In a future where the polar ice-caps have melted and Earth is almost entirely submerged, a mutated mariner fights starvation and outlaw "smokers," and reluctantly helps a woman and a young girl try to find dry land.
Lieutenant John Dunbar, assigned to a remote western Civil War outpost, befriends wolves and Indians, making him an intolerable aberration in the military.
Director:
Kevin Costner
Stars:
Kevin Costner,
Mary McDonnell,
Graham Greene
A mild-mannered chemist and an ex-con must lead the counterstrike when a rogue group of military men, led by a renegade general, threaten a nerve gas attack from Alcatraz against San Francisco.
A high school swim champion with a troubled past enrolls in the U.S. Coast Guard's "A" School, where legendary rescue swimmer Ben Randall teaches him some hard lessons about loss, love, and self-sacrifice.
Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh pursue a former LAPD officer who uses his knowledge of police procedure and policies to steal and sell confiscated guns and ammunition to local street gangs.
The polar ice caps have melted, and the earth is covered by water. The remaining people travel the seas, in search of survival. Several different societies exist. The Mariner falls from his customary and solitary existence into having to care for a woman and a young girl while being pursued by the evil forces of the Deacon.Written by
Robbie Smith <robsmith@u.washington.edu>
Kevin Costner personally invested $22 million of his own money into the film. See more »
Goofs
Cigarettes have a shelf life of about a year or two depending on how they're stored. This movie takes place in the distant future so cigarettes should not be available at all and yet the Smokers not only have a lot of them but they even look fresh. The Smokers don't even have the technology or the means to make them or keep them fresh so they shouldn't have them at all. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Narrator:
The future... The polar ice caps have melted, covering the earth with water. Those who survived have adapted, to a new world.
See more »
Crazy Credits
There are no opening credits except the title. See more »
Alternate Versions
A scene that explains where exactly the Mariner got the jet ski he uses to reach the Deacon's ship to rescue the little girl. The survivors of the Atol massacre are ambushed by 2 of the Deacon's men on jet skis, the Mariner kills both men and takes their weapons and one jet ski. See more »
2) Replace Mel Gibson with Kevin Costner (which would be about like removing Errol Flynn from "Robin Hood" and replacing him with... well, Kevin Costner).
3) Give the Feral Kid a sex change operation and some manners, taking care to swap his lethal boomerang for a box of crayons.
4) Take the Gyro Captain out of his copter and put him into a balloon.
5) Stir in generous but subtle portions of liberal eco-propaganda: without using the term "global warming," have it understood that the world is flooded because of something awful "the ancients" did.
6) Add a dash of oil by making the villains a marauding gang of oilmongers living in a certain famous oil tanker.
7) Add a simultaneously anti-religious AND anti-technological zest by making sure the villains' leader (Dennis Hopper) has a pseudo-religious name (the Deacon) and gives "sermons" about "progress" and "development."
8) Add a smoky flavor by calling the villains "Smokers," not only because of their use of speedboats and jet-skis, but because of their consumption of cigarettes, which were Clinton's drug menace du jour at the time. (Exactly where these cigarettes come from, in a submerged world where no tobacco grows and paper is viewed with awe, is anybody's guess.)
9) Finally, add a pinch of Oriental spice by having the tattoo-map to Dryland rendered in Asian ideographic characters--another implied rebuff to "evil" Western culture.
10) Set oven temperature to 450 degrees and incinerate $175 million.
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Recipe for "Waterworld":
1) Take "The Road Warrior." Add water.
2) Replace Mel Gibson with Kevin Costner (which would be about like removing Errol Flynn from "Robin Hood" and replacing him with... well, Kevin Costner).
3) Give the Feral Kid a sex change operation and some manners, taking care to swap his lethal boomerang for a box of crayons.
4) Take the Gyro Captain out of his copter and put him into a balloon.
5) Stir in generous but subtle portions of liberal eco-propaganda: without using the term "global warming," have it understood that the world is flooded because of something awful "the ancients" did.
6) Add a dash of oil by making the villains a marauding gang of oilmongers living in a certain famous oil tanker.
7) Add a simultaneously anti-religious AND anti-technological zest by making sure the villains' leader (Dennis Hopper) has a pseudo-religious name (the Deacon) and gives "sermons" about "progress" and "development."
8) Add a smoky flavor by calling the villains "Smokers," not only because of their use of speedboats and jet-skis, but because of their consumption of cigarettes, which were Clinton's drug menace du jour at the time. (Exactly where these cigarettes come from, in a submerged world where no tobacco grows and paper is viewed with awe, is anybody's guess.)
9) Finally, add a pinch of Oriental spice by having the tattoo-map to Dryland rendered in Asian ideographic characters--another implied rebuff to "evil" Western culture.
10) Set oven temperature to 450 degrees and incinerate $175 million.