#Geostorm – another climate related disaster movie, crashes and burns

It just opened yesterday, and already Hollywood movie analysts are blasting its plot and performance.

IMDB storyline:

When catastrophic climate change endangers Earth’s very survival, world governments unite and create the Dutch Boy Program: a world wide net of satellites, surrounding the planet, that are armed with geoengineering technologies designed to stave off the natural disasters. After successfully protecting the planet for two years, something is starting to go wrong. Two estranged brothers are tasked with solving the program’s malfunction before a world wide Geostorm can engulf the planet.

From Variety:

Geostorm,” a weather disaster drama starring Gerard Butler and directed by Dean Devlin, is heading towards a disaster of the fiscal sort for Warner Bros. Though the film is projected to over-perform just barely with a modest $12.5 million at 3,246 venues compared to a projected $10 to 12 million, it’s also carrying an estimated $100 million budget. The film has been released internationally and garnered roughly $7.4 million on Friday, bringing the global cumulative total to $29.8 million in addition to Friday’s domestic $4.3 million.

From The Independent

Geostorm review round-up: Is this the worst film of the year?

‘Uses digital technology to lay waste to a bunch of cities and hacky screenwriting to assault the dignity of several fine actors’

Which is precisely what Geostorm may be doomed to become, roping in Independence Day‘s producer Dean Devlin for a feature film debut that is predicted to flop hard at the box office. 

The film sees Gerard Butler star as the architect behind an elaborate natural disaster defense system, which sees a series of climate-controlling satellites surrounding Earth, centered around the International CIimate Space Station. 

Can Hollywood films about climate change make a difference?

But, is Geostorm truly the worst film of the year, especially with the (also) disastrously received The Snowman lurking in the shadows of cinema complexes everywhere? 

Here’s what the critics thought. –  read the review here

The trailer (the most ridiculous part, in my opinion, is the frozen airliner falling out of the sky):


There is one element of truth in the movie: Humans can’t control the climate.

At least Al Gore isn’t in it.

 

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Greg Cavanagh
October 21, 2017 1:41 pm

Bigger explosions, more destruction. It’s been a competition for a long time now. This movie is so over the top it’s ridiculous on a grand scale.

RAH
Reply to  Greg Cavanagh
October 22, 2017 3:14 am

I remember as a kid watching movies from the middle of the 20th century that were in black and white and for which the setting for nearly the entire movie was a single room. No disasters, no special effects, a cast of only a few, but they were entertaining and held my attention because of the plot, writing, and the great acting. I couldn’t imagine Hollywood pulling that off now.

wws
Reply to  RAH
October 22, 2017 8:08 am

Think “12 Angry Men”.

But to do that you have to have writers that actually understand esoteric things like plot and character development.

Michael 2
Reply to  RAH
October 24, 2017 3:13 pm

Examples: Perry Mason. Pretty much any of the original Twilight Zone.

Greg
Reply to  Greg Cavanagh
October 22, 2017 3:19 am

Hey, all Hollywood movies full of this crap but it seems that this article is just a knee-jerk reaction because it’s about “climate”.

This looks like a salutary warning of the dangers and potential for militarisation of geo-engineering. Any AGW alarmists tempted to see GE as a stop gap or fall back technical solution would to well to take note.

They need to realise that the solutions are far worse than the more or less non-existent “problem”.

Alan D McIntire
Reply to  Greg Cavanagh
October 22, 2017 7:26 am

Spending money on special effects rather than on plot writing is a BIG problem.

A couple of years ago, my daughter got my wife and me to watch “Dr Who” for awhile. Although the special effects sucked, we found the plots to be quite entertaining- just the opposite of what I suspect “Geostorm” was.

October 21, 2017 1:44 pm

So Sad…

Though I am very glad, Tyler Perry and her co-sponsors deserve their lack of reward and glory!

Walt Stone
October 21, 2017 1:48 pm

Warning: shameless personal plug:

I published a novel earlier this year (first in a trilogy) with a far more preposterous premise than the subject movie. It takes place 200 years after a solar system sized ice cloud adds about 1200 meters of water to the planet. Since a good portion still remains in low earth orbit, the cloud blocks most of the sunlight and our characters are living on a Snowball Earth. Since the warmest part is still near the Equator, add 1200 meters of water, get a map, and you can guess where the action takes place.

The fun part is where the main character discovers he’s a key player in a secret plan to bring the sunlight back. It involves him driving an asteroid.

I’ve followed WUWT for many years, and reading the way the science is debated here has helped my layout out of my own science (fiction) for non science readers. I wanted to thank Anthony plus all the other contributors and the many commenters who’ve unknowingly helped me on this.

The book is called ICEFALL

Curious George
Reply to  Walt Stone
October 21, 2017 1:50 pm

Does it feature James Bond?

Bill Powers
Reply to  Curious George
October 21, 2017 1:58 pm

Yep 007 Climate change commando. License to kill Ice clouds. Weapon of choice: Asteroid.

Pop Piasa
Reply to  Curious George
October 21, 2017 4:05 pm

Kill ice clouds? Hey, PSC lives matter, boss!
Don’t shoot the nacreous.

The Reverend Badger
Reply to  Walt Stone
October 21, 2017 1:57 pm

Apparently it is all explained in your book then.

Sounds familiar.

Reply to  Walt Stone
October 21, 2017 2:18 pm

crustal loading and rotational inertia effects of such an added mass would release massive vulcanism and tectonic displacements. It would take a billion or so years to sort out, just like the original cometary delivery of water from the outer solar system about 4 billion years ago.

R. Shearer
Reply to  Walt Stone
October 21, 2017 4:10 pm

How much longer is a day?

cloa5132013
Reply to  Walt Stone
October 21, 2017 9:18 pm

Your book is not that preposterous- the universe is a place with big things. The Solar System has been lucky (the chance is small) to miss all the super-solar system effects such as supernova gamma radiation bursts – kill us all.

Jon Jewett
Reply to  Walt Stone
October 21, 2017 10:42 pm

Is it a good red neck movie where all the bad guys get shot and all the bad girls get necked? Can I say that any more?

Hot under the collar
Reply to  Walt Stone
October 22, 2017 12:37 am

I’ve actually read Walt Stone’s ICEFALL novel and I have to say I couldn’t put it down! It’s got very good reviews on Amazon. Absolutely brilliant! The author’s summary here doesn’t do it justice and it’s nothing like the crap alarmist movie above. I didn’t realise the author was a frequent visitor to this site, but that may explain a few things.
Anyone keen in Science Fiction I can recommend it.

Walt Stone
Reply to  Hot under the collar
October 22, 2017 7:51 am

Thank you kind reader! I grew up on Asimov, and there’s a things in the series that harken back to his most famous trilogy. One is the use of epigraphs, or interstitials as I first started calling them. This is where the “science” and world building gets mentioned, saving room in the story for character interaction.

Regarding nekkid flesh [spoiler], there will be a Jubilee in Book 2

The series publishing timeline has taken a setback due to my house losing its first floor to Hurricane Harvey. But I promise to get back on things ASAP!

MarkW
Reply to  Walt Stone
October 22, 2017 8:02 am

How much would dumping all that kinetic energy into the biosphere warm up the planet.
Enough water to increase sea levels by 1200 meters is a huge weight. All that weight dropping from orbit or higher is going to have a huge amount of kinetic energy. Every last erg of that kinetic energy is going to be converted to heat.
I suspect that rising water levels would be the least of the survivors worries.

Walt Stone
Reply to  MarkW
October 22, 2017 9:07 am

That is discussed briefly. Pressures and temperatures fluxes mentioned aren’t realistic. To make them manageable, I invented an “effect” whereby some of the heat is held in the water in orbit and whisked away by the mass of ice not captured in Earth’s gravity well.. Not really possible, but it arm waves us past the obvious science error, because the story, like life, uh, has to find a way.

The Reverend Badger
October 21, 2017 1:54 pm

Not IMDB but IMDb. Mind you I did start with Ashton-Tate in 1985 so maybe you will excuse me!

PiperPaul
Reply to  The Reverend Badger
October 21, 2017 2:30 pm

I left IMDb after they removed all the comment forums.

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  PiperPaul
October 21, 2017 3:54 pm

Too many Griffs?

Luc Ozade
Reply to  PiperPaul
October 22, 2017 2:34 am

i wondered where they’d gone!

Pop Piasa
October 21, 2017 1:58 pm

When catastrophic climate change endangers Earth’s very survival”

I don’t think planet Earth gives a hoot about its climate.
Now, a bolide collision? That’ll leave a mark…

tty
Reply to  Pop Piasa
October 21, 2017 2:59 pm

“That’ll leave a mark…”

A small one, that is soon erased by erosion.

Merovign
October 21, 2017 2:07 pm

Day After Tomorrow II: Braindead Bugaloo.

Right down to the “frozen aircraft.”

The larger problem isn’t that millions of people are in a panic largely due to their innumeracy, but that they band together to demand that *others* panic with them.

PiperPaul
Reply to  Merovign
October 21, 2017 2:31 pm

“I insist that you be as concerned/frightened of this as I am otherwise I look like a coward.”

Pop Piasa
Reply to  Merovign
October 21, 2017 2:45 pm

I guess the zombie apocalypse crowd isn’t into weather-related flicks. There seems to be an undeveloped market for this kind of doom. Maybe if they give it a ‘Final Destination’ spin?

drednicolson
Reply to  Pop Piasa
October 21, 2017 3:30 pm

You can’t headshot or chainsaw-mangle bad weather.

Reply to  Pop Piasa
October 21, 2017 3:37 pm

Pop Piasa

Make a movie about zombie Armageddon and the audience giggle at the prospect. Make a movie about apocalyptic climate change and the audience run from the cinema screaming.

Both movies made in the same studios, with the same actors, cameramen, writers, producers, directors etc. But climate change is real and zombies aren’t.

WTF? A zombie Armageddon is probably more likely than apocalyptic climate change.

Ian H
Reply to  Pop Piasa
October 21, 2017 4:15 pm

WTF? A zombie Armageddon is probably more likely than apocalyptic climate change.

You just know a zombie movie is going to be a blast of pure fun, whereas a climate related movie these days is almost guaranteed to be sanctimonious and preachy and take itself too seriously. Of course I haven’t seen the movie. But if you are trying to figure out why a movie is tanking then the opinion of people who have no intentions of ever seeing the movie and indeed probably wouldn’t go if you gave them a free ticket are the determining factor.

Jean Paul Zodeaux
Reply to  Pop Piasa
October 21, 2017 6:24 pm

The zombie apocalypse offers up tangible demons that can be fought and even vanquished unless they are Legion and even then our heroes can outfox the zombie horde and escape to live and fight another day. Further, the zombies as demons can often become ancillary to the real monsters, we (or other) humans. This type of story telling offers up the type of tension and release that audiences love. The zombie apocalypse can also easily cater to the mythic reluctant hero structure, a story technique that is universal in its appeal.

Weather related films do not offer audiences tangible monsters and demons and does not easily fit into the reluctant hero structure. Not all disaster films are like this, but weather related disaster films are difficult to make work in the traditional mythic hero sense. In terms of tension and release, disaster films generally take a long time building up the slow burn tension that is finally released when the disaster happens. Not as varied and nuanced as a zombie film.

The disaster films like Earthquake and Towering Inferno did well at the box offices but they had multiple actors in multiple story lines and featuring big name actors. This was in the early ’70’s but by the end of the decade and the beginning of the ’80’s disaster films were doing poorly at the box office and few, (the notable exception would be Titanic – not a weather type related disaster film) disaster films since have done well.

MarkG
Reply to  Pop Piasa
October 21, 2017 7:35 pm

Zombie movies are a euphemism for social collapse. They’re what happens when the power goes out in the cities and the food stops coming.

Hence why they’re so popular right now.

Reply to  Pop Piasa
October 21, 2017 7:39 pm

the reality is Millenials were raised on FP shooter games . They can imagine where they can give video zombies satifying head shots, but a tornado? or ice strom? Not so much.

Frederik
Reply to  Merovign
October 23, 2017 5:21 pm

at least “the day after tomorrow” had a épausible storyplot. wasn’t that bad but yea it’s a movie… i did enjoy watching everything freeze 🙂

Moderately Cross of East Anglia
October 21, 2017 2:09 pm

Am I the only person deeply worried that the actor who plays the President has a more than passing resemblance to Al Gore? This is definitely one case in which I sincerely hope life doesn’t follow fiction. Come to think of it they could have got Gore to play the part and made sure everyone understood it was meant to be comedy.
At least it might make any of the people who pay to watch the film pause at ideas of ego-engineering from space.

Pop Piasa
Reply to  Moderately Cross of East Anglia
October 21, 2017 2:55 pm

Thanks for a chuckle and enlightenment that their egos are indeed similar. But then again, isn’t that how they ended up in the same arena?

October 21, 2017 2:10 pm

To achieve the Worst Movie of the Year award in a year of real stinkers is an accomplishment in itself.

F. Leghorn
Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
October 21, 2017 2:15 pm

The perfect movie to revive MST3K.

Reply to  F. Leghorn
October 21, 2017 4:23 pm

MST3K has already been revived. Season 11 is a Netflix exclusive. The new SoL crew is raw but full of potential. I expect season 12 to be much better.

Editor
Reply to  F. Leghorn
October 21, 2017 8:04 pm

Cracked has already given this a MST3K-like (sort of) panned review from their panel of three reviewers.

They mentioned the film was shot in 2014, then after test audiences panned it, they spent $15,000,000 reshooting some of the problematic scenes. Perhaps theyshould have just shot it. 🙂

Reply to  F. Leghorn
October 22, 2017 6:07 am

alexwade October 21, 2017 at 4:23 pm

I loved the original MST3K and thought the remake was very good. They did a very good job of not trying to be the original.

Moderately Cross of East Anglia
October 21, 2017 2:11 pm

That was meant to be geo, but spellcheck seems to have score a winner with ego!

Latitude
Reply to  Moderately Cross of East Anglia
October 21, 2017 3:17 pm

+1…LOL

F. Leghorn
October 21, 2017 2:12 pm

Fancy new space shuttles? When was this written? 1985?

Butch2
October 21, 2017 2:23 pm

Wow !! That was pathetic ..!

Gabro
October 21, 2017 2:25 pm

Make Sharknado look like a documentary.

Latitude
October 21, 2017 2:28 pm

With social justice warriors every where, Russia and uranium, Hillary blaming everyone including Devine, ISIS, NOKO, Iran, hurricanes, wild fires, and Maddow and the NYT’s…
..who in their right mind would go see a disaster movie

David A
Reply to  Latitude
October 22, 2017 5:08 am

Lol. Indeed. Somehow saying CAGW causes mental illness is almost believable.

I have a dear step daughter who has/had a brilliant mind. Oxford educated, pure “academic” absolutely convinced of coming climate Armageddon, recently in hysterical tears ( not hyperbole) trying to convince my wife of all this insanity ( I am the bad guy in this scenario) lamenting in tears how the deep oceans are warming… Had I been there and explained the adjustments to the ocean T, the actual adjusted miniscule warming, the fact that fractionally warmer oceans cannot raise atmospheric T more then that miniscule warming and in fact they are a huge buffer to atmospheric T increase, and that the Argo buoys do not measure the deep oceans anyway, but at best the upper 25%. ( 6,000′ max verses 12,000′ mean ocean depth) she would have been sent into deeper hysterics ( if possible) with every fact, and left muttering about fossil fuel funded propaganda.

Higher education is now a cult so deep that intervention is simply not possible.

drednicolson
Reply to  David A
October 22, 2017 7:54 am

The most effective way to indoctrinate others is to convince them that they’re independant, critical thinkers–it’s the stupid people over there who’re the ones deluded by propaganda! The college-aged are especially vulnerable to this ploy, since it taps into that residual adolescent rebelliousness that wants to hear that everything the older generations know is wrong. After that, you can fill their heads with your agenda, confident that most will lap it up and regurgitate it.

Curious George
Reply to  David A
October 22, 2017 8:00 am

Oxford must be as good as Harvard.

Scott
Reply to  David A
October 23, 2017 5:55 am

I totally don’t get this deep ocean warming scare tactic, other than it is so foreign of a location to most that people have no choice but to believe what a so called expert says. If the deep oceans were warming then surely the deep parts of the Great Lakes would be warming even more, seeing that the lakes are so much smaller they would be a canary in a coal mine so to speak, but every year the lakes warm and cool about the same, some years colder than others, others warmer than others but no real trend, we even drop temperature probes down to about 100′ ( its almost always frigid cold that deep) and haven’t detected any deep water warming.

October 21, 2017 2:47 pm

I like the trailer!

mellyrn
Reply to  azleader
October 21, 2017 5:03 pm

Me, too. It was hilarious. Definitely ripe for MST3K!

meltemian
Reply to  mellyrn
October 22, 2017 5:03 am

“Seriously? We’re kidnapping the President in a driverless cab?” Love It :>)))

fretslider
October 21, 2017 3:14 pm

Oh dear!

It’s a cold climate for B movies with A movie budgets. Like all things AGW related, hugely expensive and a major fail.

Sara
October 21, 2017 3:22 pm

When, oh, when, will the SpecFX people EVER learn how to make hail look like hail? Must i send them pictures? Or leave them out in a hailstorm?

And will someone please tell me why, why, why it ALWAYS has to be poor old Earth that gets whacked with these disasters? Could they just pick another planet some place else, such as the Trappist system? There are SEVEN cotton-pickin’ Earht-sized planets there, for Pete’s sake! SEVEN. Count ’em, and ALL in the Goldilocks zone.

Seriously, people, why not make up a planet that for some reason is starting to undergo slower rotation: noticeably slower, so the days are slowly lengthening for no known reason. Or maybe it’s faster rotation, and the days are getting shorter, for no known reason. Something that is plausible would at least be worth watching.

Seriously, if I have to pay to watch this drivel, I’ll take a pass. “Day After’ was bad enough, but it cost me nothing except an hour and a half out of my life that I will never get back.

This one? I’d rather be stepped on by a rhino than watch it.

Jeffery Taylor
Reply to  Sara
October 21, 2017 8:11 pm

Maybe you didn’t watch Pitch Black…

Mat
October 21, 2017 3:25 pm

Not to nit pick, but how do you spend a $120 mill, and end up with cartoon like CGI?…. Must be a leftest thing…

Reply to  Mat
October 21, 2017 3:48 pm

The wacko leftist minority pressure groups tried to ban Tom and Jerry.

They take their cartoons really seriously.

MarkW
Reply to  HotScot
October 21, 2017 4:00 pm

They succeeded in banning Speedy Gonzalez.
All of my Hispanic friends loved Speedy.

David A
Reply to  HotScot
October 22, 2017 5:17 am

… Do not forget “Little Black Sambo”
the story of a boy named Sambo who outwitted a group of hungry tigers.
A positive story and inspiration for a well received restaurant chain decimated by the P.C.

D.J. Hawkins
Reply to  HotScot
October 22, 2017 6:51 pm

When was the last time you saw Quick Draw McGraw and Baba Looey?

Christopher Paino
Reply to  HotScot
October 23, 2017 9:59 am

“They succeeded in banning Speedy Gonzalez.”

No, “they” did not.

Cartoon Network tried to ban Speedy in 2002, but due to fan campaigns from Hispanic-Americans, he was back on that same year.

He was a recurring character in the 2011-2014 series “The Looney Tunes Show,” and played Lola Bunny’s landlord in the 2015 direct-to-video release, “Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run”.

Tom Halla
October 21, 2017 3:31 pm

Considering just how much of climate science reads like bad science fiction, what should be expected? Hollywood has usually done science fiction very badly.

alastair Gray
October 21, 2017 3:44 pm

Put Mikie Mann on a space station to save the world

Reply to  alastair Gray
October 21, 2017 3:50 pm

Nahh, he would run out of climate toothpaste, then what would he do?

Slacko
Reply to  alastair Gray
October 22, 2017 11:53 am

Yeah. Just like they put Tubal-Cain on Noah’s Ark.

PaulH
October 21, 2017 3:55 pm

Oh come on, it looks hilarious! Yeah, it’s a recycling of many, many old scripts and old ideas that have been done to death but hey it looks like fun! (Of course I’ll wait for it to be on TV, no point in shelling out for overpriced theatre tickets – I’m not made of money. At least not until the check from Big Oil/Coal arrives, which should be any day now… Zzzzz.)

Earthling2
October 21, 2017 3:59 pm

I will have to watch Geostorm, just to see how much stupid non scientific crap they peddle. Hopefully the movie was at least technically well done with good acting and special effects.

Unfortunately, many of the average viewers are going to believe much of whatever their theme is regarding climate science, and I doubt that there is much actual science reality to it. It seems none of the sci-fi movies now have any resemblance of scientific fact to them. Remember Gravity, that movie with George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, where they change orbits from the Hubble telescope to the Chinese/ISS in a space suit jet pack? No regard for facts or common sense is a huge drag on movie watchability.

Roy Jones
Reply to  Earthling2
October 21, 2017 4:47 pm

I was going to watch Gravity because Sandra Bullock was in it, but then changed my mind because George Clooney was also in it.

Jeffery Taylor
Reply to  Roy Jones
October 21, 2017 8:13 pm

Gravity was good.

Gabro
Reply to  Roy Jones
October 21, 2017 8:45 pm

Despite antiAmerican Clooney, I still might have watched it, except that Bullock wasn’t naked.

Reply to  Roy Jones
October 22, 2017 3:06 am

An understandable position.

David A
Reply to  Roy Jones
October 22, 2017 5:20 am

… yes Anthony, a real downer.

Reply to  Roy Jones
October 22, 2017 7:19 am

One problem with Gravity was fires don’t do well in weightlessness (or in this case, free fall). They tend to suffocate themselves. Without gravity, convection doesn’t happen–there’s nothing to feed the fire new oxygen and remove the combustion products.

And that debris field which was orbiting at the same altitude but traveling faster–how does that work? Some writer heard that things in orbit go around the Earth in about 90 minutes. Apparently, the writer thought Hubble (95 minute orbit), ISS (92 minute orbit), and that Chinese station are in geosynchronous orbit. That debris field would take weeks if not months to catch up–assuming it could. (Communications satellites are usually in geosynchronous orbit which is around 22,000 miles–not near Earth orbit.)

Forget about changing major orbits using just a jet pack.

Jim

Slacko
Reply to  Roy Jones
October 22, 2017 11:47 am

Sandra can defy gravity, (she did it in Speed.) George forgot he was weightless and let go of the tether.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  Roy Jones
October 22, 2017 3:45 pm

Gravity was a terrible movie.

Ian H
Reply to  Roy Jones
October 22, 2017 6:38 pm

Actually Clooney did a bloody good job in that movie.

D.J. Hawkins
Reply to  Roy Jones
October 22, 2017 6:54 pm

@ Jim Masterson
If the debris was in the same orbit traveling in the opposite direction it would get ugly pretty fast. Every 45 minutes.

Reply to  Roy Jones
October 23, 2017 8:48 am

>>
D.J. Hawkins
October 22, 2017 at 6:54 pm

If the debris was in the same orbit traveling in the opposite direction it would get ugly pretty fast. Every 45 minutes.
<<

You do know that changing an orbit from prograde to retrograde requires an incredible amount of energy and utterly perfect orbital alignment to be dangerous. An exploding satellite isn’t going to cut it. The whole premise/plot/execution of the movie is nonsense.

Jim

D. J. Hawkins
Reply to  Roy Jones
October 24, 2017 7:15 am

You do know that changing an orbit from prograde to retrograde requires an incredible amount of energy and utterly perfect orbital alignment to be dangerous.

You asked “How does that work?” I told you. Sorry to have illustrated your ignorance.

Israel and the US have both launched satellites in retrograde.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_satellites_in_retrograde_orbit

Reply to  Roy Jones
October 24, 2017 8:42 am

>>
Israel and the US have both launched satellites in retrograde.
<<

and

>>
If the debris was in the same orbit traveling in the opposite direction it would get ugly pretty fast.
<<

So why didn’t those retrograde satellites become ugly–pretty fast?

Jim

D. J. Hawkins
Reply to  Roy Jones
October 24, 2017 10:08 am

Masterson

>>
If the debris was in the same orbit traveling in the opposite direction it would get ugly pretty fast.
<<

So why didn’t those retrograde satellites become ugly–pretty fast?

Jim

Missed the word “if”, didn’t you? It was a pretty important word in that clause. You are beyond tedious.

MarkW
October 21, 2017 4:02 pm

If the wings ice faster than the de-icer can handle, then a frozen plane can fall from the sky.
Of course it wouldn’t fall straight down like that one did.

MattS
Reply to  MarkW
October 21, 2017 7:23 pm

Actually, if you watch that part of the clip carefully it isn’t quite falling straight down, it just doesn’t have much forward momentum left.

Given the general premise of the movie, the plane could have been forced to circle at altitude because there was nowhere safe to land and if it out or nearly out of fuel when the wings iced up, I could see it exhausting it’s forward momentum before reaching the ground.

MarkW
Reply to  MattS
October 22, 2017 8:08 am

Planes are pretty aerodynamic. The plane isn’t going to lose much forward momentum in the minute or two it would take it to fall from cruising altitude to the ground.

MattS
Reply to  MattS
October 23, 2017 12:27 pm

An iced up plane is not so aerodynamic.

tty
Reply to  MarkW
October 22, 2017 1:00 am

The only way an aircraft can fall more or less vertically like that is if it gets into a deep stall and fails to take corrective action for a long time (and yes, this applies to a heavily iced plane too). This requires outstanding flightcrew incompetence and I can only think of one case when it has actually happened (AF 447)

Reply to  MarkW
October 23, 2017 10:52 am

Let’s see–the engines could ice up and flame out. That would reduce the forward thrust. The controls could ice up and place the plane in an unusual attitude leading to a stall. If the airplane entered into a flat spin, then the only way to get out is to eject–but airliners don’t have that option. I’m not sure that today’s deicers/anti-icers could be overpowered, but it’s possible.

Jim

October 21, 2017 4:13 pm

It’s just a movie. B- sci-fi are always watchable. It’s when they pretend climate-fiction (cli-fi) movies and documentaries are real, that is when I take offence. Otherwise, crappy movie with crappy script but sci-fi theme – usually worth taking in anyway (when they are free on TV/Netflix etc. that is Not for $15).

jakee308
October 21, 2017 4:29 pm

What was going wrong was that they were finding out the technology didn’t work or work well enough.

Something like, well, like TODAY!

We’re tired of being lectured by letchers and pedophiles and jet setting rock stars about how we need to reduce our “footprint” and save the Earth.

The Earth will be just fine no matter what happens. What will happen to the thin layer of scum that’s taken up residence on it’s surface is another thing.

And if they really are worried about Global Warming and Catastrophes and such then they ought to get on the Space Exploration band wagon and get the species off this lone planet before something we can’t do anything about (Shoemaker-Levy 9 ring any bells?) happens and the entire ecosphere gets blown into space. Along with various and sundry ecowarriors who will have failed in their duty.

Jim Heath
October 21, 2017 4:34 pm

Why would anyone pay to clutter their brain with this rubbish when all they have to do is watch neighbours.?

CD in Wisconsin
October 21, 2017 4:40 pm

If anyone is under the delusion that Bill Nye is not going to follow in the footsteps of “Geostorm” and Al Gore documentary sequel, well….think again. A documentary featuring the really-not-a-science-guy is coming out later this month:

https://www.billnyefilm.com/.

Quote:
“……The documentary follows Nye’s journey as he launches a solar-propelled spacecraft with his Planetary Society organization, bears witness to what he’s told is “raising sea levels” and “drowning Miami eventually,” and confronts deniers of climate change, evolution, and — more generally — a science-based worldview…..”.

And guess who else is in it? Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Fortunately, it does not appear as though the film is going to be widely shown across the U.S. judging from the screening list in the linked article above. But hey, Al and Bill have to feed their giant egos somehow, don’t they?

DeLoss McKnight
October 21, 2017 4:54 pm

I will enjoy watching this movie! I know, there’s very little science in this sci-fi, but it will still be entertaining. I haven’t seen either movie yet, but from the reviews that I’ve read, the movie Mother already has Worst Film of the Year locked up. I’ve heard it’s the worst film of the decade. Which is a shame because I enjoy watching Jennifer Lawrence as an actor.

Ralph
October 21, 2017 4:57 pm

I thought it was a new original SyFy movie when I saw the ad for it.

commieBob
October 21, 2017 5:30 pm

A much better movie is Kingsman – The Secret Service. The villain is a madman greenie who wants to save the world from global warming by killing most of the population.

In contrast to the movie under discussion, Kingsman did well at the box office. Normally I don’t attend movies but someone on WUWT suggested it. Thanks!

David A
Reply to  commieBob
October 22, 2017 5:24 am

… Oh, you mean it is a true story.

techgm
October 21, 2017 6:17 pm

Let us hope that this epic will not be shown in interminable re-re-re-runs like “The Day after Tomorrow,” which was shown twice just this past week, 13 years after its debut, complete with monster hurricanes that managed to grow despite well-below-freezing air temperatures, and leaving (only) the northern hemisphere covered in ice. I do believe it has been shown more often than “The Ten Commandments.” Makes me wonder whether George Soros is paying to have it shown, without cost to the advertisers

Reply to  techgm
October 21, 2017 6:31 pm

A boring movie, Whereas 2012, as unlikely as anything imaginable, is fun ride and a movie the family always says they don’t want to see again and then enjoys it thoroughly. Likewise San Andreas, the earthquake movie. It takes a horrendously likely event and turns it into a family adventure film with extremely unlikely catastrophic elements. The difference is these movies were all fun and had compelling family plots.

drednicolson
Reply to  Pat Childs
October 22, 2017 8:17 am

Disaster movie plots work best when they don’t focus on the disaster, but rather the people who find themselves in the middle of it. That’s where the drama and interest is.

Don "Big Noodle" Holland
Reply to  techgm
October 22, 2017 5:13 pm

Speaking of odd re-runs, what the heck is the deal with Cinemax and Waterworld? They still show it at least 3 times a week.

BallBounces
October 21, 2017 6:18 pm

Humans can’t control the climate, sure, but maybe Al Gore can?

October 21, 2017 6:18 pm

So a handful of manmade satellites are controlling Earth’s weather and climate?
What a hoot!!!

What’ll the huckster science fiction writers come up with next for horror-scare story entertainment???
Maybe 1 extra GHG molecule per 10,000 molecules?

Oh, wait….

October 21, 2017 6:25 pm

Stop hurricanes? And exactly how is rain to get into interior continental areas that actually rely on cyclonic weather systems.

Mike Smith
October 21, 2017 6:51 pm

Think I’ll skip Geostorm and wait for Weinstorm to hit the movie theaters.

Steve Fraser
Reply to  Mike Smith
October 21, 2017 7:54 pm

It’ll be a short subject…

October 21, 2017 7:26 pm

Did you ever stay after a movie and watch all the credits to the end….?
Hundreds of artists, animators, computer designers, graphic artists, in addition to the drivers, stunt people, caterers, etc – the credits can roll for 5-10 minutes…
They better have a good writer for the screenplay or whatever, and great actors,etc. a tough business now.
Also a plot that people are interested in… JPP

Reply to  J. Philip Peterson
October 21, 2017 7:31 pm

Maybe they should roll the credits first, so that people will realize what went into this film.
/sarc…

Steve Fraser
Reply to  J. Philip Peterson
October 21, 2017 7:55 pm

Marvel puts scenes in the credits, to link other stories.

MarkW
Reply to  J. Philip Peterson
October 22, 2017 8:10 am

Pixar is pretty good at including little scenes during the credits.
Unfortunately, I’m watching the scenes, not reading the credits.

Earthling2
October 21, 2017 7:59 pm

It just dawned on me…Maybe current climate science is science fiction. sarc/

October 21, 2017 8:21 pm

Perhaps it’s a parody, but thanks to cAGW nowadays there is no way to tell.

Russell Klier
October 21, 2017 8:36 pm

A big money climate movie flop should be helpful…… It might scare the entertainment people enough to get them out of the climate science business.

Ernest Bush
October 21, 2017 8:37 pm

Lots of people have ignored movies this summer for two reasons: a) The actors opened their mouths off screen and insulted their fans intelligence, beliefs, military service, America, etc. b) We are tired of leftist drivel written into Hollywood scripts.

Going to a theater has gotten expensive. I can use the money elsewhere and enjoy myself without being insulted. It’s the thing that the NFL doesn’t get, either. If you want my money quit politicizing entertainment. I’ve learned to spend Saturdays and Sundays at the park watching my grandchildren grow up. It has caused me to realize that Hollywood, the NFL, and even the MSM are irrelevant to me now. I hope they have to drain the Hollywood cesspool some time soon.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  Ernest Bush
October 21, 2017 10:34 pm

+10

Reply to  Ernest Bush
October 22, 2017 6:11 am

We only go to $5 showings.

D.J. Hawkins
Reply to  Ernest Bush
October 22, 2017 7:02 pm

The last time my wife picked up a bunch of movies at Walmart or BJ’s or wherever, I was going to complain about the unnecessary cost. Then I got to thinking, each DVD was less than the cost of two adult tickets. With two boys in tow, plus candy and soda, a night out can run you the high to very high side of $50. Luckily, I managed to keep my mouth shut.

Warren Blair
October 21, 2017 8:42 pm

They know not what they do!
This flick will assist with AGW industry demise.
Puts all the rubbish in the one make-believe basket.

cloa5132013
October 21, 2017 9:35 pm

I preferred the Core- No one knows what is the centre of the Earth- geophysics is not as amazing as it made out to be- it assumes what you trying to find out- nothing has gone there/mining has barely scratched the Earth’s surface. The limits of geophysics are why there are test wells in petroleum exploration.

Ross King
October 21, 2017 10:08 pm

Scripted by Griff and starring him???

Patrick MJD
Reply to  Ross King
October 22, 2017 3:48 pm

Griff can’t script anything as well thought out as this movie. In any case, he would have copied someone else’s work.

October 21, 2017 10:59 pm

When you try center an action movie around political messages, it doesn’t go well. Look at Social Justice Wars.. I mean Star Wars 😀

Writing for movies these days is awful. A well written dialogue between to good characters is infinitely better than an 20 hours of CGI effects.

Hollywood movies these days leaves nothing to the imagination, they try put it all out there.
Technology has in part ruined science, and has also ruined movies.

We are letting computers be the primary provider in science and movies, instead of the human mind, and therein lies the problem, computers have no creativity, no logic (outside of the box).
Mathematics replacing thought and physics.

Ugh UGH!

Reply to  Mark - Helsinki
October 22, 2017 12:04 am

After four years of brainstorming special effects for +1 F heatwave and inch-tsunami, I’m betting they included them all in the trailer.

Sara
Reply to  Mark - Helsinki
October 22, 2017 5:55 am

“A well written dialogue between to good characters is infinitely better than an 20 hours of CGI effects.” – That’s a very good point and it is very true. If it were not so, we might be asking ‘Shakespeare? Who?'” Instead, it’s “Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt….”

Reply to  Sara
October 22, 2017 1:20 pm

+1

October 21, 2017 11:47 pm

Not a popular subject, then! No surprise there – they should have checked with WUWT before investing / wasting their money.

Sara
Reply to  mikelowe2013
October 22, 2017 5:50 am

It’s more like megadisaster movies are SOOOOO overdone now that the genre is just not holding up very well. Algore’s latest attempt to scare us was a complete floppy.

It’s much more interesting to people to go to a movie like “300” or ‘Spartacus’ or ‘Gettysburg’ because they can dress up in costumes and go to re-enactments or Renaissance Faires. The comparison is that the Lord of the Rings trilogy cost $281 million to produce and the box office take was $2.917 billion, not including the current income total from DVD sets. The production cost of the movie “Excalibur” was $11 million and the box office take was $35 million.

This very stupid movie is already losing money and cost almost as much to produce as the LOTR series, but has barely passed the income for “Excalibur”. That should tell you something about what people really want to see. And the real judge is the bottom line: cost versus income, which comes from the viewing audience.

Reply to  mikelowe2013
October 22, 2017 1:20 pm

Movies of this type always fail, and doom storms are so 00s. Sharknado is better than this

tom0mason
October 22, 2017 12:05 am

Calling Mel Brooks!
Calling Mel Brooks!
Screen play needed, could you make this comedic disaster movie into a musical?

Bring on the dancing tornadoes…

Ed Zuiderwijk
Reply to  tom0mason
October 22, 2017 5:06 am

Set to Wagnerian music.

tom0mason
Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
October 22, 2017 5:36 am

Absolutely!
“Entry Of The Gods Into Valhalla” redone as ‘Entry of the Climate Scientists into Subsidy Heaven’. But the overall themes to the music from Richard Strauss’s ‘Tod und Verklärung’ mixed with Hector Berlioz’s ‘Te Deum’ but with a doubling or orchester/choir/organ (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Te_Deum_%28Berlioz%29 ).
And the whole darn stage-play/musical spread over a 28 day cycle.

mwhite
October 22, 2017 1:45 am

As reviewed by Mark Kermode(film critic)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05khm6n

“i could feel myself getting dumber as I watched the film”
“It takes stupid to a whole new level”

A clip from the film – “Its’s worse than we thought”

Reply to  mwhite
October 22, 2017 1:21 pm

LMAOOOOOOOO

David Ball
October 22, 2017 2:04 am

Numb to the doom.

October 22, 2017 3:12 am

Ecocatastrophe is now officially too boring.

Watch out for hordes of barbaric Islamists throat cutting their way across the burbs…

Or I-phones containing deadly killer sonic attack malware. (whatsapp?).

Sara
Reply to  Leo Smith
October 22, 2017 5:58 am

Oh, you’ve been to Cuba, then? How about a movie about someone coming back from Cuba with a bout of turista that has no biological origin? Happening now. It would be a lot more interesting watching the Castros say ‘nothing to do with us’ while they imprison the Russians who promised them it would work.

MarkW
Reply to  Sara
October 22, 2017 8:13 am

It did work. For the Castro brothers.

Reply to  Sara
October 22, 2017 1:22 pm

Shhh Mark W, dont diss Trudeau’s dad

Justin and dad
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Trudeau-Castro-crop.jpg
Justin’s prolific groupy mom with Fidel, Daddycomment image

Reply to  Sara
October 22, 2017 1:23 pm

So you know why Canada is going down the ….er

Communism

climatereason
Editor
October 22, 2017 3:38 am

I was thinking that the most ridiculous film of this sort of over dramatic genre I had ever seen was ‘Independence day’. Then I saw it had the same producer as this one.

Can’t wait to see it for free on television in a couple of years time in order to see if it is as over the top as its predecessor.

tonyb

Sara
Reply to  climatereason
October 22, 2017 5:39 am

Hey, wait a minute! Independence Day was just pure fun! Get out of your cardboard box once in a while and get into the shoot-shoot-bang-bang against the alien hordes thingie.

After all, the “wow” message has turned out to be comets in the hydrogen transmission spectrum, so there wasn’t any alien ship watching us. If you want over the top, dig up Orson Welles’s radio play broadcast of ‘War of the Worlds’ on October 31, 1938. It didn’t scare everyone but did give the heebie-jeebies to a lot of people who didn’t catch the opening sequence.

climatereason
Editor
Reply to  Sara
October 22, 2017 5:57 am

it can be fun AND ridiculous can’t it? Just see any of Al Goes films…. 🙂

tonyb

Sara
Reply to  Sara
October 22, 2017 6:00 am

No, thank you, tonby. I want to keep my brains intact.

I suppose that Algore’s promise to bore us to death isn’t advertised, but it’s part of that package. I’d rather have to fight off those giant alien cockroaches on LV247.

DC Cowboy
Editor
Reply to  Sara
October 22, 2017 6:15 am

Just roll a couple of canisters of CN20 into the nest.

cedarhilll
October 22, 2017 4:02 am

The math may be that they gross only $40 million (with foreign sales) meaning they’ll lose $80 million. One of the few feel good facts about the Hollywood cesspool that has emerged recently.
And how about how they steal scenes for old movies. I think that scene from Independence day in NYC has been repeated in nearly every disaster movie and they likely stole it from some older flick.

Ed Zuiderwijk
October 22, 2017 5:04 am

Oh, please, leave the Dutch out of it. Dutch Boy must refer to Hans Brinkers, the mythical lad who put his finger in the dyke. Not only would such action not have helped in any way, little Hans never was. The story is apocryphal and most likely originates in the US of A. A bit like the climate change myth, come to think of it.

David A
Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
October 22, 2017 5:31 am

Ed says… “originates in the US of A. A bit like the climate change myth, come to think of it.”

Why did the ROW buy that U.S. import instead of liberty inspired capitalism?

Sara
October 22, 2017 6:11 am

If you really want to make money with a disaster movie, you have to make it something that people can relate to. Zombie movies are good, and so are alien attacks from outer space movies, but eco-disasters? Well, maybe if they poke fun at the people who make money promoting climate disasters.

Let’s see how that would start:

Phone rings in local police station emergency center.

Operator: 911 emergency. Please state your emergency.

12-year-old girl on the phone: Umm, an iceberg came down the river and took my house away. I don’t know where my parents are.

Operator: Where are you located?

12-year-old girl on the phone: I’m on the garage roof. There’s another iceberg coming. Should I get off the garage roof?

Operator: No, you just stay where you are. What’s your street address?

12-year-old girl on the phone: 1066 West Wood Street. Okay, now there’s more icebergs. (crunching noises, trees on icebergs float by)

Operator: We’ll send a police officer to take a look.

12-year-old girl on the phone: Could you tell him to hurry? I need to go to the bathroom.

Operator: Did you say icebergs? (looks out window of call center, pokes another operator and points at something)

12-year-old girl on the phone: Yes, I did. They just keep coming. I need to go to the bathroom real bad. (Crunching noise, screams, heard over phone) Hello? Hello?

Twobob
October 22, 2017 7:28 am

Still using solid rocket boosters.
How quaint.

October 22, 2017 8:06 am

Just watched Blade Runner 2049 – underwhelmed after all the hype.
More routine mindless dystopia, not quite saved by the extravagent special effects and artistic qualities.
The scientific issues of robots reproducing were not even touched on. No believability – bad.
What was hilarious though was the miles and miles of solar farms under the trademark perpetually overcast bladerunner skies:
comment image

Fore once the dystopia is correct – if power generation goes 100% remewable, it will be “blade-runner-esqe” dark and dingy all the time.

john
October 22, 2017 8:16 am

Tesla Moves Closer to Deal to Build Cars in China

https://mobile.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/10/22/business/22reuters-tesla-c

amirlach
October 22, 2017 9:29 am

RE: The Frozen Air Liner shattering like glass.

Aluminum does not get brittle when super cooled made me groan… FCC metals do not have a ductile to brittle transition temperature and instead remain ductile at low temperatures.

The only time that FCC metals experience brittle fracture is in the final stage of fatigue failure.

Reply to  amirlach
October 22, 2017 9:40 am

Like the BAC Comets with their square windows.

catweazle666
Reply to  ptolemy2
October 22, 2017 5:58 pm

They were De Havilland Comets, BAC didn’t happen for decades, and the fatigue failure didn’t start at the square windows, it started at the ADF window in the roof.

The square windows were modified to oval on later marques because they were considered risky in the light of further research on the fatigue test rig.

Steve from Rockwood
October 22, 2017 11:00 am

This will not bode well for the next climate movie where scientists have to travel back in time to determine the real temperature of the Earth because the current data sets have been tampered with so badly they have become useless. The working title is “The day before yesterday”.

Or the movie where Al Gore tries to prove mathematically that global warming is real but suddenly disappears. That one is called “An inconvenient – poof!”.

Reply to  Steve from Rockwood
October 22, 2017 1:27 pm

LOL 😂

October 22, 2017 11:47 am

“EATEN the movie” [a post in which I contemplate my polar bear attack thriller made into a successful film]

Could polar bears trump sharks at the theatre? Does the fact that unlike sharks, polar bears make house calls, give it better odds than most?

Take a walk down memory lane and give some thought to what has made films starring big animal predators a hit (or not), like JAWS, THE SHALLOWS, THE BIRDS, GRIZZLY, and a number of others, both classics and bombs. What do these predator attack films tell us (if anything) about the probability of EATEN becoming a terrifying motion picture?

https://polarbearscience.com/2016/11/06/eaten-the-movie-what-are-the-odds/

Sara
Reply to  susanjcrockford
October 22, 2017 1:04 pm

The Birds? Are you referring to the Tippi Hedren/Rod Taylor movie by Hitchcock? That one was not too many degrees off from reality, if you think about it. Seagulls and terns can be quite nasty; smaller birds like starlings tend to flock for safety; and corvids like ravens and crows do sometimes attack when they feel threatened. They have their own language, too. I wouldn’t dismiss ‘The Birds’ as a bomb. It cost $2.5 million for production and made $11.4 million at the box office: not bad for 1963, so it was hardly a bomb.

Reply to  Sara
October 22, 2017 4:21 pm

Sara, I agree but note I said “both classics and bombs” – I’d consider The Birds to be a classic animal attack thriller.

bw
Reply to  susanjcrockford
October 22, 2017 2:35 pm

Yummy. Don’t forget to lock up rights to all merchandise in perpetuity. Make sure the story lines lead to endless sequels. Give the main bear some special power or a large scar to make it distinctive. Maybe it has super intelligence due to a mutated brain. Or it was being experimented on by a mad scientist to have steel claws. Then it can be called “Claws”
At the end, “Claws” is not dead, but badly injured, floats into an illegal radioactive waste dump left by corrupt russian military. Claws is revived with a new craving for human flesh. Thus the sequel.
Eaten 2: Revenge of Claws

October 22, 2017 1:47 pm

It seems that Hollywood is [losing] it’s bluster.

[Better losing its bluster than loosening its bloomers. .mod]

Reply to  Gunga Din
October 23, 2017 3:19 pm

“.mod”, Thanks for filling in my unintended “elipsis”.
Maybe if the movie had loosened a few more bloomers and bustiers it would have done better?
A “B” movie rather than a “C”limate movie?

Casey
October 22, 2017 2:26 pm

I’ll play Devil’s Advocate here and say that the problems are not specific to this film – it’s both OUR fault and Hollywood’s.

Take the Transformers film, “Last Knight”… or the Cruise “Mummy” film… or (pick pretty much any mainstream film… they are so poorly written, jumpy, almost as if written by 4-12 writers then tied together with a final “filler-in” writer. So full of loud explodes and almost zero plot or character developments. (Last Knight was excrement!)

Nowadays, if you want a truly decent film… you have to risk the chances of utter crap or utter brilliance… in the realm of the “indie films”.

But then… the “moron masses” seem to want and need these bang, crash, wow films…

As an interesting aside – most modern large passenger jets are not able to be glided – if they froze up solid in seconds in mid-air, they would fall – OK, yes, not straight down like that… but certainly on no sloping glide-path either.

Still… if films portrayed reality they would be so effing boring… if I wanted reality I;d open the front door, not watch a film!

Richard
October 22, 2017 3:12 pm

Saw the trailer. That’s more than enough.

Clay Marley
October 22, 2017 3:39 pm

I think I might have to re-watch “Our Man Flint”, where superspy Flint saves the world from evil mad climate scientists bent on taking over the planet by controlling the weather. Undoubtedly a better movie than Geostorm.

I haven’t seen the sequel, but I believe Flint saves the world from evil mad feminists.

Chris Norman
October 22, 2017 6:00 pm

Why are modern movies so childish?

SteveT
Reply to  Chris Norman
October 23, 2017 4:06 am

Chris Norman
October 22, 2017 at 6:00 pm

Why are modern movies so childish?

It’s always best to target one’s intended audience. 🙂

SteveT

William
October 22, 2017 7:37 pm

Hey Guys (and Guyesses), I watched the trailer, and I think it looks like a pretty good popcorn movie.
Who cares about the underlying propaganda and other garbage? Just enjoy the laughs!
The world gets destroyed, everybody dies, and along the way, the special effects are way cool. Ie: it has all the makings of a good, entertaining, rainy day stay inside movie.
Just download it from any one of the pirate sites, and enjoy!

J Mac
October 22, 2017 9:13 pm

Here’s a real Geo-Storm!
https://youtu.be/-joY4owK51Q

Kpar
Reply to  J Mac
October 23, 2017 10:59 am

Gotta send this out to my car buddies!

Kpar
October 23, 2017 10:58 am

Looks like a Laff riot to me.

Frederik
October 23, 2017 5:40 pm

they missed the title with a typo the original name was “egostorm” 🙂