We have a rumbling rambling of a list for your this time around! A list that is sure to break you up; sure to smash the moon; or just shake the ground beneath your feet! We have the top 10 disaster films of all time! Sit back, read and reminisce about some of the great movies of our lifetime that were not so kind to the planet! After reading our lists, see if any of these films crashed your list, and where you would of made our lists better.
Keith – The Happening
Starring Mark Wahlberg.
In New York City’s Central Park, people begin committing mass suicide. Initially believed to be caused by a bio-terrorist attack using an airborne neurotoxin, the behavior quickly spreads across the northeastern United States. Elliot Moore, a high school science teacher in Philadelphia, hears about the attacks and decides to go to Harrisburg by train with his wife, Alma. They are accompanied by his friend Julian and Julian’s eight-year-old daughter Jess. Julian’s wife is stuck in Philadelphia but is expected to meet them in Harrisburg. The train loses all radio contact en route and stops at a small town. They receive word that Philadelphia has been attacked by the toxin and Julian’s wife was not able to get on the train to Harrisburg. Julian decides to go look for her, leaving his daughter with the Moores while he hitches a ride. However, the town has already been hit by the toxin. Succumbing to it, the driver and Julian both commit suicide.
Elliot, Alma, and Jess hitch a ride with a nurseryman and his wife. The nurseryman believes that plants are responsible, as they can release chemicals to defend themselves from threats. The group are joined by other survivors and split into two groups, with Elliot, Alma, and Jess in the smaller group. When the larger group is affected by the toxin, Elliot realizes that the plants are targeting only large groups of people. He splits their group into smaller pockets and they walk along, arriving at a model home. Two other groups arrive on the property, triggering a neurotoxin attack, signaled by what appears to be wind blowing through the vegetation. The next house they come upon is sealed, its residents trying to protect themselves from the toxin. Elliot’s attempts to reason with them are deemed unsuccessful when the residents shoot Josh and Jared, two teenage boys whom Elliot had earlier befriended.|
Elliot, Alma, and Jess next come upon the isolated house of Mrs. Jones, a negative, elderly eccentric who has no outside contact with society and is unaware of the current disaster. The following morning, Mrs. Jones becomes infected with the toxin. Realizing that the plants are now targeting individuals, Elliot locks himself in the basement but is separated from Alma and Jess, who are in the home’s springhouse out back. They are able to communicate through an old talking tube, and Elliot warns them of the threat. He expresses his love for her before deciding that if he is to die, he would prefer to spend his remaining time with her. The three leave the safety of their buildings and embrace in the yard, surprised to find themselves unaffected by the neurotoxin. The outbreak has abated as quickly as it began.
Three months later, Elliot and Alma have adjusted to their new life with Jess as their adopted daughter. On television, an expert, comparing the event to a red tide, warns that the epidemic may have only been a warning. He states that humans have become a threat to the planet and that is why the plants have responded aggressively. Alma discovers she is pregnant and embraces Elliot with the news.
In the Tuileries Gardens at the Louvre Palace in Paris, France, a scream is heard and everyone freezes in place as the wind rustles through the trees, signifying another attack by the plants.
David – Airport (1970 film – NOT any of the sequels)
Starring Charlton Heston, Karen Black and George Kennedy.
Not this film!
Columbia Air Lines’ Flight 409 is a Boeing 747-100 on a red-eye route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport. Scott Freeman, meanwhile, is a New Mexican businessman flying his private Beechcraft Baron to an urgent sales meeting in Boise, Idaho. However, an occluded front has the entire West Coast socked in, with Los Angeles reporting zero visibility. Columbia 409 and Freeman’s Beechcraft are both diverted to Salt Lake City International Airport.
Salt Lake air traffic control assigns Columbia 409 to land ahead of Freeman’s Beechcraft. As Columbia 409 is about to start its descent, First Officer Urias unlocks himself from his seat to check out a vibration. Just then, Freeman suffers a massive heart attack and descends into the approach of Columbia 409. The Beechcraft impacts Columbia 409 just above the co-pilot seat, blowing Urias out of the plane to his death and killing Flight Engineer Julio. Captain Stacy is struck in the face by debris and is blinded. Nancy Pryor, the First Stewardess, rushes to the flight deck, where Captain Stacy is able to engage the autopilot and the altitude hold switch before losing consciousness.
Pryor informs the Salt Lake control tower that the crew is dead or badly injured and that there is no one to fly the plane. She gives an assessment of the damage as a large hole on the right side of the flight deck that wiped out most of the instrument gauges over the engineer station. Joe Patroni, Columbia’s Vice President of Operations, is apprised of Columbia 409’s situation. He seeks the advice of Captain Al Murdock, Columbia’s chief flight instructor, who also happens to be Nancy Pryor’s boyfriend, even though their relationship was “on the rocks” at that time.
Patroni and Murdock take the airline’s executive jet to Salt Lake. En route, they communicate with Pryor, learning that the autopilot is keeping the aircraft in level flight, but it is inoperable for turns. The jet is heading into the Wasatch Mountains, so Murdock starts to guide Pryor by radio on how to perform the turn when radio communications are interrupted and the Salt Lake tower is unable to restore contact.
Unable to turn, leaking fuel and dodging the peaks of the Wasatch Mountains, an air-to-air rescue attempt is undertaken from a jet-powered HH-53 helicopter flown by the USAF Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service. While a replacement pilot is preparing to be released on a tether from the helicopter to Columbia 409, Captain Stacy is able to give a cryptic clue regarding the decrease in airspeed during a climb in altitude. Pryor realizes that she must accelerate to be able to climb over the mountain and successfully does so. After Columbia 409 has leveled off, the replacement pilot is released towards the stricken airliner. Just as Pryor is helping him in, the release cord from his harness becomes caught in the jagged metal surrounding the hole in the cockpit. As he climbs in, his harness is released from the tether and he falls from the aircraft.
The only other person on the helicopter who can land a 747 is Captain Murdock. He is tethered to the helicopter, lowered to the jet and successfully enters it through the hole in the cockpit. He then lands the plane safely at Salt Lake City Airport, where the flight attendants successfully conduct an emergency evacuation of the passengers via the inflatable slides as Pryor and Murdock reconcile.
Keith – Twister
starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt
In June 1969, 5-year-old Jo Thornton (Alexa Vega), her parents, and the family dog Toby seek shelter in their family storm cellar as a powerful F5 tornado hits their farm in Oklahoma. This tornado is so strong that the storm cellar door is ripped off, causing Jo’s father (Richard Lineback) to be pulled into the storm to his death. Jo, her mother (Rusty Schwimmer), and Toby survive.
27 years later in 1996, 32-year-old Jo (Helen Hunt), now a meteorologist, is reunited with her estranged husband, Bill “The Extreme” Harding (Bill Paxton), a former weather researcher and storm chaser, who has since become a weather reporter. He is planning to marry reproductive therapist Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz). They need Jo’s signature on the divorce papers and have tracked her down during an active bout of stormy weather. Jo has built four identical tornado research devices called DOROTHY, based on Bill’s designs. The device is designed to release hundreds of sensors into the center of a tornado to study its structure from the inside, with the purpose of creating a more advanced storm warning system. Bill and Melissa join Jo and her team of storm chasers, and the team encounters Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes), a smug, corporate-funded meteorologist and storm chaser. When Bill discovers that Jonas has created a device based on DOROTHY, called DOT-3, he vows to help Jo deploy DOROTHY before Miller can claim credit for the idea.
During the first tornado, Jo’s truck and DOROTHY I are both destroyed (the truck is picked up and lands upside-down). They continue storm chasing in Bill’s truck, with Melissa in the back seat. They find a second tornado, a confirmed F2, and head off on a back road when the twister shifts its track. They soon find themselves driving through heavy rain, and instead collide with a cluster of two violent waterspouts, one of which splits, spinning them around on the highway until the waterspouts dissipate. They’re fine, but Melissa becomes hysterical from the ordeal, and Bill has to calm her down.
The team visits Jo’s Aunt Meg in Wakita, Oklahoma, for food and rest. Whilst Jo is busy showering, Bill tells Melissa about his relationship with Jo and reflects on the day Jo’s father died.
They soon learn that an F3 tornado has formed near some hills, but they have trouble finding it. Jo drives ahead of the team to intercept the oncoming tornado, but a telephone pole falls on the back of Bill’s truck and knocks DOROTHY II out onto the road, scattering its mini sensors all over the road. As Jo jumps out to gather the dozens of mini sensors, the tornado lifts and touches down closer. Bill pulls Jo into the truck and moves to safety. The two confront each other over their marriage and Jo’s obsession with stopping tornadoes, due to being devastated about her father’s death.
The following night, an F4 tornado devastates a drive-in cinema during the showing of the 1980 horror film The Shining, forcing everyone to take shelter in a pit in a car repair shop warehouse. By this time Melissa has been traumatized by the experiences and recognizes the unresolved feelings between Bill and Jo. In desperation for her own safety, she peacefully breaks off the engagement with Bill. The tornado continues on to Wakita, devastating the town and injuring Meg while destroying her house. Bill and Jo rescue Meg and her dog from the collapsing house. Meg’s injuries are not serious, but she is taken to the hospital for safety while her dog stays with the group. The team then hears that an even stronger storm, an F5, is forming 25 miles south of their position. Inspecting Meg’s wind chime sculptures, Jo realizes that the most likely method to successfully deploy DOROTHY’s sensors into a tornado would be to add additional body surface to catch the wind.
As they reach the F5, the team adds aluminum from soda cans to work as wind flaps, but the deployment of DOROTHY III is a failure (DOROTHY III is T-boned by a tree branch). Meanwhile, Jonas attempts to deploy DOT-3 by driving ahead of the storm parallel-wise, and in the process ignores Bill’s warnings to turn around. Moments later, the tornado shifts course towards Jonas’s truck, causing a piece of metal to come flying through the windshield and impale his driver Eddie (Zach Grenier). Their truck is then caught by the tornado and thrown into the ground, and both men are killed in the resulting explosion. Jo and Bill set out on their own and are able to deploy the last DOROTHY successfully, using Bill’s truck as an anchor. From miles away, the research team immediately sees results on their computers from the sensors. Bill and Jo’s celebration is cut short, however, as the tornado shifts course toward them. They take shelter in a pump house where they anchor themselves to the pump plumbing with leather straps. The tornado destroys the pump house and Jo and Bill find themselves in the vortex of the super-massive funnel, securely floating inverted in air.
After the F5 dissipates, Jo and Bill find themselves alone on the floor of the former shed. They decide to run their own lab and rekindle their marriage and the team celebrates their accomplishment.
David – The Mist
Starring Thomas Jane
The morning after a violent thunderstorm, a thick unnatural mist quickly spreads across the small town of Bridgton, Maine, reducing visibility to near-zero and concealing numerous species of bizarre creatures which viciously attack anyone and anything that ventures out into the open.
The bulk of the story details the plight of a large group of people who become trapped while shopping in the town supermarket, among them a commercial artist named David Drayton (the protagonist and narrator), David’s young son Billy, and their estranged neighbor Brent Norton, who accompanied them into town after a tree smashed Brent’s car. Amongst others trapped in the market are a young woman named Amanda Dumfries and two soldiers from a nearby military installation, home to what is referred to as “The Arrowhead Project”. The two soldiers’ eventual joint suicide lends some credence to the theory that this Project was the source of the disaster.
Soon after the mist develops, something plugs the store generator’s exhaust vent. When a young bag boy named Norm steps outside to fix the problem, he is pulled into the mist by a swarm of tentacles. David and Ollie Weeks, the store’s assistant manager, witness Norm’s death and try to convince the remaining survivors of the danger lurking outside. Norton and a small group of others refuse to believe, accusing David of lying. They venture out into the mist to seek help, where they are killed by a huge, unseen creature. This, along with a deadly incursion into the store by a pterosaur-like creature and a disastrous expedition to the pharmacy next door, lead to paranoia and panic consuming the remaining survivors. This spiraling breakdown leads to the rise to power of a religious zealot named Mrs. Carmody, who convinces most of the remaining survivors that these events fulfill the biblical prophecy of the end time, and that a human sacrifice must be made to save them from God’s wrath.
David and Ollie attempt to lead their remaining allies in a covert exit from the market, but are stopped by Mrs. Carmody, who orders her followers to kill her chosen victims: Billy and Amanda. However, Ollie, using a revolver found in Amanda’s purse, kills Mrs. Carmody, causing her congregation to break up. En route to David’s car, Ollie is bisected by the claw of a very large creature similar to a giant lobster or crab. David, Billy, Amanda, and elderly, yet tough, school teacher Hilda Reppler reach the car and leave Bridgton, driving south for hours through a mist-shrouded, monster-filled New England. After finding refuge for the night, David listens to a radio and, through the overwhelming static, possibly hears a single word broadcast: “Hartford”. With that one shred of hope, he prepares to drive on into an uncertain future.
Keith – The Towering Inferno
Starring McQueen and Newman, the cast includes William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, O. J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Gregory Sierra, Dabney Coleman and, in her final film, Jennifer Jones.
Architect Doug Roberts returns to San Francisco for the dedication of the Glass Tower, which he designed for owner James Duncan. At 138 stories (1,800 ft/550 m), it is the world’s tallest building. Shortly after his arrival, an electrical short starts an undetected fire on the 81st floor. While Roberts accuses the building’s electrical engineer, Roger Simmons of cutting corners, Simmons insists the building is up to standards.
During the dedication ceremony, public relations chief Dan Bigelow is ordered to turn on the tower’s exterior lights to impress the guests and dignitaries. The lighting overloads the electrical system and Roberts orders it shut off. Smoke is seen on the 81st floor and the San Francisco Fire Department is summoned. Roberts and engineer Will Giddings go to the 81st floor but fail to prevent a security guard opening a door, leading to a fire flash which kills Giddings.
Roberts reports the fire to a dismissive Duncan, who refuses to order an evacuation. Ill-equipped firefighters arrive to tackle the blaze. SFFD Chief Michael O’Halloran forces Duncan to evacuate the guests in the Promenade Room on the 135th floor, directing them to express elevators. A guest, Lisolette Mueller, who is being wooed by con man Harlee Claiborne, rushes to the 87th floor to check on a young family. Simmons admits to Duncan that he cut corners to stay under budget.
Duncan, aided by Senator Parker and Mayor Ramsey, directs the elevator evacuation from the Promenade Room until the fire renders the express elevators unsafe. Not heeding Duncan’s directions, one last group takes an elevator to the ground, but are killed when it stops on the fire’s floor. The fire traps Bigelow and his secretary/mistress Lorrie in his 65th floor office, killing them.
Security Chief Harry Jernigan and Roberts rescue Mueller and the family from 87. Jernigan gets the mother out safely but Roberts, Mueller and the two children are halted by a collapsed stairwell. They make a perilous climb down the stairs but fire forces them up to the Promenade Room. With fire suppression efforts becoming ineffective, the building loses electrical power and O’Halloran’s men are forced to rappel down an elevator shaft.
A rooftop rescue results in disaster as guests rush the helicopter, causing it to crash, setting the roof ablaze and rendering further rooftop rescues impossible. Naval rescue teams attach a breeches buoy to the adjacent Peerless Building and rescue a number of guests, including Duncan’s daughter, Simmons’ wife Patty. Roberts rigs a gravity brake on the external scenic elevator allowing twelve people, including Roberts’ girlfriend Susan, Mueller, and the children, one trip down. An explosion leaves the descending elevator hanging by a single cable at the 110th floor, where Mueller falls to her death. O’Halloran and others save the rest.
Simmons tells Duncan that he and others will use the breeches buoy next, but Duncan punches him, saying the rest will draw numbers but he and his son-in-law will be the last to leave. The fire reaches the Promenade Room and Simmons forces his way onto the buoy, leading to a struggle. Parker is pushed to his death by Simmons, who is killed by an explosion moments later.
An SFFD deputy chief summons O’Halloran with a plan to explode the million-gallon water tanks atop the building to extinguish the fire. Knowing it could result in his death, O’Halloran meets with Roberts and they set C-4 on the six water tanks on the 138th floor. They return to the Promenade Room, where the remaining guests tie themselves down. O’Halloran, Roberts, Duncan, Claiborne and most of the party-goers survive as water rushes through the building, extinguishing the flames.
On the ground, Claiborne learns that Mueller did not survive and is heartbroken. Jernigan gives him Mueller’s pet cat. Duncan consoles Patty over her husband’s death but does not disclose the cowardly way Simmons died. Roberts says to Susan that he does not know what will become of the building, and perhaps it should be left in its fire-damaged state as “a kind of shrine to all the bullshit in the world”. Informing Roberts that the casualty toll numbered less than 200, O’Halloran says they were lucky. Roberts agrees to consult with fire officials in the future when such buildings are designed. O’Halloran drives away, exhausted.
David – Hard Rain
starring Christian Slater, Morgan Freeman, Randy Quaid, Minnie Driver and Ed Asner
During the worst recorded rainstorm in the history of the Midwestern United States, armored truck drivers Tom (Christian Slater) and his uncle Charlie (Edward Asner) are collecting the money from the local banks affected by the rising flood waters. In the small town of Huntingburg, Indiana, which has been evacuated, Tom and Charlie drive into a ditch and become stuck, and Charlie calls dispatch to alert the National Guard. They are then ambushed by Jim (Morgan Freeman) and his gang of armed robbers, Kenny (Michael Goorjian), Mr Mehlor (Dann Florek) and Ray (Ricky Harris). Kenny accidentally shoots Charlie dead, as Tom gets away with the $3 million in cash and hides it in a cemetery.
After being chased through the local Middle School by the gang now travelling with a boat and jet skis, Tom takes refuge in a nearby church. He is knocked out and wakes up in a cell at the local Sheriff’s office. Tom tells the Sheriff (Randy Quaid) about the gang and the area he hid the money, although he keeps him locked up. He and his Deputy Wayne (Mark Rolston) then leave to investigate, whilst another officer Phil (Peter Murnik) is ordered to take Karen (Minnie Driver), the woman who knocked Tom out and is currently restoring the church, out of town. In protest, she pushes Phil out of the boat so she will be able to fill the water pumps at her church.
The town’s dam continues to experience huge pressure from the rain and the operator Hank (Wayne Duvall) is forced to open another levee. This causes another huge burst of water to stream through the town, resulting in even worse flooding, especially at the church. Tom wakes in his cell, trapped as the Sheriff’s building slowly fills up with water. After filling the pumps at the church, Karen returns and saves him by opening the light fitting on the roof for him to escape. They are then spotted by the gang, and hide before having to get out of the water because a nearby transformer is going to blow. Kenny grabs Tom and they both fall in the water, but Tom fights him off before Kenny is electrocuted and later dies. Tom and Karen enter a nearby house, only to discover locals Doreen (Betty White) and Henry Sears (Richard Dysart) who believe they are looters. After explaining their story, Henry decides to give Tom their boat so he can return to the armored truck. When he resurfaces from the now submerged truck, he finds Jim and the gang holding the elderly couple hostage. Tom forces Jim to let them go so he’ll show them where the money is.
On the way to the cemetery, Jim reveals to Tom that the National Guard were never coming because Charlie was actually calling the gang, and was in an alliance with them. He was only killed because Kenny was never told Charlie was on their side. Jim then sends Tom to retrieve the money but finds it has gone. When the gang are about to shoot him in anger, they are all ambushed by the Sheriff and his Deputies, who have now found Karen. The Sheriff now doesn’t care any more about justice and intends to keep the money for himself, Wayne, Phil and Hank, who has now joined them from the dam. Mr Mehlor and Ray are killed in the shoot out, and Jim and Tom escape in a boat, finding sanctuary in the church. Wayne takes Karen back to her house, with an intention of raping her. The others try to force Tom and Jim out by throwing petrol bombs on the roof, but instead are forced to drive through the stained glassed windows. At Karen’s house, Karen manages to stab Wayne with her penknife, killing him. In the church, a shoot out occurs where at one point Tom and Phil come face to face, but Phil cannot bring himself to shoot him. Hank then shoots Phil, thinking he’s a coward. The alarm from the dam saying it is overflowed suddenly sounds. Offering a deal, the Sheriff says Tom and Jim should let Hank and him go with a couple of the moneybags. Tom agrees, yet Jim does not. Instead, Tom then leaves to try and save Karen, before the Sheriff shoots Jim with a revolver he was hiding, although he isn’t badly hurt. The Sheriff and Hank escape in a boat and, when they are forced to go faster to avoid the wave engulfing the town, the Sheriff pushes Hank out of the boat. He then dies after being caught in a gas explosion.
Tom arrives at Karen’s house, to find her handcuffed to the banister. He first tries to free her with a saw, but then uses Wayne’s gun. The water is so high now they have to get onto the roof and are then caught by the Sheriff. Jim, who managed to escape from the church, comes from behind them in a boat. The Sheriff shoots at him, disabling the steering, forcing him to go over the roof. As he does so, the engine breaks off and collides with the Sheriff, knocking him into the water. However, he is not dead and tries to shoot Karen as he grabs a moneybag, but Tom and Jim manage to shoot him dead. Tom tells Jim he should leave, just as the State Police arrive. Jim picks up the Sheriff’s moneybag and rows away, as Tom tells Karen the fire damage to her church wasn’t too bad, and “was probably why they felt safe enough to drive their boats through the stained glass windows”.
Keith – Volcano
Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, Gaby Hoffmann, Don Cheadle
An earthquake strikes the city of Los Angeles. Mike Roark (Tommy Lee Jones), the head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management, insists on coming to work to help out with the crisis, even though he has taken a vacation with his daughter Kelly (Gaby Hoffmann). His associate Emmit Reese (Don Cheadle) notes the quake caused no major damage, but seven utility workers are later burned to death in a storm drain; one escapes and survives but is severely burned on one side of his face at MacArthur Park. As a precaution, Roark tries to halt the subway lines which run parallel to where the deaths took place, but Los Angeles MTA Chairman Stan Olber (John Carroll Lynch) declines, feeling there is no threat to the trains. Against regulations, Roark and a colleague Gator Harris (Michael Rispoli) venture down the storm sewer in the park to investigate. They are nearly burned to death when hot gases suddenly spew out of a crack in the concrete lining and flood the tunnel. Geologist Dr. Amy Barnes (Anne Heche) believes a volcano may be rapidly forming beneath the city with magma flowing underground (similar to the formation of the Mexican volcano Parícutin which emerged and grew tremendously in just one week) but cannot come up with enough evidence for Roark to take action.
Barnes and her assistant Rachel (Laurie Lathem) venture in the storm sewer to investigate the scene of the accident, where they discover a crack in the ground which released the gases earlier. While they are taking samples, a more powerful earthquake strikes and Rachel is killed when she falls into the crack. Near the La Brea Tar Pits, smoke rises out along with lava bombs. Steam explodes from the sewer system, while a subway train carrying passengers derails underground, trapping them inside and exposing them to severe heat and toxic gases, which cause them all to eventually pass out.
Minutes later, a newly formed volcano erupts from the tar pits and lava begins to flow freely down Wilshire Boulevard, incinerating everything in its path, including Roark’s truck and an LAFD fire truck, killing two firefighters trapped inside. Roark and his daughter become separated as she is injured when a nearby lava bomb burns her leg, and she is taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center by Dr. Jaye Calder (Jacqueline Kim). Meanwhile, Olber leads his team through the Red Line tunnel to the derailed train to look for survivors. They save everyone, but Olber notices that the train driver is still missing and goes back to find him. He finds the driver still alive but unconscious just as the lava reaches the train and begins melting it. Olber sacrifices his life to save the conductor by jumping into the lava flow, throwing the driver to safety as he is killed. Roark, Barnes, and police lieutenant Ed Fox (Keith David) devise a plan to stack concrete barriers at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, creating a cul-de-sac to pool the lava as helicopters dump water on it to form a crust. While the operation is successful, Barnes later theorizes that the magma is still flowing underground through the Red Line subway extension, and calculates that the main eruption will occur at the end of the line at the Beverly Center near Cedars-Sinai. To prove this, Dr. Barnes and Roark lower a video camera into the tunnel to watch it and then a fast-moving flow of lava incinerates the camera. They calculate the speed and realize they have 30 minutes until the lava hits the end of the red line.
Through Roark’s direction, explosives are used to create channels in the street to divert the flow of lava into Ballona Creek, which will later flow into the Pacific Ocean, but Barnes realizes that the street is sloping in the opposite direction. Roark engineers another plan to demolish a 22-story condominium building (currently under construction by Jaye’s husband) to block the lava’s path from entering the city. When Gator refuses to abandon an LAPD SWAT cop who has gotten trapped under a core column while slotting explosive charges just as the lava reaches the dead end of the Subway tunnel extension and explodes out of the ground in a massive gyser, he sacrifices their lives to detonate the final explosive charge. Roark then spots Kelly nearby, trying to retrieve a small boy who wandered off, putting them in the path of the collapsing building. Roark barely manages to save both of them from being crushed as the building collapses. The plan is successful and the lava flows safely to the ocean.
The film’s epilogue displays a graphic stating that the volcano, named “Mount Wilshire”, is still in an active state.
David – The Perfect Storm
starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, William Fichtner, John C. Reilly, Diane Lane, Karen Allen and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
In October 1991, the commercial fishing boat Andrea Gail returns to port in Gloucester, Massachusetts, with a poor catch. Desperate for money, Captain Billy Tyne (Clooney), convinces the Andrea Gail crew to join him for one more late season fishing expedition. The crew heads out past their usual fishing grounds in the Grand Banks, leaving a developing thunderstorm behind them. Initially unsuccessful, they head to the Flemish Cap, where their luck improves. At the height of their fishing the ice machine breaks; the only way to sell their catch before it spoils is to hurry back to shore. After debating whether to sail through the building storm or to wait it out, the crew decides to risk the storm. However, between the Andrea Gail and Gloucester is a confluence of two powerful weather fronts and a hurricane, which the Andrea Gail crew underestimates.
After repeated warnings from other ships, Andrea Gail loses her antenna, forcing Captain Linda Greenlaw (Mastrantonio) of sister ship Hannah Boden to call in a Mayday. A New York Air National Guard HH-60 Pave Hawk rescue helicopter responds, but after failing to perform a midair refueling with an HC-130 Hercules, the helicopter crew ditch their aircraft. All but one of the Air National Guard crew members are rescued by a Coast Guard vessel, the USCGC Tamaroa.
Andrea Gail endures various problems. With 40-foot (12 m) waves crashing on top of the deck, a broken stabilizer ramming the side of the ship, and two men thrown overboard, the crew decide to turn around to avoid further damage by the storm. After doing so, the vessel encounters an enormous rogue wave. Billy tells Bobby (Wahlberg) to apply full power to ride over the wave; it seems that they may make it over, but the wave starts to break and the boat capsizes. Billy elects to go down with his ship, the rest of the crew are trapped inside and only Bobby manages to get out. He surfaces in time to watch the boat go under; however, without a life jacket, he has no chance of surviving. He is last seen all alone among the waves. There are no survivors and the film ends with Linda reading the eulogy at the memorial service, followed by Christina and Bobby’s mother, Ethel, consoling each other on the dock and Billy’s voice soliloquising about what it means to be a swordboat captain.
Keith – Titanic
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Bill Paxton
In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team aboard the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh search the wreck of RMS Titanic for a necklace with a rare diamond, the Heart of the Ocean. They recover a safe containing a drawing of a young woman wearing only the necklace dated April 14, 1912, the day the ship struck the iceberg. Rose Dawson Calvert, the woman in the drawing, is brought aboard Keldysh and tells Lovett of her experiences aboard Titanic.
In 1912 Southampton, 17-year-old first-class passenger Rose DeWitt Bukater, her fiancé Cal Hockley, and her mother Ruth board the luxurious Titanic. Ruth emphasizes that Rose’s marriage will resolve their family’s financial problems. Distraught over the engagement, Rose considers suicide by jumping from the stern; Jack Dawson, a penniless artist, intervenes and discourages her. Discovered with Jack, Rose tells a concerned Cal that she was peering over the edge and Jack saved her from falling. When Cal becomes indifferent, she suggests to him that Jack deserves a reward. He invites Jack to dine with them in first class the following night. Jack and Rose develop a tentative friendship, despite Cal and Ruth being wary of him. Following dinner, Rose secretly joins Jack at a party in third class.
Aware of Cal and Ruth’s disapproval, Rose rebuffs Jack’s advances, but realizes she prefers him over Cal. After rendezvousing on the bow at sunset, Rose takes Jack to her state room; at her request, Jack sketches Rose posing nude wearing Cal’s engagement present, the Heart of the Ocean necklace. They evade Cal’s bodyguard and have sex in an automobile inside the cargo hold. On the forward deck, they witness a collision with an iceberg and overhear the officers and designer discussing its seriousness.
Cal discovers Jack’s sketch of Rose and an insulting note from her in his safe along with the necklace. When Jack and Rose attempt to inform Cal of the collision, he has his bodyguard slip the necklace into Jack’s pocket and accuses him of theft. Jack is arrested, taken to the master-at-arms’ office, and handcuffed to a pipe. Cal puts the necklace in his own coat pocket.
With the ship sinking, Rose flees Cal and her mother, who has boarded a lifeboat, and frees Jack. On the boat deck, Cal and Jack encourage her to board a lifeboat; Cal claims he can get himself and Jack off safely. After Rose boards one, Cal tells Jack the arrangement is only for himself. As her boat lowers, Rose decides that she cannot leave Jack and jumps back on board. Cal takes his bodyguard’s pistol and chases Rose and Jack into the flooding first-class dining saloon. After using up his ammunition, Cal realizes he gave his coat and consequently the necklace to Rose. He later boards a collapsible lifeboat by carrying a lost child.
After braving several obstacles, Jack and Rose return to the boat deck. The lifeboats have departed and passengers are falling to their deaths as the stern rises out of the water. The ship breaks in half, lifting the stern into the air. Jack and Rose ride it into the ocean and he helps her onto a wooden panel only buoyant enough for one person. He assures her that she will die an old woman, warm in her bed. He dies of hypothermia but she is saved.
With Rose hiding from Cal en route, the RMS Carpathia takes the survivors to New York City where Rose gives her name as Rose Dawson. She later finds out Cal committed suicide after losing all his money in the 1929 Wall Street crash.
Back in the present, Lovett decides to abandon his search after hearing Rose’s story. Alone on the stern of Keldysh, Rose takes out the Heart of the Ocean — in her possession all along — and drops it into the sea over the wreck site. While she is seemingly asleep or has died in her bed, photos on her dresser depict a life of freedom and adventure inspired by Jack. A young Rose reunites with Jack at the Titanic’s Grand Staircase, applauded by those who perished.
David – Alive
Starring Ethan Hawke
The film opens with a series of photographs of the Stella Maris College’s Old Christians Rugby Team. Carlitos Páez explains that the pictures were taken by his father and points out several members of the team, including himself as a young man, Alex Morales, Felipe Restano, Nando Parrado and the team’s Captain Antonio Balbi. Carlitos then reflects on the accident in a brief monologue, speaking of heroism, the gravity of the situation and of solitude and faith.
The story moves to October 13, 1972 as Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 flies over the Andes. The raucous rugby players and a few of their relatives and friends are eagerly looking forward to the upcoming match in Chile. Nando’s sister, Susana, praises the beauty of the mountains and happily observes that the plane will be landing in 20 minutes.
However, after emerging from clouds, the plane encounters turbulence and collides with an uncharted mountain peak. During the collision, the wings and tail are separated from the fuselage of the plane, and the remnants of the fuselage slide down a mountain slope before coming to a stop. In the process, seven passengers (six passengers and one flight attendant) are ejected from the plane and die. Antonio, the team captain, takes charge of the situation, coordinating efforts to help his injured teammates. Roberto Canessa and Gustavo Zerbino, both medical students, are the first to address the injured. Shortly afterwards, another six die including both pilots, Alex, Nando’s mother Eugenia, and an older couple. Nando, who sustained a head injury, falls into a coma and Susana suffers harsh internal injuries.
As the sun sets, the survivors begin to make preparations for the night. Canessa discovers that the seat covers can be unzipped and used as blankets. The survivors go inside the fuselage and curl up beside one another to stay warm. Antonio, Roy Harley and Rafael Cano plug the gaping hole at the end of the fuselage with luggage to keep out the wind. Two passengers die during the night from their injuries, including Mrs. Alfonsín, causing Carlitos to feel ashamed after earlier yelling at her as she moaned about the pain she had been experiencing. With nothing to hunt or gather on the mountain, Antonio declares they will use rationing when the survivors find a tin of chocolates and a case of wine. After seeing a plane dip its wing, the survivors celebrate. Expecting to be rescued the next day, everyone except Javier, his wife Liliana, and Antonio eat the remaining chocolates.
The survivors listen to a radio for word of their rescue but are devastated to hear the search is called off after day nine. This causes a quarrel between Antonio and several others for eating the chocolate. Meanwhile, Nando regains consciousness through the care of Carlitos and Hugo Diaz. After learning of his mother’s death, Nando watches over Susana vigilantly. Knowing that she will die of her injuries within a few days, he vows to set off on foot and find a way out of the mountains. When Carlitos reminds him that he will need food, Nando suggests consuming flesh from the corpses of the deceased pilots to survive his journey to find help. Susana dies from her injuries.
After great debate, the starving passengers decide to eat the flesh of their dead companions in order to survive. Zerbino, Rafael and Juan Martino set off to search for the tail of the plane in hopes of finding the batteries for the plane’s radio to transmit their location. Among pieces of the wreckage, the teammates find additional corpses, but return to the group with news that the tail of the plane is likely a little farther away. Later in the week, an avalanche hits the plane and floods the interior with snow. Most manage to climb out of the snow, but some are unable to escape; eight of the remaining survivors are smothered by the snow or freeze to death, including Antonio, Liliana and Juan; Liliana was the final of the five women aboard to die. A second team, made up of Nando, Canessa and Antonio “Tintin” Vizintin, finds the tail of the plane. Unable to bring the batteries to the fuselage, they return to the fuselage to get Roy, who is rumoured to have experience setting up electrical equipment. They bring him to the tail of the plane (where the batteries are located) to see if he can fix the radio. When Roy is unsuccessful, the team returns to the fuselage once more.
Federico Aranda and Alberto Antuna die from their injuries soon after as does Rafael, leading Nando to convince a reluctant Canessa to search for a way out of the mountains, taking Tintin with them. Two days into the journey, they send Tintin back to the fuselage so they can appropriate his rations and continue on their own. After a 12-day trek, the two escape the mountains and alert the authorities of their companions’ location. As helicopters land on the glacier, the other 14 survivors celebrate.
The film then shifts to the present as Carlitos explains the survivors later returned to the site of the crash and buried the bodies of the dead under a pile of stones, and marked with a cross. The memorial is then displayed with the film’s dedication to both the 29 deceased and 16 survivors.
Keith – EarthQuake
Starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lorne Greene, Geneviève Bujold, Richard Roundtree, Marjoe Gortner, Barry Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Victoria Principal, Walter Matthau.
Former pro-footballer Stewart Graff (Heston) is jogging near the Hollywood Sign. Back home, his wife Remy Royce-Graff (Gardner), bitter because of their failing marriage, starts her morning by picking a fight with him. After he has showered and is preparing to leave, Stewart finds Remy unconscious with a bottle of pills nearby. Accustomed to her periodic suicide attempts, Stewart prepares to induce vomiting when a violent tremor shakes the bedroom. Remy bolts out of bed, revealing that she was faking.
Meanwhile, at the Mulholland Dam, two workers begin a routine inspection of the structure in response to the tremor. One of them drowns.
In downtown Hollywood, LAPD Sgt. Lou Slade (Kennedy) and his partner Emilio Chavez (Pedro Armendáriz, Jr.) are in pursuit of a suspect. They chase him out of their jurisdiction, finally crashing into the hedges at Zsa Zsa Gabor’s house. After an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy yells at Lou for ruining Gabor’s hedges, Lou punches him out. He receives a temporary suspension.
While checking out at a grocery store, Rosa Amici (Principal) realizes she does not have enough money to pay for all her items. Jody Joad (Gortner), the seemingly kind store manager, insists that she keep the items and make up the deficit the next time she shops. Later, when he hears that the National Guard reserves are being called up on the radio, Jody leaves the store in the middle of his shift, revealing himself to be part of the reserve army. He goes to his run-down boarding house and changes into his NCO uniform – as well as a wig that covers his long hair – enduring the harassment of his housemates who, after seeing his bodybuilder wall art, accuse him of being homosexual.
Blowing off steam at a bar, Lou orders a double bourbon. A drunk (Matthau) periodically wakes up to toast random people. Daredevil motorcyclist Miles Quade (Roundtree) arrives with his partner Sal Amici (Dell) and his sister Rosa. A pool shark collects $50 that Miles owes him, leaving him short for the propane tank he needs to do a stunt for a talent scout. Miles convinces Lou to loan him the money.
The tremor cancelled Denise’s shoot; she heads to Stewart’s office, pretending to meet with a friend. When she runs into him, he is headed out for a drink. They go back to Denise’s house for the drink and end up making love. He promises to come back later that night and invites her and Corry to spend the summer with him in Oregon, where he will be overseeing a project. Back at the office, his boss and father in-law Sam Royce (Greene) offers to hand over the company presidency to Stewart. He asks for some time to consider the idea. Stewart calls Denise and breaks off their plans for later that night. He goes to Sam’s office to accept his offer but is stunned to see Remy there. He assumes she has convinced her father, Sam, to offer the promotion to Stewart in order to save their marriage. He storms out and she follows him, accusing him of cheating with Denise. He explains that he never had until that day.
Once Stewart gets everyone safely from his office to a shopping center named Wilson Plaza, now converted into a triage center, he goes off in search of Denise and her son. Sam is taken to Dr. Jim Vance (Nolan), but he does not survive. Stewart ends up driving Lou around in search of survivors and they come across Jody and his regiment. Jody threatens to fire on them if they come any closer and Rosa emerges when she sees Lou, Screaming and begging for his help. Lou and Stewart pretend to comply with Jody by driving away down the street and stopping out of sight.meanwhile Sgt. Joad’s scared men then leave to look for a superior officer to have Joad relieved from Duty, face a court martial and detainment. But Lou sneaks back and gets the jump on Jody, who’s enraged at Rosa for betraying and rejecting him and then attempts to rape her. Lou then shoots Jody dead in self-defense and rescues Rosa.
During the rescue, the Mulholland Dam finally gives way, sending water down the sewers. Lou and Denise make it up the ladder to safety, but as Remy climbs out, a man steps on the rung she’s holding onto, injuring her hand in the process. She falls back into the water which is sweeping people away. Stewart looks up at Denise, but he cannot bring himself to abandon his wife to death. He sacrifices himself when he swims after her and both of them are swept away, along with others. Denise walks away from the manhole in shock and grief. Lou is holding Rosa when Dr. Vance walks up to him and says, “This used to be a helluva town, officer.” Lou mumbles, “yeah.”
David – The Towering Inferno
Starring McQueen and Newman, the cast includes William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, O. J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Gregory Sierra, Dabney Coleman and, in her final film, Jennifer Jones.
Architect Doug Roberts returns to San Francisco for the dedication of the Glass Tower, which he designed for owner James Duncan. At 138 stories (1,800 ft/550 m), it is the world’s tallest building. Shortly after his arrival, an electrical short starts an undetected fire on the 81st floor. While Roberts accuses the building’s electrical engineer, Roger Simmons of cutting corners, Simmons insists the building is up to standards.
During the dedication ceremony, public relations chief Dan Bigelow is ordered to turn on the tower’s exterior lights to impress the guests and dignitaries. The lighting overloads the electrical system and Roberts orders it shut off. Smoke is seen on the 81st floor and the San Francisco Fire Department is summoned. Roberts and engineer Will Giddings go to the 81st floor but fail to prevent a security guard opening a door, leading to a fire flash which kills Giddings.
Roberts reports the fire to a dismissive Duncan, who refuses to order an evacuation. Ill-equipped firefighters arrive to tackle the blaze. SFFD Chief Michael O’Halloran forces Duncan to evacuate the guests in the Promenade Room on the 135th floor, directing them to express elevators. A guest, Lisolette Mueller, who is being wooed by con man Harlee Claiborne, rushes to the 87th floor to check on a young family. Simmons admits to Duncan that he cut corners to stay under budget.
Duncan, aided by Senator Parker and Mayor Ramsey, directs the elevator evacuation from the Promenade Room until the fire renders the express elevators unsafe. Not heeding Duncan’s directions, one last group takes an elevator to the ground, but are killed when it stops on the fire’s floor. The fire traps Bigelow and his secretary/mistress Lorrie in his 65th floor office, killing them.
Security Chief Harry Jernigan and Roberts rescue Mueller and the family from 87. Jernigan gets the mother out safely but Roberts, Mueller and the two children are halted by a collapsed stairwell. They make a perilous climb down the stairs but fire forces them up to the Promenade Room. With fire suppression efforts becoming ineffective, the building loses electrical power and O’Halloran’s men are forced to rappel down an elevator shaft.
A rooftop rescue results in disaster as guests rush the helicopter, causing it to crash, setting the roof ablaze and rendering further rooftop rescues impossible. Naval rescue teams attach a breeches buoy to the adjacent Peerless Building and rescue a number of guests, including Duncan’s daughter, Simmons’ wife Patty. Roberts rigs a gravity brake on the external scenic elevator allowing twelve people, including Roberts’ girlfriend Susan, Mueller, and the children, one trip down. An explosion leaves the descending elevator hanging by a single cable at the 110th floor, where Mueller falls to her death. O’Halloran and others save the rest.
Simmons tells Duncan that he and others will use the breeches buoy next, but Duncan punches him, saying the rest will draw numbers but he and his son-in-law will be the last to leave. The fire reaches the Promenade Room and Simmons forces his way onto the buoy, leading to a struggle. Parker is pushed to his death by Simmons, who is killed by an explosion moments later.
An SFFD deputy chief summons O’Halloran with a plan to explode the million-gallon water tanks atop the building to extinguish the fire. Knowing it could result in his death, O’Halloran meets with Roberts and they set C-4 on the six water tanks on the 138th floor. They return to the Promenade Room, where the remaining guests tie themselves down. O’Halloran, Roberts, Duncan, Claiborne and most of the party-goers survive as water rushes through the building, extinguishing the flames.
On the ground, Claiborne learns that Mueller did not survive and is heartbroken. Jernigan gives him Mueller’s pet cat. Duncan consoles Patty over her husband’s death but does not disclose the cowardly way Simmons died. Roberts says to Susan that he does not know what will become of the building, and perhaps it should be left in its fire-damaged state as “a kind of shrine to all the bullshit in the world”. Informing Roberts that the casualty toll numbered less than 200, O’Halloran says they were lucky. Roberts agrees to consult with fire officials in the future when such buildings are designed. O’Halloran drives away, exhausted.
Keith – The Core
Starring Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, Tchéky Karyo, DJ Qualls, Bruce Greenwood and Alfre Woodard.
Geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) and scientists Serge Leveque (Tchéky Karyo) and Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci) become aware of an instability of Earth’s magnetic field after a series of incidents across the globe. They determine that the Earth’s molten core, which generates this field, has stopped rotating, and within a year the field will collapse exposing the planet’s surface directly to devastating solar radiation. Backed by the U.S. Government, Keyes, Leveque, and Zimsky create a plan to bore down to the core and set off several nuclear explosions to restart the rotation. They gain help of rogue scientist Ed “Braz” Brazzelton (Delroy Lindo) who has devised a vessel made of “Unobtainium” that can withstand the heat and pressure within the Earth’s crust and convert it to energy, as well as aaser-driven boring system that will allow them to quickly pass through the crust. Construction starts immediately on the Virgil, a multi-compartment vessel to be helmed by Space Shuttle pilots Commander Robert Iverson (Bruce Greenwood) and Major Rebecca “Beck” Childs (Hilary Swank) who will join Keyes and the others. To prevent a worldwide panic, Keyes enlists computer hacker Theodore Donald “Rat” Finch (DJ Qualls) to scour the Internet and eliminate all traces of the pending disaster or their plan.
Virgil is launched through the Marianas Trench from an offshore platform. The team accidentally drills through a gigantic empty geode structure, damaging the lasers when it lands at its base and cracking the geode’s structure and causing magma to flow in. The crew repair and restart the laser array in time, but Iverson is killed by a falling crystal shard that hits him in the helmet, while returning to the ship. As Virgil continues, it clips a huge diamond that breaches the hull of the last compartment. Leveque sacrifices himself to save the nuclear launch codes before the compartment is crushed by extreme pressure.
Meanwhile, on the surface, the public becomes aware of problems after super storms and unfiltered patches of ultra-violet radiation destroy Rome and San Francisco. Finch is unable to stop worldwide panic but instead learns of the top-secret project “DESTINI” (Deep Earth Seismic Trigger INItiative), which is the government’s ‘secondary protocol’ and will be deployed should the Virgil mission fail. Finch relays his information to Keyes, who discovers that Zimsky was one of DESTINI’s lead scientists. DESTINI, according to Zimsky, was designed as a weapon to propagate earthquakes through the Earth’s core, but its first activation unintentionally stopped its rotation instead. Zimsky reveals the government will use it again to attempt a restart of the core. Keyes is convinced it will have disastrous results and has Finch hack into DESTINI’s system and cut its power supply to buy the Virgil more time.
Virgil eventually reaches the molten core, and, as they take readings, they discover that the density of the core is far different from what they expected, which will not allow their plan to work. They calculate that by splitting their nuclear weapons into the remaining compartments and jettisoning each at specific distances, they can create a “ripple effect”, where the power of each bomb will push against the blast of the next, generating the energy required to restart the core. However, because Virgil was not designed to jettison undamaged compartments, the plan requires someone to deactivate a safety switch that is in an area exposed to the extreme temperatures. Brazzelton volunteers and deactivates the switch, dying shortly afterwards.
Keyes and Zimsky race to reset the nuclear charges, and Zimsky gets trapped in one of the detaching compartments. Keyes believes they still may have too little yield, but Zimsky suggests they use the ship’s nuclear fuel source as well, which will leave the Virgil without power. Keyes deploys the nuclear core in the last compartment and detaches it just as the triggered detonations start, successfully restarting the core’s rotation. Drifting powerless in the core, Keyes and Childs realize they can use the unobtainium shell to convert the heat and pressure from the wavefront to power the Virgil, and they are able to escape the core. They break through the crust underwater, leaving them safe on the ocean floor but lacking power and communications. They believe themselves lost but use the remaining power to activate a weak sonar beacon. The beacon attracts a nearby whale pod, and Finch is able to trace their whale songs to locate the Virgil. A week after the mission, Finch unleashes the full details of the mission, including those lost, and of DESTINI to the public via the Internet.
David – The Poseidon Adventure
Starring Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Albertson, Shelley Winters, and Red Buttons.
The S.S. Poseidon, an ocean liner slated for retirement and scrapping, makes her way across the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea from New York City to Athens. Despite protests from Captain Harrison (Leslie Nielsen), who fears for the ship’s safety, the representative of her new owners, Mr. Linarcos, insists that he would go at full speed – 26 or so knots – towards Athens to save money, preventing him from taking on additional ballast.
The Reverend Frank Scott (Gene Hackman), an heretical minister believing God helps those who help themselves, delivers a sermon. Detective Lt. Mike Rogo (Ernest Borgnine) and wife Linda (Stella Stevens), a sarcastic former prostitute, deal with her seasickness. Susan (Pamela Sue Martin) and younger brother Robin (Eric Shea) are traveling to meet their parents. Robin is interested in how the ship works and frequently visits the engine room. Retired Jewish hardware store owner Manny Rosen (Jack Albertson) and wife Belle (Shelley Winters) are going to Israel to meet their two-year-old grandson for the first time. Haberdasher James Martin (Red Buttons) is a love-shy, health-conscious bachelor. The ship’s singer, Nonnie Parry (Carol Lynley), rehearses for the New Year’s Day celebration with her band.
That evening, passengers gather in the dining room to celebrate. Harrison is called to the bridge in response to a report of an undersea earthquake. He receives word from the lookout that a huge wave is approaching from the direction of Crete, at 60 mph. He issues a mayday distress signal and commands a “hard left” turn, but it is too late. The wave hits the ship and she capsizes.
In the dining room, survivors take stock of their predicament. Acres (Roddy McDowell), an injured waiter, is trapped at the galley door now high above. Scott surmises that the escape route will be found “upwards”, at the outer hull, now above water. Robin tells him the hull near the propeller shaft is only one inch (2.54 cm) thick. The Rosens, the Rogos, Susan, Robin, Acres, Nonnie, and Martin agree to go with Scott, using a Christmas tree as a ladder. Scott unsuccessfully tries convincing more passengers to join them. After the group climbs to the galley, there is a series of explosions. As seawater floods the room the survivors rush to the Christmas tree, but the weight of everyone climbing causes the tree to fall. The water fills up the dining room and the Poseidon begins to sink.
Acres and Scott find the galley, and the survivors make their way to a staircase. Scott climbs its underside, then he and Rogo use a fire hose to pull the others up, with the water quickly rising behind them. Scott leads the group to an access tunnel. While climbing a ladder inside a funnel, the ship rocks from another series of explosions. Acres falls and is lost.
Climbing out of the shaft, the group meets a large band of survivors led by the ship’s medic, heading towards the bow. Scott is certain they are heading for their doom, but Rogo wants to follow them and gives Scott fifteen minutes to find the engine room. Although he takes longer than allowed, Scott is successful.
The group discovers the engine room is on the other side of a flooded corridor; someone must swim through with a line to help the others. Belle, who reveals to be a former competitive swimmer, tries to volunteer, but Scott refuses her and dives in. Halfway through, a panel collapses on him. The survivors notice something is wrong and without any choice, Belle dives in. She frees Scott and they make it to the other side. While Scott secures the lifeline, Belle suffers a heart attack. Before dying she tells Scott to give her “Chai” pendant, representing the Hebrew sign for life, to Rosen, who in turn will give it to their grandson.
Rogo swims over to make sure Belle and Scott are all right, then leads the rest over. When Rosen finds Belle’s dead body he is unwilling to go on, but Scott gives him her pendant, reminding him that he has a reason to live.
Scott leads the survivors to the propeller shaft room’s watertight door, but there is another series of explosions, and one of them causes Linda to fall to her death. An infuriated, angry and heartbroken Rogo blames her death on Scott. One of the explosions rupture a pipe that releases steam, blocking their escape. Scott rants at God for the survivors’ deaths. He leaps and grabs onto the burning-hot valve wheel to shut off the steam, then tells Rogo to lead the group before letting go of it before sacrificing himself to the fiery waters.
Rogo leads the remaining survivors — Rosen, Martin, Nonnie, Susan, and Robin — through the watertight doors and into the propeller shaft tunnel. They hear a noise from outside and bang on the hull to attract the rescuers’ attention. The rescuers cut a hole through the hull. It is revealed that none of the passengers that headed toward the bow were rescued. The rescue crew assist the group out of the ship, and the six survivors are flown to safety by helicopter.
Keith – The Poseidon Adventure
Starring Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Albertson, Shelley Winters, and Red Buttons.
The S.S. Poseidon, an ocean liner slated for retirement and scrapping, makes her way across the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea from New York City to Athens. Despite protests from Captain Harrison (Leslie Nielsen), who fears for the ship’s safety, the representative of her new owners, Mr. Linarcos, insists that he would go at full speed – 26 or so knots – towards Athens to save money, preventing him from taking on additional ballast.
The Reverend Frank Scott (Gene Hackman), an heretical minister believing God helps those who help themselves, delivers a sermon. Detective Lt. Mike Rogo (Ernest Borgnine) and wife Linda (Stella Stevens), a sarcastic former prostitute, deal with her seasickness. Susan (Pamela Sue Martin) and younger brother Robin (Eric Shea) are traveling to meet their parents. Robin is interested in how the ship works and frequently visits the engine room. Retired Jewish hardware store owner Manny Rosen (Jack Albertson) and wife Belle (Shelley Winters) are going to Israel to meet their two-year-old grandson for the first time. Haberdasher James Martin (Red Buttons) is a love-shy, health-conscious bachelor. The ship’s singer, Nonnie Parry (Carol Lynley), rehearses for the New Year’s Day celebration with her band.
That evening, passengers gather in the dining room to celebrate. Harrison is called to the bridge in response to a report of an undersea earthquake. He receives word from the lookout that a huge wave is approaching from the direction of Crete, at 60 mph. He issues a mayday distress signal and commands a “hard left” turn, but it is too late. The wave hits the ship and she capsizes.
In the dining room, survivors take stock of their predicament. Acres (Roddy McDowell), an injured waiter, is trapped at the galley door now high above. Scott surmises that the escape route will be found “upwards”, at the outer hull, now above water. Robin tells him the hull near the propeller shaft is only one inch (2.54 cm) thick. The Rosens, the Rogos, Susan, Robin, Acres, Nonnie, and Martin agree to go with Scott, using a Christmas tree as a ladder. Scott unsuccessfully tries convincing more passengers to join them. After the group climbs to the galley, there is a series of explosions. As seawater floods the room the survivors rush to the Christmas tree, but the weight of everyone climbing causes the tree to fall. The water fills up the dining room and the Poseidon begins to sink.
Acres and Scott find the galley, and the survivors make their way to a staircase. Scott climbs its underside, then he and Rogo use a fire hose to pull the others up, with the water quickly rising behind them. Scott leads the group to an access tunnel. While climbing a ladder inside a funnel, the ship rocks from another series of explosions. Acres falls and is lost.
Climbing out of the shaft, the group meets a large band of survivors led by the ship’s medic, heading towards the bow. Scott is certain they are heading for their doom, but Rogo wants to follow them and gives Scott fifteen minutes to find the engine room. Although he takes longer than allowed, Scott is successful.
The group discovers the engine room is on the other side of a flooded corridor; someone must swim through with a line to help the others. Belle, who reveals to be a former competitive swimmer, tries to volunteer, but Scott refuses her and dives in. Halfway through, a panel collapses on him. The survivors notice something is wrong and without any choice, Belle dives in. She frees Scott and they make it to the other side. While Scott secures the lifeline, Belle suffers a heart attack. Before dying she tells Scott to give her “Chai” pendant, representing the Hebrew sign for life, to Rosen, who in turn will give it to their grandson.
Rogo swims over to make sure Belle and Scott are all right, then leads the rest over. When Rosen finds Belle’s dead body he is unwilling to go on, but Scott gives him her pendant, reminding him that he has a reason to live.
Scott leads the survivors to the propeller shaft room’s watertight door, but there is another series of explosions, and one of them causes Linda to fall to her death. An infuriated, angry and heartbroken Rogo blames her death on Scott. One of the explosions rupture a pipe that releases steam, blocking their escape. Scott rants at God for the survivors’ deaths. He leaps and grabs onto the burning-hot valve wheel to shut off the steam, then tells Rogo to lead the group before letting go of it before sacrificing himself to the fiery waters.
Rogo leads the remaining survivors — Rosen, Martin, Nonnie, Susan, and Robin — through the watertight doors and into the propeller shaft tunnel. They hear a noise from outside and bang on the hull to attract the rescuers’ attention. The rescuers cut a hole through the hull. It is revealed that none of the passengers that headed toward the bow were rescued. The rescue crew assist the group out of the ship, and the six survivors are flown to safety by helicopter.
David – Snowpiercer
Starring Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Go Ah-sung, John Hurt, and Ed Harris
In 2014, an attempt to counteract global warming through climate engineering backfires catastrophically, unintentionally causing an ice age that extinguishes all life except the inhabitants of the The Rattling Ark, a massive train powered by a perpetual motion engine that travels a circumnavigational track, created by the transportation magnate Wilford. By 2031, elites inhabit the extravagant front cars and the “scum” inhabit the tail in squalid and brutal conditions. Under watch by Wilford’s guards, they are brought only gelatinous protein bars to eat and kept in their place in the social order by Minister Mason, while sometimes small children are taken away.
Conspiring with his mentor Gilliam, Curtis Everett leads the tail passengers in a revolt that he plans will take them all the way up to the engine. Overpowering the guards, they release security expert Namgoong Minsu and his clairvoyant daughter Yona from the prison car so as to disable the locks between cars. They take the car where insects are ground up to make their protein bars, and Gilliam suggests that if they take the subsequent water supply car, they will control any negotiation with Wilford. Instead, they are ambushed by a mass of masked men with hatchets led by Franco the Elder under Mason’s orders; after a bloody battle Curtis sacrifices his second-in-command Edgar to win the fight. Mason is taken captive and agrees to give free passage to Curtis, Namgoong, Yona, and three other rebels: Gilliam’s bodyguard Grey, and Andrew and Tanya who have had their respective children Andy and Timmy taken away.
They travel through several luxurious cars and arrive at a classroom, where the teacher expounds to the children and the rebels on the greatness of Wilford and the “sacred engine”. While distracted by the celebration of the New Year marking one circumnavigation of the globe, the teacher ambushes them, killing Andrew before Grey kills her. Further back, Franco and Mason’s soldiers use the same distraction to kill the rebel army and many of the tail passengers. Franco executes Gilliam, and Curtis kills Mason in revenge. Curtis’ group continues forward, followed by Franco, leading to a violent fight in a sauna car during which Franco kills Grey and Tanya before Curtis subdues him.
At the gate to the engine, Namgoong reveals that he plans to use Kronole, a hallucinogen he has gathered from the elites they passed, as an explosive to blow a hatch to the outside, as he observed signs the world outside is thawing. Curtis confesses to him that shortly after boarding the train, the tail passengers resorted to cannibalism to survive, and he is haunted by his part in it. He was nearly ready to kill infant Edgar when Gilliam offered his own arm instead. After years of disdain for Wilford, Curtis seeks to learn what Wilford’s intentions were.
Wilford’s assistant emerges from the engine, shoots Namgoong, and invites Curtis inside where he meets an aging Wilford. Wilford reveals to Curtis that his revolution was actually orchestrated by himself and Gilliam to reduce the population and maintain the balance of the sealed ecosystem, and subsequently orders the elimination of 74% of the remaining tail passengers. He explains the importance of using fear and chaos to maintain a necessary order and leadership on the train. After letting Curtis experience being alone for the first time in seventeen years, Wilford asks Curtis to replace him. Curtis appears ready to accept, when Yona runs in and pulls up a floorboard, showing Curtis that small children from the tail section are being trapped as replacement parts for “extinct” machinery; the tail section only serves to provide this resource to the engine. Curtis subdues Wilford and sacrifices an arm to save Timmy from this work.
Namgoong revives and as he is overrun by Franco and the front sectioners, he lights the fuse on the Kronole. Curtis and Namgoong tightly embrace Yona and Timmy, protecting them from the explosion. The noise triggers an avalanche that derails the train. Yona and Timmy, apparently the only survivors, emerge from the wreckage and see a polar bear, proof that life exists outside the train.
Keith – The Day After Tomorrow
starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum, and Sela Ward.
On an expedition in Antarctica, paleoclimatologist Jack Hall and his colleagues Frank and Jason are drilling for ice-core samples on the Larsen Ice Shelf for NOAA when the shelf breaks off. Later, Jack presents his findings on global warming at a United Nations conference in New Delhi, but fails to convince diplomats or U.S. Vice President Raymond Becker. However, Professor Terry Rapson of the Hedland Climate Research Centre in Scotland believes Jack’s theories. Several buoys in the North Atlantic simultaneously show a massive drop in the ocean temperature, and Rapson concludes that melting polar ice has started to disrupt the North Atlantic current. He contacts Jack, whose paleoclimatological weather model shows how climate changes caused the first Ice Age. His team, along with NASA meteorologist Janet Tokada, builds a forecast model.
Across the world, violent weather causes mass destruction. U.S. President Blake authorizes the FAA to suspend all air traffic due to severe turbulence. At the International Space Station, three astronauts see a huge storm system spanning the northern hemisphere, which soon develops into three massive hurricane-like superstorms. The eyes of these storms hold temperatures of ?150 °F (?101 °C), instantly freezing anything they come into contact with. The three cells are located over Canada, Scotland, and Siberia, but will affect the entirety of their respective continents within days.
In Manhattan, New York City, Jack’s son Sam learns of the worsening weather while participating in an academic decathlon. Although he promises to be on the next train home, flooding quickly closes the subways and Grand Central Station just as a megatsunami generated by the freak storm hits Manhattan. Sam and a large group of people seek shelter in the New York Public Library, but not before his girlfriend, Laura Chapman, cuts her leg. In Scotland, Rapson and his colleagues at the Hedland Centre perish in the European superstorm.
Blake orders the evacuation of the southern United States, with most refugees heading for Mexico. Jack and his team set out for Manhattan to find Sam. Their truck crashes just north of Philadelphia, so the group continues on snowshoes. En route, Frank falls through the glass roof of a snow-covered shopping mall. As Jason and Jack try to pull him up, the glass under them continues cracking and Frank sacrifices himself by cutting the rope. Meanwhile, most of the group taking shelter in the library leaves when the water outside freezes, leaving just Sam, his friends, and a few others. They burn books to stay warm and break into a vending machine for food. Laura appears to have a cold, so Sam confesses his feelings for her to provide comfort. At the U.S. refugee camp in Mexico, Becker learns that Blake’s motorcade got caught in the superstorm; with Blake dead, Becker becomes the new President.
The next morning, Sam’s group determines that Laura has blood poisoning from the cut on her leg, so Sam and two others search for penicillin in a derelict Russian cargo ship that drifted inland. The eye of the North American superstorm passes over the city, freezing it solid, and the three barely return to the library with the medicine in time. Jack, also in the eye with an unconscious Jason, narrowly escapes the super-freeze himself in an abandoned Wendy’s restaurant.
Days later, as the superstorms dissipate, Jack and Jason finally reach New York, finding Sam’s group alive. They radio this to the government-in-exile in Mexico and Becker orders search-and-rescue teams to look for other survivors as he gives his first address to the nation. The film concludes with the astronauts looking down at the Earth from the ISS, showing most of the northern hemisphere covered in ice and snow; one of the astronauts remarks, “Look at that…have you ever seen the air so clear?”
David – Gravity
Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney
Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a biomedical engineer aboard the NASA space shuttle Explorer for her first space mission, STS-157. Veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) is commanding his final mission. During a spacewalk to service the Hubble Space Telescope, Mission Control in Houston warns the team about a Russian missile strike on a defunct satellite, which has inadvertently caused a chain reaction forming a cloud of debris in space. Mission Control orders that the mission be aborted and the crew begin re-entry immediately because the debris is speeding towards the shuttle. Communication with Mission Control is lost shortly thereafter.
High-speed debris from the Russian satellite strikes the Explorer and Hubble, detaching Stone from the shuttle and leaving her tumbling through space. Kowalski, using a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), recovers Stone and they return to the Explorer. They discover that it has suffered catastrophic damage and the rest of the crew is dead. They decide to use the MMU to reach the International Space Station (ISS), which is in orbit about 1,450 km (900 mi) away. Kowalski estimates they have 90 minutes before the debris field completes an orbit and threatens them again.
En route to the ISS, the two discuss Stone’s home life and her daughter, who died young in an accident. As they approach the substantially damaged but still operational ISS, they see that its crew has evacuated in one of its two Soyuz modules. The parachute of the remaining Soyuz has deployed, rendering the capsule useless for returning to Earth. Kowalski suggests using it to travel to the nearby Chinese space station Tiangong, 100 km (60 mi) away, in order to board a Chinese module to return safely to Earth. Out of air and maneuvering power, the two try to grab onto the ISS as they fly by. Stone’s leg gets entangled in the Soyuz’s parachute cords and she grabs a strap on Kowalski’s suit, but it soon becomes clear that the cords will not support them both. Despite Stone’s protests, Kowalski detaches himself from the tether to save her from drifting away with him, and she is pulled back towards the ISS while Kowalski floats away to certain death. He continues to support her until he is out of communications range.
Stone enters the ISS via an airlock. She cannot re-establish communication with Kowalski and concludes that she is the sole survivor. A fire breaks out, forcing her to rush to the Soyuz. As she maneuvers the capsule away from the ISS, the tangled parachute tethers prevent it from separating from the station. She spacewalks to release the cables, succeeding just as the debris field completes its orbit and destroys the station. Stone aligns the Soyuz with Tiangong but discovers that its engine has no fuel.
After a poignant attempt at radio communication with an Eskimo–Aleut-speaking fisherman on Earth, Stone resigns herself to being stranded and shuts down the cabin’s oxygen supply to commit suicide. As she begins to lose consciousness, Kowalski enters the capsule. Scolding her for giving up, he tells her to rig the Soyuz’s soft landing jets to propel the capsule toward Tiangong. Stone then realizes that Kowalski’s reappearance was not real, but has nonetheless given her the strength of will to continue. She restores the flow of oxygen and uses the landing jets to navigate toward Tiangong on momentum.
Unable to maneuver the Soyuz to dock with the station, Stone ejects herself via explosive decompression and uses a fire extinguisher as a makeshift thruster to travel the final metres to Tiangong, which is rapidly deorbiting. Stone enters the Shenzhou capsule just as Tiangong starts to break up on the upper edge of the atmosphere. Stone radios that she is ready to head back to Earth. After re-entering the atmosphere, Stone hears Mission Control, which is tracking the capsule. But due to a harsh reentry and the premature jettison of the heat shield, a fire is starting inside the capsule.
After speeding through the atmosphere, the capsule lands in a lake, but dense smoke forces Stone to evacuate immediately after splashdown. She opens the capsule hatch, allowing water to enter and sink it, forcing Stone to shed her spacesuit and swim ashore. Ryan then watches the remains of the Tiangong re-enter the atmosphere and takes her first shaky steps on land. Meanwhile, NASA tracks down the crash site of Ryan’s landing capsule, and proceeds to send a rescue team in hopes of finding her.
Keith – Armageddon
Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Owen Wilson, Will Patton, Peter Stormare, William Fichtner, Michael Clarke Duncan, Keith David, Steve Buscemi.
Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid 6 miles (9.7 km) in diameter strikes the Earth, creating a massive extinction event that wipes out 70% of life on the planet, including the dinosaurs. Ejecting trillions of tons of dust into the atmosphere, it blocks out the sun, which eventually leads to the extinction event. It is stated an impact like this “happened before, it will happen again.”.
In the present day, a massive meteor shower destroys the orbiting Space Shuttle Atlantis and bombards a swath of land from the U.S. East Coast from South Carolina through Finland, particularly causing massive damage and casualties in New York City. NASA discovers that a rogue comet passed through the asteroid belt and pushed forward a large amount of space debris including an asteroid the size of Texas (roughly 600 miles (970 km) in diameter). The asteroid will collide with Earth in 18 days, causing an extinction event that will even wipe out bacteria. NASA scientists, led by Dan Truman, plan to trigger a nuclear detonation 800 feet (240 m) inside the asteroid to split it in two, driving the pieces apart so both will fly past the Earth. NASA contacts Harry Stamper, considered the best deep-sea oil driller in the world, for assistance. Harry travels to NASA with his daughter Grace, to keep her away from her new boyfriend and one of Harry’s drillers, A.J. Frost. Harry explains he will need his team, including A.J., to carry out the mission. They agree to help, but only after their list of unusual rewards and demands are met.
NASA plans to launch two specialized shuttles, Freedom and Independence, to increase the chances of success; the shuttles will refill with liquid oxygen from the Russian space station Mir before making a slingshot maneuver around the Moon to approach the asteroid from behind. NASA puts Harry and his crew through a short and rigorous astronaut training program, while Harry and his team re-outfit the mobile drillers, “Armadillos”, for the job.
The destruction of Shanghai by an asteroid fragment forces NASA to reveal the asteroid’s existence, as well as their plan. The shuttles are launched and arrive at Mir, where its sole cosmonaut Lev helps with refueling. A major fire breaks out during the fueling process, forcing the crews, including Lev, to evacuate in the shuttles before Mir explodes. The shuttles perform the slingshot around the moon, but approaching the asteroid, the Independence’s engines are destroyed by trailing debris, and it crashes on the asteroid. Grace, aware A.J. was aboard the Independence, is traumatized by this news. Unknown to the others, A.J., Lev, and “Bear” (another of Harry’s crew) survive the impact and head towards the Freedom target site in their Armadillo.
Meanwhile, Freedom safely lands on the asteroid, but overshoots the target zone, landing on a much harder metallic field than planned, and their drilling quickly falls behind schedule; in desperation, the military initiates “Secondary Protocol” to remotely detonate the nuclear weapon on the asteroid’s surface, despite Truman and Harry’s insistence that it would be ineffective. Truman delays the military, while Harry convinces the shuttle commander Colonel Willie Sharp to disarm the remote trigger. Harry’s crew continues to work, but in their haste, they accidentally hit a gas pocket, blowing their Armadillo into space and losing another man. As the world learns of the mission’s apparent failure, another asteroid fragment devastates Paris.
All seems lost until the arrival of the Independence’s Armadillo. With A.J. at the controls, they reach the required depth for the bomb. However, flying debris from the asteroid damages the triggering device, requiring someone to stay behind to manually detonate the bomb. The crew draw straws, and A.J. is selected. As he and Harry exit the airlock, Harry rips off A.J.’s air hose and shoves him back inside, telling him that he is the son Harry never had, and he would be proud to have A.J. marry Grace. Harry prepares to detonate the bomb and contacts Grace to bid his final farewell. After some last minute difficulties involving both the shuttle engines and the detonator, the Freedom moves to a safe distance and Harry manages to press the button at the last minute while experiencing flashbacks of happy times in his last moments. The bomb successfully splits the asteroid, avoiding the collision with Earth. Freedom safely returns to Earth, and the surviving crew are treated as heroes. A.J. and Grace get married, with photos of Harry and the other lost crew members present.
David – Apollo 13
Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, and Ed Harris.
On July 20, 1969, astronaut Jim Lovell hosts a house party where guests watch on television as Neil Armstrong takes his first steps on the Moon. After the party, Lovell, who had orbited the Moon on Apollo 8, tells his wife Marilyn that he intends to return to the Moon and walk on its surface.
On October 30, 1969, as Lovell conducts a VIP tour of NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building, his boss Deke Slayton informs him that he and his crew will fly the Apollo 13 mission instead of Apollo 14. Lovell, Ken Mattingly, and Fred Haise train for their new mission. Days before launch, Mattingly is discovered to have been exposed to rubella, and the flight surgeon demands his replacement with Mattingly’s backup, Jack Swigert, as a safety precaution. Lovell initially resists breaking up his team, but relents when Slayton threatens to bump his crew to a later mission. As the launch date approaches, Marilyn has a nightmare about her husband’s safety, but goes to the Kennedy Space Center the night before launch to see him off.
On April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 Flight Director Gene Kranz gives the go-ahead from Houston’s Mission Control Center for launch. As the Saturn V rocket climbs into the sky, an engine on the second stage cuts off prematurely, but the craft reaches its Earth parking orbit. After the third stage re-fires, sending Apollo 13 to the Moon, Swigert docks the Command/Service Module Odyssey with the Lunar Module Aquarius and pulls it away from the spent stage.
Three days into the mission, the crew sends a live television transmission from Odyssey, which the networks decline to broadcast live. After Swigert performs a standard housekeeping procedure, one of two liquid oxygen tanks explodes, emptying its contents into space and sending the craft tumbling. The other tank is soon found to be leaking. Mission Control aborts the Moon landing, Lovell and Haise hurriedly power up Aquarius as a “lifeboat” for the return home, and Swigert shuts down Odyssey before its battery power runs out. In Houston, Kranz rallies his team to come up with a plan to bring the astronauts home safely, declaring “failure is not an option”. Controller John Aaron recruits Mattingly to help restart Odyssey for the final return.
As Swigert and Haise watch the Moon pass beneath them, Lovell laments his lost chance of walking on its surface, then turns their attention to the business of getting home. With Aquarius running on minimum electrical power, the crew suffers freezing conditions. Swigert suspects Mission Control is unable to get them home and is withholding this from them. In a fit of rage, Haise blames Swigert’s inexperience for the accident; Lovell quickly squelches the ensuing argument. When carbon dioxide approaches dangerous levels, an engineering team quickly invents a way to make the Command Module’s square filters work in the Lunar Module’s round receptacles. With the guidance systems on Aquarius shut down, and despite Haise’s fever and the miserable living conditions, the crew succeeds in making a difficult but vital course correction by manually igniting the Lunar Module’s engine.
Mattingly and Aaron struggle to find a way to power up the Command Module with its limited available power, but finally succeed and transmit the procedures to Swigert, who restarts Odyssey by transferring extra power from Aquarius. Jettisoning the Service Module, the crew finally sees the extent of the damage. They prepare for re-entry, unsure whether Odyssey’s heat shield is intact (if it is not, they will be incinerated). They release Aquarius and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere in Odyssey. After a tense, longer-than-normal period of radio silence due to ionization blackout, the astronauts report all is well and splash down in the Pacific Ocean. Recovery helicopters bring the three men aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima.
As the astronauts receive a hero’s welcome on deck, Lovell’s voice-over describes the events that follow their return from space—including the investigation into the explosion, and the subsequent careers and lives of Haise, Swigert, Mattingly, and Kranz—and ends with him wondering when mankind will return to the Moon.
There you have it – our top 10 disaster films! What did you think? Are any of them on your list? Were we anywhere near close to yours? We want to know what you are thinking. If you have any suggestions of any top 10 list, we want to hear it it! It could be on any topic! Just email us or comment below. We spoke about this list in full detail on podcastunlimited.com episode 89. Listen to the episode now, or download it so you can listen to it later.
If you want to see our list of Honorable Mentions, check out the list at our sister blog.
AJ, I got just five words for you: Damn glad to see you boy!
-†he Engeineer
“Flirtin’ with disaster, y’all damn sure know what I mean,” – Molly Hatchet, “Flirtin’ With Disaster” – The Editor