Twisters’ Kate shares many similarities with Helen Hunt’s Jo, however,the characters are striking opposites in one important way. Lee Isaac Chung’s disaster movie follows up on the 1996 classic and even pulls off some of the original’s greatest accomplishments.Reviews for Twisterspraise its engaging story, well-developed and charming characters, and great action sequences — making the sequel feel like a stand-alone that nonetheless honors its predecessor’s core.
Leading theTwisterscast of characters as Kate, Daisy Edgar-Jones offers a heroine as alluring as Helen Hunt’s charismatic and spontaneous storm hunter. Kate and Jo share a relentless and almost child-like passion for storm-chasing, not to mention their drive to save lives is informed by their haunted past. Like Jo, Kate’s losses take her right into the eye of the storm intheTwistersending. For these reasons, it’s easy to think of them as the same character. Although they experience some of the same defining events,Edgar-Jones and Hunt’s characters approach danger and deal with grief in opposite ways.
Twisters Gives Kate A Similar Origin Story To Jo Harding
Both Kate And Jo Lost Loved Ones In Tornadoes
Notably,Twistersuses some of the first installment’s main plot points: a tragic loss, a new and exciting return to the hunt, and romance. Kate and Jo’s past tragedies, particularly, perform as major devices that drive the narrative and give the characters rich inner conflict. Accordingly, their romantic interests come to play a key role in helping the female leads overcome their losses. In figuratively, and literally, taming the tornado,Kate and Jo thematically reverse the disastrous circumstances that took their loved ones.
Twister vs. Twisters: Which Tornado Movie Is Better
The 2024 disaster movie sequel Twisters comes 28 years after the original released, and the two movies have naturally invited comparisons.
InTwister’s opening sequence, a young Jo is taken to an underground refugee by her father and mother. Unfortunately, her father dies after being sucked by a tornado while Jo and her mom hold onto safety. Similarly, at the beginning ofTwisters, Kate is a confident and ambitious PhD student experimenting with her friends to try to decrease the moisture inside a tornado to make it collapse. In an unexpected turn of events, their chosen tornado becomes an EF5, taking the lives of three of Kate’s best friends, one being her boyfriend.
Kate Avoids Tornadoes While Jo Runs Headfirst Into Them
Actress Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kate taking a train in Twisters.
Although both Kate and Jo lose important people to tornadoes, the tragedy impacts them in opposite ways. WhileJo becomes dangerously obsessed with tornadoes, Kate wishes never to face themagain. As an adult,Helen Hunt’sTwistercharacteris presented as an unrelenting and passionate storm-chaser wanting to study the inside of a tornado in hopes of designing a better warning system. Five years after her friends’ deaths, Daisy Edgar-Jones’ character has abandoned her studies and works an office job in New York, a moderately tornado-safe city.
The 2024 movie is far more interested in Kate’s return to her calling, as it then saves many people’s lives.
As the protagonists cope with loss in unique ways,Twisterand its sequel present different healing journeys. While Jo must learn to let go and stop putting herself in danger’s way, Kate has to tame her fear and regain belief in her purpose. Notably,Twistermainly focuses on the second-chance romance between its protagonists, with Jo’s wounds being the ones that separated the couple in the first place. Isaac Chung puts romance in second place, even cutting theTwisters’ kiss scene. The 2024 movie is far more interested in Kate’s return to her calling, as it then saves many people’s lives.
Kate and Jo’s unique approach to trauma makes sense considering the specifics of the events. While one was merely a girl when her father died, the other was an adult. A longer time has passed since Jo lost her dad, which could explain why her grief doesn’t feel heavy but rather settled into her extreme personality.Unlike Hunt’s character, Kate has reasons to carry guilt about the recent incident. ThroughoutTwisters, Edgar-Jones’ character seeks to redeem herself, when in reality she must forgive herself — whereas Jo comes to accept that there are some things she can’t control or explain.
Twisters
Cast
A follow-up to the 1996 original film Twister, Twisters is a sequel set years after the original, said to be fast-tracked by Steven Spielberg and Mark L. Smith, with Frank Marshal as producer. Little details exist about the film, but Helen Hunt is expected to reprise her role as Jo, with the film likely to pay homage to the late Bill Paxton.
