[reading screen text] [blood spurting]
Aaaaggghhh!! Ah, the art of the cinema. ♫ [intro theme] ♫ ♫ Music ♫ Hello, Internet! Welcome to Film Theory where I got sick of writing jokes, so I decided to do a video on Sharknado where the jokes write themselves. (video): Don't you ever make fun of my stool again. Seriously? "Sharknado 2: The Second One"? "Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!"? Wow, just... wow. But in all seriousness, with April Fool's just
[robot voice] "Insert Number" weeks ago I thought it was the perfect time to cover this ridiculous franchise and let me assure you, it IS ridiculous. Not since "The Room" have I seen a movie so bad take the world by storm. Get it? "Storm"? I can't tell what's worse this week, my jokes or the movie. [boing boing boing] For those of you who are too serious to appreciate a terrible SciFi movie first, why are you watching this channel? and in particular this video? Second, get that stick outta your butt, bro and third, let me recap the plot for ya. There are sharks. And a tornado. The end. "Shark Nado." This isn't rocket science. In all seriousness though, the first Sharknado is all about a hurricane that sweeps up the Pacific coast driving all the sharks in front of it. The hurricane hits Los Angeles, a city unprepared for so much rain and the streets flood, allowing sharks to swim through the city. The winds of the hurricane kick up tornadoes which then obviously suck up thousands of sharks and proceed to launch them like deadly toothy missles throughout Hollywood. Chaos, and bad acting, ensue. (movie clip): They took my grandfather. That's why I really HATE sharks. Yet, for as stupid as it seemed at the time, this movie had everyone talking about it including big companies. The Insurance Information Institute says that a shark-filled disaster would indeed be covered in most homeowners' insurance plans. I'm not making that up! The first movie was so popular, there have been 3 made and a 4th is on the way this summer which got me thinking: "Is ANY of this possible?" If the director of the first film was to be believed, the answer is a big No. When asked about the realism of the film, director Anthony C. Ferrante said, quote end quote. You know that reminds me of something Werner Herzog once said Well screw you, Werner! I'm passionate about seeing whether sharks can be launched by tornado-force winds through south central Los Angeles, mmkay? Go talk some more about insane penguins. Question of the day: Is Sharknado truly bad science? I think you, and Anthony C. Ferrante, are gonna be a little surprised. First things first, animals falling from the sky is an actual thing that happens in the world. No joke! It's a rare meteorological phenomenon known as "raining animals." And it's exactly what it sounds like: animals falling like rain from the sky. Raining frogs have been reported in places like Australia, Japan, and Hungary while worms have been reported in Louisiana. Even spiders have been known to rain in Brazil which is, perhaps the single most frightening sentence I have ever written for this show. "Spider Rain." [shudder] oohhh! ugh! And here I thought Brazil's political corruption was the scariest thing going on down there right now. [ba-dum ching]
But for as rare as these things are raining fish is a much more common occurrence. With multiple reports in India, Australia, the Phillippines, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia with reports of fish rain happening as recently as January of this year. Since 2000 there have been ten locations around the world where fish rain has happened and in Honduras apparently it's happened every year for over a century! Yeah! Brings new meaning to the phrase "flying fish." Sometimes the animals are frozen or encased in ice but other times, yeah, they're alive. Startled, to be sure, but still kicking or flopping, in the case of fish or wreaking terror through the streets of Brazil. Augh, it's spider rain! Now I can expect what you're thinking: "How - how is this a thing?!" I mean seriously, 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! Fish rain from the sky, and you're not the least bit motivated to solve that mystery? What are you DOING?! Gah, forget scientists, someone call the Boxcar Children. They'll solve the mystery the case of the "Trout Shower" or something. That said, scientists do have a couple of theories Meteorological Theories! The most popular one is that - you guessed it - tornadoes pick up the animals and carry them. They're called tornadic waterspouts, tornadoes that form over land then move over to the surface of the water. These weather phenomenon are powerful enough to pick up any number of aquatic animals and move them great distances over land. Interestingly enough, the writer of Sharknado was actually aware of this phenomenon. In an interview with Gawker, Sharknado writer Thunder Levin yes, Thunder is his real name.
[hard-rock guitar] which, come to think of it, if you're the writer of Sharknado, feels appropriate. It'd almost be funnier if the writer of Sharknado's name was like, Greg Smith. Anyway, Thunder said the following, quote, end-quote. [hard-rock guitar]
You know, come to think of it, all this really gives new meaning to the phrase "raining cats and dogs." That said, now that you're all 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, so animals being picked up by extreme weather has been recorded in the past but I guess the next question is whether it's possible for anything like that to hit Los Angeles. It's not like hurricanes and tornadoes hit the west coast of the United States all that often, right? Well... while we mostly hear about hurricanes hitting the east coast or the Gulf of Mexico they aren't entirely unheard of in southern California. That 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 then again, it's not impossible. If you go all the way back to 1858, you'll find a full-blown unweakened hurricane hitting Los Angeles. So who knows, it could happen again. El Niño's a thing after all. Meanwhile, tornadoes aren't as uncommon in California as you might expect. Though tornadoes mostly happen west of the Rocky Mountains there've been eight that have touched down in Los Angeles County between the years of 2000 and 2012. In the last sixty years, there've been a staggering 42. So at the very least we know that it's possible for the weather conditions presented in Sharknado to plausibly exist but picking up small fish or, ugggh, 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, ranging anywhere between 60 to 450 pounds. Mako sharks have an average mass of 610 pounds. Tiger sharks have an average weight of roughly 980 and great white sharks, the ones taking the starring role in Sharknado are some of the biggest, weighing in between 1500 and 2400 pounds. That's a lot of shark to scoop up and launch at a chainsaw-wielding Ian Ziering. [chuckle] Man, Ian, did you ever think that Beverly Hills 90210 would lead you to something this cheesy? (show clip): This new piece is a little more in tune with who I am. (clip): ♫ Don't buy condoms. Buy Condex. ♫ (clip): ♫ There's a big difference ♫ Uhh, okay. Less CGI, equal amounts of cheese.
[guitar riff from 90210 theme] Classic 90's teen dramas aside, does a tornado have the ability to pick up objects of that size? Well first, we need to quickly go over how the power of tornadoes is categorized. To do that, meteorologists use what's known as the Fujita scale. I'll let the movie "Twister" explain. (movie clip): It's the Fujita scale. It measures the intensity of a tornado by how much it eats. (clip): Eats?! Now that might sound like stupid movie talk, and the first time I heard this quote I thought, "this is utter movie garbage!" But it's actually correct. The scale is indeed based off of how much the tornado quote-unquote "eats." Or, better put, how much damage the tornado causes. 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 - small ones that reach speeds of only 73 miles per hour to F5. "Twister," what do you have to say about F5 tornadoes? (clip): Is there an F5? (clip): [multiple silverwares dropped onto table] These monsters get up to 318 miles per hour. They're the ones that can pick houses clean off their foundation and shred them in mid-air or, you know, cause cows to fly.
(clip): [mooo] Now let's take another look at the Tornado Project's data from the Los Angeles area. Most of the tornadoes happening in this part of the United States either don't have a rank, or are the ranks 0 and 1. With numbers that low you might think that those aren't capable of doing much damage but F1 tornadoes can blow cars around. That's some powerful wind! But just not powerful enough. They don't really have the strength to pick one up off the ground. If we keep looking though, five of the Los Angeles tornadoes have been ranked 2 on the Fujita scale. These tornadoes are capable of reaching 157 mile per hour winds enough to lift cars off the ground and throw them around. In 2010 the average new car weighed around 4,000 pounds. A tornado capable of tossing something like that around would easily be able to launch great white sharks at Tara Reid. [thud, squeak against glass]
Which means that we have several tornadoes that have hit L.A. County, and have also been strong enough to lift even the heaviest of sharks so theoretically, a sharknado is plausible.
[ding] But let's get really detailed. There's one final factor we haven't looked into Would the sharks be alive? Don't get me wrong - a tornado itself would freak me out A tornado launching dead animals at me would be more than enough to get me to pee my pants But a tornado launching LIVE sharks at me? Oh man! Screw California, I'm moving to Brazil! Ah, wait, no, spider rain.
Canada, here I come!! So much of the fun of the movie is that the sharks are alive as they get launched chomping on our heroes in that unique we-didn't-have-an-effects-budget this-is-a-made-for-TV-movie sort of way. Presumably all these sharks would suffocate, right? Like other fish, sharks breathe by using their gills. They swim with their mouths open, which allows water to pass over their gills allowing their blood vessels to extract oxygen from the water. So in a tornado, they'd be out of luck, right? WRONG.
It's logical to assume that a tornado spinning over the water picking up sharks, is also going to be strong enough to pick up water. In fact, Bill Patzert, a climatologist interviewed about the movie has stated that it stands to reason a shark COULD indeed survive such a scenario. There'd be enough water in the tornado to keep it alive. So, there you have it! Based on the research, it is plausible that Los Angeles could be hit with a tornado one strong enough to lift sharks, and the water around them, out of the ocean. And anyone that's been in Los Angeles during a rainstorm knows those streets are flooding in like, five minutes. Seriously. All that said, if we're being entirely honest, the premise behind Sharknado is simply absurd. So many unlikely things would have to happen in order to make it a reality. I suppose you could say it'll happen when pigs fly to which I respond, "No."
[whoosh] "When sharks do!" But hey, that's just a theory. A FILM theory! Aaaannd... cut! ♫ in the spider rain. ♫ ♫ Spider rain, spider rain ♫ [applause and cheers] Get these MOTHER shaaark! IN' SPIDERS outta my MOTHER shaark! IN' TORNADO! That was a terrible Samuel Jackson impersonation. I swore I wouldn't do impressions anymore.
Amazingly, Game Theory Rejects managed to unintentionally predict this episode.
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I HAVE to ask: is it GeT_RiGhT who runs into that lake in the intro?