10.5 (TV series)
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| 10.5 | |
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| Directed by | John Lafia |
| Produced by | Gary Pearl Lisa Richardson |
| Written by | Christopher Canaan John Lafia Ronnie Christensen |
| Starring | Kim Delaney Beau Bridges John Schneider Dulé Hill Fred Ward Kaley Cuoco |
| Distributed by | NBC & USA Networks (USA) |
| Release date(s) | May 2, 2004 (USA) |
| Running time | 165 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | Unknown |
| IMDb profile | |
10.5 is a 2004 film directed by John Lafia and released as a television miniseries in the U.S.A. The plot focuses on a series of catastrophic earthquakes along the United States' west coast, culminating in one measuring 10.5 on the Richter scale. In an attempt to prevent further damage, the characters race to "weld" the fault closed, using nuclear bombs.
10.5 was widely derided by both reviewers and geologists; nevertheless, it received respectable Nielsen ratings. Reuters reported that 20.4 million viewers watched the television movie[citation needed].
A sequel, 10.5: Apocalypse, was planned to be released in November, 2005, but NBC delayed the release until May 21 and 23, 2006.
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[edit] Plot
The beginning of the film shows a biker riding through the Seattle area. As he jumps over a man refilling newspaper stands, the stands tremble and newspapers start falling out. The biker realizes that a large earthquake is underway and desperately tries to postpone his landing. Meanwhile, Dr. Samantha Hill is awoken by an earthquake. At the Earthquake Center, the magnitude of the earthquake is being recorded. The scene returns to the biker, who has stopped under the Space Needle, whose legs are succumbing to elongating cracks traveling up the landmark. The biker speeds away to get out of the way of the falling Space Needle, but dust and shadow engulf the biker and the audience is left to assume he dies.
Back at the Earthquake Center, the quake is recorded as a 7.9. Dr. Hill goes to the Center and takes command, displacing the dismayed Dr. Jordan Fisher. Another quake arrives, which most people think is an aftershock, but it is larger in magnitude than the original quake. Dr. Hill's Hidden Fault Theory is then explained.
The scene then moves, to a game of basketball between President Paul Hollister and Roy Nolan. President Hollister points out that when Nolan is in a desperate position in the game, he takes the long shot. This statement becomes important later in the film. The president's aide, Sean Morris (John Cassini), enters the gym and informs the president of the situation. At a local hospital, doctors Zach Nolan (Roy Nolan's son) and Owen Hunter performing surgery. Nolan shortcuts his way through the surgery, risking the patient's life but saving him some scar tissue and a pint of blood. Hunter complains about Nolan's never asking for help.
An 8.4 earthquake causes an entire train outside of Redding, California to be literally dragged underground. As a result, Governor Carla Williams, who had just seen her daughter and her ex-husband off on a camping trip, agrees to help the Governor of Washington.
Following yet more earthquakes, and on the President's instructions, Roy Nolan constructs a task force of the best geologists and seismologists. The team includes Drs. Fisher and Hill. Dr. Hill brings up her Hidden Fault theory, which is received sceptically. When Nolan starts to realize that Hill might be right, she is given permission to prove her theory. She and Dr. Fisher visit a lake, where they see some dead animals with no visible cause of death, until Dr. Hill realizes that they have been poisoned. The two sprint back to the car to get gas masks, but Dr. Fisher passes out. Hill frantically searches and eventually finds them, putting them on both herself and Fisher.
Back at the Task Force Center, Dr. Hill predicts that the next quake will be in San Francisco. When she brings the proof and prediction to Nolan, he deems it too risky to evacuate the entirety of San Francisco, but when Dr. Hill's prediction proves accurate and San Francisco is destroyed by a 9.2 earthquake, Nolan is remorseful and contacts the President, doubtful of his (Nolan's) ability to handle the job. Also in San Francisco were Governor Williams and her assistant Rachel.
After a journey complicated by roadblocks and off-road detours, Amanda and Clark Williams arrive at Browning, where everything is covered in a thick red haze. Clark and Amanda, despite Amanda's asthma, emerge from the car and descend into the pit that used to be Browning, curious after they hear country music coming from it. Clark digs until he finds the source of the music: a car with a dead family in it. They drive back, trying to get home, but they get stuck in sand and start to be sucked into the ground. Amanda climbs out the window halfway in the sand. Clark is buried, and Amanda screams and cries, thinking her father is dead. A few moments later, a flashlight erupts from the sand; it is Clark. He climbs out, with difficulty.
Dr. Hill hypothesizes that they could "weld" the fault shut by letting it experience immense heat - the only way she knows how is to do this is by way of nuclear bombs. This is the end of the first half of the movie, in which we see what all the characters are doing.
At the start of the second half, Nolan and others are preparing to install the first of seven nuclear bombs at correct depths to "seal" the fault. The first six go smoothly, but during the installment of the seventh an earthquake occurs, and they lose a warhead. Nolan asks if he can set it manually, and the answer is yes. Nolan goes down to do it, but is pinned by the warhead when an aftershock hits. He calls the president to say he failed, and the President urges him to "make the long shot". Nolan replies "Not this time, buddy, not this time". He then calls his son to say that he is sorry for being so distant and that he loves him. Zach Nolan, meanwhile, is at the refugee camp, "Tent City".
The Williams find a truck carrying survivors, and they are also transported to Tent City. In a wounded San Fransisco, Carla Williams and Rachel are trapped under a wall. Rachel admits that she and her husband Jim had a horrible fight. She asks Carla to tell Jim that Rachel loves him and wants to have a family with him. The two women are found a few minutes later. Carla wakes up in a hospital in Arizona and discovers that Rachel has died.
Deciding that nothing can be done about the lost seventh warhead, Dr. Hill decides to continue with the fault welding plan. They detonate them all, and when it is time to detonate the sixth, the seventh is activated. They then blow up the sixth and seventh.
It seems to work, until they see that a river is flowing backwards. It turns out that the river is draining into the fault, which didn't seal. Then an earthquake strikes right in Tent City. It climbs higher and higher on the Richter Scale, with Sean Morris narrating events to the president and the audience. The earthquake reaches its peak of 10.5. Clark and Amanda Williams run away from the rushing water. Dr. Hill and Dr. Fisher run amid the panic, until a tower falls on Dr. Fisher, injuring his leg. Owen Hunter joins his family and they escape. Zach Nolan rescues a little girl. When Fisher collapses, the earthquake stops with water just short of their feet. They stand up to see that the western coast of California has been cut away.
The scene focuses on the west coast "island", and zooms out until you see the earth from space, in which the California coast and the island are distinctly separated. The movie ends with the president speaking.
[edit] Cast
- Kim Delaney : Dr. Samantha "Sam" Hill
- Beau Bridges : President Paul Hollister
- John Schneider : Clark Williams
- Dulé Hill : Owen Hunter
- Fred Ward : Roy Nolan, FEMA Director
- David Cubitt : Dr. Jordan Fisher
- Kaley Cuoco : Amanda Williams
- Iris Graham : Zoe Cameron
- Sean Morris : John Cassini
- Ivan Sergei : Zach Nolan
- Rebecca Jenkins : : California Governor Carla Williams
- Kimberly Hawthorne : Jill Hunter
[edit] Landmarks whose destruction were depicted in the film
- Space Needle (Seattle, Washington)
- Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco, California)
- Hollywood Sign (Los Angeles, California)
- U.S. Bank Tower (Los Angeles, California)
- All of Los Angeles
[edit] Location(s)
- Seattle, Washington
- Los Angeles, California
- Barstow, California
- San Francisco, California
- Sierra Nevada, California
- Bloomington, California
- Washington D.C.
[edit] Geological errors
- Geologists are depicted as able to accurately predict earthquakes over very short intervals of time.
- Nuclear explosions cannot "seal" faults. The opposite idea was used in the 1978 film Superman, in which a nuclear bomb was used to activate San Andreas. Both plot devices are considered faulty.
- The legs of the Space Needle are shown as concrete; they're actually steel.
- In the film, geologists come to believe an earthquake is only an aftershock when they can't find an epicenter. In real life, aftershocks have epicenters.
- To create a 10.5 earthquake, the fault needed would have to stretch around the entire globe.[1]The San Andreas is only large enough to produce a 9.1 earthquake, which is less than one-tenth the strength of a 10.5 quake.
- When the Seattle Space Needle collapses, it falls on another building. This building, both intact and unreinforced, would likely have collapsed long before the Space Needle.
- An earthquake fault is depicted as rivaling a train's speed, although fault ruptures occur at speeds topping 7,000 miles per hour.[2]
- The San Andreas Fault, contrary to popular belief, is not a fault that can break apart, like this movie shows.
[edit] Alternations and misspellings of names and words
- During a news broadcast in the film, "martial law" is misspelled as "marshal law."
- Since the filmmakers never received permission to use the term "Space Needle," which is trademarked, it is spelled "Spaceneedle" in the film.
- For the British release, the film was retitled Earthquake 10.5.
[edit] Other notes
- The film basically ignores the state of Oregon, with every earthquake depicted in the film taking place in either Washington or California. This is probably due to Oregon's lack of famous landmarks.
- Beau Bridges would later play Hank Landry in Stargate SG-1, starring alongside another female scientist named Samantha who goes by "Sam" (Amanda Tapping's Samantha Carter).
- Some people believe the film is unintentionally campy and can be enjoyed as a comedy.
- In one scene, John Schneider drives his 4WD vehicle off the road and through some woods. You can hear him say "I forgot how much fun this was", probably a reference to his character Bo Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard.
- The television footage of the Seattle earthquake used in 10.5 was actually from the Northridge Earthquake of 1994, involving the collapse of the Golden State Freeway and CA-14 freeway, and the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989, involving the fires of the Marina District and the Cypress Freeway Interstate 880.
- Although the earthquakes depicted in 10.5 cannot happen at their proposed strength it is interesting to note that there is a real giant fault running from the coast of northern California to British Columbia named the Cascadia subduction zone that, if ruptured, could unleash a 9.0 magnitude earthquake that would devastate the area and cause similar damage to Seattle as that portrayed in the film. A 10.5 earthquake could only be caused by the impact of a large meteorite.
[edit] Reference
- ^ 10.5 (HTML). 10.5 - Separating Fact from Fiction (2004). Retrieved on 2007-03-13.
- ^ "From BBC Science". Retrieved on 2007-02-20.
[edit] External link
- 10.5 at the Internet Movie Database
