The Scene ‘Twisters’ Needed to Really Be a Great Blockbuster

Twisters, Lee Isaac Chung’s sorta-sequel, sorta-standalone follow-up to the 1996 blockbuster Twister, is all set to be the hit of the summer (until Deadpool & Wolverine comes out, anyway). It handily outperformed the box office expectations for its opening weekend, and audiences drawn in by the promise of fearsome tornadoes and Glen Powell in a cowboy hat will likely walk away satisfied.

If it hews a little too close to blockbuster conventions, well, there are worse things for a movie to do. But there is one thing the original Twister has that its follow-up lacks, something that might seem trivial at first glance but is, in fact, the heart of the film: that breakfast scene at Aunt Meg’s.

If you haven’t seen the original Twister, the breakfast scene comes after a particularly action-packed stretch. Tornado chaser Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) has just survived a close encounter with a twister, hiding with her estranged husband Bill (Bill Paxton) beneath a bridge until they’re out of danger. Working alongside Jo and her motley crew of storm chasers, Bill helps them get the best of their sneering archrival Jonas (Cary Elwes) before a couple of waterspouts form in a flooded field, thrashing their truck around and sending hapless cows airborne. (Although, as Bill suggests, it might just be the same cow blown in different directions.)

Read more at The Daily Beast.