How is "10.5?"

[CalebHayes]

I'm out here in the west where we are going to see ourselves fall into the pacific ocean in about 25 minutes. So fill me in, how is it?

[JVS]

1. It fucking ROCKS!

[earthside]

8. Oh, Boy ...

Thirty minutes left to go here in Denver ... It is HORRIBLE.

For an 'end of the world' catastrophe show, it is really pretty comical ... that's why I am still watching as I get tomorrow's edition of www.earthside.com ready to upload.

[Renew Deal]

13. lol

You are bad. :evilgrin:

[radwriter0555]

34. Really? it put me to sleep. My kid and I were laughing over the

opening sequence and the predictable, boring, bad director, lousy production values.

We fell asleep.

[Renew Deal]

45. I was laughing my ass off when I heard about the Nukes.

I just thought that was too funny. We knock down asteroids with nukes. Now we stop earthquakes with Nukes. We even used Nukes against the aliens in Independence day. We are nuke crazy.

:nuke:

[Fenris]

2. If you have any knowledge of geology, terrible!

But quite fun if you love awful movies like I do. The worse the better.

[Vogon_Glory]

10. Bigger Worry: Yellowstone Lava Chamber

Supposedly there's a huge magma chamber under Yellowstone which, if it every erupts, will devastate most of the Intermountain West and spew clouds of ash as far east as Iowa.

If it wasn't for the fact that such an eruption would kill tens of thousands and have as devastating climatological effects as Sagan's "Nuclear Winter" or worse, it might almost be something to wish on Republican Red states.

[Eurobabe]

37. ooooh yeah i saw that on supervolcanoes

discovery special. scared the crap outta me.

[LynzM]

55. Read about that.

Scary stuff, if that's true. Another thing that makes a lot of our worries look pretty inconsequential..

[sfwriter]

38. Yellowstone is NOT exploding...

I spoke to a ranger from there at the Petrified Forrest who said it was silly to think Yellowstone was about to explode. He went through all the strange deaths and occurences there and told me of at least one other incidence in his memory. He said this stuff happens there all the time and we'd have a real warning if the pressure started building.

[fearnobush]

3. It better not be true, we those electoral votes!!!

Not bad but was rather cheesy, bad camera angles etc.

[Supormom]

7. Yes, I'm sure Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell

are praying for the day that California slides into the ocean!

[SW FL Dem]

4. 2 parter and cheesy

It was entertaining, but I might forget to watch the ending. FWIW I lived in the LA area for the 94 Northridge quake.

[LostInAnomie]

5. Isn't a 10.5

impossible?

[CalebHayes]

12. I kinda thought that too, until this movie

[Renew Deal]

14. Why would it be impossible?

The planet could implode. Anything's possible.

[derby378]

54. Not necessarily

I think the Richter scale measures energy release from the shock. 10 is the gold standard for widespread devastation, but I think a modified scale is used to measure "starquakes" on the Sun and other stars. On a neutron star, one such starquake could possibly register on the Richter scale as an unthinkable 25.

[Warpy]

6. Trash wallow

Turn off your brain and watch the cheesy effects.

[Ilsa]

9. I thought the miniature with the train

looked really bad -- like I could have done that in my kids' bedroom. The Golden Gate Bridge scenes were pretty good, though.

Sometimes they zoom in and out really fast for close-ups, and it's too obvious with the camera work. Camera work shouldn't make me dizzy or get me thinking about it. Predictable story. Looking forward to the big one in part two. Just to see the special effects.

[Archae]

11. From the previews for tommorow night...

It looks like Los Angeles will finally be cleaner than it's ever been. :evilgrin:

[doc03]

15. If this really happened

How would Bush* blame Clinton and what country would we invade to retaliate?

[TrogL]

16. The space needle collapsed incorrectly

We learned from the twin towers - concrete structures come straight down.

[Renew Deal]

18. Not in Hollywood.

They collapse whichever way the money is. Kinda like republican congressmen.

[TrogL]

23. More buildings falling over

in the preview for tomorrow.

[Kitsune]

17. This movie is actually painful to watch.

And I actually LIKE watching awful movies. X_X

[Beaker]

22. steve johnson had a GREAT review in the chicago trib...

he basically agrees with you- the movie is too bad to even be considered "campy" as a bad disaster movie.
he Hated it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0405010211may01,1,6705039.story

Beware the afterschlock
Serious fault lines in NBC's mini-series `10.5' may move viewers to cheer for the quake

...There's nothing so good as a bad disaster movie, but this one, for all the determined camera shaking and model train and bridge breaking, is way too intent on personal bickering among characters you wish would fall into the abyss already, too lackadaisical in the writing, the filming, the acting and the effects.

Sure, you could build a drinking game around the many times one character issues patently false reassurance to another, and you would get very drunk indeed. But it would be, by the end of "10.5," an angry, embittered kind of drunk.

It's too bad, because, as many of its specifics show, this could have been a camp classic:

- As President Beau Bridges learns of the crisis, he determines it needs a public face. He decides, in what the script treats as a daring gesture, that it'll be his old buddy Roy Nolan (Fred Ward). Later, we learn that Nolan is not a country lawyer or even the Education Secretary. He is the head of FEMA.

- A child character actually says, "I just hope the ground stops shaking so dad can come home."

- Earthquakes seem to disrupt the space-time continuum. At one moment during the film, it's nighttime in Washington state, but late afternoon down the coast in California. Similarly, Nolan seems to be in Washington, D.C., in one scene, Los Angeles in the next.

- The California governor decides to hold her news conference on the quakes in San Francisco.

- In perhaps the cruelest practical joke ever perpetrated by a nation, the government sets up an "evacuation camp" for people fleeing the coast right on a major earthquake fault. Another fault runs exactly along a train-track line, even as it curves, so that we can see the train trying to outrun the split in the earth behind it.

- The movie has TV news spell the state of military control in California "Marshal law," apparently thinking it has something to do with the U.S. Marshals service. With this movie, though, you can't be sure the writers weren't thinking the term derived from the Marshall Plan and misspelled even their misconception.

- In the president's speech to the nation, he neglects to tell the people exactly why he is evacuating California or what he wants them to do.

- Current technology, in the filmmakers' view, does not allow the military to drill more than one deep hole simultaneously.

- As California threatens to rupture and people flee willy-nilly, a reporter goes on TV and says, "Resources appear to be strained." Credibility too.

It is in yet another of the false reassurance scenes, though, that a character delivers the perfect motto for this movie. Says a mother to her worried child, "You just forget about what you saw on TV."

There's nothing shaky about that logic...

[derby378]

53. Marshal Law

I think the "10.5" in the title refers to the grade on the scriptwriter's spelling test...

[TXlib]

19. I'm a physics/astronomy geek

I know little about geology/geophysics, however, but there were a number of things that struck me as odd.

I don't have the background to evaluate how much of the scientific dialog was mere technobabble, but I heard it was significant.

Anybody know of a geology version of http://www.badastronomy.com?

[pmbryant]

28. If 'badgeology.com' doesn't exist yet, it may soon...

I read an article a week or two ago that mentioned how upset serious earthquake geologists are with the misrepresentations in this movie.

So perhaps one of them will start up a "badgeology.com" website soon (if someone hasn't already).

--Peter

[LibertyLover]

43. Bad Geology

Yes, there is indeed a badgeology.com website. It was very interesting.

[RobertSeattle]

20. Grrrrr....Why wasn't it filmed in High Def?

I wanted to see the Space Needle fall in 1080i!

[hunter]

35. I think it was filmed in High Definition...

But then they reduced it so they could do all those weird zoom and frame effects in the editing room.

BTW, as an amateur geologist (with a great deal of university work to back that up) this movie is very painful to watch, but I felt it was my duty -- my kids wanted to see it, and I knew people would be asking me about it.

Anyways, it is my highly educated opinion that having the President do a rain dance in a chicken suit and throwing the publicity agents of a few "virgin" pop stars into a volcano would be far more effective than nuclear bombs for stopping these earthquakes. Another possibility would be having every "Fear Factor" participant, past and present, streak naked through Hollywood, but only if the FCC allowed this to be shown on national television without blurring out anyone's "naughty" bits, which isn't going to happen, so better the President put on his chicken suit and dance in some undisclosed location, and who cares about the smoked publicity agents.

So tonight I expect to see Godzilla Himself bubbling up out of the bay and marching down Santa Monica Blvd towards Los Angeles.

Wouldn't that be cool? Especially if Dick Cheney was in town for a fundraiser, and Godzilla ate him and all his $5000 a plate supporters, and then Godzilla got sick and puked them all out, drowning in electric sparkling vomit the people at NBC and General Electric who approved this movie.

[doc03]

21. The only thing that can save us is a nuclear warhead!

Is this country bomb crazy or what? Every problem can be solved with a bomb!

[VelmaD]

31. It's a bad ripoff of a good book...

"8.4" about using a nuke to defuse a series of quakes along the New Madrid Seismic Zone in the Eastern half of the country.

That book is a much better way of spending your day than watching this schlock. :)

[Torgo Johnson]

24. Will Maynard finally gets his wish ?

"Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away
Any fucking time, Any fucking day
Learn to swim, See you down in Arizona bay"

[dryan]

25. really really bad!!!

Turned it off when the stock "angry teenage girl" -- daughter of California Governor -- starts shreaking when her father's car is encased in sand!

[VelmaD]

32. Tool ROCKS!

Nice to see another Tool fan on DU. :hi:

[mouse7]

26. So bad it made "Volcano" look like a documentary. n/t

[Renew Deal]

27. The NY earthquake movie was better.

[TrogL]

29. I haven't watched network TV in ages

It's absolute ridiculous.

Three minutes worth of movie, followed by ten minutes worth of commercials.

No wonder they had to spread it out over two days.

[Bertha Venation]

30. some lousy writing but interesting theories/concepts -- and the opening

EQ sequence? I could almost feel it.

[Delano]

33. Boring and totally implausible.

Mostly the entire thing has been boring exposition and "character development" involving totally uninteresting characters. When the cyclist is trying to get away from the space needle, all I could think was "The thing is very long and thin. Why are you escaping in a path directly under where it is obviously going to fall? Why don't you just veer to the right? I swear, he had like FIFTEEN seconds to make a break for it. What can you expect from a guy who's so obnoxious, he jumps over paperboys with his bike while they're working, scaring the shit out of them.

The train REALLY looked fake, and the way the crack chased it was pretty stupid. I also loved the way they used little snippets of real footage of Marina District damage from the Loma Prieta quake in '89, but didn't even bother with any SFX of the damage to the SF skyline. Apparently the bridge is all that matters in SF...

[hunter]

39. "Apparently the bridge is all that matters in SF..."

Shhhhhh, the bridge is gay... naked Iraqi prisoners, the "left coast" destroyed, science mocked...

It's Viagra all around at the White House tonight!

[Eurobabe]

36. i can't believe i watched it

totally cheesy. should have watched the sopranos.

[robertpaulsen]

40. I want to see all the characters DIE!

It is godawful, atrocious writing, pretentious directing and overacting so painful it's hard to watch. Good CGI put to bad use in the hands of an uncreative mind. If the director realized what a piece of cheese this is, he would have had the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge whip out and splatter that damned helicopter into the Bay.

[fudge stripe cookays]

41. Here's a theory-- tell me if you've heard it....

I was listening to some comedian or commentator several years ago, and they said that THE most common phrase used in adventure/drama/disaster movies nowadays is "Come On! Let's Go!"

I've tested this theory out in watching many movies over the last few years, and I've come to the conclusion it's correct.

Titanic? Yup, it's there. Racing through corridors filled with water, Leo utters these immortal lines.

Numerous Schwarzenegger movies? Why, of course! See for yourselves!

And in 10.5-- in SF City Hall while everyone's trying to escape-- there it is!

Watch other movies for this quirky phrase. It's everywhere!

FSC

[LibertyLover]

42. 10.5

My husband and I watched the first part of it Sunday night. Predictable characters: noble, misunderstood scientist, noble father trying to forge a relationship with his teenaged daughter, spoiled blonde teenager who becomes a bit noble, noble governor holding up under tremendous pressure not knowing if her spoiled blonde teenaged daughter is alive, noble . . . but I digress.

Anyway, it was ok to pass the time between putting the toddler down to bed and putting the dogs out for one last evening run before bedtime.

I remember back in 1969 or '70 there was all the hype about California going to fall into the sea. One of the television stations (can't remember which one) had a special on it and the geologists said it could not happen. Then in college, my geology prof. explained further that because the way the North American plate and the Pacific plate were moving, lateral rather than subduction, that it was next to impossible that California would fall into the sea.

The part in 10.5 about them finding fault lines they didn't know about however is true. Just recently I believe geologists found a rather large fault directly under Los Angeles that they had not known about.

[Astarho]

44. Things I learned from this movie

- Earthquakes will prey on trains (must be similar to how tornados prey on trailer parks).

- When the governor decides to make a speech, she can fly to another city (ah hell, she's still seems to be better then The Governator).

- When the gas erupts from the river, make sure your gas mask is secure before you drive away from it.

- When the Space Needle is falling on you, try to outrun it (rather then turning to the left or right, or running underneath to go in the opposite direction to get away.)

- When the scientist proposes the crazy theory, it's probably right.

- When the smart-ass doctor proposes a more dangerous procedure, he's probably right.

- There's nothing a bomb can't fix.

- When you see much of the road has been destroyed it's probably still OK to drive over.

- when you have asthma problems, loosing the inhaler is a pretty sure bet.

- California sure looks a lot like Vancouver.

- Maximum Bob is now the president? Where's his mermaid show wife?

- So this is why John Schneider hasn't been on as much Smallville lately.

Feel free to add anything else anyone learned.

[Renew Deal]

46. That's a terrific summary.

:yourock:

[Cush]

47. Couple of additions

- Earthquakes will prey on trains (must be similar to how tornados prey on trailer parks).

They will also only oocur right under the track (and follow it perfectly) And when the train falls into the crack, the quake will immediately stop.

- When the scientist proposes the crazy theory, it's probably right.

The head hancho will immediately dismiss the new theory, and when proven wrong, he/she will apologize and say that he/she should have trusted the person. This of course, leads the person to getting whatever they want

[Renew Deal]

49. Including a suicide mission.

[Astarho]

48. A few more

- When the disaster hits, the only one the President can count on to head up the task force is the head of FEMA.

- Every disfunctional family is healed by facing the disaster together.

- You have choice of what you need more: Inhaler or Radio. Pick the radio.

- A massive 8+ or 9+ quake causes deep gas pockets to erupt , but triggers no volcanic eruptions.

- The White House has a basketball court (I may have read that somewhere else but forgot it.)

- The dead family had their radio playing loud enough to be heard through several feet of dirt, a good thirty feet away in a dust storm. No wonder they're dead. They wouldn't have heard anything coming.

[Zomby Woof]

50. a black govt helicopter

Is still the safest place to be during a quake. :-)

[MikeG]

51. My solution. Crazy Glue. Lots and Lots of Crazy Glue.

Then everybody stand on the fault till it drys.
If that doesn't work. Duct Tape.

[fudge stripe cookays]

52. Bwa ha ha!

n/t