This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on 10.5 (TV miniseries) is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
 |
This article or section has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page.
|
| 10.5 | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Disaster film |
| Running time | 165 min. |
| Distributor | NBC & USA Networks |
| Written by | Christopher Canaan John Lafia Ronnie Christensen |
| Directed by | John Lafia |
| Produced by | Gary Pearl Lisa Richardson |
| Starring | Kim Delaney Beau Bridges John Schneider Dulé Hill Fred Ward Kaley Cuoco |
| Editor(s) | Don Brochu Michael N. Knue |
| Music by | Lee Holdridge |
| Cinematography | David Foreman |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Release date(s) | May 2, 2004 |
| Followed by | 10.5: Apocalypse |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
10.5 is a 2004 disaster film directed by John Lafia which aired as a television miniseries in the United States on May 2, 2004 and May 3, 2004. 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 moviecitation needed.
A sequel, 10.5: Apocalypse was aired on May 21, 2006 and May 23, 2006.
Contents |
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 six nuclear bombs at correct depths to "seal" the fault. The first five go smoothly, but during the installment of the sixth 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" in Barstow, California.
The Williams find a truck carrying survivors, and they are also transported to Tent City. In a wounded San Francisco, 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 Nevada and discovers that Rachel has died.
Deciding that nothing can be done about the lost sixth warhead, Dr. Hill decides to continue with the fault welding plan and detonate the first five nukes. At the last second, the sixth is activated by Nolan who manages to reach the control panel just in time. Now all six nukes have been detonated and Nolan is incinerated.
It seems to work, until Dr. Hill becomes concerned about southern California. From an observation helicopter, she notices that a river is flowing backwards, draining into the open fault. The last nuke wasn't deep enough when it exploded leaving southern California still in danger. An earthquake rocks L.A., destroys the Hollywood sign and reaches the Tent City. It climbs higher and higher on the Richter Scale, with Sean Morris narrating events to the president and the audience. Suddenly a massive crack appears at a beach near Venice and runs right through Los Angeles, with it the Downtown skyline collapses along with the Hollywood sign. The massive crack continues inland with the ocean pouring down in it. Eventually the crack reaches Tent City and 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 crumbing ground stops short of their feet. They stand up to see that the southwestern coast of California has been cut away and a new island was formed.
The last scene focuses on what is left of the evacuation centers, and zooms out to a view from space, in which the California coast and the island are distinctly separated. The movie ends with the president speaking about how this disaster was a wake-up call to the world, that humans are not the masters of this planet.
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
- John Cassini : Sean Morris
- Ivan Sergei : Zach Nolan
- Rebecca Jenkins : California Governor Carla Williams
- Kimberly Hawthorne : Jill Hunter
References
External links
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 22 December 2008, at 23:03.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "10.5 (TV miniseries)".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.