If there’s one thing Hollywood loves more than a dramatic tornado scene, it’s a good old-fashioned romantic moment amidst the chaos. Think about it, how many times have we seen characters lock lips while the world literally crumbles around them? A fiery explosion in the background? Perfect time for a kiss. A natural disaster tearing through a small town? Love is in the air. It’s practically a cinematic rule at this point.
So when fans got word that a certain passionate smooch was missing from the upcoming Twisters movie, and what did the internet do? Blame Steven Spielberg. Yes, the legendary filmmaker, known for bringing dinosaurs to life and making us all afraid of going into the ocean, was suddenly the villain of romance. But hold on to your flying cows, folks. The truth is about to shake things up faster than an F5 tornado.
Steven Spielberg is the romantic we don’t deserve
Turns out, Steven Spielberg wasn’t the kiss-blocker fans thought he was. In fact, he was rooting for the romantic moment just as much as anyone else. According to Twisters director Lee Isaac Chung, not only did they film the kiss, but Spielberg himself was all for it. He clarified in an interview (via collateral2004),
That was not true. We shot it. Spielberg wanted the kiss, too. He was like, ‘I hope this works!’ We tested the film, and we were just finding that it was super polarizing. Normally, I want to say don’t be a coward… but this was a tough one. There was a giant team involved, the studios, everybody, and there were quite a lot of people who were doubtful about whether there should be a kiss in this movie. But it was not Spielberg. He’s a romantic like I am.
See? As fate would have it, the kiss ended up being super polarizing during test screenings. Apparently, not everyone wanted romance swirling in the middle of tornadoes. So, in true Hollywood fashion, the moment was swept away, much like a small-town gas station in a high-speed windstorm.
To kiss or not to kiss is the age-old Hollywood debate
This entire Twisters kiss controversy raises an important cinematic question, why is romance suddenly polarizing? Audiences have embraced on-screen smooches in the most ridiculous settings, space battles, zombie apocalypses, even while hanging off the edge of a sinking ship. But Twisters? Too much, apparently.
Maybe it’s because disaster movies have evolved. Back in the ‘90s, films like Twisters, Armageddon, and Dante’s Peak effortlessly balanced mass destruction with romance. But in today’s world of hyper-realistic CGI and gritty storytelling, perhaps audiences just want their tornadoes pure, with no added romance, just good ol’ flying debris and high-stakes survival.
Or maybe, just maybe, people were worried that a passionate kiss in the middle of a massive storm might be a little, well, impractical. Whatever the reason, one thing is clear, Spielberg wasn’t the bad guy here. The romance wasn’t sabotaged by a Hollywood legend, but rather by a test audience that just wasn’t feeling the love.
So the next time you find yourself blaming Spielberg for something missing in a movie, remember that he was probably on your side all along, secretly hoping for a little more romance in the middle of the chaos.
Twisters can be streamed on Peacock.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
