NYT contributor argues 'Twisters' tornado movie 'failed us' with lack of climate change messaging

New York Times opinion contributor Margaret Renkl complained about the newly released summer film, "Twisters" for misssing an "opportunity" to preach to audiences about climate change.

"Twisters," released in July, is about storm chasers who try to survive multiple storms converging in central Oklahoma. It is a standalone sequel to the box office hit "Twister" from 1996. While climate change continues to be debated across the country, the movie’s director, Lee Isaac Chung, defended his choice to avoid political messaging. He had told CNN in an interview that "I just don’t feel like films are meant to be message-oriented," but Renkl fiercely disagreed with that stance. 

In a New York Times guest essay, Renkl offered a theory for why politics were avoided in the movie. An earlier version of the piece was headlined "How ‘Twisters’ Failed Us and Our Burning Planet," but was later changed to "‘Twisters’ Was a Spectacle That Missed A Huge Opportunity."

"I’m guessing the decision to exclude even a passing reference to climate change in a film about weather disasters has very little to do with cinematic art, or even with climate science, and everything to do with avoiding the cross hairs of political polarity," she wrote. 

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She added that such messaging can have severe box office consequences for a project’s bottom line, but said it’s no excuse. 

"With movie attendance still far below prepandemic levels, who could blame the makers of ‘Twisters’ for wanting to protect their film from the right-wing vigilantes targeting wokeness? I do. I can’t help it, I blame them," Renkl wrote. 

She warned that artists may be the key to stopping the agenda of "MAGA politicians." 

"With MAGA politicians at every level denying that climate change even exists, real climate legislation is now nearly impossible to pass," she continued. "And with the Supreme Court determined to quash all executive-branch efforts to address the changing climate, too, we seem to be at the mercy of artists to save us."

Renkl concluded, "If only they would. In a missed opportunity the size of an F5 tornado’s debris field, we got no help from the makers of 'Twisters.'"

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The film's director told CNN he didn't want the movie to feel like it was "preaching a message." 

"I just wanted to make sure that with the movie, we don’t ever feel like (it) is putting forward any message," he said. "I wanted to make sure that we are never creating a feeling that we’re preaching a message, because that’s certainly not what I think cinema should be about," and that "I think it should be a reflection of the world."

While the movie doesn't explicitly send a message about climate change, Chung said there is a scene where a local farmer complains about storms and floods becoming more frequent and driving up the price of wheat. Even so, the choice to not directly address such disasters without a political lens has drawn the ire of writers at other news outlets as well. 

"It would have made sense if ‘Twisters’ — a film about storm chasers studying a spate of unusually powerful and destructive tornadoes — worked climate change into its story," The Verge's Charles Pulliam-Moore contested. "[W]hen you consider how scientists have found that the conditions that create tornado-producing storms are more likely in a warming world, ‘Twisters’’ avoidance of the phrase ‘climate change’ feels like shying away and then some,"

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Fox News' Kristine Parks contributed to this report.