Film Theory: How to Make A REAL Sharknado!

Aaaaggghhh!! Ah, the art of cinema. ♫ ♫ ♫ Music ♫ Hello Internet! Welcome to Film Theory where I got tired of writing jokes so I decided to

make

a video about Sharknado where jokes write themselves. (video): Don't

make

fun of my stool again. Oh

real

ly? "Sharknado 2: The Second"? "Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!"? Wow just wow. But in all seriousness, with April Fool's "Insert Number" a few weeks ago, I thought it was the perfect time to cover this ridiculous franchise and I assure you, it IS ridiculous. Not since "The Room" had I seen a movie so bad that it took the world by storm.

Get it? "Storm"? I can't say which is worse this week, my jokes or the movie. For those of you who are too serious to appreciate a terrible sci-fi movie first, why are you watching this channel? and in particular this video? Second, get that stick out of your ass bro and third, let me recap the plot for you. There are sharks. And a tornado. The end. "Shark Swim". This is not rocket science. In all seriousness though, the first Sharknado is about a hurricane sweeping up the Pacific coast and pushing all the sharks in front of it. The hurricane hits Los Angeles, a city that was not prepared for so much rain and the streets are flooded, allowing sharks to swim through the city.

The hurricane's winds kick up tornadoes that obviously suck up thousands of sharks and proceed to launch them like deadly-toothed missiles all over Hollywood. Chaos and bad acting ensues. (

film

clip): They took my grandfather. This is why I

real

ly HATE sharks. However, as stupid as it sounds at the time, this movie got everyone talking about it, including big business. The Insurance Information Institute says that a shark-filled disaster would certainly be covered in most homeowners' insurance plans. I'm not making this up! The first movie was so popular, there have been 3 made and a fourth is on the way this summer that it got me thinking, "Is any of this possible?" If the director of the first

film

is to be believed, the answer is a resounding No.

When asked about the film's realism, director Anthony C. Ferrante said, quote-unquote. You know that reminds me of something Werner Herzog once said Well fuck you Werner! I'm excited to see if the tornado force winds can launch sharks through south central Los Angeles, okay? Go talk some more about crazy penguins. Question of the Day: Is Sharknado Really Bad Science? I think you and Anthony C. Ferrante will be a bit surprised. First things first, animals falling from the sky is a real thing that happens in the world. It is not a joke! It is a rare meteorological phenomenon known as "animal rain".

And it's exactly what it sounds like: animals that fall like rain from the sky. Frog showers have been reported in places like Australia, Japan, and Hungary, while worms have been reported in Louisiana. Spiders have even been known to rain down in Brazil, which is perhaps the scariest sentence I've ever written for this show. "Rain of spiders". ooh! yuck! And here I thought that the political corruption of Brazil was the scariest thing that was happening there at the moment. But as rare as these things are, fish rain is a much more common occurrence. With multiple reports in India, Australia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia with reports of fish rain occurring in January this year.

Since the year 2000 there have been ten locations around the world where fish rains have occurred and in Honduras it has apparently occurred every year for over a century. Yeah! Brings new meaning to the phrase "flying fish." Sometimes the animals are frozen or covered in ice, but other times, yes, they are alive. Startled, yes, but still kicking or tumbling, in the case of the fish, or spreading terror through the streets of Brazil. Oh, it's rain of spiders! Now I can expect what you're thinking: "How, how is this a thing?" I'm serious, this sounds ridiculous like Sharknado levels of ridiculous, but here's the kicker: Scientists aren't really sure why it happens.

Way to drop the ball there, science! It's raining fish from the sky, and you're not at all motivated to solve that mystery? What are you doing?! Gah, forget about the scientists, someone call Boxcar Children. They will solve the mystery the case of the "Rain of Trout" or something like that. That being said, scientists have a couple of theories. Weather Theories! The most popular is that, you guessed it, tornadoes pick up animals and carry them away. Tornadoes are called waterspouts, tornadoes that form over land and then move toward the surface of the water. These weather phenomena are powerful enough to pick up any number of aquatic animals and move them great distances over land.

Interestingly, the Sharknado writer was aware of this phenomenon. In an interview with Gawker, the writer of Sharknado Thunder Levin yes, Thunder is his real name. Which, now that I think about it, if you're the writer of Sharknado, feels appropriate. It would almost be funnier if the author of the Sharknado name was Greg Smith. Anyway, Thunder said the following, quotes, final quotes. You know, now that I think about it, this whole thing really gives new meaning to the phrase "it's pouring with rain." With that being said, now that everyone is curious, there have been no reported cases of actual cats or dogs raining from the sky.

It's okay, CatPat, you're safe. For now... Okay, there have been records of animals taken in by extreme weather conditions in the past, but I guess the next question is is it possible for something like this to come to Los Angeles? Not that hurricanes and tornadoes hit the west coast of the United States that often, right? Well... while we mostly hear about hurricanes hitting the East Coast or the Gulf of Mexico, they are not entirely unheard of in Southern California. That being said, they are very rare. Weather conditions and water temperatures in the Pacific make tropical storms and hurricanes hitting the California coast an unlikely event, but again, not impossible.

If you go back to 1858, you'll find a full-fledged, unweakened hurricane hitting Los Angeles. So who knows, it could happen again. El Nino is a thing after all. Meanwhile, tornadoes aren't as rare in California as you might expect. Although most tornadoes occur west of the Rocky Mountains, there were eight that touched down in Los Angeles County between the years 2000 and 2012. In the past sixty years, there have been a staggering 42. Know that the weather conditions featured in Sharknado may plausibly exist, but picking up small fish or spiders is one thing. Picking up a shark is a whole new ball game.

Unsurprisingly, they usually weigh a LOT more than fish. Blue sharks are small, weighing between 60 and 450 pounds. Mako sharks have an average mass of 610 pounds. Tiger sharks have an average weight of about 980 and great white sharks, which feature in Sharknado, are some of the largest, weighing between 1,500 and 2,400 pounds. That's a lot of sharks to pick up and throw at an Ian Ziering with a chainsaw. Man, Ian, did you ever think that Beverly Hills 90210 would lead to something so cheesy? (Show clip): This new piece is a little more in tune with who I am. (clip): ♫ Don't buy condoms.

Buy Countex. ♫ (clip): ♫ There's a big difference ♫ Uhh, okay. Less CGI, equal amounts of cheese. Classic 90s teen dramas aside, does a tornado have the ability to pick up objects that size? Well, first, we need to quickly go over how the power of tornadoes is classified. To do that, meteorologists use what is known as the Fujita scale. I'll let the movie "Twister" explain. (movie clip): It's the Fujita scale. Measure the intensity of a tornado by how much you eat. (clip): Do you eat? Now, that may sound like stupid movie talk, and the first time I heard this quote I thought, "This is complete movie crap!" But it's actually correct.

In fact, the scale is based on how much the tornado "eats", in quotes. Or rather, how much damage does the tornado cause? First developed by Theodore Fujita of the University of Chicago in 1971, the Fujita scale has categories for tornadoes of all shapes and sizes. Everything from F0, little ones that reach speeds of just 73 miles per hour up to F5. "Twister", what do you have to say about F5 tornadoes? (clip): Is there an F5? (clip): These monsters go up to 318 miles per hour. They're the ones who can rip houses off their foundations and smash them up in the air or, you know, make cows fly. (clip): Now let's take another look at the data from the Los Angeles area Project Tornado.

Most tornadoes that occur in this part of the United States don't have a range, or are ranges 0 and 1. With numbers this low, you might think they aren't capable of much damage, but F1 tornadoes can blow. cars around. That's a mighty wind! But not powerful enough. They don't really have the strength to lift one off the ground. However, if we keep looking, five of the Los Angeles tornadoes have been ranked #2 on the Fujita scale. These tornadoes are capable of reaching winds of 157 miles per hour enough to lift cars off the ground and launch them. In 2010, the average new car weighed around 4,000 pounds.

A tornado capable of launching something like that could easily launch great white sharks at Tara Reid. Which means we have multiple tornadoes that have hit Los Angeles County, and they've also been strong enough to lift even the heaviest sharks, so a

sharknado

is theoretically plausible. But let's get really detailed. There is a final factor that we have not investigated. Would sharks be alive? Don't get me wrong: a tornado itself would scare me. A tornado hurling dead animals at me would be more than enough to make me pee my pants. But a tornado throwing LIVE sharks at me?

Oh man! To hell with California, I'm moving to Brazil! Oh wait, no, rain of spiders. Canada, here I come!! Much of the fun of the movie is that the sharks are alive when they go in to chew up our heroes in that one special effects budget we didn't have, this is made for TV. some kind of movie. Presumably all these sharks would suffocate, right? Like other fish, sharks breathe using their gills. They swim with their mouths open, which allows water to pass through their gills and their blood vessels to draw oxygen from the water. So in a tornado, they'd be out of luck, right?

MISTAKEN. It is logical to assume that a tornado that rotates over water and picks up sharks will also be strong enough to pick up water. In fact, Bill Patzert, a climatologist interviewed about the film, has stated that it stands to reason that a shark COULD survive such a scenario. There would be enough water in the tornado to keep it alive. So, there you have it! Based on the research, it's plausible that Los Angeles could be hit by a tornado strong enough to pull sharks and the water around them out of the ocean. And anyone who's been to Los Angeles during a storm knows that those streets will be flooded in about five minutes.

Oh really. All of that said, if we're being completely honest, the premise behind Sharknado is just plain absurd. So many improbable things would have to happen for it to be a reality. I guess you could say it will happen when pigs fly, to which I reply, "No." "When Sharks Do It!" But hey, that's just a

theory

. A CINEMA

theory

! Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy... cut it! ♫ in the rain of spiders. ♫ ♫ Rain of spiders, rain of spiders ♫ Get these MOTHER shaaark! IN' SPIDERS off my MOTHER SHARK! IN TORNADO! That was a terrible impersonation of Samuel Jackson. I swore he wouldn't do any more impressions.