/do you remember what the music meant?" - Speakers Push Air, Pretty Girls Make Graves

[darkmagicwillow]

A disaster movie thread and barely a mention of zombies in the year 2004, the year of Dawn of the Dead 2004, Shaun of the Dead, Resident Evil 2, and several others? How could this happen? Zombies are the best disaster ever.



True, zombies aren't real, but neither is the science behind any of those other movies. The actions that supposedly saved the Earth in Armageddon and Independence Day would've actually destroyed it more effectively than the original disaster--many large meteor hits cause more damage than a single big one and that ship in ID was supposedly 1/4 the size of the moon, far larger than any impactor that's hit the Earth since its surface has been solid. It's hard to tell how big the asteroid in Armageddon was since they kept changing it through the movie, but it would've taken months to drill to the core, and breaking it into pieces would've killed us all anyway.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Gatito Grande]

Quote:

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I'd vote for Morgan Freeman as President any day

---

That's what I think every week watching Dennis Haysbert on 24 (and that's still true even though they made President Palmer more morally ambiguous this past season). Then again, I suppose some West Wing watchers could chime in w/ the same POV!



Uh-oh, I'm getting a little OT, aren't I?



GG Just see the "Fahrenheit 9/11" thread, to see how the past four years have *been* a disaster movie! Out

[Triscuit7]

Okay - 2nd try since the first one was eaten (sorry about the double post).



I just finished watching Category 6, a CBS made for TV movie. Loosely and much condensed, the plot goes like this...



It's been a long, overly hot summer in Chicago, weather across the US has been very unusual (tornadoes in Las Vegas). The midwest power grid is under a lot a strain and the power brokers are evil Enron types. The out-going head of NOAA in Norman OK is worried, so is the "fluff" reporter for a tv station in Chicago. An Arctic system drops down out of Canada producing conditions that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald in Nov 1975, but it's August! There's another system coming up from the south (hurricanes in the Gulf).



They meet over Chicago while the city is in a hacker-induced blackout and spawn all sorts of interesting things.



It was silly, destructive fun, and I hope Dr. G is able to download it from someplace.



Ciao, Melissa

******************



Do something totally irrational and let the enemy think himself to death. (Pyanfar Chanur)

Edited by: Triscuit7 at: 11/17/04 8:21 pm

[urnofosiris]

Oh thanks for the tip, I will look for a download right now.

[xita]

And it has Nancy Mckeon

- - - - - - - - - - -
"Trust is a risk masquerading as a promise."

[BytrSuite]

Hee. I saw 3 hours of this. The first two and then the last one. I have to go check my tape to see the missing hour. But, from what I saw, it was okay. Not great. CBS somehow managed to take most of the adrenaline rush feeling out of a disaster movie.



Nancy McKeon is there, though, so I didn't mind too much. Ahem.

________
Bender: Y'know, I was God once.
God: Yes I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.