It’s officially Twisters season, and frankly, as someone who grew up watching the 1996 movie Twister, like, once a month, I have never been happier.
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This new movie follows Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a former storm chaser from Oklahoma who returns home to help her friend chase a series of catastrophic storms across the state in hopes of successfully finding a way to reduce their intensity.
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While Kate is working with her friend, she meets Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), the leader of a “rival” storm-chasing group who just have fun and love to share their excitement for tornado wrangling with the world.
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Now, while this isn’t a direct sequel to Twister, aka none of the original characters appear, the new movie still finds subtle ways to pay tribute to the iconic 1996 movie. So here are just 13 details, Easter eggs, and more that connect the two movies:
1. First, in the beginning of the movie, Kate, Javi, and their team are using a version of Dorothy, a device created by Jo and Bill in Twister, as a way to learn more about tornados. The OG movie focuses on Jo, Bill, and their team trying to make Dorothy fly in order to deploy their weather sensors into a tornado.
In Twister, Dorothy IV is the one that eventually succeeds. In the new sequel, you’ll notice the device Kate and her team use says “Dorothy V” on the side.
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2. Twisters also continues The Wizard of Oz homage that Twister started with Dorothy when Javi’s Storm Par group uses the codenames “Scarecrow,” “Tin Man,” and “Lion” while setting up their new tornado scanners.
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3. Kate, Javi, Jeb, Addy, and Praveen are all students from Muskogee State College. In Twister, the school is also referenced quite a bit, with their trucks having stickers from the school on them, Dorothy I having a sticker, and Laurence even wears a T-shirt for the university.
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4. Tyler’s red truck in Twisters is a nod to Bill’s iconic pickup from the first movie, which is also red.
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Director Lee Isaac Chung, who lived in Arkansas as a young boy, recalled escaping a tornado by hiding in his father’s Dodge pickup, which is the same kind of truck seen in both films. He told Variety, “When the first Twister came out, we watched that movie together, not knowing that that scene was in the movie. I remember being locked in just because that reminded me so much of that experience we had when I was a kid.”
5. The outfits Tyler’s group of storm wranglers wear is a subtle nod to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character Dusty from Twister. You can see there’s a lot of tie-dye, oversized shirts, floral fabrics, and more, which is similar to what Dusty wore throughout the movie.
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Costume designer Eunice Jera Lee wanted to really honor Dusty and Philip’s legacy through the clothing for Tyler’s team.
Twister was one of Philip’s earliest movie roles. He sadly died in 2014 at 46 years old.
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6. After Javi convinces Kate to return to Oklahoma and help him and his team, she tells him that she’s “not back,” which is a nod to Bill consistently telling Jo and her team the same thing throughout Twister.
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Bill says it so much it has become a notable line from Twister.
7. James Paxton, the son of late-Twister star Bill Paxton, makes a cameo in the movie. He plays a motel guest complaining about the motel’s amenities as a tornado approaches. He doesn’t listen to Kate and Tyler and ends up getting swept up in the storm.
Monica Schipper / FilmMagic / Getty Images, Warner Bros
“I did this one for Dad,” James told Entertainment Weekly. He added, “It’s really a cameo, so it’s an Easter egg for the fans of Dad and the original.” This isn’t the first time James has honored his dad in a project. He also appeared as a version of John Garrett, who was played by Bill, in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Bill died in 2017 at age 61.
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Here’s a photo of young James and Bill:
James Paxton / Instagram / Via instagram.com
8. The sunflowers at Kate’s childhood home are a direct homage to the sunflower field at the very end of Twister. In fact, production designer Patrick Sullivan started working in film by helping plant the sunflowers for the original movie.
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9. While eating at Kate’s childhood home, her mom tells Tyler a story about how Kate ran outside naked when she was a little girl just to see a storm. Similarly, in Twister, while eating at Aunt Meg’s, we find out Jo’s group met Bill when he was “butt naked” near a tornado.
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10. Kate wearing a tank top, khaki overshirt, and cargo khaki pants is an homage to Jo’s signature look in Twister.
Melinda Sue Gordon / Universal Pictures / Everett Collection, Warner Bros / Everett Collection
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11. Also, Kate wears a baseball T-shirt while working with Tyler to figure out how to make her polymer work on slowing down a tornado. The shirt is a red version of a T-shirt a young boy wears at the end of Twister after surviving a tornado.
Melinda Sue Gordon / Universal Pictures / Everett Collection, Warner Bros
12. The big final tornado moment in Twisters involves the group and civilians trying to survive while inside a movie theater. In Twister, there is a memorable scene when a tornado destroys a drive-in while people are watching The Shining.
Melinda Sue Gordon / Universal Pictures / Everett Collection / Warner Bros
In Twisters, the movie theater is playing Frankenstein.
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13. And finally, one of the most iconic moments in Twister is the flying cow during a tornado. The new movie pays a subtle homage to the original moment by placing a super, super subtle flying cow during the final tornado as El Reno is getting destroyed.
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Director Lee Isaac Chung told the Hollywood Reporter, “It’s the hardest thing to spot…I only spotted it because I noticed some weird marking on a piece of flying debris.”
The VFX team apparently snuck it in, and Lee spotted it while reviewing all of the visual effects for the film during post-production.
