User Reviews

As my job is to deal with the emergencies in disaster situations, I had found many studies regarding volcanic eruptions. At that time I hadn't seen the BBC's Supervolcano. As I found this title in my local DVD store I thought "it worths the try".

Finally, when the movie ended, I was really thrilled by what it was presented in this docu-drama film. Not the best disaster movie but far more the most realistic in all levels. The visuals were OK (its a TV miniseries so it is very impressive), direction was very good, focusing in the realistic scientific data and the people that would deal with this disaster. The most impressive about this film was that the details regarding the response were actually what all the protocols in disaster relief are predicting. Very good technical background and good study by the writer and director on how people do really react or what is their responsibility when a disaster like this is imminent and finally is evolving to a real catastrophe. Those people like the Rick or Wuendy (the FEMA woman) are really those that will decide eventually whether the impact of the disaster will be total or some lives can be actually saved. (In this point the script is great when Wendy says about the President of USA and the invasion in Mexico...perfect notation!!) Offcourse there were some small "I have seen and heard it before" moments but ID4 and the Day After Tomorrow was full of them.

As a movie, Supervolcano could easily stand in the theaters and I do hope that BBC will release a more detailed theatrical version with better CGI effects and more elaborated performances and additional footage. Imagine the sound when Mount Norris explodes in the theater with DTS or THX sound effect.

Anyway! It is a good material. People that are working in the field of Disaster Managment should see it, cause it gives a good point of view on what happens when a disaster of this magnitude actually occurs. And off course, it will happen in Yellowstone or elsewhere.

Thumbs up!! KIRKAN

I found that the show was very well done, the acting wasn't what I would have expected from that kind of TV docudrama. The information stated in the film was accurate and it was presented in a believable manner. I also liked the special effects thought I think some of the clips from the first eruption vent were taken from Dante's Peak. Anyway, I enjoyed it and I will watch it every time it's on. Not to mention Tom Brokaw at the end with his after the film documentary is a plus. I really hope that I can buy this film on DVD. My father saw a part of it when it was on Thursday on Discovery Science I think and he would really like to see the whole show.

The recent spate of educational, high budget, what if documentaries has culminated in what can basically be said as a Hollywood blockbuster with BBC values. Showing off special effect that although are impressive for a British TV program still look 5 years behind current technology. (Resident Evil anyone?) This said the interjection of fictional experts telling us directly what the science is behind the program and what we can expect is refreshing and is not patronising or smack in the face obvious as some of todays blockbusters. (Inderpendance Day, The Day After Tomorrow) The characters were at first were less stereotypical than the average but ultimately also less interesting although some great acting and casting all round. (I swear half the guest stars of Stargate SG1 appeared throughout the program) The main problem with Supervolcano and the thousands of what-could-happen-in-your-future docu-dramas is that the sheer amount of them conveys a sense that Armageddon can happen any second, especially with Smallpox 2001, The Day Britain Stood Still and any Horizon episode ever made. This leads the validity of the threat (in this case a bloody giant magma core underneath Yellowstone National Park) to be underplayed even if it is based on researched factual events.

We watched this in Geography class; the teacher is not one to fall for the spectacle of a disaster flick, and he told us that it has been confirmed by scientists that almost everything that happens in this could, indeed, occur. This is a docu-drama in two parts, each about 50 minutes and the second one starting with a summary of the first one. The plot is engaging, and this can be rather exciting and intense. There aren't really any characters that are anything less than obnoxious, though, and the acting is decent at best(the kid is downright poor, good thing he has so few lines). The FX are great. This does try a tad too hard at times(and one portion did sadly remind me of 2012, I kid you not), and the "effective quick zooms" add nothing. The music isn't bad. I would personally have preferred if the guy with the Scottish accent would talk slower, or have less crucial dialog, but that's because it was shown on a regular TV, and I was too far away to read the subtitles. The writing is solid, not all that many clichés and stereotypes made their way into the script of this. I recommend this to anyone interested in volcanoes or similar phenomena. 7/10

This was hyped up with a massive amount of trailers and one of the things I dislike about a lot of programmes these days is the hype they receive . I also noticed it was one of those very multinational productions like THE GRID so I was expecting a very mid Atlantic flavour full of bed hopping , mawkishness , action scenes , really poor dialogue and of course a happy ending but what I got was something unexpected

The first episode is a bizarre mix involving soap opera , disaster movie build up and an episode of the BBC science show HORIZON . The characters are introduced and some of them are interviewed for camera . Instantly I thought this was a mistake since the interviews are conducted in the past even ie if they are interviewed then we know they'll be seeing the final credits and won't die . However when the supervolcano erupts setting off a chain reaction of other volcanic eruptions it becomes clear that the interviewees are out of the line of fire and the ones in danger haven't been interviewed hence they might die . So much for my conclusion that we'll be having an optimistic ending . What does become clear is that the human race may suffer the fate of the dinosaurs !

SUPERVOLCANO is gripping , informative and downbeat . It's maybe not as shocking as the BBC docudrama THREADS but in its own way it's just as effective . It's not flawless , for example the special effects look a little too like CGI in some scenes and there's bits that just don't ring true like people in Britain stocking up on food and water in the face of a coming disaster , sorry but we don't do that in this country - We just sit back in an apathetic manner in front the television with a cup of tea in our hands . Brits give fatalism a bad name . If I have one serious problem then it's the fact the narrative is too short . We find out that the ash in the atmosphere has blocked out much of the suns light meaning we have a " Nuclear winter " effect whereby even at the height of Summer the Earth's temperature will cool leading to all sorts of geographical disasters like famine in the third world where millions will die but this is only referred to in passing while another effect - The collapse of the American economy and all that entails - is not mentioned at all . But despite the flaws this is a pretty good speculative drama simply because iit's all too credible

Not a bad story, very much along the lines of "The Day After Tomorrow" and considering it was financed by the BBC and some other European countries throwing in cash, the effects are pretty good. Having just watched it on BBC HD the quality of the picture is outstanding. Very strange though why the bulk of the actors are Canadian... perhaps US actors wanted too much money :-) who knows. Would guess it was shot in Canada for cheapness, with a few location shots of Yellowstone thrown in to add to the illusion. The Canadians did a good job playing Americans, and only let slip the odd "oot" sound for "out" :-) Good effort BBC.

Why can't something like this be in theaters? Supervolcano was better than most disaster movies out there. It certainly beat out Dante's Peak and Volcano due to its scientific accuracy and the fact that it can actually happen. The visual effects were outstandingly realistic. "10.5" and "The Core" looked like low-budget indie films compared to Supervolcano. Plus, it was filmed like a real movie and not in that annoying "24" style. The performances were very convincing and there was a connection felt to the characters. Bring on the movies, Discovery Channel! Documentaries are no longer the best thing you have going for you now, so don't stop!

I had assumed this was the showing of a Transatlantic import, but I started having my suspicions when British people started showing up in fairly major roles, and indeed it seems the BBC has decided to make a Hollywood-style blockbuster - even setting it in the home of all such stories, the United States.

This production struck a false note immediately by opening with what I had assumed was merely its marketing strapline: "This is a true story. It just hasn't happened yet...." This is how far the currency of drama documentaries, of "True Stories" has been debased. Supervolcano is evidently not a true story in the traditional sense that the plot is based on past events, but neither is it a true story in the sense of representing real people. It predicates certain future events based upon current scientific knowledge. That makes it (in its purest sense) science fiction.

The programme's spurious ambitions for veracity were further undermined by the first scene of the main story which showed the Yellowstone USGS Volcano Watch office's demonstration of their new volcano simulation computer - a holographic display in 3 dimensions, no less. A note to producers - if you want to impress the viewers with your reverence for scientific fact and the imminence of a potential real-world situation, it's probably best not to show technology which hasn't been invented yet! Having started badly, the programme then went downhill. One early plot point was the introduction of a panic-inducing Jeremiah with a book to plug. He is shown as the kind of guy who cherry-picks little bits of actual science and statistics to build a false picture of imminent danger in contrast to the scientifically valid and more responsible approach of the US Geological Survey. But since, of course, it turns out that the book-plugger is right, people are going to be left with the idea that the USGS and other scientific bodies are behaving with *irresponsibility*. In a mad moment of purest Hollywood, the doom merchant is revealed to be the lead USGS scientist's brother-in-law!

That is not to say that the programme didn't go on to demonstrate some good sense and good science. The best scene in the first episode was the one in which Lieberman, the USGS head honcho, explains to the Director of FEMA the full implications of Yellowstone park actually going all the way to Supervolcano status; the destruction of large segments of the United States, the wiping out of the vast croplands in the Midwest and the dangers of even 1cm of volcanic ash falling on New York - emphasised with a magnified view of a piece of said ash, very nasty indeed. (Breathe it in and it forms a cement in your lungs.) On the other hand, this scene seemed highly implausible - as if the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency would not have been fully briefed on the potential of the Yellowstone volcano on her first day on the job. The impression is also given that the USGS and the American federal government are completely unprepared for any such eventuality, as if they are just now learning about it, when in fact just the fact of this miniseries having been made indicates that knowledge of the powderkeg situation under Yellowstone must have been understood for quite a while. At the same time, the holocaust that would result is so total that it is somewhat difficult to comprehend what the USGS or indeed the Government is supposed to do about the disaster. It is, after all, going to happen one day. It's not like the guy was telling the FEMA director the potential effects of a nuclear power plant going skywards, to which the debate is about the politics of closing the plant down. It's a volcano, and with our current state of technology there really isn't anything to be done about it except get out of the way.

I guess this is my biggest bugbear about the programme - that the USGS and FEMA are depicted as shambling amateurs. This kind of attitude fuels the fire of what Isaac Asimov called "the armies of the night, the purveyors of nitwittery" - the pseudoscientific doom-mongers who pour scorn on the efforts of genuine science while hypocritically using out-of-context parts of the very science they denigrate spuriously to bolster their wild claims.

The first episode finished with the explosion we'd been waiting for, and the second episode presumably deals with the aftermath - shown in the opening flash-forward scene to have lasted at least five years. The fact that a two-hour programme only uses an hour to detail the world-altering fallout of this massive event only showcases the BBC's inability to really put the amount of money required by the subject matter into the production.

The first episode of this mini was shown on BBC1 last night, I have not yet seen the second part.

While I wouldn't consider it a blockbuster, I really didn't expect much from this movie. After watching I am very impressed. Somethings caught my eye however. Factual errors were made, but when you keep in mind that this is a British movie, not an American movie, you can accept these minor errors. All the graphics were really good, except one that looked like TV style graphics, but still good.

If you need a good disaster movie and love volcanos...this is a movie for you. The science behind it all seemed really legit. I would say they were more spot on than blockbuster movies out there. It seems like they did their homework on the science.

OK..picture yourself with a battleship sized Hoover vacuum cleaner and you suck up all of the B and C actors on the planet into one cheesy movie. That would have to be SUPERVOLCANO. Perhaps if you were a vulcanologist, you would look past the horrible script and acting, and find the theoretical possibility of the event somewhat compelling, and be able to sit through it entranced with the science of it. For the rest of the human race, I can only say that it was laughably inept. I could almost see the director holding up queue cards behind the camera saying.."OK..BACK TO THE POUTY LOOK". I wont even attempt to give spoilers. There really is nothing to spoil. It's sort of Twister meets Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. SO, unless you are really fascinated with the prospect of Yosemite blowing up a wreaking havoc on the good old US of A, I'd give it a pass.

SUPERVOLCANO

Aspect ratio: 1.78:1

Sound format: Dolby Digital

(2 episodes)

The 'true' story of an impending super-eruption beneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming which will bury 80% of the United States under clouds of choking dust and plunge the entire world into a devastating volcanic winter for years to come.

Based on meticulous research conducted over an eight-month period, this frightening drama commercializes a scenario first outlined in a documentary screened by the BBC in 2002, which drew the world's attention to a timebomb beneath Yellowstone Park. Characterizations are minimal (Michael Riley and Scottish actor Gary Lewis play concerned scientists forced to confront the reality of an impending disaster, only to meet opposition by government personnel eager to prevent mass panic), but scriptwriter Edward Canfor-Dumas describes the timeline of events with startling clarity, mixing narrative and science in an effort to 'sell' the material to the broadest possible audience.

Conceived and executed in the manner of a Hollywood movie, this TV special develops a fair head of steam - counting down to calamity via a series of tell-tale 'warning signs', including earthquakes and violent geyser eruptions - before The Big One explodes in a welter of CGI effects. Such material illustrates the size and horror of the Yellowstone disaster with shocking realism, but the aftermath (in which planet-wide snowfall causes massive disruption to daily life, food shortages and death on an industrial scale) is described with unseemly haste, and the end product feels strangely unfinished. Still, as a means of alerting the world to this imminent catastrophe (which could occur at any moment during the next 100,000 years), SUPERVOLCANO is pretty hard to beat. Sobering stuff, originally broadcast in two parts, directed by Tony Mitchell.

Volcanic ash from a massive eruption in Yellowstone Park, engulfs the earth, creating a disaster of epic proportions. The beginning involves government leaning heavily on the geologists for a best case scenario, in order to avert panic. The scientific "think tank"s computer model suggest a much larger event, yet they yield to political pressure, downplaying the danger. Curiously, this movie seems very believable, as to how the world might react to an unprecedented disaster. "Supervolcano" is pessimistic, almost to the extreme, yet still fascinating. The movie gets high marks for realism, and viewer involvement. - MERK

Mild Spoiler Alert!!!

The first wrong note this speculative drama started with was the ridiculous holographic display. The excuse that this was set in "the near future" doesn't work as everything else in the film is exactly as they are today. Then an unusual number of British actors appeared in roles that should have been casted to American actors. That probably doesn't make much of a difference to the non-English speaking backers of this film. Then we get inserted "interviews" like they do in those crime re-creation shows. The writing is frequently not very good and the actors were suffering for it. The shock edit techniques got tiresome early on. One actor seemed to have been instructed to imitate Mr. Scott from Star Trek. The whole thing was getting like those bad made-for-TV movies on the Sci-Fi Channel here. I was ready to find something else to watch.

Then the first eruption happens and suddenly the film take a good turn. It gets very tense and urgent. The tone changes for the better and stays that way until about 10 minutes before the end when the film loses focus again.

The science is much better than anything out of the Hollywood disaster machine lately. But that really isn't much to be proud of. Just turning by on the Weather Channel after the film was premiered, you could easily see that if a similar event happened just then, the outcome would be much different. Most of the ash would be deposited in Cannda, not that that wouldn't be with out it's own set of problems for the world.

By the end I was wondering what the point of it all was. I had the strange feeling that this was all some sort of British fantasy about the lousy yanks getting their just desserts. Sort of like how "Rocky" was really a white boys revenge fantasy on African Americans. Or the many Hollywood films of the 1980's and 90's where the black character is killed off halfway thru the film as a subtle way to tell African-Americans that it wasn't a good idea to be heroic or try to be successful. Interestingly, something like this happens in Supervolcano when the ONLY black character in the film is killed by the volcano.

On a technical note, the film was shown in a 3 hour time slot with plenty of commercial breaks and a 30 minute mini-documentary hosted by Tom Brokaw. I assume that nothing was cut.

Not bad at all for a made-for-television disaster movie. Great not so famous cast with excellent acting. This movie depicts the events of an eruption of a supervolcano beneath Yellowstone Park. For those who don't know the difference between a volcano and a supervolcano - and missed the movie: A supervolcano is basically a huge hole in the ground, 30 to 50 miles wide, with a huge lava chamber under pressure, many many times larger than a typical volcano. No one alive has ever witnessed a supervolcanic eruption. The last one was TOBA in Sumatra about 80,000 years ago, which almost wiped out humans. A supervolcanic eruption would do to the planet what an asteroid would do if it were to strike earth. There's even some who believe all the earthquake activity in the Sumatra area may be the supervolcano there yawning and getting ready to wake up. Hmmm, a sequel movie? This was a great flick, fun to watch. Well made with special effects you might not expect in a TV movie. Way to go Discovery Channel!

If you need to waste time completely, this movie is your thing. Unless you have more important things, such as studying the ceiling. Movies that needs to mix in documentary like views from the people that play scientists are probably the worst sort. Yellowstone is basically a supervulcano. Throughout the movie, things start happening underneath the park. The rest of the movie themes around arguing over whether it's false alarm or the real thing. When things start happening at the end, the movie of course ends. So don't think you'll see much of any grand spectacular movie effects. Nor any epic destruction of central US. The most exiting thing is a few men blown to pieces by a minor water eruption. Oh, and of course the sign of The End - Old Faithful shuts down.

Sort of like an above grade soap opera. Extremely earnest with deeply furrowed brows and all that. The simple truth is that I'm too good for TV movies, they are beneath me. I should only watch "professional" movies and even then it's pretty hit & miss.

The lead guy, dude man, I dunno, I just wasn't buying it, especially after he appeared to have been dipped in a vat of silicone grease which I think was supposed to look like sweat but was way more gross than that and hard to stomach the visual while I was snacking during the movie. And the female big cheese, maybe FEMA director or some such important post, she looked very rough after just a couple days of volcanic activity. Not the fresh faced hottie I would have preferred.

So the movie definitely has the flavor of boiled cabbage. I'd rather watch a straight documentary/science show like they used to have on The Learning Channel before they stuffed it with trash like 1000 Ways To Get Your Head Caught In A Toilet Bowl And Die. Or is that the History Channel, I forget.

I waited over a week to see this with not very high expectations - I was expecting a half- documentary, half-dramatized kind of thing. The Yellowstone SuperVolcano was something I had wanted to see a movie made about for years, this is finally it. Way better than that lame, horrible cliché-wracked turkey called "10.5" that NBC cranked out last year.

Although I had some gripes, I was overall impressed, specifically with the acting. This had cinema-quality performances that made it all the more believable. I was surprised by the magnitude of the visual effects, given that this was a TV movie. They were also of superb cinema quality.

The one thing I wanted to see which, alas, did not present itself, was the mass detonation of the entire Yellowstone region and the expulsion of a vast ocean of lava, as this is how I had pictured the Yellowstone super-eruption, and the actual geology of the area does show such immense layers of lava flows that come from a single eruption. This did not detract from my enjoyment of this film, though.

A surprisingly good production for television. 8/10.