Waterworld

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Waterworld movie poster

Waterworld was a 1995 film that was co-produced by Kevin Costner and directed by Kevin Reynolds. It held the unfortunate distinction of being the biggest failure of a film, in terms of box office returns, that had yet been produced at that time, causing some critics to dub the movie "Fishtar" (a references to the notorious flop Ishtar).

Waterworld is a science fiction film in the post-apocalyptic genre. It has frequently been called "Mad Max on Water".

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

Contents

Synopsis

Some time in the future (it is never made clear when), the polar ice caps have melted due to global warming, and the Earth is almost entirely covered with water. The surviving humans have forgotten the past and believe in a modified creation belief in which God created the world as a ball covered with water, but that there is also 'dryland' somewhere on Earth.

The surviving people can be classified into three groups:

Traders, who ply the water in boats, collecting things from the ocean floor to trade to each other;
Atoll Dwellers, who live in large floating constructs called atolls (in the movie, pronounced 'A-toll'). These atolls are not to be confused with the natural coral formations of the same name.
Smokers, or pirates, called as such because of the smoke they make by using oil-power machines, such as jetskis, that run off the oil left in abandoned oil tankers (not to mention the fact that they all smoke and consider cigarettes one of the most valuable treasures to be stolen).

The antihero is a trader (Kevin Costner) who comes into an atoll to trade for resin. For most of the film, he has no name, though some refer to him as "the Mariner". He is a mutant of some sort, with webbed feet (which sometimes actually occurs in people) and gills (which do not). The atollers, who don't know what to make of him, try to kill him to have him "recycled." At that moment, however, the smokers arrive in a raid on the atoll. They are in search of a young girl living there named Enola, who has what appears to have the map to dryland tattooed on her back. How she got there and who marked the tattoo is never explained--although at the end some educated guesses can be made. Her caretaker is a woman in her twenties or thirties, and they plan to escape with Gregor, the atoll's resident astrologer, for dryland (if they can find it) because, like the Mariner, they don't fit in properly.

Unfortunately, Gregor's escape balloon is released too early (with him on it), leaving the woman (Helen) and Enola stranded on the atoll as the smokers overrun it. They release the Mariner and escape with him on his large catamaran. The Mariner is greatly displeased with their company, despite their rescuing him from certain death and even Helen's offer to have sex with him in exchange for protection.

Chasing them is the Deacon, who is the "captain" of one of the derelict oil tankers, the Exxon Valdez. He also wants to get to dryland, and has a number of skirmishes with the Mariner in his attempts to get Enola back.

Helen, meanwhile, wants to know where all the dryland went. The Mariner, who can breathe underwater (due to his gills), puts her in a diving bell made out of plastic and swims down to a sunken city on the ocean floor to show her. While they are diving, the Deacon captures Enola. When they float back to the surface, he orders them to talk about what they know regarding the tattoo and dryland. Since they both refuse to talk, the Deacon has his crew burn the Mariner's boat and shoot at the pair, forcing them to dive deep to live. Since Helen cannot breathe water, the Mariner offers to "breathe for the both of us" which results in a prolonged kiss of life underwater, while bullets shoot down around them.

The Mariner chases down the Exxon Valdez and boards it. The Deacon is having a great celebration, in which he tosses out gifts (such as tins of "SMEAT") to the other people on the boat, proclaiming they have found the map to dryland. After they have all gone below to start rowing the ship - much like a Viking longship - the Mariner walks out onto the deck and threatens to throw a road "flare" down into the oil tanks unless the Deacon gives back Enola. The Deacon refuses, saying that the Mariner would be crazy to blow up the ship. Predictably, the Mariner drops the flare.

The ship explodes, and the Mariner manages to escape in time with Enola. They float at sea for a while, and then engage in one last battle with the Deacon (who survived the blast), before being rescued by Gregor. He and a few others have gone off to start anew. He finally figures out the map, and steers his balloon off in the direction of what does in fact turn out to be dryland (Mount Everest, which, being the tallest mountain on Earth, would logically be the last place to be swallowed by rising water levels). Gregor, Enola, Helen and the others start civilization anew on the island. The Mariner builds a new boat and sails off, back to his old life - but before he leaves, Helen gives him a proper name "from an ancient myth": Ulysses.

Notes

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Universal logo in Waterworld

The main premise of the movie, that nearly all of the Earth's surface area can be covered by water, is impossible. It is generally accepted that if all water on the planet were in a liquid state, sea level would not rise by more than 61 metres (200 feet aprox); drowning coastal areas but sparing most of the world's landmass.
The underwater city the Mariner shows Helen is actually Denver, Colorado - which is sufficiently above water not to be jeopardized by the melting polar ice caps (see the item above).
The film begins with a variation on the Universal Studios globe logo, showing the continents slowly covered by water.
The concept of a map showing the location of dry land is nonsensical given the literal lack of landmarks. Instead, the tattoo references "dry land" by coordinates in latitude and longitude, written in some variant of Chinese (as Gregor was able to interpret it with a China Airlines route map and plot his route using a sextant).
The kiss-of-life-underwater scene is probably impossible. While romantic, it is speculated that it would be impossible to pass oxygen in this manner, as gills deliver oxygen directly to the bloodstream, fish having no lungs. Since the Mariner does have both lungs and gills, it is possible that they are 'wired' in such a manner that the gills do actually pump oxygen directly into the lungs.
A Waterworld video game was produced for the short lived Nintendo Virtual Boy. Both are rare. There were also Waterworld games for the SEGA Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
An unfortunate editing left out one important fact: when the Mariner, Helen and Enola arrive on Mount Everest, they find a shack with the skeletons of a man and a woman. In the extended version, these people are revealed to be Enola's parents; thus explaining why she had the tattoo of the location. Unfortunately, while explaining that, it left open why people on "dryland" would need to make such a map, and how Enola survived and got to Helen without anyone knowing about her link to Dryland in the first place.
As above, the tanker is revealed to be the "Exxon Valdez" famous for the largest oil spill in Alaskan history. In fact, the Captain is referred to as "Old St. Joe" by the Deacon. In real history, the Valdez was renamed, and was still in service (in the Atlantic) at the time of the movie.
If the Earth had enough ice to melt and cover the globe in the manner shown, the resulting oceans would be so dilute as to be drinkable. Therefore the great focus on fresh water would be a non-issue.