MovieChat Forums > Waterworld (1995) Discussion > More plot holes...

More plot holes...

posted 15 years ago by tomvars
31 replies | jump to latest

Ive spent some times looking through the boards and found alot of people talking about where they got the cigarettes or why the girl cant swim. But I can think of alot of other plot holes people havent discussed.

1.Where did they get guns and ammo from?
2. How can the Mariners shotgun work after being submerged?
3.Nearly no dry land = nearly no vegetation = no oxygen to breathe... The Mariner could because he had gills but noone else...
4.The whole world being covered by water wouldnt make the top of mount everest any hotter, it would still be a frozen tundra aswell as all of waterworld which would be at the same altitude.
5. Where did they get the gasoline for the jetskis?... There was crude oil shown in the smokers boat but you would need to distill it...
6.How did the woman not die from the pressure after being submerged several hundred feet underwater and resurfacing quickly?.(Yh I know it would be an anti-climax for them to go up extremely slowly)

I know its just a movie and its set in a comepletly fictional setting but I couldnt help being bothered by these impossibilities.

[–] pimpcurtly 15 years ago

I only have answers for 2, 3, 4 and 5.

2. My guess is, you don't watch mythbusters. Guns will still fire after being submerged in water. It's just less likely the bullets will do damage.

3. Blue-green algae in the water is theorized to be the reason we have oxygen on earth by providing O2 before there were plants, animals, dinosaurs, etc. It still exists where ever there is fresh and salt water.

4. Ever wonder why sea level is a lot warmer than the mountains? Its because the ocean has an emormous impact on the earth's tempurature and weather patterns. If the sea level were to rise substancially, the land masses still above sea level(as in Waterworld) would have dramatic change in weather and mean tempurature. Also, if the polar ice caps melted, the tempurature of the ocean would be, presumably, warmer than they are today thus warmer tempuratures on the existing land.

5. Distillation is a process that has been done for thoudands of years. Judging by some of the materials you see throughout the movie, they would be able to distill crude oil. Probably not in the quantity that is needed for all the jetski's and planes to run for any length of time.

Hope that helped. =)

"Noise is all relative to the silence preceding it" - V

[–] toocool00_au 14 years ago

I'm just wondering if anyone has realised that even if the polar icecaps melted, it wouldn't raise the sea level enough to end all civilisation. Infact its only the ICE thats on land, melting into the ocean (( yes their is land atleast theirs in antarctica)) that\d cause trouble. That and Iceland.

[–] pimpcurtly 14 years ago

If all the polar ice caps were to melt, the ocean would only rise a matter of feet. It would not cover most of the land masses on earth as hypothesized in Waterworld. That's the biggest plot hole in the movie, in my opinion.....but there wouldn't be much way around that for the writers.

"Noise is all relative to the silence preceding it" - V

[–] Lem_Fliggity 14 years ago

If all the ice on earth melted, the seas would rise an average of 330 feet. Not enough to cover all the earth, but more than "only rise a matter of feet."

Yes, it's impossible that the earth would be covered with water, but even knowing that, I can suspend my disbelief and enjoy the movie. I don't go to the movies for scientific accuracy, although it's a bonus when it's there.

---
Obscure movie quote

[–] actionmanrandell 10 years ago

actually recently a massive ocean beneath the ground was discovered that is 3 times the size of our ocean

[–] SpiltPersonality 11 years ago

2 - I'm not confident on this one, but I would think that shotguns would not be as waterproof as other firearms. The shotgun has a plastic shellcase which is full of shot. There is a cap and wad, but I don't think it would be as waterproof as a bullet and case style round.

SpiltPersonality

[–] skynet2002 15 years ago

1 & 5. These are explained in Director's Cut.

[–] denny7777 15 years ago

1. It had probably been saved up. There are more guns in this world than there are people.

3. Algae could produce the oxygen. There was also hardly any animals or people left on the world, so the few breathing lifeforms left were probably sustained by the algae.

4. The only reason Mount Everest is cold is because the atmosphere is thinner. If the water level elevated, so would the atmosphere.

5. This is a true "plot hole" by definition - we just have to assume they had some method of refining the crude oil.

6. It wasn't just several hundred feet of water, it would have to be several THOUSAND feet of water... mount everest is 30,000 ft tall, which is where they end up in the end.. The pressure from 20,000ft +/- a few thousand feet of water would KILL YOU.

TOO MUCH HAIR!! CANNOT SEE!! CANNOT SEEEEE!!!

[–] unknown_soul278 12 years ago

The summary stated the underwater city was denver, CO, so it had a higher elevation to begin with.

The wild, cruel animal is not behind the bars of a cage. He is in front of it.

[–] actionmanrandell 10 years ago

the bubble he had her in protected her if the bubble had oxygen in it she would not be pressurized the oxygen in her lungs would protect her

[–] teck76 14 years ago

1. This isn't a plot hole since it's a question. The fact that we don't know how something is possible doesn't mean it's impossible.
2. Same as 1.
3. Unsupported assumption. We can only speculate on what would happen if the earth were entirely flooded, and there may be other conditions to take into account before judging that something is impossible. Because of that, the conclusion that it's a plot hole is false. Just for the sake of speculating: nothing suggests that the oxygen left over from before the flood, along with the amount produced in the remaining land, wouldn't have been sufficient. Also, if the mariner had time to develop an aquatic respiratory system, for all we know it's possible the other people would have developed some sort of respiratory system that relies less on oxygen and more on other minerals.
4. Unsupported assumption. There's no evidence that everything at or above the altitude of earth's highest point would be at freezing temperature just because the terrain is frozen at said point.
5. Same as 1.
6. Same as 1.

[–] Mayhemm 14 years ago

By far the biggest plot hole in the movie is the melted polar ice raising the ocean several hundred (or thousand) feet. As previously mentioned, in reality it would only rise a few feet. However, I'm willing to forgive this exaggeration because it provides the setting for the story. A better solution would have been to leave the exact cause of the deluge ambiguous, but whatever. I can handle intentional unbelievable plot points (all movies do it to varying degrees), but the rest of the world outside of that main fantasy element has to function like it should for me to really admire a movie.

Most of your points have been satisfactorily answered, but here's my input:

1) They stole the guns from atolls/ships that they raided. This applies somewhat for the ammo as well, but they do make their own rounds. This is quickly shown in the theatrical version and moreso in the extended version.

2) Some weapons are watertight by design. Other just have diminished performance when wet. One of these things must apply to Ulysses' shotgun.

3) Most of the oxygen on earth is produced by undersea vegetation. Every forest on the planet could burn to the ground and we would still be able to breathe (assuming the ocean plants weren't contaminated and we didn't all die from smoke inhalation). Since the forests of Waterworld were drowned, we would presumably have no respiratory side-effects.

4) Yes, it would. Everest's peak would be the new sea-level and have the applicable climate thereof. The earth would become a relative greenhouse compared to what we know.

5) Similarly to #1, they could probably refine their own fuel. Although it would be quite poor by our standards; producing tons of smoke and fumes (thus, Smokers) as well as burning up quickly. I also doubt it would be of aviation grade (no planes for you!)

6) I don't think decompression sickness occurs unless you have direct exposure to the pressure (IE: scuba diving) since submarine crews in their sealed vessel do not have to worry about it. It could be argued that the bubble protected Helen from suffering the effects of the bends. However, a better question would be why the enormous pressure didn't cause the whole thing to implode.

[–] UberNoodle 14 years ago

Hey, I think you are confusing 'plot holes' for 'questions'.

1.Where did they get guns and ammo from?
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Where did they get ANYTHING from? Probably where they got the oil from and the BOATS. All they needed to find was some gun-freak's 'end of the world' stash of weapons .. or two.

2. How can the Mariners shotgun work after being submerged?
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Many guns work after getting wet or submerged. I guess hollywood did you wrong by showing you too many outdated myths.

3.Nearly no dry land = nearly no vegetation = no oxygen to breathe... The Mariner could because he had gills but noone else...
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Well he'd still need O2 because all gils do is extract the O2 from the water. However, as said above, algae also photosynthesises, and there is a LOT of it.

4.The whole world being covered by water wouldnt make the top of mount everest any hotter.
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It would change the temperature incredibly, just as said above. Think about how 'high' a lot of islands are already. DROP the water and see some HUGE mountains ...

5. Where did they get the gasoline for the jetskis?... There was crude oil shown in the smokers boat but you would need to distill it...
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They had crude oil, but they could also have stolen a lot of gasoline too. Actually, he uses the word 'go juice' and also 'black stuff' as proper-nouns. Perhaps he was talking about the two different things. Anyway, if you are watching a film and wondering about how they distilled crude oil into gasoline, then seriously, LEARN how to watch a movie properly.

6.How did the woman not die from the pressure after being submerged several hundred feet underwater and resurfacing quickly?.(Yh I know it would be an anti-climax for them to go up extremely slowly)
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The decompression sickness is caused when a oxygen and gases, compressed by water pressure, expand in the lungs, blood and body as the diver rises to the surface. You can imagine the result. I gather that since the air in their make-shift diving bell was not compressed, then the problem of decompression sickness was not an issue

[–] Pennywisdom 14 years ago

5. Where did they get the gasoline for the jetskis?... There was crude oil shown in the smokers boat but you would need to distill it...

In the scene where we first see the pale guy in the smoker's ship with all the oil, refining the oil is mentioned by either Deacon or one of his lackeys.

Mother, as first lady of the American stage Helen Hayes once said, "I'm going to kill you."

[–] anniemine 14 years ago

Just watched this again

Who cares about plotholes...
This movie is just great fun
It's a comic book fantasy.

Enjoy the jokes, the beauty, the excitement
Dennis Hopper is just a stitch, as are others

[–] !!!deleted!!! (18817332) 14 years ago

The decompression sickness is caused when a oxygen and gases, compressed by water pressure, expand in the lungs, blood and body as the diver rises to the surface. You can imagine the result. I gather that since the air in their make-shift diving bell was not compressed, then the problem of decompression sickness was not an issue

That is physically impossible. If the air in the diving bell was not compressed then basic physics throws up two problems both of which relate to Boyle's Law. wikipedia it or try this: inflate a balloon and take it down to the bottom of the deep end at your local pool. Notice how the balloon shrinks as the volume of air inside decreases. The deeper you go the greater the pressure on the air so it has a smaller volume.

The problems are:

1) The pressure of the water would crush the diving bell. Unless the diving bell is made of some magical super strength material that can withstand that kind of pressure. Nothing in the movie suggests this however let's let that one slide and assume that this bell can withstand the depths shown. It has absolutely no pressurisation or air supply of it's own meaning that it leaves the surface with a fixed amount of air and once that's gone it's gone. That in turn means:

2) Decompression would not be a problem anyway because she would have died from lack of oxygen. Let's say that the sunken city was 200 metres below the surface (which it was quite comfortably more than). The pressure at 200m depth is 21 bar (i.e. 21 times the pressure on the surface.)*. Which means you would use up 21 times the amount of air in one normal breath that you would on the surface. For example an average healthy adult has a lung capacity of around 6 litres, of which 4.6 litres is used in normal respiration when not undertaking strenuous activity. breathing 12-16 times a minute, again a normal rate when standing still not exerting yourself, you will use at least 43.2 litres per minute. At 200m that will increase 21 times to 896.2 litres per minute.

For her to survive let's say ten minutes in the bell at that depth there would need to be at least 8962 litres of air in the diving bell when it left surface (this is if you discount the time spent descending/ ascending).

That diving bell looked to be only just plausibly 10,000 litre capacity but then I never got a good look at the available space inside so it could well have been less than that but either way it would be a very close thing.

When you add on the time needed for deco, which would be considerable, it's highly implausible that there would be enough air in the bell for her.

* Margin for error: The premise of the film is obviously that sea levels have risen drastically putting the survivors a good few hundred metres above current sea level. This in turn means that the air they breath may be thinner and that they will have adapted to needing less O2. The difference would be insignificant unless you're talking about them being a few kilometres higher than we are. However if that's the case it also means they descended a few kilometres meaning the air in the bell would be reduced from 10,000 litres to at most 1,000. It also means she would be breathing at least 4320 litres per minute so the maths there are self explanatory.

The only way for the diving bell to have enough air is if it were pressurised in the same way as a submarine which, as mentioned, has an in built system for keeping the air pressure the same as that on the surface. However it is painfully obvious from watching the scene that this diving bell has no such system.

[–] alioth4 12 years ago

"Margin for error: The premise of the film is obviously that sea levels have risen drastically putting the survivors a good few hundred metres above current sea level. This in turn means that the air they breath may be thinner and that they will have adapted to needing less O2."

Actually if overall sea level rose, wouldn't that effectively "raise" the atmosphere, with pressure at the new sea level not changing much, if at all, from current sea level air pressure? The reason air pressure varies by altitude is that most of the mass of our atmosphere settles at the lowest elevations it can (sea level, and areas below sea level where they exist, such as California's Death Valley) due to Earth's gravity. So it would settle at a similar pressure gradient from the new lowest elevation, since Earth's surface gravity wouldn't change (or more technically, would change very, very negligibly due to an increased distance of a few km from the core).

[–] langedor 12 years ago

Re: Number 4. I think the implication was that the polar icecaps had been melted by rising temperatures, which would turn even the coldest places on Earth (such as the peak of Mt.Everest) into warmer climes. Hence why everywhere in the film seems to have a tropical climate.

[–] JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies 13 years ago

goddangit folks, it is NOT a plot hole for a fictional film to show us things that are different than actual world facts. It's like putting a big flashing sign over your head saying, "I do not get fiction".

http://www.rateyourmusic.com/~JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies