Is "Twister" a realistic portrayal of what tornado-chasing scientists like Joshua Wurman do?
"By Hollywood standards - and that's a big caveat - I didn't think it was that scientifically bad," Wurman said recently by cellular phone, as he and University of Oklahoma colleagues chased tornadoes in south-central South Dakota.In the movie, the characters "drive around like we do, looking for tornadoes." But does the film exaggerate?
"They get close to four tornadoes in one day, and we're lucky if we get four tornadoes in a season," Wurman said. "And we certainly don't drive into them. We stay a mile away."
Yet the film's computer simulations of the inside of tornadoes were mostly realistic, the scientist says.
"I look at it this way - if I were a lion expert, I would have been horrified by `Born Free,"' Wurman said. "But if you're not, it's a pretty good lion movie."