The Day After Tomorrow/Headscratchers

• Americans say that Australia got a Typhoon. a) Americans call them Hurricanes b) Australians call them Cyclones. So why the heck do they use the asian name for them?
  • "Typhoon" refers to Pacific hurricanes in general, including ones that hit the American Pacific Coast, so the average American would probably use that word to describe one hitting Australia. (This might not actually be the correct technical distinction between Typhoon/Hurricane, but it seems to be the general belief among East Coast Americans where I live)
• In the party scene at the school. Why the heck does Sam's name tag say 'Hello my name is Yoda'?
  • Probably to show that his character has a sense of humor.
    • Or what passes for one in this movie.
• Is it even possible for two twisters to join like that? Beside each other their sides would be going opposite ways. I would have thought that would have made them clash and cancel each other out. (Genuine question by the way.)
  • Yes, it's possible, but not very common.
  • Actually, two tornadoes in proximity to one another would spin around each other, often close enough to appear to be just one fat funnel, like a wedge tornado. In these cases, the stronger vortex will sometimes starve the weaker vortex of its energy source and kill the weaker vortex, or both will survive and get stronger.
• How the hell do they use a wood and paper fire to stop a wave of air so cold it makes ice crystallize on stone walls and freezes a human in seconds?
  • How does Sam's dad do the same thing with a tiny little gas stove?
  • And better yet, why were they burning the paper instead of all the wooden furniture that would burn hotter & longer?
    • This is true, although to it's credit you do see them breaking chairs ONCE. And that was several days before the eye of the storm.
    • I've just watched, albeit not terribly carefully, but the breaking chairs I noticed wasn't being done to burn them. They were after the backs as snow-shoes to get over to the ship...
• I find it odd from a film making perspective, that at 1 million a (bad-looking) wolf, they went for using C.G.I wolves rather than real, trained wolves which would be better looking and cheaper.
  • They couldn't get the O.K. from the local authorities to bring in real wolves because of some disease, iirc.
• Why are they huddling for days and days in a library when there's a perfectly good abandoned freighter floating down the street from them? Ships have things the library doesn't... such as diesel generators, climate control, long-range radios, food supplies, and beds. And yet nobody considers the freighter as anything other than a possible source of medical supplies. Given that a later part of the plot has two guys making a round trip to the freighter and back without even taking a rest break, and being chased by wolves aside, I'd say the odds of them successfully making the trip were somewhere around "one out of one".
• *BANG* goes the forehead at the part where our class full of honor students and science geniuses actually had the gall to act surprised that someone who'd gashed their leg while standing hip-deep in New York City sewer water might get an infected wound. And yes, they knew about it -- she had to tell at least one other person in order to get the help necessary to bandage her leg. Furthermore, given that she herself is one of those gifted students it's asinine that she doesn't know damn well that her wound is at high risk of becoming infected and thus she should alert all the others to the possibility, if not try and find some alcohol to pour in the wound or something.