10.5 Stupocalypse

I just finished watching this two-part stink-fest of ludicrous writing last night. This NBC made-for-TV movie (10.5 Apocalypse), and its ridiculous CBS twin Category 7: The End of the World were so hilariously ineptly beyond anything previously filmed that they have made me realize that a new calibration scale is in order. I call my new scale the Disaster Unbelievability Movie Magnitude (DUMM). It is an open-ended scale (unfortunately), and like the Richter Scale, it is logarithmic. Each increase of 1 in the DUMM represents approximately a 30-fold increase in the stupidity of the movie. Here is a quick guide. Remember that DUMM does not take into consideration the skill of actors or special effects technicians, just calibrates the overall premise of the movie.

DUMM 0
Description: Movies of DUMM 0 are your basic Hollywood disaster movies. Characters may act in stupid or cliched manners, the writing may be bad or uneven, and technical errors will be minor and not critical to the plot, but not to a greater extent than most other Hollywood movies. The disasters depicted remain firmly plausible, if not actual. Poor engineering and human hubris may be the main villains. The disaster depicted must be something that has actually happened, or which you would not be surprised to read in tomorrow's headlines: a volcano erupts, a building burns, etc. The laws of physics are at least recognizable.
Examples: Airport, The Towering Inferno, Dante's Peak
Characteristic Premise: That's what you get for using shoddy wiring!

DUMM 1
Description: The disaster faced, or the solution proposed, may be outlandish, but some attention is paid to technical detail. You could possibly believe that this could happen someday, even if it would not necessarily play out in the way depicted in the movie. The disaster at least still resembles the actual universe. Characters may attempt to use technology in some illogical or unbelievably sophisticated way. The ending may be a blatant deus ex machina in many cases.
Examples: Deep Impact, Twister
Characteristic Premise: FREAKIN' PEPSI CANS??

DUMM 2
Description: The laws of physics begin to lose their grip. The disaster being faced has only the loosest connection to reality. While a real phenomenon may be depicted, it is depicted in a way totally inconsistant with the real world. Far-fetched solutions are guaranteed to be deployed. Even though the laws of nature may have gone crazy, there's at least a bit of self-consistancy to the way they are developed, not unlike a lot of fantasy sci-fi.
Examples: Volcano, Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow
Characteristic premise: Pointy asteroids the size of what??

DUMM 3
Description: We are in Wacky Land. Real jargon is constantly thrown about, but without regard to its actual meaning, and in quite nonsensical ways. Realism is nowhere to be found. The solution to the problem pretty much basically always must involve nuclear weapons in some way. The first word that springs to mind is "ludicrous". Major onscreen events begin to have little to no effect on other scenes because the directors and writers can't be bothered with maintaining continuity.
Examples: Asteroid, 10.5, Category 6: Day of Destruction
Characteristic premise: An *earthquake* is *chasing* the *TRAIN*?!?!

DUMM 4
Description: This magnitude can apparently only be achieved in sequels. Not only has reality gone out the window, but the movie is attempting to "one up" some previous movie to the extent that it almost feels like a parody. You can't believe that actual writers and directors were involved, and get the feeling that someone left it up to a bunch of 6-year-olds.
Examples: 10.5: Apocalypse, Category 7: The End of the World
Characteristic premise: Wait, Pangaea is coming back next week?!?!?!

I know of no movies yet that have achieved DUMM 5 or higher, but it's only a matter of time, I fear... Maybe when someone makes a movie about a hurricane that sucks up a school of fire-breathing sharks and hurls them into Denver, where they start massive brush fires...