Waterworld: how many holes can YOU find in the plot?
tUUk
The movie Waterworld itself wasn't too bad. Worth the $6 I paid for it,
IMO. BUT, since I'm bored I thought I might start a thread to uncover all
the holes in the plot. <these aren't in any specific order>
-Polar Icecaps actually melting would raise sea-level by ~50 feet (got
that from someone on here)
-A few mere centuries after land was drowned out, and yet the ppl seem to
have lost all knowledge of it and it's civilizations.
-of all the places costner decides to dive into he picks a major
metropolis. This just seemed HIGHLY unlikely.
-its been a few centuries and no one has found dry land yet? like no one
had ever thought of just sailing south for a few days.
-You can't keep jet-skis underwater like that, it'll drown the engine.
-smokes, bullets, and guns were kept sealed away from the water in enough
multitude to last for several centuries, but a jar full of dirt is
extremely rare and valuable (62 krits i believe)
-That bungie cord part just really upset me...
-They can desalinate piss but not sea-water
-where'd they get the wood to build that stuff? just plain lumber isn't
gonna last you too long on the open sea...
-how exactly DID they make their clothes?
I know I missed some, so feel free to add to this list...and remember,
this is just for fun :)
tuuk
Bill Pulliam
> *SPOILERS*
>
> The movie Waterworld itself wasn't too bad. Worth the $6 I paid for it,
> IMO. BUT, since I'm bored I thought I might start a thread to uncover all
> the holes in the plot. <these aren't in any specific order>
[snip]
Why did the Mariner evolve gills in just a few hundred years, when
whales and dolphins have been living in the sea full time for millions
of years and haven't evolved them yet?
If everything but the tops of the highest land is flooded, then the cities
would all be under about 20,000 feet of water. How did his homemade
diving bell survive to that depth? How does he fit 20,000 feet (that's
4 miles!) of cable on his itty bitty winch? Why was there enough light
to see by way down there? Why didn't Tripplehorn die of the bends when
she surfaced?
Why didn't they credit the Wizard of Oz for the scene where the balloon
takes off prematurely leaving Dorothy and Toto - er, I mean Tripplehorn
and the tattoed girl stranded? I expected them to start clicking their
eel-skin slippers and chanting "There's no place like dryland, there's
no place like dryland,..."
Why didn't they all eat seafood? The Mariner can breath water but he
can't eat fish?
Why didn't they have the sense to market this as a comedy spoof, the only
terms on which it makes sense?
John L Redford
>*SPOILERS*
>The movie Waterworld itself wasn't too bad. Worth the $6 I paid for it,
>IMO. BUT, since I'm bored I thought I might start a thread to uncover all
>the holes in the plot. <these aren't in any specific order>
>-Polar Icecaps actually melting would raise sea-level by ~50 feet (got
>that from someone on here)
Melting all of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets would raise sea
level by about 300 feet. Melting the Arctic ice pack (as shown in the
movie) wouldn't raise sea level at all since it's floating.
>-how exactly DID they make their clothes?
Fish skins, from the look of it.
A few others that bothered me -
- Why did the mariner tell the woman that he would take her to dry land?
He knew there was no such thing. He should have just sailed to the
next atoll and dropped her and the kid off there.
- For someone who had spent every moment of her life on water, the woman
sure didn't know much about boats.
- How did the kid survive leaving her parents' island? Why would they
set her afloat anyway?
- How could that ramshackle atoll have survived storms?
- How could the smokers have kept up with the mariner when he was in a
10 knot trimaran and they had to row a supertanker? In the 12 days or
so between leaving the atoll and finding the dead Portu-Greeks he
could have sailed thousands of miles. Somehow, though, the smokers
always kept up with him. Their little plane couldn't have a range of
more than a couple of hundred miles, and the jet skis would have a
range of maybe ten.
- Shouldn't gills be on the neck instead of behind the ears?
- That machine gun must have used up most of the world's supply of brass
in one attack. Plus, it takes a really, really stupid gunner to not
notice that he's pointing away from the atoll and towards the open
sea.
- Isn't it insanely foolhardy to ski-jump into an atoll? Especially
when most of the ski-jumpers do in fact land on sharp objects?
- The atoll sure had a lot of iron goods considering that iron rusts
immediately in salt air. Not to mention that it's lost forever if
it's dropped over the side.
- The mariner's National Geographics looked in pretty good shape considering
they'd been in salt water for five hundred years.
Most of these points would have easy to get right in the initial
script. Either the writers didn't think of them or didn't think
people cared. Or perhaps these logic cracks opened up as the script
was beefed up with more visuals. They really grated on me at least.
My disbelief wasn't suspended.
--
/jlr (John Redford, j...@world.std.com)
GM Jason
>- How did the kid survive leaving her parents' island? Why would they
>set her afloat anyway?
I think she was sent out as a message to all the people lost at sea. A way
to reach land.
>- Shouldn't gills be on the neck instead of behind the ears?
Why?
And have you ever seen a guy with gills before?
>- That machine gun must have used up most of the world's supply of brass
>in one attack. Plus, it takes a really, really stupid gunner to not
>notice that he's pointing away from the atoll and towards the open
>sea.
The machine gunner's eye protection was covered with soot. He couldn't see
anything.
And now the absolute worst goof-up. The balloon that makes a second
appearance at the end of the film was filled with hydrogen. Notice in the
beginning when the old man is filling it, his machine sucks water through
some pipes and a gas enters the balloon. The water was split into hydrogen
and oxygen, and the hydrogen went into the balloon.
Now the balloon flies gently over a flaming oil tanker. Hmmmm. Ever hear
of the Hindenberg? Hydrogen is extremely flammable you know.
Jason W.
GM Jason
Dick Spargur
: *SPOILERS*
: The movie Waterworld itself wasn't too bad. Worth the $6 I paid for it,
: IMO. BUT, since I'm bored I thought I might start a thread to uncover all
: the holes in the plot. <these aren't in any specific order>
: -of all the places costner decides to dive into he picks a major
: metropolis. This just seemed HIGHLY unlikely.
Not to mention that, although there was somehow enough water to drown
the entire earth up to and including Mount Everest (about 26000'
elevation currently), Costner can therefore dive FIVE miles down to
see that city --- and take the girl with him. How absurd!
: -You can't keep jet-skis underwater like that, it'll drown the engine.
In a world with no dirt, the smokers are filthy dirty as is everyone
else...
Also in a world of no dirt that have tobacco, plentiful enough to
manufacture packs of filter tipped ciggies.
: -That bungie cord part just really upset me...
And WHAT purpose did it serve? It was just another meaningless action
bite.
The webbed feet looked like they covered his toes with rubber cement.
The under water breathing bit: do fish produce air when they ventilate
with their gills?
The whole movie was about as plausible as a forty year comic book.
-----------------
yours,
Richard C. Spargur (Dick)
B5/F4
Eric Erickson
--
Ciao!
******************************************************************************
Eric C. Erickson *
Elliott School of International Affairs * Apres moi, le deluge.
The George Washington University *
******************************************************************************
Douglas A. Tricarico
A friend of mine said that there was NO WAY the Earth could've filled up
with water because it all would've run out of the plot holes.
kei...@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu
>
> If everything but the tops of the highest land is flooded, then the cities
> would all be under about 20,000 feet of water. How did his homemade
> diving bell survive to that depth? How does he fit 20,000 feet (that's
> 4 miles!) of cable on his itty bitty winch? Why was there enough light
> to see by way down there? Why didn't Tripplehorn die of the bends when
> she surfaced?
It has already been discussed how deep the water could be expected to
be, and the fact that there isn't enough water available to do what
the movie is premised on. And yes, it does look like they're going
pretty deep in the diving scene (though there's no reason to insist he
had to be diving to the very deepest city). But visual evidence in
the film suggests that they weren't all that deep: assuming this was
an open-bottom diving bell (as it certainly looked like, given the
amount of water coming in), then the compression of the air bubble
inside the bell is the result of pressure increase as they dive. But
the water inside the bell never got higher than about 2/3 the way up
the walls - Tripplehorn's head was always in the air bubble. The
compression of the air is inversely proportional to the increase in
pressure at depth; assuming that the air in the roughly spherical
bell occupied 1/4 its original volume at depth, then they had dived
to a pressure 4 times greater than the one atmosphere pressure on the
surface - which is to say they dived to an increase of 3 atmospheres.
Pressure increases one atmosphere in 33 feet seawater, so they would
have been roughly 100' deep in that scene. You can stay down at 100'
20 minutes and surface without decompressing, according to standard
diving tables (YMMV); so, to appearances, that dive is not impossible,
though virtually all of the movie is.
Another question: why would a man with gills need a diving bell?
Kevin T. Keith kei...@guvax.georgetown.edu
___________________________________________________________________________
"I thought you would be shorter, darker, and more of a geek."Vicki Robinson
Gerald G. Marfoe
(Minor spoilers)
The oil tanker that used to be called the Exxon Valdez was repaired and
renamed after it ran aground in 1989. (Does anyone know what its new
name is?) Looks like the makers of Waterworld forgot or ignored that
fact, by making it the Smokers' base.
Just how did they get the "go-juice" for the jet-skis and the seaplane
to run on? They never showed any facilities for refining the crude that
they carried.
Gerald Marfoe
Greg Bryant
: (Minor spoilers)
: Just how did they get the "go-juice" for the jet-skis and the seaplane
: to run on? They never showed any facilities for refining the crude that
: they carried.
There was a minor throwaway line by one of the Smokers about refining
more go-juice.
: Gerald Marfoe
--
Greg Bryant * gbr...@erinet.com * Middletown Public Library
------------------------------------------------------------
The views expressed here do not represent the views of my employer.
Brett Norris
wrote:
> Another question: why would a man with gills need a diving bell?
I thought that was to bring stuff he salvaged from below back to the
surface - not for himself. This is one of the very first scenes we see in
the film, if I'm not mistaken. The "diving bell" surfaces with various
goodies in it, and the Smokers try to steal it from him.
--
dec...@halcyon.com <---- preferred
bre...@aol.com
AOL: BrettN
Robe4
>*SPOILERS*
>The movie Waterworld itself wasn't too bad. Worth the $6 I paid for it,
>IMO. BUT, since I'm bored I thought I might start a thread to uncover all
>the holes in the plot. <these aren't in any specific order>
How about the fact that Kevin Costner has begun to mutate
(Gills & Webbed feet) indicating enough time for evolution to
have taken place -- thousands of years -- but there are still
cigarettes.
>-its been a few centuries and no one has found dry land yet? like no one
>had ever thought of just sailing south for a few days.
Exactly! There is only one piece of dry land sticking out of the water
on the whole Earth. They all have boats and want to find it real bad,
but no one thinks of just sailing around for awhile until they see the
darn thing? They haven't charted the globe or done any exploring?
Every day they get up and say, "boy we'd really like to find dry land."
Then someone else says, "yeah, it should be real easy to find in
all of this water." Then someone else says, "Hey, you want to go
look for it?" And everyone thinks about it and just...what? Gives
up?!! Everyone just goes slack and says, "nahhh, not until some
kid comes around with a map on her back." "Yeah, and preferably
one that's hard to read." "Yeah, and then we'll fight over the girl!!"
"Or, we could just sail around right now and look for it." "Nahhhh...."
>-They can desalinate piss but not sea-water
How come Costner has to use the contraption at the beginning
of the movie to get a drink of water and then never gets thirsty
ever again? What does everyone else do for drinking water?
How come, when Costner takes the woman and girl on the
boat, they don't ask him about this. They know he is a
mutant, they might assume he doesn't drink water. Why
don't they check before they get on his boat, "Hey, Mariner,
do you have one of those piss converters on the boat or
should we take one of ours?"
I know I missed some, so feel free to add to this list...and remember,
this is just for fun :)
How about the scene where he drags behind the boat and gets
swallowed by the HUGE fish and then blows the thing up. Its
implied that this is how he gets his food. Isn't that kind of a
wasteful method of fishing? You would think that people who
live on the water would have more sophisticated fishing
equipment. Plus, since he can breathe under water, why
doesn't he take a spear down and lance some smaller fish.
Are they implying that there are only humongoid fish by that
time? These monster fish must feed on smaller fish -- there
must still be a food chain under the water.
Also, since he killed such a whale of a fish, how come in the
next scene, there is only a few small scraps on the BBQ?
Also, how come they seemed to have southern accents in
some scenes and not in others?
Rob
>tuuk
Kadick
>I'm having trouble deciding wether I should see this or not. My buddy's
>don't wanna go. "Not enough action to keep me awake" they say. They're
>the kind of guys who can't appreciate a good drama.
>The Citizen said it was boring.
>Gimme reviews people! please?
>-Mike
This is not good drama. The basic plot has been done before: teacher meets
class of environmentally deprived underachievers, wins their trust and
turns them around. And done much better (see _Stand and Deliver_). There
is nothing much of interest here.
It is unconvincing. The Pfeiffer character decides that to teach them she
has to "get their attention." Duh. Then she bored me to death, but
somehow this got their attention??? A key relationship with a particularly
difficult student just seems to happen - left on the cutting room floor
perhaps. She used Bob Dylan lyrics (so did my high school teachers, in the
60's) to teach poetry to a bunch of 90's kids. Gangsta rap lyrics would
have been more appropriate and believable, but I guess the transition to
Dylan Thomas wouldn't flow as well.
The highly advertised soundtrack was nearly invisible. The ex-marine
business was barely mentioned. Michelle Pfeiffer was adequate and in
almost every scene.
Her character experiences growth, which unfortunately was poorly
developed. For example, a scene which addresses her lack of cultural
sensitivity is over in a flash and left me wondering if she understood.
She declares she is going to fight an issue for a particular student and
then she doesn't.
There were a few good moments, one in particular where a student tells her
"I've seen all the same movies you have," when she feebly attempts to
explain his life to him.
I admire teachers in general and Ms Johnson specifically for their
committment and efforts and am glad a film was made to give the profession
a pat on the back. I just wish it was a more sincere effort.
My husband summed it up in a word. Lame.
Debbie
Peace Electric
> Why don't they check before they get on his boat, "Hey, Mariner, do you
have
>one of those piss converters on the boat or should we take one of ours?"
movie! ROTFL
peacel
peace.e...@sasknet.sk.ca
Peace Electric
tops) in the world be the only dry land? But they land on a beach, wouldn't
it be a mountain peak? I don't get it.
peacel
peace.e...@sasknet.sk.ca
Tony Thompson
In the book they DO land on the tip of Mt. Everest but by then with the poles
reversed and nature taking it's hundreds of years course it might just might
convert to tropical...(note the hughe mountains in the backround)
Tonyt
Robe4
From: pea...@explorer.sasknet.sk.ca (Peace Electric)
Date: 22 Aug 1995 21:42:55 -0600
Message-ID: <41e83v$f...@explorer.sasknet.sk.ca>
I'm glad you caught the humor. Sometimes people on the net
don't get it when you're illustrating a point with facetiousness.
Rob
paloma.p...@gmail.com
..butt naked ..get the f@ck out of here!!
:D