Waterworld (1995) – Sinking Budgets, Soaring Stunts, Kevin Costner's most Challenging Role and the Power of Survival - The Fandom Portals Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So we're doing Waterworld from 1995.
What will you learn thisepisode?
You will learn why Waterworldmade waves as the most expensive
film ever made at the time, howthe production spiraled into a
full-blown nightmare, includingsome sinking sets, storms and
all what Kevin Costner reallythinks of the film today.
Spoiler alert Brash, it'scomplicated.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I think at the moment , Kevin Costner has a
complicated relationship witheverything he's done.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
I absolutely agree, and we're also going to learn
how this post-apocalyptic epicdelivers a surprisingly powerful
message about choosingconnection over personal gain.
Welcome to the Fandom Portalspodcast, a podcast that explores

(00:50):
how fandoms can help us learnand grow.
I'm your host, aaron, and asusual, I'm joined by the man who
doesn't have a name, so deathcan't find him, but he does have
a name in his browser.
Here he is.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Dry land is not a myth.
I've seen it, kevin Carsten, onWaterworld, and that's what
we're doing today, isn't it,aaron?

Speaker 1 (01:08):
It certainly is.
We are doing Waterworld from1995.
The Kevin Costner starred filmdirected by Kevin Reynolds.
This one comes as a specialorder from our American friends
in the Challenge Acceptedpodcast.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Hey Brasher, hey Aaron, this is Frank from
Challenge Accepted and we have achallenge for you.
You guys are both Australianand you guys are famed for the
Mad Max movies rightfully so.
They are never miss and alwaysawesome.
But I've got an Americanattempt at Mad Max for you to
watch, and that is the 95 film,waterworld.
Yes, it's Mad Max with boats.

(01:41):
I want you guys to watchWaterworld and let me know what
you guys think about it.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Enjoy the flick and keep on going this is a shout
out to frank and thomas thankyou very much for giving us this
wet version of mad max.
Nothing like a chase on boatson the sea.
Instead of outback australia,this movie is about a future
where the polar ice caps havemelted and Earth is almost

(02:05):
entirely submerged.
A mutated mariner fightsstarvation and outlaws smokers
and reluctantly helps a womanand a young girl try to find dry
land.
Now, before we get into anymore, we're going to do our
gratitudes Brash.
I'll go first.
This week, I'm grat, I'mgratitude for I'm gratitude, I'm
gratitude, I'm so gratitude,I'm so grateful for the gym, and

(02:30):
I say that because it is a goodplace to go to let off some
steam.
But also you see all differentkinds of people there and I
really get like a sense.
I don't know if this is.
I don't mean to upset anybodyor anything when I say this, but
there's obviously people therewho have decided to go there to
change some stuff about theirappearance, and I've been going
for two or three months now.

(02:51):
When you see those people thatare going in there to try and
change something, going in thereconsistently as often as you
are, it's like go you man.
That's so awesome and I'm reallygrateful for places like the
gym because it's like as much aspeople might think it's
judgmental, it's really.
I haven't found it that way atall and I know everybody
probably has differentexperiences with gyms, but I'm
grateful for the one that I goto and that it can be a place
like that for some people to goand relieve some stress or feel

(03:16):
better about themselves, and Ithink the world needs more
places like that.
That's my gratitude.
What's yours, brad?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Hell.
Yeah.
No, that's good, because I needto go to gym.
I need to start going to thegym again because I wouldn't say
that I'm overweight or anythinglike that, but I am getting
more weight than I usually havehad and I want to sort of work
that off and sort of get back tohow I sort of was a few years
ago.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Can't be sedentary over 30, can we brash?

Speaker 2 (03:40):
that's it but, um, yeah, I still haven't done it.
So those people who aremotivated and go there every
week, yeah, good on them, yeahcome along with me, man, I'll
have you, it's all good.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, yeah, my dims were near my house but not near
your house.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
But if you wanted to come, oh yeah, definitely come
yeah, I was actually was notplanning on after our Melbourne
trip.
Yeah, yeah, I'm planning onsort of sorting that out.
But yes, my gratitude is mostlywork colleagues and some of my
friends, because at the momentwe are very swamped at my work,

(04:13):
and especially me.
I get absolutely drilled with alot of work because the parts
of the business I look after areprobably the most common parts
of the business.
So I get a lot more jobs thansome of the other guys do, which
is very stressful, and I'mreally appreciative of the

(04:36):
people I work with becausethey've got their own stuff to
deal with and they do help meout a lot, which is great.
But the main thing that helpsme get through my day is that we
sit around and we share reelswith each other constantly all
day.
So, hey, a little bitdistracting, but hey, it makes
the day go a little bit fasterand it makes it a little bit
more enjoyable.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
That's good man, it's good to have good work.
Colleagues, I'm finding thesame thing in my new, old role
I'll say because it's my oldworkplace, but a new role in my
old workplace and it's yeah, thepeople make the place.
I reckon it's definitely true.
All right, that is ourgratitudes, guys.
We're going to be moving on tothe episode that is all about
Waterworld from 1995.
This movie was directed by KevinReynolds, but some sources say

(05:18):
that the back end of this movie,especially the editing, was
very heavily influenced by MrKevin Kevin Costner himself.
He was very tied to thisproject.
He was very passionate about it.
It was written by Peter Raderand David Toohey, starring the
man himself, kevin Costner, andI'm not sure if it's Genie or
Jean Triple Horn.
Do you know Brash?
She played Helen.
Yeah, I think it's Jean.

(05:38):
All right, we're going to gointo a little bit about what
Kevin Costner thought of thismovie in our hot take segment.
But before we do, brash at thetime that this was made, in 1995
, which is before Titanic wasmade, which is obviously a very
expensive movie, this was thehighest and most expensive movie
made to date.
Do you know how much it cost tolike Waterworld?

(05:58):
22 million or something.
I was way more than that wait,wait, hang on.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
No, I did see it, because it was.
It only got trumped a coupleyears later by Titanic.
Enlighten me, then, because I'mI'm going to guess, I'm going
to guess $250 million.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
It's $175 million at the time.
It doesn't like.
For.
Now it doesn't sound like thatmuch because we have movies like
Star Wars, the Force Awakens,which cost $447 million to make,
jurassic Park, fallen Kingdom,which cost $432 million, to make
Fast X, that epic installmentto the Fast and the Furious
trilogy that actually cost $379million to make.

(06:37):
This was only $175 million.
Some people say it was closerto $200 million after marketing.
It was considered a successbecause it made $264 million on
the box.
Closer to $200 million aftermarketing.
It was considered a successbecause it made $264 million on
the box office with $88 millionworldwide gross.
However, there was a lot ofpublic scrutiny and unrest at
the time about this movie and itwas all about how much it was

(06:58):
costing.
The biggest thing that was abuzz was the fact that this
movie costs so much to make.
Biggest thing that was a buzzwas the fact that this movie
cost so much to make.
And you know Kevin Costner atthe time that this came out, he
was a hot, hot commodity.
He had just come off a Oscarwin and he was like he'd done
Dances with Wolves and he'd doneRobin Hood, prince of Thieves

(07:20):
and JFK.
He was really really hittinghis stride in the acting and
also in the producing and movinginto that sort of.
He was becoming a leading manin the fact that he was very
influential on set and he wouldbe placed in movies before a
director was chosen.
He was obviously in Waterworld,which is this movie here, and it
was directed by Kevin Reynolds.
He had previously worked on amovie with Kevin Reynolds called

(07:40):
Robin Hood, the Prince ofThieves, and the relationship
was diverse we'll say it wastumultuous as the Prince of
Thieves and the relationship wasdiverse We'll say it was kind
of it was tumultuous as the seasof water world, because
sometimes it was good andsometimes it was bad.
I think there was a healthyrespect.
But in the end I think there isa very famous quote that Kevin
Reynolds says about KevinCostner in which he should only
work on movies that he'sdirecting because that way he

(08:03):
can work with his favoritedirector and actor.
And yeah, it was pretty much aslight towards him because kevin
costner had some verypassionate ideas about how
waterworld should be, uh,envisioned and put to screen.
I think kevin reynolds, thedirector, was very he wanted to
explore the world and thecultures and the tribes of
waterworld and explore thataction-packed route uh, that we

(08:26):
do see in part of the movie, andkevin costner really wanted to
dive deep on the the dark andmysterious nature of the mariner
, so he was really wanting tofocus in on his character for
the movie and kevin reynolds wasreally trying to focus on the
world of water world and thosetwo conflicting ideas really
clashed, which resulted in thismovie actually having three cuts
, which we talked about as well.

(08:47):
Brash, but it's like.
Which one of these are we goingto watch?

Speaker 2 (08:49):
I don't know um, yeah , it's so hard.
It's so hard to find thealternate versions, yeah, yeah,
so there's.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
there's the original version, which is the most
common version, which is the twohour and 15 minutes, uh, which
you can pretty much geteverywhere of Waterworld, and
then there is the extended cut,which goes for around three or
so hours, but then there's afan-made one called the Ulysses
cut, and that was actually thefan-made cut where they
explained more about therelationship between Helen and

(09:17):
the Mariner, they went into abit more of the cult of the
smokers, the religious cult ofthe smokers, and they had a
little bit more on the deacon inthere and it just sort of tied
together some of thoseunanswered questions through the
movie.
And a lot of people say thatthe Ulysses cut is the best
version.
Do you know why they call itthe Ulysses cut?

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Because it's actually like Ulysses, isn't Ulysses
like the?

Speaker 1 (09:37):
sea.
Yeah, ulysses is the story of aGreek mariner and it is based
on Homer's Odyssey and Homer'sIliad.
Ulysses is the title characterand throughout this whole entire
movie, kevin Costner'scharacter goes unnamed.
He's just known as the mariner,and at the end of the movie, in
the extended cut I believe,there's a scene or there's a
deleted scene that explains thatHelen gives the mariner a copy

(10:02):
of the Odyssey and from thatthat he's actually she.
She's suggesting that his nameshould be ulysses because he's
constantly traveling the sea.
So, um, through that they endedup calling it the ulysses cut.
Yeah, I'm kind of weird, though, because helen can't read.
Well, that's very true, but youcan't actually look at it.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
So you're like here's , that's why it was deleted.
Here's the here's this bookabout Ulysses.
Hey, maybe your name should beUlysses and he'd be like I can't
read this you guys, can youguys?
Can decipher the the tattoo thetattoo and all this back yeah,
because what it was in Chinese?

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, it's Chinese characters.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
yeah, it was Chinese and it was the latitude,
longitude.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Mm-hmm.
Do you know where the latitudelongitude was, or is it a
question that comes later?
It was on the sides of thetattoo, yeah, but do you know
where that latitude andlongitude is leading people To
dry land, obviously.
But do you know real world,where that is?
Oh, probably Everest orsomething.
Wouldn't it deleted cut and theulysses cut actually explain
that that they're going toeverest?

(11:06):
There's actually a plaque that,uh is at the top of mount
everest that they show in themovie, but unfortunately in the
regular cut it's not shown.
But yeah, the coordinates onher back that surround the
tattoo of the mountain is, um,is the the exact coordinates in
chinese characters to mounteverest?
It's the latitude and longitudeof mount everest.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, best question because I always thought,
because I'm like I kind ofassumed that that would be where
that dry land would be.
And the best question is like,that must be like nearly the
only spot left, because when youlook at it like you're asked,
it's still a bit more of a peak.
But how many other mountainsabove sea, above or above the

(11:44):
rising level?

Speaker 1 (11:45):
yeah, would there be?
There wouldn't be many of any.
No, I don't think there wouldbe any, and that's why everybody
in the entire world of waterworld thought that, you know,
dry land was a myth.
Because if you think of thewhole globe, how many people are
left on the planet?
Nobody would have ever comeacross it.
Very few people at least.
And, yeah, if there's only justthe one spot and it's very

(12:05):
small in nature, that's thatsuspension of disbelief that
people have to do when they'rewatching this movie.
It's like how could they nothave ever seen any dry land at
all?
You know, and that's becausethere's only one spot.
And that was the tip of a manor.
Yeah, exactly right.
All right, let's get into ourhot takes.
All right, let's get into ourhot takes.
Our hot take segment is wherewe discuss our first thoughts of

(12:28):
the media and unpack theboldest opinions, from what
surprised us to what split theroom.
We'll also highlight your hottakes from threads and Instagram
and our Reddit community.
So go ahead and hit our socialsbecause we'll read out your
comment on our podcast.
Brash, you have gone on recordto say that you love Waterworld
Divulge.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Divulge, Divulge.
For me, I think it's because Ilove, not some like.
In a way, it's the closest.
I feel that our world canbecome a semi-fantasy type world
.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, like a dystopian.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, so where no longer?
Is it going to be someone dropsa nuke, everyone dies.
It's going to be someone dropsa nuke, everyone dies.
It's going to be like youliterally might have to make
your own sword or shield andfight someone hand in hand, like
sword and shield style, becauseno one can make weapons anymore
, like guns and stuff like that,or guns are a rare commodity

(13:18):
and become sort of like Planetof the Apes, where a gun is like
a like a godly artifact.
And with a gun is like a, um,like a, it's like a godly
artifact.
Yeah, yeah, um, and with uh,and I like the it's, it's, it
makes, it makes a bit more likelife be more thrilling.
It's sort of like, how, how Ifeel about any sort of dystopian
type movie, so like he's madmax's, like living in that world

(13:40):
, just drive around in fast carsand slide around and like that
craziness.
And then you got like the oneslike, yeah, um, zombie
apocalypse, like resident evil's, where, like all the world's
just just decimated and likeyou're in a desolate world, just
zombies have to survive againstzombies.
Like, oh, so, like walkingdead's probably a better one
than resident evil, but um, yeah, like walking dead.

(14:01):
And then, um, you got waterworld, everything's on the ocean
, on the sea high ferry.
Like imagine, like if peopleactually built like proper ships
and stuff like that, you'd belike pirates on the sea again.
Like all that sort of thing isjust like it's different and
that's what I love, that it'ssomething different and like
it's surviving in like a newenvironment.
Yeah, and like, and thepossibility, how the mariner,

(14:23):
how he's, like he's mutatedenough that he's got gills so he
can breathe underwater, likethat's fucking badass.
Being able to breatheunderwater, he's able to kill
that giant, monstrous mutatedshark, fish and yeah, it's just,
and that kind of world and thatkind of vibes it's.

(14:46):
It's the closest we probably ina bleak way also it's the
closest possible way we get tosome sort of like fantasy-esque
world where it's more likesurvival and where you have to
probably you have to go out andscavenge and find things to be
able to sell, to be able to makea living and you know, get to
get out of the office yeah, goodday out of the office yeah no,

(15:07):
I think that they've created areally good world in this.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
That's the thing that stood out for me when I watched
this, because I had seen itbefore.
It was one of those oldlate-time movies that came onto
tv after you'd finished watchingthe movie you actually wanted
to watch.
And this one come on and youknow, the first scene that you
see is obviously the mariner,kevin costner, staying there and
he takes a piss into his jarand then he pours it into a
machine, filters it out, andthen he drinks it, and then he
does that pepsi like gotta diewithout that mate.

(15:32):
But from that point on you'rejust like okay, this is a world
that has some layers.
And the fact that there's youknow, there's such realism in
even the costumes when you'relooking at it, the things the
costumes are made of, they're sointricate and detailed.
The trimaran that KevinCostner's character, the mariner
, sails around on is just soawesome.
Of course, the course, theautomation on it is just

(15:54):
revolutionary.
And how much he was nurturingthat lime tree, yeah, and that
was the most vibrant thing thatyou saw.
That green was the only greenthat you saw at the start of the
movie.
So it really does hook youstraight in as soon as you're
watching this and then you knowit keeps you there with all the
action sequences and you knowthe amazing atoll that was
completely, you know, built byhand, and the you know the

(16:22):
larger than life characters inthe form of the Deacon and the
Smokers.
There's just like it'sliterally what you just spoke
about.
It's that fantasy realm andthat dystopian.
It's such a great playground,it's such a great sandbox.
And I think that's whatdystopian future movies are
really good at doing.
They're good at creating like alittle spark of possibility
where the audience begins to sitthere and wonder what would I
do in a situation like that.

(16:43):
And it's also why so manyrole-playing games and tabletop
role-playing games are derivedfrom worlds like this dystopian
world, futures.
And I just liked you could justtell that there was so much
thought that went into thismovie, to the point where I
don't know if the movie and thestory as a whole did it justice,

(17:05):
which we'll talk about later.
But there was definitely somany different parts of this
movie that you look at and everytime there was a scene, even if
it was just like a boat on theopen ocean, there was always
something to look at, like onthe trimaran there was always
something that you could look atand see and a nuance that was
just sort of there or made In anaction sequence.
You could look at differentthings at different times on
multiple viewings and it's likeyou're always looking at

(17:29):
something different because it'sjust so big, like the world is
so big, and I think that that'sthe appeal of Waterworld to me.
It's not without its faults,obviously, but I think that the
world that they've created andjust that ruggedness is really
good.
And again, you mentioned Mad Max, and Frank and Thomas from the
Challenge Accepted podcastchallenged us this one because
we're Australian and they werejust like let's see, you do an

(17:49):
American version of Mad Max onthe water, which is why we're
doing this now.
But yeah, I think that it justplays into that human experience
of survivability and it's just.
There's also that mystery.
You know, there's the narrationat the start that says how this
happened.
Water world happened becauseall the polar ice caps melted.
But there's always like themystery of like what happened to

(18:11):
all of the buildings, whathappened to, um, all the animals
, what happened like whathappened, and there's all these
questions.
That positions the audienceautomatically to want to
continue to watch becausethere's a mystery to be solved
just by making the settingdystopian.
So I think that that's probablythe best thing of Waterworld 2
and I enjoyed just being in itfor, you know, two and a bit
hours.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
It was good, I liked it and that's another part that
I liked is the Waterworld, andwhich I wish they touched a bit
more on is the scavenging sideof it.
You see him sort of scavenge Boonce and that's sort of
scavenged by once, and that'ssort of at the start when he
gets his lime stolen, yeah, whenhe goes down for ages, and then

(18:51):
you're like what the fuck,where's he going?
And then you realize oh, he'sgot a guilt.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Yeah, that's the mystery that ties you over too.
But, yes, there's always thatsense of desperation.
Obviously he's robbed, but thenwhen he goes to the atoll for
the first time, he's allowed inbecause he shows them dirt and
you're just like dirt really,what's the go here?
So the mysteries keep on comingand they have questions that
you want to answer.
And then as you go into theatoll, you see that there's this

(19:17):
massive tree there and you'relike how are they keeping that
alive on the ocean?
And then there's like a ladythat's being pushed into this
bog and then that's just likethere's so much that these
people have obviously thoughtabout in terms of the world and
how it works and the things thatthey want to put on screen.
But what they did that wasclever, which some movies fall
into the trap of, is they don'tover-explain or the audience.

(19:37):
They don't say, oh, the tree isthere because and they don't
have two characters sayingdialogue as to how the tree got
there or why dirt is soimportant.
It's just sort of played out in.
The audience isn't treated likean idiot and you figure it out
on your own, which is why thesemovies kind of work so well.
Um, but yeah, I loved being inthe atoll.
I loved the smokers.
The deacon was absolutelyamazing.

(19:59):
Um, he was probably my favoritecharacter played by dennis
hopper.
His playfulness as well.
One of my favorite scenes waswhen he had those two strung up
and he said you know, if youtalk to me, I won't kill you.
And then he ends up going toshoot him.
He goes no wait, you said, if Itold you I wouldn't kill you.
And he goes.
Did I say that?
Oh, maybe I did say that.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Like there's a nuance's like so what do you
reckon?
And everyone's like oh, then itgoes to the kid.
He's like um, what do you think?
He's like?
Looks like shit.
And he's like looks at me, he'slike it does look like shit.
You always trust a kid to tellyou the truth yeah, yeah, that's
it.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
It was so good, oh man.
And you know what I onlyrealized halfway through the
movie, right, but they're calledthe smokers and they're always
smoking.
Yeah, I'm like that's whythey're called the smokers.
I thought it was because theyleft everything they touched in
smoke, but no, it's becausethey're always smoking like that
.
And one of my little questions,little caveat questions, right

(21:06):
is everybody thinks paper isamazingly valuable, right, but
they're all smoking cigarettes,like they're nothing.
And what's in the cigarette?
Paper?
What the heck.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
We've got all the paper we want.
They're all rolled in paper,yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, so there's obviously some questions that
still remain.
I suppose, for them, though,paper it'd be more so, paper
with stuff on it.
Yeah, I think that's actuallythe point, isn't it?
It's knowledge of the worldthat was.
That's what they're they'rereally after.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
It's not just like paper is for paper's sake but
also it would be paper would bevery rare because the whole
thing's kind of water.
And why does a paper?
When it's in water it getsfucked exactly right, it is
count, very true.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
yeah, let's get into our Reddit people who talked
about this movie.
We have ZyloPhilUK, who saysthat this was the weirdest
prequel to the Yellowstonefranchise ever.
We had CowboyForce who said thebest part of this movie is when
the Euler guy said oh thank Godwhen he's blown up in the
bottom of the deep.
Yeah, that was amazing.
That actually made me spit outmy tea.

(22:04):
Said oh, thank God when he wasblown up in the bottom of the
deep.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
That was amazing.
That actually made me spit outmy tea.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
That was one of the best scenes.
You know, that old guy isliterally like the D&D NPC that
you put into your campaign justto get a laugh out of your
players.
Yeah, 100%, you could explainthat guy to anybody and they
would picture him perfectly.
And yeah, just the way he waslike, oh, thank god, that's

(22:31):
awesome, that's so good.
Um, we have great needle.
Worker 23 says that the bestpart was when dennis hopper is
on screen, but then the worstpart is when dennis hopper is
not on screen.
There's lots of people that arepraising.
What was his name?
Kim Coates, I think was hisname.
Was it Kim Coates, thegentleman that plays the mariner

(22:55):
that they were sort of tradingwith, the one that he was going
to trade Helen and Enola to?

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yes, it's Kim Coates.
He plays the Drifter.
If you don't know Kim Coates,he has piercing blue eyes.
He's in Sons of Anarchy.
He plays Tig, that's right.
Yeah, yeah, and he has thatstutter and he's just like he's
very terrifying and unsettling.
He is.
Yeah, a lot of people on ourReddit thought that he played a
really great role.
He played the man who's been onthe sea for far too long.

(23:31):
Absolutely, he's got thatseasickness ready to go.
Uh, we have alexander the apethat says this movie was a great
adventure.
Even saw the water world showat universal studios, uh.
And then we have periodmustache that says that the
universal show was absolutelyamazing as well.
And then you know, some peoplehave said about the Universal
show that you can feel thepyrotechnics and you know how
expensive those props were thatwere left over from the movie,

(23:53):
because a lot of the props usedin that show were actually
real-life ones from the atoll inthe movie.
So I think actually that isalso how they recouped.
A lot of the budget that theyspent on this movie is through
those universal shows the stuntsas well, can we say.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
There's something about watching a movie right and
seeing a guy on a jet ski goingover a jump and jumping a wall
and landing on the other side ofit and thinking to yourself
that was actually done.
Like they did that.
Yeah, same with the skiers aswell.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, same with the skiers as well.
It's like growing up inVictoria, where skiing is a
pretty big deal, but they'd havefive of them behind a boat
barefooting and they'd make athree and then two on the
shoulders pyramid while skiing.
Oh bro, that's just yeah.
And just seeing that kind ofstuff.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
and then you see that in water where they're jumping
the brimps, with the, with theskis, and you're like fuck, yeah
, yeah, all right, let's move onto our threads.
Right now we have golf tasticwho says it's great fun, but the
hype about its massive budgetand the troubles they had making
it were like anchors to thismovie.
People seem to want more than agreat big daft sci-fi film.
I, I think it is more than agreat big daft sci-fi film.

(25:05):
I think there's a lot of levelsto it in terms of the world
building.
I think in terms of the storywe'll go into a little bit later
.
There could be some more donethere, but I think there's a lot
to look at when you're lookingat Waterworld as well.
Yeah, yeah, it definitely seemed, or for me at least it almost

(25:27):
seemed like too much, too muchin one movie, yeah, and I think
that was.
That was part of the editingdramas that they had, because
kevin reynolds had his idea andthen kevin costner had his idea
of what the movie should be, andyou know, the two don't
necessarily mash well together.
I think that this is a world asa sandbox is absolutely amazing
, and what the writers and kevinreynolds created is is you
could tell a thousand stories inthis place.

(25:48):
I think kevin costner may havehad some some credit to his
point of view where it's good tohave a world like that and then
focus in on how one characteris surviving in that world.
That's a really good way to goand tell a story as well.
But I think they were just theywere trying to tell a lot at
the time and I think that wasthe point as well.
The Room Upstairs podcast saysI haven't watched it in a while,

(26:10):
but when I did as a young'un itwas fire.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
And I can agree with that too.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, Because I watched it.
This is my second viewing of itand I think I appreciated it
more this time than I did when Iwas younger, which is exactly
what JC003 says as well.
It says I think I actuallyliked it more when I rewatched
it a couple of years back thanwhen I did when it first came
out.
And then we have Green Cooperthat says Waterworld was a blast
.
So thank you, everybody in ourcommunity for tuning in to our

(26:36):
socials and contributing to ourhot takes Brash.
We're going to move now onto ahot take given by a very
important and special person,especially in relation to this
movie.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
it is Kevin Costner's hot take on the movie can I
also point out, though,absolutely after Waterworld,
which was made in 1995, in 1997another movie that I actually
kind of like, really like aswell, came out.
That's pretty much the samething, except on land, called
the Postman and he was in thatone as well, wasn't he?

(27:06):
He was in that one and hischaracter is the drifter kevin
kosner had a type just put thatout.
Yep, a nameless drifter dons apostman's uniform and bag of
mail and goes on a quest todeliver mail there it is.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
I've actually never seen the postman, but oh I've,
oh, I've seen it once.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
I love it, I love it.
I reckon it's really good.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
You've got to think as well.
In 1995, there wasn't manymovies that were coming out like
this.
So any of those high adventure,dystopian kind of movies with
this massive world and a veryambitious, I will say, premise,
because in 1997, the highestgrossing movie of 1997 was the

(27:48):
movie oh sorry.
1995 was the movie seven withbrad pitt and morgan freeman,
which is a crime thriller, andthen the second was toy story,
and then, you know, after thatit goes on to those very, very
90s films that you'd be veryfamiliar with, and the 12th
highest grossing movie of theyear was Waterworld.
So there was definitely amarket for it and I think as
word of mouth got out, itsperception actually improved.

(28:10):
But initially, when it firstwas released and during its
production, there was just a lotof buzz about how much it cost
to make, to the point whereKevin Costner, in an interview,
he actually was really openabout the how he was openly
hostile actually to a lot of themedia coverage that was calling

(28:31):
, calling the movie like mean,mean spirited and that they were
.
He kind of perceived that theywere obsessed with the movie's
failure and he actually evenquoted as well that they weren't
reviewing the movie, they werereviewing the expense of the
movie and he said he almostbelieved that the media wanted
them to fail and he comparedthat coverage to like a feeding

(28:52):
frenzy.
They kind of got all over itsaying that it costs so much
money and that the productwasn't.
It was overhyped.
Basically it was hyped soheavily and the film might have
received a fairer critical shakeif it was not so.
He actually stands by the movie,kevin Costner.
He says that he thought it wasa really ambitious project for
1995 and it also kind ofrevolutionized the way that

(29:16):
movies go about, like filmingaction sequences.
Because, he said Kevin Costneractually said there's no green
screen and that we built thatworld from scratch.
And kevin costner said to himthat kind of meant something,
which is why he kind of reallywanted the film to do well and
really poured a lot into thecharacter.

(29:36):
He says that it was one of hismost challenging projects ever
and we'll go into why that was alittle bit later.
But he also said it was probablyone of the most fulfilling
projects because he got thechance to work behind the camera
a little bit on Waterworld andactually sit in a producer's
role.
He invested quite a bit of hisown money into this movie, which
means he was more respected tocall some of the shots and that

(30:00):
led to him in future being ableto be confident in doing similar
sorts of leadership roles onother projects which eventuated
to him, obviously starring inamazing tv series like
yellowstone.
But yeah, he, he sort of standsby it and he said so in a 2021
collider panel interview.
Yeah, it was challenging but he, he said how the original

(30:22):
concept in the world buildingand practical effects are things
that really shaped the modernblockbuster, or what shaped
blockbusters at the time andmodern blockbusters now really
kind of lack that becausethere's obviously tightening of
the belts and things cost moneynow and technology and CGI has
come so far.
But yeah, I think that thepractical effects and the stunts
they're probably one of myfavorite parts of the movie.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Oh yeah.
Well, they used all of Hawaii'slike steel reserves that Hawaii
had and had to get more shippedin from or flown in from
California and they had to makethe runway in Hawaii bigger to
accommodate for a heavier planeslanding with all this steel.
They needed to make the sets.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, man, that reminds me of like that Ron
Swanson meme where he's justlike I want all the bacon you
have, but you should change itto I want all the steel you have
and make.
Hawaii sitting on the chair, or, you know, kevin Costner
sitting on the chair askingHawaii for all the steel they
have.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, so there's all the steel they have there at
Hawaii and they had to fly morein to make um at all yeah, the
at all was a massive set thatthey had to make as well.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
And yeah, we'll probably get into that a bit
later as well, but we are goingto get into our fandom fact
face-off now.
All right, the fandom factface-off is where hosts go
head-to-head with trivia aboutthe focus media, learning new,
new facts along the way.
When the host collectivelygains 25 points from correct

(31:47):
answers, we will give away amovie voucher to someone on our
mailing list.
I believe we have 11.
No, we have 16 points.
We have 16 points so far forour fandom facts face off, which
means we need nine more to go.
That's very doable, not in thisepisode, but it is very doable
in the next few weeks.
So if you want to get in on ourgiveaway where we give away a

(32:07):
movie voucher to somebody to goand have that cinema experience,
then you can do so by joiningour mailing list at
wwwthefandomportalspodcastcom.
Brash, do you want to go firstor me?

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yes, I'll go first.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Go for it.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Okay, so Tina Morigiano, who plays Nola, the
young girl had a nickname on set, do you?

Speaker 1 (32:31):
know what her nickname was and why.
I don't know what the nicknamewas, but it was something to do
with the fact that she wouldalways get stung by jellyfish.
She would have all thesejellyfish stings across her
through all the water time thatshe had.
It was like jellyfish bait orjellyfish candy or something
like that jellyfish candy.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because she was stung three
different times duringproduction by jellyfish and she
was like the only one, only one,who got stung, so they call it
jellyfish king, so it seemedlike the jellyfish just loved
her yeah, wow, man, and you knowall those water.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
This actually flows into my question, so I'll ask
you this one, then we'll talkabout it.
So my question is what was oneof the most dangerous stunts
filmed during production?
And I'll give you a clue it hassomething to do with the
trimaran, which is thethree-hulled boat that Kevin
Costner's mariner would goaround on.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Isn't it just because they filmed it on like 30 miles
out in open sea?

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, well, that trimaran was actually fully
built and they actually had tobuild two of those because one
of them got destroyed and theactual sort of most dangerous
stunt involved the trimaranwhere the mast.
Yeah, kevin Costner wasactually lashed to the mast for
one of these stunts that theywere doing and there was a
sudden storm that occurred andthe trimaran got pulled and

(33:53):
drifted out to sea and becauseit wasn't the most seaworthy
vessel, obviously they had towait until the storm had
quietened before they could goin and actually rescue him.
So he was drifting for nearly30 minutes in open ocean before
the rescue and stunt safety teamcould get him.
Multiple crew members laterdescribed the shoot as very
hellish and a lot of them, youknow, suffered heat stroke and

(34:14):
there was several physicalinjuries, to the point where a
lot of them would call theproduction water hell due to the
constant exposure to theelements.
But it was literally naturethat caused one of the biggest
stunts in the movie to go awry,where Kevin Costner was kind of
strapped to the mask and almostdrowned because of the storm

(34:34):
that was going through.
The scheduling conditions andthe fact that they actually shot
on the open ocean led to areally high turnover of staff as
well, and there were heaps ofkey crew members that kept
quitting or needing medicalattention during the shoot as
well, because I think I forgotthe exact numbers, but I think
it was like 45 people per daywould need medical attention,

(34:54):
for seasickness especially, andalso very severe sunburns was
two of the most common things,and also infections from really
strong exposure to long periodsof time in salt water.
There was also a stuntcoordinator.
His name was norman howell andhe got hit with decompression
sickness, which is do you knowwhat decompression sickness is?

Speaker 2 (35:14):
um, yeah, is that when, like, um, uh, like you're
having trouble, is it havingtrouble breathing?

Speaker 1 (35:21):
uh, kind of it's like when you're like disorientated
and yeah, yeah.
So when you surface too quicklyas a deep sea diver, you get
this thing called the bends andyou get decompression sickness
and it affects your breathingand affects your, your body's
ability to like pass oxygenthrough various different
extremities and yeah, because itcan be fatal.
Yeah, absolutely yeah, he had toget rushed to hospital uh on

(35:42):
honolulu a helicopter and theysaid he recovered fairly quickly
but it was definitelylife-threatening sickness and so
he returned to set a couple ofdays later.
Good on you, Norman Howell.
I don't think stuntcoordinators get enough credit.
Hey, oh, good enough.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
That's why we love that.
That's why I love that.
The movie the.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Fall.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Guy, the Fall Guy, yeah love those.
All right, so we've got uh, oneextra point so far.
Let's go with your nextquestion.
My next question is this is abit of a raunchy, funny one.
So in this movie there is likethere's no real real nudity, but
there is sort of a backshotscene of the character of Helen.

(36:23):
However, jean didn't want to dothe scene herself, so instead
they did something else to findand she wanted to be very
heavily a part of and find theperfect person to be her stunt
double for this sort of half abutt shot, her butt double, her
butt double.
She wanted to find the perfectone.

(36:44):
So they did something quitefunny that helen art later would
oh, that's helen, so jing laterwould say was probably one of
the funniest parts of the wholeentire process.
Do you know what they did tofind helen's perfect butt double
?

Speaker 1 (37:00):
well, I think I don't know the answer to this one,
but my guess would be the onlything that you could do would
just be like to survey the buttsthat you could see around you.
So whether it was like a policelineup of butts and she pointed
to the one that she thought wasthe best Close.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
They had a butt audition, so sort of like an
American or Australian idol, butwith butts, and then the final
three that would get chosen hadto go into Jean's trailer and
disrobe so Helen could have alook at their butt and then,
after all three had done, thatshe chose out of those three

(37:36):
finalists which one was going tobe her butt double.
Yeah.
And then later on, when theyhad to do that shoot, helen was
there on set to make sure thatas soon as they did this robe
sort of scene, she was therestraight afterwards to give her
butt double a robe to cover backup again.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Very thankful, very thankful for that.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
For being the butt double.
Yes, I thought that when I readabout that.
I thought that was pretty funny, like having their own sort of
casting with butt doubles yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
I think that that scene the.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Thing is Helen was actually the final of the judge,
was the final judge and theperson who picked who her butt
double would be, because shewanted one that looked like her
butt it looked just right.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Yeah, I think that scene is actually a really not
insightful but informative onein regards to the Mariner's
character, kevin Costner'scharacter, because he's
obviously being presented withHelen as a way to secure
transport for her and Enola notto throw her overboard.
So it sells us a lot aboutHelen as well that she's willing

(38:39):
to do anything she can toprotect this young girl.
But also in that moment themariner actually sort of
declines and for a moment whenyou're looking at him it's
almost like he is going toaccept that offer because it's
in a time of scarcity.
So he looks very enticed bythis offer but then he sort of

(38:59):
stops.
And he stops because you seethat recoil on on helen and
later on in the movie it saysthat you know he didn't accept
that because he knew that shedidn't want him.
And I think that says a lotabout the mariners character
very early on in the film,because prior to that we're only
exposed to him being very gruff, very materialistic, very

(39:21):
survival orientated, um.
So you could imagine that forme watching it if it wasn't my
first time, I'd probably watchit and think, you know, that
seems like a transaction that acharacter like that would take.
But that was like theinteresting seed that develops
later into the fact that youknow this character is actually
kind of learning a little bitmore about.
You know what is actuallyvaluable in this world, so I

(39:44):
thought that was good.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
And I think the other thing, the fact that I think he
sort of in a way sort of alsohates himself being a
quote-unquote mutant, yeah, andthe fact that if anything were
to happen, and that's why, like,when he's in town, he's like
re-rejects the offer to have achild with the village girl, the

(40:06):
the one at the atoll yeah,atoll, because he knows that the
the one at the atoll, yeah Atall.
Um, because he knows that, well, we're going to end up we end
up finding out that he's amutant a and B, um, they're very
well prejudiced, prejudicedtowards um, his kind and yeah,
and I think that's sort of also.
I think it like holds him backin getting that closeness,

(40:27):
because he knows everyone hateshim and if he were to do that
have a child then that child'sgoing to have to grow up being
hated as well.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
Yeah, yeah and yeah, I think that's also probably was
weighing on his mind as well,and it's funny how we can take
all of these insights based onthe character.
That doesn't really say thatmuch in the first sort of half
an hour to 40 minutes of themovie, and it's just basically
on how he interacts with theworld around him, which is which
is really good to see, becauseI also find it very interesting
that in a lot of Kevin Costnermovies all of the girls seem to

(40:55):
just throw themselves at him allthe time.
We want to breed with you,Kevin.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah, yeah, and you know it says a lot about well, I
don't know if it does say a lotabout him but you know, it's a
bit funny that he's in charge ofa lot of the, the way that
these movies come out, andthat's just something that keeps
coming up.
So yeah, but he's also sort oflike respectfully declines it.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
He's a gentleman always a gentleman and a scholar
, exactly.
I respectfully decline.
All right, so I'll say we gotanother point for that.
So that's two points so far.
My next question we have talkedearlier and it is widely known
that director Kevin Reynolds hadto leave the production before
the film was finished.
Do you know the details as towhy he decided to leave?

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Wasn't it just because he had a clash with
Kevin Costner?
Absolutely yes.
They scuttled over the film andit ended up being so bad that
he just walked off the projectand then leaving kevin costa to
direct it.
And then that's why you saidthe quote before um, how kevin
costa should only start in hisown movies he directs, because
that way he can work with hisfavorite actor and his favorite
director.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
So yeah, kevin, kevin reynolds,he wanted.
He disputed the tone, pacingand the final cut.
Final cut.
That was obviously KevinCostner's sort of vision and
Costner, who was also theproducer and financer, became
very assertive during thisediting process.
Reportedly, he removed a lot ofsequences that Reynolds wanted

(42:21):
to keep and Reynolds decided toleave the process during
post-production.
So after the hellish shoot hestayed on for the entire
production.
So after the hellish shoot hestayed on for the entire
production.
But the editing and thepost-production he left for and
Kevin Costner actually editedthe film a lot or influenced the
editing of the film quite a lot.
The production was supposed togo for about 58 days or
something like that, but itended up ballooning to 150

(42:43):
something.
It was a big, big project and abig debacle.
So it was.
Kevin Costner said it was oneof those situations where
somebody had to step in and Iwanted it to be great and
believed I had to be that personto do it.
Later on years down the track,reynolds and Costner actually
made up.
They've made a film togethersubsequently and when asked

(43:03):
about it now they said it wasjust very unfortunate
circumstances during the timeand I think that it was kind of
like a pressure cooker of amovie because so much was going
wrong, I think, reading duringthe production.
There wasn't one thing during aday that went right.
Lots of different sorts ofthings went wrong for a shoot,
to the point where so manyretakes had to be done and it
was unavoidable elements Becausethey were shooting at an open

(43:28):
ocean, which they were advisednot to do by a very famous
person.
They like in some of the shotsthey would see the background of
Hawaii or the mountains ofHawaii.
So they'd have to turn theatoll around so they could shoot
in open ocean.
And then I read about a scenewhen they did that, they did one
take where they accidentallysaw the mountains of Hawaii in

(43:48):
the background and then theyturned the atoll to shoot it the
other way and they were justabout to get the final cut and
as they did, a pod of humpbackwhales breached the surface and
actually started spraying in themost unfortunate way.
So even those sort of naturalcircumstances stopped some of
the most basic scenes from beingdone.
Yeah, it was.
I don't think it was anyone toblame in terms of kevin ryan

(44:11):
reynolds or kevin costner.
I think the fact that thismovie was made at all is just a
tribute to their dedication tothe project, but there was
definitely a falling out, so youget the point for that one
brash someone quite famous well,there was a few people quite
famous turned down the role ofdeacon, which I think actually
would have been very unfortunateif that had been the case.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yeah, he was so good, so good, so I think it could
have been even worse, eventhough these guys are really
good as well.
But just if you can name oneperson, one famous person, who
turned down the role, of Deacon.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
I kind of want to say I think I read maybe Tim
Robbins Was he one, he.
I want to say I think I readmaybe Tim Robbins Was he one.
He plays Andy Dufresne in theShawshank Redemption.
I don't know if that's corrector not.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Don't know.
I don't think that was it.
I've got four here in front ofme.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
And that wasn't one, that wasn't one, I'm not sure,
let me know, tell me.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
So there was Gene Hackman.
Oh yeah, was um gene hackman.
Oh yeah, um lex luther from theoriginal supermans.
Yep, james can.
Oh okay, uh, unless I canquickly find where I lost my
shit.
Oh, gary oldman, sorry, oh wowgary oldman.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
I can't say that he would have done a bad job
because he gets lost in everyrole, but I think dennis hopper
brings a?
Um, a nuanced sort of comedyruthlessness to the role, which
was sort of funny as well, and Ithink it just fit the setting
really well because it wasridiculous enough but it was
also villainous enough that itworked, and that's my opinion of
it anyway.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
He also would have been pretty young-ish to them,
whereas Death Hopper, I think,was probably a little bit older
and just more.
He seemed more in charge,whereas Gary Oldman probably
would have looked more like thesecond in charge kind of guy.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah yeah, he definitely brought that dark
eccentricity Is that the word,yeah, yeah eccentricity to that
villain and it sort of balancedout the film's bleak setting,
which was good.
I actually saw an interviewwith Dennis Hopper and a lot of
the questions in the interviewsare talking about how much the
film costs, and Dennis Hopperwas actually one of the people
that says I can't really saymuch about that.

(46:18):
I'm not in charge of any ofthat, but from what I'm hearing,
it sounds like I should haveasked for a bit more money.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, helmholtz carried it, but
Drumhole, the biggest, well, oneof the biggest names that also
turned down the role, samuel LJackson.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Oh well, he would later go on to play an
eye-patched bald character inthe form of Nick Fury.
Oh yes.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
He was about to star in Die Hard with a Vengeance.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Oh yeah, actually that movie came out.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
In 1995 as well.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Yeah, it was a good choice for him, because that one
actually grossed more thanWaterworld did.
I think it was like the sixthor seventh highest grossing film
of 1995.
So also that's my favorite, dieHard movie.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Yeah, so yeah, he turned down the role of Deacon
to be in Die.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
Hard Sometimes when we do these who could have
played this character there,these who could have played this
character.
There's some little parts of methat are like oh, I wonder what
that would have been like.
It may have been better, butthis time I think they kind of
nailed it with the deacon inDennis Hopper.
I think that he's one of thebest parts of the movie.
He's definitely one of the mostfan loved parts of the movie
and, yeah, I think he plays.
It's a different kind ofvillain that you see.

(47:24):
You know he's not kind of fullyjaded by the fact that the
world is so harsh and he's kindof humorous and funny too.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
So I thought I liked that he seems to kind of like,
almost like, love it Like.
For him it's like a playground,exactly, and he's just enjoying
his time, yeah, being theleader of the smokers.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
All right, my question is about the smokers.
So my question is the smokersare known for smoking?
Well, yeah, and they they use alot of resources as well, and
when they made this movie, therewas actually a real world
comparison that the writers weretrying to make between the

(48:03):
smokers and, uh, people at thetime.
It was almost like a, a word ofwarning.
Do you know what they weresupposed to represent in terms
of this cultish group known asthe smokers?

Speaker 2 (48:15):
I think you might have got me on this one, I
assume, if it was representingthe time, maybe like gangs
popping up or something, maybe.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
Yeah, close, it was actually to do with consumer
excess, so using lots and lotsof unnecessary items that would
damage the world.
So, for example, they alwaysuse fuel, they always use
firepower, they always smokecigarettes, they always do
things that are damaging theozone layer and it's almost like
a little nod to say, you know,this is kind of what caused this

(48:47):
dystopia in the first place.
They were always using thosepollution era vices and it was
almost like this satirical kindof stand in for overconsumption
and environmental disregardMakes more sense.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Yeah, whereas like say like yeah, yeah, kim Costas
the mariner is, he's is purelysale based, like using the wind,
and it's like like all the um,the and it's like all the
propeller you have at the topthere it was all natural and
everyone else is all natural aswell, and they're the only ones
that sort of like he uses likefuel and a car to drive from one
side of the boat to the other.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
Yeah, exactly, it's that kind of excess that
satirical kind of excess andthat sort of expulsion of
natural resources that quote ledhumans to this fate.
But then the smokers reallyexemplify that in this dystopian
future as well, to the pointwhere, like even their base, the
, the exxon valdez, that bigship, that oil tanker, that's a
real life world tank, that's areal world tanker that sunk in

(49:40):
1989.
Uh, and it shows that that youknow that ecological theme,
providing that real worldmetaphor of environmental
collapse that's depicted in thefilm as well through the smokers
.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
So and that sort of makes sense.
Now, how, like where, everytime, like when he, when they
lost it, like we're sort of notsort of when they lost a lot of
people and a lot of things at atall, um, he wasn't as like he
was angry, he wasn't as cutbecause they're like, yeah, we
got more.
Yeah, it wasn't like it doesn'tdo shit.
It wasn't a desperation there.
We just make more.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
We just do more.
Yeah, exactly, and you know,when they were talking about the
oil levels or the crude levels,they were talking about and
they said you know, there's fourfeet and so-and-so inches, and
they weren't really fussed aboutit.
And you know, we're not goingto slow down the way that we
live, we're just going to go andfind more stuff that we can

(50:31):
burn.
Yeah we will.
That's how long I have to getmore more crude oil so we can
continue to live this way.
But yeah, to the point whereyou know every one of them
drives around on a jet ski.
All of them have like motorizedplanes or helicopters.
There's massive tankers thatare polluting the ocean as well.
They're there's massive tankersthat are polluting the ocean as

(50:54):
well.
They're having no regard forenvironment and they put them in
there specifically that cult,to show that human excess and
consumerism and all thoseenvironmental damages that were
happening were actually, youknow, humans fault.
So I thought that was prettyawesome too.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
I know, yeah, it's a really good look.
I didn't even think about itthat way, which I think is a
shame and why I thought therewas too much happening in the
movie, like too much having itonce, like it'd be so much,
especially much cool to expandand like, like learn more about
each of the fashions, each ofthe group of people, because you
, realistically, you only seethe people of adult.
You see the smokers crew andtheir big ship where they live,

(51:27):
and then the only sort of otherthings you see is you see the
other couple of drifters thatmeet um kevin costa's character,
and then you get to thatoutpost that the smokers have
already raided and killedeveryone, and so that's.
They're the only sort of likecivilized types of civilization.
You see, it's enough becauseyou can see like you got normal
people living how they can,naturally, and then you've got

(51:51):
smokers living however they want, with their excess greed and
all their polluting powers ofusing fuel and oils and
everything like that, and thenyou've got the drifter who will
just stay out and live his ownlife and just be free on the
ocean.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Yeah, and I think there's a lot to dive into when
you talk about the drifter'scode as well, because there was
so many different like rulesthat we heard about early in the
film, where if you, if you findsomebody and you pass by, you
must trade something and youknow, do all the drifters abide
by that code?
That was a question that Helenand Enola had for the Mariner as
well when they saw the, thedrifter uh, going through.
You know, are we going to stopfor him?

(52:30):
And then they obviously had touh, which integrated the trade
between the paper and helen andenola as well, uh, which was
another scene that sort ofshowed the humanity of the
mariner poking through also.
So yeah, I think there's a lotto dive into each faction.
We only sort of saw the surfacelevel to the point where you
know we've said it before aboutmovies like this could make a
really great TV show or a, youknow, a tabletop RPG sort of

(52:56):
setting that you could use aswell.
But yeah, I just think there'sso much more in each little
nuanced part of this movie thatyou can dive into that wasn't
fully explored in the moviebecause they physically couldn't
they have a three hour cut andthere still was more that we
could see.
Do we have any more questions,brash, or is that it?
I think that's it.
I think, that's about it.
That must be it.
All right, that is the end ofour Phantom Facts Face-Off

(53:17):
segment.
We are now moving on to our SetSecrets.
The Set Secrets segment iswhere hosts look behind the
scenes of the Focus movie togive you all the information on
what went right, what went wrongand what was interesting about
the way this movie was made andbrash spoiler alert there's a
lot that went wrong.
actually it's starting to becomea running theme about us

(53:38):
reviewing movies where a lotgoes wrong in the production of
it there is so much things thatgo wrong on on movie sets, to
the point where I'm verysurprised that movies actually
get made and finished, becausethere's just so much like
adversity that people go throughto do it, but it's so
interesting to see that a teamof people come together and do
it every single time, you know,but yeah, there is.
There is so much that went onto the point where the water

(53:59):
world suffered massiveproduction delays and massive
budget overruns for the time.
Uh, one of the main reasons forthis, you know what?
What of the main reasons forthis?
Do you know what key, pivotaldecision was made very early on
in the process of making thisfilm, brash, that caused a lot
of the dramas?
It's a very obvious one, andit's one that the director,
kevin Reynolds, did in contrastto advice given to him by Steven

(54:23):
Spielberg.
What is water?
Yes, yeah he shot the entirething in the open ocean.
Steven Spielberg actually saidto him like as part of advice he
said don't do it.
It's a nightmare, it'slogistically just an absolute
horror.
He did so for Jaws, yeah, andhe also suffered an inflated

(54:43):
production schedule.
He suffered lots of delaysthere for his production on Jaws
but, yeah, it ballooned into170 million 75 million dollar
project because the director,kevin Reynolds, decided to shoot
.
Lots of delays there for hisproduction on Jaws but, yeah, it
ballooned into $175 millionproject because the director,
kevin Reynolds, decided to shootoff the coast of Kona in Hawaii
on lots and lots of floatingsets.
They built the atoll, which wasdestroyed once by a hurricane

(55:04):
that came through.
The production itself was shutdown another three times for
storm and hurricane warnings.
On Kona, hawaii, on the coastthat they shot at.
It's actually known as thewindiest part of the open ocean
in the world, which I don't knowif they knew at the time.
So location scouts don't knowif they did their job properly
there, but like, literally everysingle thing had to float, like

(55:26):
and I'm not just talking aboutsets and boats and things like
that but workshops for costumesand props had to float because
they were on the open oceanToilets for everybody to use had
to float, food stations had tofloat, camera platforms had to
float, and that was just alogistical nightmare.
They had to have everybody tooperate them and build them and

(55:48):
then track them out from thecoast of Hawaii so far out where
they were shooting, and thenevery day everybody on
production had to be ferried toand from the mainland all the
time as well.
So the cost was justskyrocketing and skyrocketing to
the point where on any day theywere shooting anywhere between
really really deep water towaste deep water in the ocean

(56:11):
for hours and hours.
And you know like my biggestquestion for this was how they
kept the camera steady all thetime when they were making shots
like this and like it wouldalmost seem impossible, because
a lot of the time they makecameras steady by running them
across like a dolly track.
You'll often see behind thescenes where there's like train
tracks and the camera movesacross it, so it looks like a

(56:31):
fluid little movement thatthey're doing.
But in this one they obviouslyhad to improvise.
But yeah, they had to developthese specialised rigs to mount
the cameras on.
There's floating gimbals andboat cranes, and a lot of
helicopters were obviously usedfor tracking shots, which was
big on the budget as well.
There's just, you know, therewas lots of groundbreaking

(56:52):
inventions that influenced howfilms were later shot, like
films like castaway and evenpirates of the caribbean when
they were shot on open water aswell, waterworld did all the
running so those movies couldwalk.
Basically, yeah, one of theother big things was when they
were making shots and and doingshots in the film, they had to
avoid like rotor wash from a lotof the boats that went by and

(57:12):
jet skis and things like that,because and then also natural
things that were occurring inthe ocean were just hard to um
avoid.
It was just a nightmare, justbecause they decided to shoot it
all on open ocean and not on astage of any kind.
And you know what I'm, this issound bad, but I'm glad they
suffered for it because I likethe fact that it is real and it

(57:32):
is done on Ocean, that I canwatch it and it pays off to me
100% and what they get for it.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
It looked cool.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
It did absolutely.
It looked very, very cool, 100%and we're talking about it now.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
I'm going to for that .

Speaker 1 (57:47):
Yeah, and we're you know, 30 years later we're
talking about this movie stilland we're very appreciative of
the efforts that you wentthrough, because revolutionizing
the cinematic experience foranything shot on water since.
But also, yeah, it was done ona green screen.
At the time, I think the CGI atthe time was just developing.
They've just made Toy Story,which is the first full-length
feature CGI film, cgi in thismovie, brash.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Yeah, they didn't really do much.
I think it was like the part ofthe lands, like the back of the
land and maybe the fishcreature.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Yeah, when they went underwater as well, that one was
actually shot in a tank and theactual cityscape underneath was
CGI'd in the fish scene.
You know it was cool, brash,but was it like do we need that?
Do we need the fish scene?

Speaker 2 (58:32):
I mean seeing him getting eaten by a fish and then
blowing it apart, and thepeople like they're like we need
to learn how to fish.
He's like fucking, I'll showyou how to fish.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Yeah, well, that's what I mean.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
It.
I think that's the thing I like, because you've already seen
how he's good in a fight andhe's pretty cool and everything
like that.
But I think this just shows hiscommand of the ocean and just
how much of a badass he is.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
That makes me shift towards the Kevin Costner side
of it, looking at the characterof the mariner and seeing how,
if we think about maybe KevinCostner's ego, maybe not
thinking of that, but justthinking of the character of the
mariner and seeing how, yes,that, okay, that's.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
If we think about, like maybe it may be kevin
costa's ego, if we maybe don'tthink of that but just think of
the character of the marineritself, it makes the mariner
seem, seem like as um, becausewhat I try, what I get from the
mariner, is that he is theembodiment of someone living on
the ocean like he.
He knows all the tricks, heknows all, he knows, like, what
to do in all situations when itcomes to the ocean.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
He's as comfortable out there as we are in our own
homes.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
Exactly, and just that badass moment of just being
like you're worried aboutcatching fish.
You're not going to catch anyfish with that flimsy little rod
.
I'll show you how to catch afish.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
And it's just a badass moment to show that the
mariner is who he says he isyeah, okay, all of it to show
that the mariner is who he sayshe is yeah, okay, all right,
brash, I agree with you here.
I think that scene was nownecessary to those, those fish
haters out there.
That's why he he is like aquamanyeah, 100, and you know, I
think a lot of the the movieaquaman was kind of you could
base a lot of it on the marinerand a lot of the things that he
was doing in that way because,yeah, as you said, command of

(01:00:07):
the oceans, absolutely andcompletely there he was fully
comfortable.
A lot of the underwater scenesin this movie obviously key to
the point where he was showinghelen what happened to dry land
and why he doesn't believe indry land.
So he had to take her down inthat little jerry-rigged machine
, yeah, that he just happened tohave for little things not that
he needs it.
Yeah, he hasn't been testing histech tours yeah, exactly like a

(01:00:29):
guy that never needs somethinglike that, just has it handy on
his, his little boat there.
That's cool, but this might bealso something that's explained
in the extended cut, but wedidn't watch that one, so to us
it was weird so we don't knowyeah, um, but yeah, I think that
uh, those those underwaterscenes was was shot in a tank.
It was specially built at thetime and there was lighting
systems that sort of had to beput in there and allowed for

(01:00:49):
better visibility and safety forthe staff.
But it was also very, veryexpensive, uh, when they had to
make that as well, so it it wasvery hard to pull off because
the device they were using tohave, you know, air in it while
uh helen went down into the thatgot very foggy very quickly, so
visibility was hard to see theactress's face through the

(01:01:10):
actual screen.
But one of the hardest things,and something that I actually
sort of questioned as we werewatching it, was the costumes.
We said how amazingly intricatethose costumes were and how
they looked like.
They were so hard to makebecause of all the intricacies
in them.
But there was actually dozens ofidentical costumes, so the

(01:01:31):
mariner had like 12 differentmariner costumes and they're all
the same.
Do you know why?
They would have done that brash.
Well, yeah, yeah, simplicity,but but for continuity as well.
So because they were shootingon the ocean, all of their sort
of sun damaged garments, theyhad to sort of swap between
takes because they were eitherwaterlogged or for continuity's
sake.
If somebody got wet, forexample, but they needed them to

(01:01:54):
be dry for the scene,continuity-wise they'd have to
swap the costumes over, yeah, sothey'd have a dry costume to go
over.
So you know, they were allsoaked and torn and discolored
from the salt water and the sunexposure.
But, yeah, the wardrobedepartment had to have multiple
duplicates on hand and they allhad to be manually aged and dyed
to match each other.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
So the costume department did an amazing job on
this movie Did you notice, theMariner's necklace is actually a
little part of a circuit board.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Yeah, I did.
You know one thing that didannoy me about the Mariner's
character in part of the and Idon't know who approved this in
in the costume department butthey definitely didn't take
people into account that likefocus really hard on movies and
get fixated on one particularthing, like me.
Um, hey, they didn't accountfor, like the earrings that he
was wearing every time he movedhis head.

(01:02:42):
Those things like jangledaround and like that's gonna get
caught on something, especiallyon a boat, bro, like you're up
and down the rigging all thetime and you've got this shell
hanging from one side and threeon the other.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Well, it looked cool, though I feel like you're a
Kevin Costner aficionado rightnow because you're defending him
well I was going to say, like,looking at it, a lot of movies I
really like have Kevin Costnerin them, but like.
The.
Guardian yeah, yeah yeah, likehe was so good so good in that,
and then like the Postman, Ilove the Postman, he's in that

(01:03:11):
Yellowstone, I love Yellowstone,he's in that what's the movie
that he's in with Sean Connery,the Expendables?

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
that's a good one too .
That was like his breakout.
That was really good oh yeah,the Expendables.
Yeah, yeah, yeah where is itthe Expend?
No, no, no, untouchables.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Yeah, that's it, the Untouchables yeah, the cops who
go against the gangsters andthat, yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Yep, yeah, I think that all of these production
issues really make me appreciatethe film so much more.
But let's talk about the bigone, brad.
Let's talk about the biggestbudget drainer eater, yeah, of
this whole entire movie.
Do you know what it was?
I thought it was the fact thatthere was an ocean.
Is it the?
Was it?
That's what caused a lot of theissues, but what's the thing

(01:03:53):
that they spent the most moneyon in this movie?
No, Well, yeah kind of.
Kind of it was building theatoll.
Yeah, yeah, the sets, obviously.
Yeah, there's still pontoons.
They were 400 feet in diameterand they weighed over 1,000 tons
.
They had to make two of thembecause one of them got dredged
down by a hurricane and theytried to retrieve it and pull it

(01:04:14):
back up but it obviously wasn'table to be salvaged.
It was made of modular steelstructures and it was supported
by floating pontoons as well andit was assembled off the coast
and constantly monitored forbuoyancy and stability during
that time and constantlymonitored for buoyancy and
stability during that time.
It was, you know, repairs took anumber of weeks and millions of

(01:04:35):
dollars to do.
After it was, you know, damagedby a hurricane and it ballooned
the budget so much and added tolots of set drawbacks as well.
But it was a milestone inpractical set production and it
is not like it's a completewaste because it is being used
in the sets through all of theuniversal Waterworld shows now
and, you know, 30 years later,still a staple of those parks.

(01:04:56):
I have a feeling I've watchedone of them here at Waterworld.
I know that they do one here inAustralia on the Gold Coast,
but it's a.
It's almost like a PoliceAcademy one yeah, a police
academy one yeah I don't knowI'm sure they did a water well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
I'm sure I've seen a water world version at water
world, at sea world.
Ah, sea world.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
So, yeah, yeah, we have water world here now we
have white water world, but it'sthat's more like uh, water
slides and yeah, like that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Okay, so I'm sure, because when I went to, I went
there when six this would havebeen a year after the movie was
made, and I'm sure there was aWaterworld.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
They do jet ski stunt shows and things out there.
Yeah, maybe that's what you saw.
Maybe that was it.
Maybe you just saw peopleriding jet skis and you're like
Waterworld, yeah, maybe.
All right, let's go to our mostvaluable takeaway.
This is the Heart and soul ofthe podcast, where we break down
the one thing that hit hardest,stuck longest or taught us
something new from what we justwatched.
It is our moment to spotlightthe takeaway that made us think,

(01:05:57):
feel or see somethingdifferently.
This is what we learned fromWaterworld in 1995 starring
Kevin Costner.
I actually messaged you forthis one, brash, and I was like
what did I learn from Waterworld?
I don't know.
I was just so involved in theworld that I was like what did I
?
learn from it.
It was a cool story.
Yeah, it was a great movie witha cool story.
Five stars, but you actuallycome up with a really good one.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Do you want to share it?

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
Yes, so I believe what I came up with was you
better remember it word for wordbecause it was good Word for
word.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
I think my word for word was also pretty terrible.
No, but long story short,prioritising friendship and
camaraderie over immaterial andnot material goods and useless
trinkets that can be replaced sothe real treasure is friendship
, family, family.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
So the real treasure is friends, family, family.
Yeah, true survival isn't aboutjust staying alive, it's
deciding who you're going tostay alive with, and it was that
mariner's choice to startvaluing people over profit, and
it's eventually what kind ofsaves his soul in the end and
gives him that gift of moralitywhile he's adrift.

(01:07:10):
It was almost like the missingpiece in his life, wasn't it?
Because he could survive reallywell on the ocean.
He was really adept at, youknow, seafaring and he could
make the best deal ever.
He was always able to getgreenery and live a nourished
life.
But he didn't truly come aliveuntil, you know, he started
connecting with Helen and Enola.

(01:07:30):
In this world where every scrapof earth is literally a currency
, like paper is currency, dirtis currency, a little trinket
you feel like a shoe, a boot,like a shitty old boot that you
find on a mariner's outfit iscurrency, everything is currency
and more valuable than gold.
Human connection has becomereally rare and almost

(01:07:50):
undervalued.
It's like a costly luxury aswell, because sometimes it can
kill you.
In this sort of world, liketrust is not something that is
well, it's non-existent,basically.
And compassion is dangerous aswell.
If you're nice to somebody, youdon't know what they're going
to do to you back.
Like the mariner, for example,gave compassion and curiosity to
the man who stole his limes atthe start and he was basically

(01:08:12):
lied to straight away.
So it sets you up in that worldsort of way, straight up to say
that this world isuntrustworthy.
It is very dog eat dog.
It is not a place to uh, raiseyour kids, basically.
Um, everyone's seen in this isa potential resource to be
exploited, whether it be fortrade protection power,

(01:08:34):
everybody's using everybody,basically in Waterworld.
So when it gets to the pointwhere the mariner actually meets
Helen and Enola at the start oftheir relationship, that's the
exact same thing, isn't it?
Because the mariner's trappedin a cage, he has a need, pretty
much for the first time that wesee anyway, or possibly the
first time in his life, he needsothers for something he's not

(01:08:55):
sustaining himself, he's notsurviving himself, he needs
somebody else to help him.
Um, he's trapped in that cageand you know, helen and enola
rescue him under the provisothat they are to be taken with
him.
So it's very transactional atthe start there.
But there a there's like achange that happens throughout
this movie, where he begins tostart to realize as well that
connection is more valuable atthis point, and there's a few of

(01:09:17):
those moments in this movie.
Do you remember any Brash?

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
Yeah, well, the biggest one that stands out for
me, I think, is when he startsgetting empathy for Enola, the
fact that she can't swim.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Yes, that's such a good scene the water dance.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
The water dance, yeah .
And then when Helen wakes upand he is sort of laughing or
giggling and screaming andlaughing, and she's like, oh
shit, he's coming, he's drowning.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Which isn't so out of the box, because he literally
said he's going to throw heroverboard, and it was so black
and white for him too.
It was just like.
You know, I only have rationsfor two days.
It'll slow down the speed ofthe boat.
We need to ditch her.
It was cut and dry.
Yeah, oh yeah, 100%.
Yeah, it was beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
And then also the fact where, when this is when he
first really starts to getexcited and along with him, that
I give back to you so shedoesn't know and he's like it's
a loan, it's not hers, she can'tkeep it, it's a loan, knowing
full well that the more she usesit, the more it's going to
disappear.
Yeah, all the crayons, yeah, thecrayons yeah, so yeah, because

(01:10:17):
she goes, she goes.
Helen goes to give him back thelast crayon and all I had.
She's like you won't ever doand use it, even though he knows
full well that if you use itit's going to disappear.

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
I think in that moment he was trying to keep up
his tough exterior, but he wasdefinitely starting to connect
and soften up and I think that'sthe perfect moment for it,
because he gets no returninvestment from giving that
child, that crayon.
He gets nothing back in return,physically at least, and his

(01:10:51):
whole life he's been used totrading one thing for another
and trying to get the best deal.
So that was such a moment ofgrowth for him to actually go
through a transaction that waspretty much charity.
So I think that's perfect.
And then also again, when hestarted to connect with her even
more was during that swimmingscene.
It was almost like that was likean intermission or a break from

(01:11:13):
the harshness of this movie,but also the world, because it
was undershot.
It was beautiful music, thelight was really tranquil, there
was silhouetted figures as welland they were joyful.
They were playing throughoutthis entire scene.
So that was probably one of myfavorite scenes that showed a
lot about the Mariner, and Iactually think that one was

(01:11:34):
influenced and edited by kevincostner, so there's a tick for
old kevin's cap.
Put that one in.
So and that, if without thatscene and without those little
moments, I think the moment atthe end where he's holding that
fire stick over the, over theoil drum, it wouldn't have as
much weight.
And when he talks about how hewould in fact risk all of this
for his friend, you know whywould you do this for my friend?

(01:11:55):
She's my friend.
It wouldn't have held as muchweight or made as much sense.
So, yeah, I think that his slowjourney into that connection is
he realizes that, yes, he willget something out of it and it's
that feeling that he gets,being connected with other
humans as well that feeling thathe gets being connected with
other humans as well.
Yeah, and but like, even though,and he chooses to go back out
in the ocean.
Yeah see, that's literallywhere my mind went too, because

(01:12:15):
I'm like would it have beenbetter if he stayed?

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
well, see what I, how I see it sort of like um parts
of the caribbean with um uh hereand will's character, how he
chooses to stay as captain ofthe um flying dutchman yep and
then only be able to come backto land every so often because
his place because he said tolike my place is on the ocean,

(01:12:40):
but now he knows a place he cancome back to to rest yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
So I guess it's that respite that's the valuable part
for him knowing that they'rethere, everybody has their place
as well and that connectionthat he carries as well.
It actually sort of because hehe did say as well at the end of
this movie that he, uh he hadto go out and find more people
like him, so more mutants likehim, so they would know that
there is a place that they cango and more like them, so the
world isn't such a dangerousplace.

(01:13:07):
So he has to spread that seedof connection that he got.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
And find good people to maybe join on the island,
because realistically, if thosethree people four people are on
the island, Biologically itdoesn't work.
Yeah, no, it's not going tolast long.
So they just want to find morepeople for that island.

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
Yeah, and I think you know by the end it's a full
reversal of the man we meet inthe beginning.
That's drinking his own piss.
He's choosing people overthings and purpose over over
escape, because he could have.
He could literally.
When, when Anola was captured,he could have just gone on his
merry way.
Yeah, it's good, me and my shipalone I want to go.
Yeah, and he could have donethat multiple times.

(01:13:43):
But you know, there's also themoment that we talked about
earlier where he resists thetrade to the drifter.
Uh, enola isn't an object inthat regard.
She's.
She's a child and she's got aspirit and she's got like a
future.
And I think actually the factthat they made enola a child and
the fact that the child was themap she had, like a plot
version of importance, but shealso had an important role as

(01:14:06):
being an actual child, becausein a situation that's dystopian
and I've seen this in lots ofmovies before as well the
biggest baggage you can have isjust having to drag a child
along the way sledge becauseunless they're like, like even
carl in the early season look atyou, carl such a burden.
Such a burden and I think thatspeaks a lot to the character

(01:14:27):
where he initially thought ofher in that manner but then
eventually she, I'll say, provedher value and worth.
But really he saw the valuethat was always there, which is
that, you know, connection iswhat is the real commodity and
resource.
Alright, you ready to rate itjust about.

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
I just want to make an honorable mention.
Go for it, because we haven'tactually mentioned this or said
anything about this.
Jack Black is in this movie aswell.
No, who was Jack Black in thismovie?
He is the plane pilot, not theone that gets blown up and shot
down, but you see him whenthey're talking about once they
found him and they're talkingabout the plan, about where he's

(01:15:04):
going to be, and they're like,oh, he's going to know where we
think he's going to be, so he'snot going to directly change his
course and we're going to catchhim again.
I know that.
You know.
The person sitting in thebackground with the pilot's cap
on is Jack Black, and you cansee him.
He's in the background justmaking all these fucking
ridiculous faces Wow While Dickis making his speech, and then

(01:15:26):
there comes a shot of him andhe's got a cigarette in his
mouth and he throws it atsomeone.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
Now, man, that must have been one of his first ever
roles.
You know another fun fact interms of, uh, people that were
in this movie, a very famouswriter actually came in to do
rewrites on the script aftersome debacles with old writers
that had to leave, and it wasJoss Whedon.
It was one of his first rolesand he said it wasn't a very

(01:15:51):
good experience because he wasbasically there and as soon as
he got there Kevin Costner gotin his ear and he was pretty
much writing Kevin Costner'sideas into scenes, so there was
not much creativity to it.
All right, let's rate it.
Time to rate it and rank it.
Each host gets five stars, onefor each category story and

(01:16:12):
script, characters andperformance, direction and tone,
visuals and soundtrack andoverall enjoyment.
If the movie nailed it, it getsa star.
If it flopped, it gets no star.
If it almost stuck the landing,it gets half a star.
At the end, each host lands ona personal score out of five.
We take the average of that andwe update our official
letterboxd on a board.
If you want to follow thatalong, it is on our Phantom
Portals letterboxd.

(01:16:32):
You can track any time.
Let's see how we ratedWaterworld 1995.
World 1995.
It's a messy but majesticaquatic epic brash.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
You've said you liked it.
Are you biased in this one?

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
uh, I wouldn't sound biased, but um, there is a bit
of nostalgic love for this moviefor me so, okay, keep that in
mind, everybody, when you'rehearing brash's rankings, I will
be professional and on by itnow.
All right.
So story and script I'll gofirst.
For this one, I gave it half astar.
The world building isimaginative and immaculate.
It's well realized.
The costumes are awesome.
The plot is a little bitdisjointed, though a little bit

(01:17:09):
predictable.
Story's a bit thin, same as alllike the mad max movie that
it's kind of based off of aswell.
The story is group of peopleare in trouble and need to get
to x place, like that'sbasically it.
So the world building isabsolutely immersive.
I can't fault it.
We weren't given enough of it,but I think that there's enough
depth there to keep me curiousas a viewer.
So in terms of story, I gave ithalf a star.

(01:17:31):
In terms of script, as in theway that the movie plays out as
a story, not so there for me,but some of the lines in it very
quotable, very awesome.
So if I could give threequarters of a star, I would, but
it's half a star for me.
What about you?

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
Very much the same Half star.
As I said, I think it was toomuch in one hit.
Yep, I reckon if they hadspread it out somehow.
I also feel like it would behard to do it in two movies.
So yeah, half stuff for me forthat.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
Beautiful.
All right, let's go tocharacters and performances.
So for me, I'll give it half astar, because the other part of
our thing is characters andperformance.
So I think that the characterswere all really awesome and it
made me wanting to dive deeperinto those characters because of
how interesting they were inthe setting.
However, the performances Ithink some were hit and some

(01:18:27):
were missed.
For me, like dennis hoppers wasamazing and pulled off, but I
think some of his lackeys andsome of the the extras in that
regard were a little bit tooslapstick and over the top four
to be villainous.
It's almost like, if you change, actually digressing yeah, if
you change think about it, thinkabout it, yeah, yeah, if you
change all of the charactershimself is pretty

Speaker 2 (01:18:47):
slapstick, and then all his followers are just
extensions of him well, that'sexactly right too.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
Yeah look, I'm gonna give it a full star.
I think that the characters andthe performances in this is is
good, like kevin costner'sperformance.
Is is gruff and nuanced, butit's supposed to be, and then
when he opens up he's like thedad that doesn't want the dog
yeah.
And then he gets the dog and heloves the dog more than
anything.
So I'm going to give it a fullstar for characters and
performance.

Speaker 2 (01:19:10):
He is what I wish the Mad Max character was a bit
more like.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Oh, dementus, dementus, I think that's what
they were going for.
Hey, yeah, yeah.
And to Frank and Thomas who arelistening to this this doesn't
mean that we like your AmericanMad Max, but the.
Australian one.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
We just like Dennis Hopper a lot.
We've had multiple Mad Maxes,that's true, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
Talk to your boys.
Talk to your boys, frank andThomas, get us another one.

Speaker 2 (01:19:42):
Yeah, another one so we can do an accurate comparison
.
I would love that so much.
Yeah, absolutely Deacon so good.
All these lackeys I loved allthese lackeys.
I loved how like sort ofslapstickish they were because,
realistically, like they'redoing some dumb shit, like the
guy with the pig mask that's onthe railgun and he's just
continually shooting througheverything.

(01:20:05):
And I love the fact that he'sgot the pig mask on, because it
also shows that greed, like hedoesn't want to stop, like he
just wants destruction, he justwants to chow down on this
destruction.

Speaker 1 (01:20:14):
Yeah, and it's almost like instinct too.
He wasn't acting off of anysort of logic.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
It was all instinct survival, bang, bang, bang, bang
, bang, bang.
But then this shows how sort oflike eh, that Deacon's
character was, because he says,like what's his name and what
was the pig's name?
He's like, oh, his name's Chuck, and he's like Chuck, chuck.
And he's like, maybe he doesn'tanswer Chuck, call him Charles.

Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
and then he's like, well, chuck's off the boat yeah,
that's literally likeexemplifying that excess and no
fucks given attitude of they'rejust wastefulness.

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
It's just like well but then you got like the good
character sides and yeah, kevinCostner's character.
I love the man, like hischaracter, like, yeah, gruff, so
he starts to wind down but hedoesn't sort of lose that.
I'm a badass one man army typedeal and he took out pretty much
all the smokers in mind but, um, blow up their ship and

(01:21:19):
everything like that.
And then even like HelenHelen's character, I liked
Helen's character as well.
I really liked the character ofHelen.
Jean did an absolutelyphenomenal job.
I did hear, though, thatbecause Kevin and her worked on
a thing previously and not toolong ago and they were sort of a
bit on and off with theirfriendship.

Speaker 1 (01:21:41):
Yep, so to say.
Well, I think during this movieas well, kevin Costner was
going through a divorce.
He was as well.
So that's literally justanother thing that piled onto
the fiery heap of shit that wentwrong in Waterworld.
You know, production issues,all the hurricanes, everything,
also Kevin Costner divorce.
Yeah, it was just a hellishtime for everybody.
But yeah, also Kevin Costnerdivorced.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
yeah, it was just a hellish time for everybody.
But, um, yeah, but she did amarvellous job.
I thought she was really goodand then.
But then there's Nola, a childactor.

Speaker 1 (01:22:08):
Okay, here we go.
Phantom Portals regulars.
You know how this is and how'dyou go.
I fucking loved her.
Hey, there we go so good.

Speaker 2 (01:22:16):
She was so good.
Oh, I liked she was so good.
Oh, I like the characters a lotlike tina just just knocked out
of the park.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
Yeah, I think she did a good job too, especially in
the scenes where she was thelittle girl combating the deacon
and the lackeys and just sayingall these nightmarish things
about the mariner, you know,like he's a man that doesn't
have a name, so death can't findhim, and like all that kind of
stuff.
He's coming for me, you know,and when he does like yeah, it's
, yeah, it's just all thosethings a kid definitely would
say, but she delivered it withsuch like and the way she's like

(01:22:46):
.

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
She's always like, like in a way, like she knows
she's doing something wrong andthen still sort of do it and
sort of just like, like, andthen you see the like, the like.
It's almost like testing themout.
Oh, I'm like, oh, it looksgreat, I love it, yeah, no, so,
yes, no, no, it was really greatand I have to give this a star
very good, all right, so fullstar for me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):
Full star from you for characters and performance,
direction and tone.
I gave this half a star becauseI think to pull this project
together is just a feat ofdirection, but there was
obviously some creativedifferences tonally between
Kostner and Reynolds and thatcan be seen on occasion through
this.
I think that you know, mixingthose large scale spectacles

(01:23:30):
with the emotional beats is good, but I think that the the
struggle for the production andto have that cohesive tone was
something that for me, I gave ithalf star.
What about you?

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
It's hard Cause when it comes to like the smokers and
when it like focus on thesmokers but perfect, like they
did, like there was such suchgood direction, they went with
them was perfect.
But then, yeah, you do see,with with kevin costner and and
their section of the movie, likethere's parts where it's like,
oh, they're dragging this out abit.

(01:24:06):
Yeah, I think that was theemotional piece that they're
trying to do.

Speaker 1 (01:24:10):
Yeah, and I'm like they lingered on scenes a little
bit for the arthouse appeal.
That's what I mean by the tonaldifferences there, because there
was high action spectacle likejet skis jumping over shit and
explosions galore and someonebungee jumping out of a balloon
to pick up somebody out of thewater while seven jet skis
crashed into each other.
But then there was also thoseemotional beats of helen and, uh

(01:24:33):
, the mariner sitting on somewreckage and just sort of
lingering on gazing eyes for alittle bit too long and that
kind of thing like it was almostlike some people wanted it to
be a character driven periodpiece and others wanted it to be
a action blockbuster and itdidn't quite marry.
Well, it was good, but itdidn't marry as well yeah, like
that's I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
And there's like and especially like the jumps you
get because you go to the jumpsfrom the mariner scenes that are
all like.
They like the start of thescenes in the middle of parts of
the with the Mariner and Helenand Enola, were all really good,
but then at the very end itsort of just it falls into a
lull and then snap, you're atthe smokers and there's shit
going crazy everywhere and it'sbombastic and larger than life

(01:25:12):
and they're playing like whatwas the music they played when
the deacon was like drivingthrough the atoll.

Speaker 1 (01:25:20):
It was like Bad to the bone or something.
Yeah, it was like this easy topor something is.

Speaker 2 (01:25:25):
Yeah, it went from like one like went from like
them just drifting in silenceand nothing, and then all of a
sudden it went bang to this likewhere people are like banging
on making, like banging on metal, like making shit and making
bullets, and kids around runningaround smoking and everywhere.
Yeah, it didn't merge the two,the cut scenes.

Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
well, I don't think.
Yeah, so half a star for youbecause of those inconsistencies
.
Yeah, okay, alright, so thatmeans you and I both gave it
half a star for direction andtone.
Moving on to visuals and sound,for me I gave this a full star
because everything looks real,because it is real.
They've built it all fromscratch.
The costumes are absolutelyimmaculate.
There's little adornments, likeI'm looking at a picture here

(01:26:10):
of Dennis Hopper right now.
His jacket alone has so manywar medals attached to it.
All those different sorts ofattention to detail was really
perfect for me and thatattention to detail was really
perfect for me and that makes meforgive the janky cgi.
In terms of the sound, therewas a little bit of um

(01:26:30):
disconnection between you know,the hard rock that was playing
during the um, the smokers scene, but then it was like the.
The jarring to me came whenthat was mixed with almost the
tribal pan flute sort of musicthat was playing when the
mariner was on.
But I actually think that waskind of intentional to see, like
the industrial electric heavymusic and then the naturally
percussion yeah, so I think,that sort of wove in.
Okay with the sound.
For me, yeah, I gave it a fullstar because of the effort that

(01:26:52):
they went through on theproduction to actually build
everything and make it authenticand make it their own and bring
a world to life that we bothlove, like we both believed it
and we both love it and we wantto explore more of it.
So for me, I gave it a fullstar.

Speaker 2 (01:27:04):
Yeah, not much to touch on there.
I gave it a full star too.
The stunts alone were amazingtoo, like with the skis and the
jet skis, yeah, like, oh, justabsolutely fantastic.
Flying up the um, you know,stump double it's a lot of his
work.
But like, flying up the mast,like and all, like swinging
around on the mask and masteringeverything like that and like

(01:27:26):
just all the action scenes, justphenomenal.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
And the fact that they do that all in the open
ocean primarily, like, oh, justyeah, yeah, and also the feat of
engineering that had to occurfor them to oh, to do any of
that, yeah, and build themachines to actually capture the
film.
So that has gone on to be usedin other films as well, and that
kind of legacy is like youcan't, I can't not give it a
full star, yeah for that.
So all right, now let's bringit to enjoyment and watch a

(01:27:49):
rewatch ability for me.
I'm actually sitting herethinking I want to show this one
to Kalia because I, but I thinkit's one that she could
probably get behind, because itdoes have that like it has the
action which is the action andthe relationship sort of, and
then it also has therelationship between the Mariner
and Helen and Enola and itshows that Mariner's growth

(01:28:11):
throughout and she really likesthat sort of character build.
So for that it's good,rewatchable, wise, and I enjoyed
the heck out of coming back toWaterworld, so I gave it a full
star as well.
I'll come back to these highseas anytime.
So if they're going to doanother one, I'll watch it.
You'll get into a series, I'llwatch it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:28):
Yep, I'm saying yeah, yeah, just yeah.
I love it's like one of myfavorite movies of this type,
along with like yeah, just giveme more of it.
Yeah, full star, full star.

Speaker 1 (01:28:41):
Cool.
Yeah, I think it's ambitious.
It's like a chaotic blockbuster, like a great popcorn flick,
but it also has those moments ofsubtlety as well with character
development.
So overall, I have given it.
I think we're about the samenow.
Yeah, I gave it four stars andyou also gave it four stars
altogether, which gives it anaverage of four stars, and you
also gave it four starsaltogether, okay, which gives it

(01:29:02):
an average of four stars, whichmeans it will sit on our fandom
portals on a board.
So we've ended up with havingWaterworld sitting sixth on our
list, just below Iron man.
Yeah, so it's in the top ten,definitely, and I hope that
impresses our audience but alsoimpresses Frank and Thomas, who

(01:29:24):
challenged us to this movie.
If you haven't already, go andcheck out their podcast, which
is the Challenge Acceptedpodcast.
They're part of the Geek FreaksNetwork, two great guys and
they love to chat about moviesand TV as well.
So, yeah, sitting sick on ourfandom portals.
You know what we have to do now.
What Mad Max?
Yeah, we gotta see if itactually fits and gets better.
Do we do Mad Max?

(01:29:45):
Do we do Furiosa?
Do we do Fury Road?
If we want it to compete, Ifeel like we gotta do Fury Road,
surely?
Or Thunderdome?
I love Thunderdome, bro.
That's a hot take.
That is a hot take.

Speaker 2 (01:29:58):
Master Blaster.

Speaker 1 (01:30:00):
I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:30:01):
Master, he's Blaster.

Speaker 1 (01:30:03):
There was a choice, mate.
Look, mad Max was made in 79.
This was made in 95.
True, but anyway, let's get onto our sign-offs.
All right, everybody, that wasWaterworld from 1995.
Thanks, brash, for joining meon that one.
If you wanted to be part of theship, part of the crew, then you

(01:30:24):
can definitely join our mailinglist at
wwwfandomportalspodcastcom.
If you do, we'll send you oneemail a month that shows you all
the things that are going on inthe Fandom Portals podcast.
You'll learn first that Brashand I are going on a holiday
soon.
Go and see Vox Machina CriticalRole play D&D Live.
That was in our monthlynewsletter.
But you'll also have a chanceto enter all of our giveaways.

(01:30:46):
So you must be a part of ournewsletter in order to get an
entry to our giveaway and oncethose giveaways activate, we
will choose from our mailinglist people to select our winner
.
If you want to have youropinion read out on our podcast,
then join our threads Instagramand Reddit.
We are always at fandomportalseverywhere and we're also pretty
social on there.
We post some in real life stuffas well when it comes along.

(01:31:07):
So that's the best way to getto know us as hosts is get on
those socials there.
If you have a longer question,you can definitely email us too.
We are at fandomportals atgmailcom Next week portals at
gmailcom.
Next week, brash, we are goingto do the new animated feature
on Disney plus called Predator,killer of Killers.
Oh yeah, I've recently beenwatching some of the alien

(01:31:29):
movies, trying to like broadenmy horoscope.
Have you watched any of thePredators?
I like Predator better thanAlien.
I've watched the originalPredator.
I've watched Alien vs Predator.
I've watched Alien vs Predator.
I can do Predator in terms ofhorror movies.
I know it's well known thatAaron doesn't do horror movies,
but I can do Predator.

Speaker 2 (01:31:46):
Make sure, before we watch this movie, you watch the
latest Predator that has theNative Americans in it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:53):
Oh yeah, I've watched Prey.
I've rated it on Elderboxbefore yeah.
I've watched Prey very good, Iknow, because I know there's a
bit of a bit of a easter egg inthe animated movie, so that's
homework for all our viewers aswell.
Make sure you watch Prey, andthen we are going to be looking
at and taking a deep dive onPredator Killer of Killers next
week.
So make sure you tune in, keeplearning, keep growing, keep

(01:32:16):
loving fandoms.
And if you did love thisepisode, guys, please, please,
please, share it with somebodywho needs to give water world a
re-watch, because word of mouthdoes a great thing for small
podcasters like us.
It spreads the word and we'dlove to hear from all of the
people in our community.
So that's it from me.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
Aaron signing off brash just remember, dry land is
not just our destination, it'sour destiny.
Peace, see ya.

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Waterworld (1995) – Sinking Budgets, Soaring Stunts, Kevin Costner's most Challenging Role and the Power of Survival

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Waterworld (1995) – Sinking Budgets, Soaring Stunts, Kevin Costner's most Challenging Role and the Power of Survival