Rumble, rumble, rumble...
After finishing up the Vilani military stuff, and actually doing useful things like eating, I decided to watch the miniseries 10.5. This is about a series of massive quakes that end up destroying the West Coast. Now I love disaster movies. Irwin Allen is a God as far as I'm concerned. I want Volcano on DVD. In short, I like movies where large tracts of landscape go boom.
I turned this howler off in the first fifteen minutes. It was that bad.
It begins with a 7.9 quake hitting Seattle. We see an extreme bike rider using the city as his personal playground. Then the quake hits.. and he rides through the entire thing! Ladies and gentlemen, I've been through a 7.1, and it was impossible to stand during Loma Prieta, let alone ride a mountain bike!
We then see some sort of geological office, where they are tracking the quake. People are calling out an ever-increasing Richter reading as the quake rumbles on. Bollocks. Quakes hit at their maximum intensity in mere seconds. They don't build up! And you certainly don't have the epicenter locked while the shaking is still going on!
More bad science and overacting (Hey, it has Beau Bridges and Kim Delaney.. what did you expect?) But the final straw was a scene set "50 miles east of Redding." Here's a map showing where Redding is. In the movie, it looks like Redding is in the bloody Mojave desert! Redding is in the Redwood Empire, it's a beautiful place!
Another quake hits as a train (with about five cars) chugs along. A fissure opens right along the track and actually chases down the train! I'm serious, the fissure opens right down the middle of the track. Of course, once the train has been dropped into the bowels of the Earth, the quake stops.
At that point, I gave up and listened to Barenaked Ladies until I went to bed. Amazingly bad movie. If that wreck had a science advisor, he should be shot.
I turned this howler off in the first fifteen minutes. It was that bad.
It begins with a 7.9 quake hitting Seattle. We see an extreme bike rider using the city as his personal playground. Then the quake hits.. and he rides through the entire thing! Ladies and gentlemen, I've been through a 7.1, and it was impossible to stand during Loma Prieta, let alone ride a mountain bike!
We then see some sort of geological office, where they are tracking the quake. People are calling out an ever-increasing Richter reading as the quake rumbles on. Bollocks. Quakes hit at their maximum intensity in mere seconds. They don't build up! And you certainly don't have the epicenter locked while the shaking is still going on!
More bad science and overacting (Hey, it has Beau Bridges and Kim Delaney.. what did you expect?) But the final straw was a scene set "50 miles east of Redding." Here's a map showing where Redding is. In the movie, it looks like Redding is in the bloody Mojave desert! Redding is in the Redwood Empire, it's a beautiful place!
Another quake hits as a train (with about five cars) chugs along. A fissure opens right along the track and actually chases down the train! I'm serious, the fissure opens right down the middle of the track. Of course, once the train has been dropped into the bowels of the Earth, the quake stops.
At that point, I gave up and listened to Barenaked Ladies until I went to bed. Amazingly bad movie. If that wreck had a science advisor, he should be shot.
