User:Stephenfisher2001/sandbox/10.5

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.

Plot
The West Coast of Northern America suffers an unprecedented series of major earthquakes in a matter of days, puzzling seismologists, including Dr. Jordan Fisher's team. His maverick assistant Samantha Hill comes up with a theory, which they confirm on site, that a deep tectonic rift links them and is likely to sink most of California into the Pacific. The only imaginable countermeasure are subterranean nuclear explosions. Three succeed, one rather causes a new problem. Meanwhile, federal and other authorities as well as various people wrestle with side-effects like landslides and cope with huge refugees exodus.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) The premise is just about a 10.5 earthquake destroys everything in its path, but in reality, it would've caused a massive tsunami, something that is not depicted in the movie.
 * 2) Horrible acting from Kim Delaney, and Beau Bridges, and non of the characters are memorable.
 * 3) The whole storyline is lame and laughable.
 * 4) There are several geographies, and factual errors everywhere, that the scientist didn't do any researches whatsoever.
 * 5) *The Space Needle falls towards the side with the steps leading up to the base, which is the north side. It falls along a street in between brick buildings. The Space Needle actually has a football stadium, roller coaster, and an opera house to the direct north of it.
 * 6) *Barstow, California is about 110 miles inland from the Pacific. It is not in the San Fernando Valley as depicted.
 * 7) *The San Andreas Fault would not split apart, since it is a transform plate boundary, when two plates grind past each other. Only a divergent boundary would split apart as shown, and those only occur in the ocean apart from an area on land where two plates are pulling apart, this being the Great Rift Valley in Africa. What's more, that the San Andreas fault is very incapable of suffering an earthquake measuring 10.5 on the Richter scale (100 times as strong as the largest earthquake ever recorded). The Richter scale measures strength as a function of fault length, and the fault in question is far too short to generate such a massive jolt (which would be felt all over the world).
 * 8) *When Dr. Samantha Hill and FEMA Director Roy Nolan are placing the warheads at the six sites for detonation, the computer screen identifying the geographical location of the Washington State warhead actually has the Washington State warhead being placed and detonated in Oregon.
 * 9) *During the movie characters continue to use cell phones in disaster areas. In a real disaster they would not work however. This is because cell phone towers, which relay the signal, would be out either because they were destroyed in the disaster or because the power would be out after the disaster.
 * 10) Horrific, and laughable CGI effects, especially the Golden Gate Bridge.
 * 11) The soundtrack was decent, but it wasn't as memorable as it is.
 * 12) There are two plot holes, such as the opening scene with the stunt biker, we see him riding his bike during the earthquake. When the Seattle space needle tower leans over and collapses on his way to try to escape it, it's implied that he got crushed by the Seattle space needle tower, it's unknown if he survived the crash or not as we never hear from him again,
 * 13) *Neither the second earthquake crack swallows up the train tracks along with the train, the train is buried in the cracks with people on board, it's unknown if the passengers survived the train crash or not or if the rescue team even sent rescue helicopters with the rescue workers to save them or not as we never hear from them again.

Reception
The film was widely ridiculed by both reviewers and geologists, but nevertheless, it received respectable Nielsen ratings. On IMDb, it has a 4.8/10 rating. In response to the airing of 10.5, the Southern California Earthquake Center added a section to their website about the science depicted in the film. Referring to it as "a miniseries with major errors", the site lists various events that occur during the film and explains why they are incorrect.