MovieChat Forums > Twister (1996) Discussion > Jamie Gertz character

Jamie Gertz character


Was she even needed?

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I agree. Both she and Jonas seem to exist solely for plot purposes. It's clear her character was intended to function through the eyes of the audience for exposition about tornadoes, whic is quite lame.

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Lamer than scientists explaining to each other things they should already know?

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Well she really served no other purpose to plot other than to ask questions about tornadoes so the audience would be filled in. She wasn't needed in the slightest nor was the love triangle which amounted to nothing. It's easy to have the scientists explain in casual talk about the subject.

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Of course she did. It's not even the love triangle. Bill Paxton came into the movie a changed man. He was domesticated and wanting out of the life, then he slowly fell back into the life. It was more like a love square as he was more in love with the chase and slowly realised it.

A large chunk of the movie is devoted to that and his character arc and Jamie Gertz is a key character in this sub plot.

You're saying the Bill Paxton character arc is unneeded as well?

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I think the whole divorce/romance subplot wasn't really necessary for a movie like this anyway. Both her and Jonas were just those kind of characters that exist simply to move the story in a certain direction and don't really contribute a whole lot to the actual plot itself.

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So the whole Bill Paxton character arc is pointless?

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Paxton could have been written in anyway. Subplots that aren't that big aren't necessary for this type of movie.

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So you're saying remove character depth from the lead player, and a whole plot element.

Hey let's just have the main characters as cardboard cut outs? Let's remove all the side characters as they serve less purpose than Jamie Gertz.

Let's remove the Twister and have a black screen. It's uneeded.

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Why don't you shut up? I can have my own judgments about what is needed and not needed for an action movie. You're just one of those nerds that politicize everything around you.

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That's one way to lose a debate.

So you want less character depth, character development and plot.

I think Tic Toc would be a better option for you than movies. Or get a strobe light and stare at it for 2 hours. You will be highly entertained.

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I actually would have appreciated more character depth than the movie showed. This movie certainly didn't feel all that character or story driven to me, especially with a simple-driven premise such as trying to study tornadoes. They could have done better with the Melissa and Jonas characters if they were really necessary to the plot.

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Obviously we watched a different movie if you didn't feel that Twister was character driven.

Maybe you were staring at Tik Tok between scenes until the action came on screen?

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Shut up. Titanic was character driven. Twister was just exciting action and special effects. The characters, subplots, and writing are inferior.

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"Shut up" ha haaa

Twister was just exciting action and special effects and characters, character arcs.

The chasing tornadoes is secondary to the Bill Paxton character arc and relationship with Helen Hunt. Ya know, the two LEADS of the movie. Most of their dialogue centres around this, in between "there's the Twister chase it", and even then those scenes all contribute to his arc, and their relationship. Ya know, character depth.

You really think that beating Karl Ewes and putting the balls into the eye of the storm are the most interesting parts of the movie? They're just side plots man.

Question:

What do you think the audience is most invested in?

Getting the balls to go into the eye of the storm?

Or the Bill Paxton relationship with Helen Hunt and him getting back into the life?


Gotcha.

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Why do you care what I think? It's simply about chasing tornadoes. There could have been a different number of ways to do it. The writing was simply up to point for the way they chose to do it. You must like the attention I am giving you. I simply stated my opinion.

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Why do you propose that I care what you think? Are people not allowed to "discuss" movies on a discussion board for movies?

You've contradicted yourself multiple times. You clearly haven't watched this movie or paid attention between flicking through tic tok stories.

>It's simply about chasing tornadoes.

Shawshank Redemption is simply about a wrongly accused man in prison.

Jaws is just about a shark. Not much else. Brody's wife is unneeded to the overall plot of chasing the shark. We don't need to see Brodys kids, or family life, or the islanders, or island politics. It's simply a shark hunt movie. The rest they should cut out.

Dune is simply about a boy who goes to a desert planet and rides a sand snake.

Lord of the Rings is simply about a midget walking a ring to a volcano and chucking it in.

Simply a Buffoon.

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Why do you care about judging story over style so much in movies? It depends precisely on how the filmmakers want to even out the focuses of the film, and they either succeed of fail. I firmly believe this was intended to be a style over substance film (action sequences, special effects).
Filmmakers sometimes use story for the sole purpose as a plot device. Jonas, for instance, was really only in the movie so Bill and Jo would have reason to work together to try and deploy their idea and not his. You can feel entitled to whatever opinion you want, but the OP made a perfectly reasonnbly complaint that I can potentially agree with.

You are the narcissistic buffoon who can't stop arguing with me. And why are you using political judging on me? You clearly have looked into the news of TikTok being banned. It's like calling me a racist. Go to the politics forum, sad troll.

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Ha ha thanks for your very inciteful breakdown of how movies work. You have enlightened me with your rambling on.

>Jonas, for instance, was really only in the movie so Bill and Jo would have reason to work together to try and deploy their idea and not his.

Rambling again.

"The Joker was only in Batman 89 so Batman could use the Batwing and fly it around Gotham. That's the only thing the Joker added to Batman."

Look we can all make wild, lame summaries about characters, missing other key factors of why the character is in the movie, and what they add to the movie.

>I firmly believe this was intended to be a style over substance film (action sequences, special effects).

Why not both? Although not as good on the character elements as something like Jaws. It has way more character depth than say Transformers or Godzilla movies where they shoehorn in flat, cardboard cut out characters and spend the majority of the movie with them rather than the robots or Godzilla itself.

Jaws manages to weave together the thrills, and the character moments. Just like Twister which attempts to give depth and nuance to the characters (which you hate), and succeeds. Unlike Godzilla where the characters you don't care about because the writing sucks. And don't say the focus is spectacle, and it was intended. They tried to add a human angle, the writing sucked, and we spend a large chunk with the characters in Godzilla movies and their crappy story nobody cares about.

If the focus is ONLY on spectacle. Why spend the majority of the run time with the humans and their side stories?

You're looking at things in black and white and still getting it wrong. Summarise lame points all you like. Twister is a character driven movie and succeeds at that. Without the two leads and their story, the film wouldn't be half as good. Have all the CGI cows you like, and silly tornado balls, it would fail and not be remembered as well.

Like I said above:

Question:

What do you think the audience is most invested in?

Getting the balls to go into the eye of the storm?

Or the Bill Paxton relationship with Helen Hunt and him getting back into the life?

You can't answer this simple question because you know I'm right.

Makes for a better, more interesting and rewatchable movie because of the extra effort in writing, building the characters and having capable actors bring something more to the table.

You can have both you know.

But you hate that and only cardboard cut out characters are needed so we can watch a boring ass movie, with flat characters we don't care live or die and a bit of CGI in between dialogue scenes explaining the fake science.

>You clearly have looked into the news of TikTok being banned.

Whats that got to do with Twister being a character-driven movie?

>It's like calling me a racist.

For saying you consume social media?

LMAO I'm out. Cya moron.

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I love all the attention you are getting from me. You are such a narcissist. You were the one who chose to attack me because you didn't see eye to eye to my opinion. You thought I had a shit opinion and went in for the kill. Did you know countless people have opinions that you won't necessarily agree with and they aren't so blatantly open about it? Get some therapy for your egotistical brain.

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>I love all the attention you are getting from me.

Deflection. You don't seem to love it, as you're getting all riled up and emotional.

>You are such a narcissist.

You think a discussion about the inner workings of a movie is a personal attack, mate. Touch grass.

>You were the one who chose to attack me

A disagreement is not a terrorist attack on your person.

>Get some therapy for your egotistical brain.

It's a discussion about a movie on a public forum for movies. The site is called MOVIE CHAT.

Get a grip.

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Sure, but you don't have to be confrontational on things you don't necessarily agree with. You bashed me because I considered a part of the movie as not necessarily needed to be in the movie.

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boo hooo you like cardboard cut out characters with no depth.

CGI cows over character's arcs, and that's fine.

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Why do you keep complaining about what I like and don't like in the movie? No one said I had to like every single aspect of the movie. That's like telling me I shouldn't watch a movie if I like the action over the story.

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Boo Hoo!!

CGI cow
>
>
>
> Story

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Goodbye have a nice life.

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No, but it didn't bother me. It does actually give Bill a little character development before the story gets underway. It really didn't get in the way of the story

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Melissa was there, even in the original script. She was meant to be a minor foil for Jo (party of the love triangle between the 3 of them), as well as showing a "normie's" perspective on storm-chasing, particularly when stuck with nutty people like Bill and Jo, who go to extremes to get what they need for their research.

Bill would have been miserable with her for a wife and living the life they were going to have if they got married: a weatherman in Arizona. Jo even commented in the book that if they were going to live in Arizona, the sun there would turn Melissa's skin into looking like an ostrich purse.

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The shame of it is Jamie is hot but she looks very sensible shoes housewife in this film.

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She was ABSOLUTELY needed for the “I gotta go Julia we got cows” line.

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