EPISODE 119 - Maximum Overdrive: LIVE!

[Auden 1809]

Okay, so the machines were brought to life by aliens but why do they know English?

I gathered from watching sci-fi shows that English is basically the intergalatic lingua franca, and almost all aliens know English.

 

We have the ATM at the beginning of the movie calling Stephen King an asshole and the bank telling people to go fuck themselves. That's some pretty high level English.

This reminds me of people whose only interest in foreign languages is how to cuss in them.

 

We can only see half of the boy's morse code translation in the movie. The full translation, from the book, is," Someone must pump fuel. Someone will not be harmed. All fuel must be pumped. This shall be done now. Now someone will pump fuel." So that's grammatical English, but stiff and awkwardly phrased.

 

All I'm saying is that these vehicles took a big chance in assuming somebody would be able to understand morse code which is a form of communication that a very small number of the population knows.

This makes more sense in Trucks. Spoilers ahead for the short story. So you know how people would say, metaphorically, that we are slaves to technology, slaves to machines. In the story, humans are literally slaves to machines. The trucks would trap humans at a location. If vehicles ran out of gas and stopped, new vehicles would drive up. If people tried to escape, vehicles would mow them down. The automobiles would tell the humans to help them. If the humans didn't comply, either because they didn't want to or because they didn't understand morse code in the first place, they would be killed. A Reo truck (all the vehicles in the story are American-made) honked out the morse code at the truck stop. The people at the truck stop voted not to refuel the trucks, thinking that they could wait for the automobiles to run out of gas, then a bulldozer tore into the truck stop killing 2 people. The narrator then went out to fill the tanks of vehicles. Cars and trucks kept coming nonstop. Like Cam Bert pointed out, not many people know morse code. The sun, the fumes, and blisters from pumping gas almost got to the narrator when the black guy, the one most adamant about not wanting to be a slave, came out and took over and pump gas for 5 hours straight while the others rested. The last 3 people left at the truck stop would be taking shifts to pump gas. In the future the machines wouldn't need humans. More and more machines were becoming sentient, they would make plants to make more machines and take over the world.

 

So, you know, the typical humans will become obsolete sentiment.

[Joven 373]

In the other Trucks movie, Trucks, the trucks just drove by the pumps a lot and honked at them until they got the message. Also they recognized that the guy who worked at the gas station was the one who controlled the fuel and narrowly yet deliberately avoided killing him a couple times to drive the message home they wanted him for something, but no morse code even though they had a guy from the air force in the movie who presumably could have translated.

 

Also, the drainage pipe that you still have to run through a bunch of trucks to get to made an appearance in that movie too, but in that one the trucks were one step ahead and dealt with it in a really good way (although the point of the drainage pipe was even dumber than it was in Maximum Overdrive, so I guess I'll take that point back.) Was that in the short story?

[SamThompson 5]

Greetings! So pretty much every decision made in this movie is completely bananas. I'll start with what exactly is a machine? Does it, by definition, require electricity?

 

NO.

 

Machine: A tool containing one or more parts that uses energy to perform an intended action. Machines are usually powered by mechanical, chemical, thermal, or electrical means, and are often motorized.

 

Therefore a bicycle is a machine. So is a sprinkler! A machine does not require a motor. Even a sailboat should be considered a machine (wind powered). Oh, and a gun. By the way, that stupid gun had a range of 360 degrees in the horizontal, but at a fixed height. Emilio could have easily sauntered over and disabled it at any time.

 

The screen notes at the beginning and end of the film perfectly reflect how completely bonkers this movie is:

 

In the opening text, what makes a comet’s tail extraordinarily diffuse? Why even include this adverb? Like, everyone and their mom knows how diffuse comet tails are. But THIS comet tail will blow your mind! And if it is sooooo diffuse, why is there an obvious green mist in the sky? ALSO! What the fuck is a rogue comet? How does a comet "go rogue"? And if the comet is in fact rogue, why can it be predicted with certainty (using astronomical calculations) that the comet will do anything? It's a rogue comet. It's on the loose, right? It can do whatever it wants! Fuck calculations.

 

In the closing text, a UFO and Russian nuclear satellite are introduced. Enough said.

 

Finally I think King's best directorial decision overall was having the guy in the arcade inexplicably say “Yo Mama” for no reason right before he's murdered by the arcade game. AND the waitress. Holy crap she was amazing and I think King probably got all his cocaine from her.

[Auden 1809]

Also, the drainage pipe that you still have to run through a bunch of trucks to get to made an appearance in that movie too, but in that one the trucks were one step ahead and dealt with it in a really good way (although the point of the drainage pipe was even dumber than it was in Maximum Overdrive, so I guess I'll take that point back.) Was that in the short story?

No, there was no drainage pipe. And there was no attempt to save the salesman dying in a ditch. Not counting attempted escapes and filling gas for the automobiles, the only time people left the diner part of the truck stop was to run to the restrooms outside to get clean water from the toilet tanks.

[Smigg 1488]

So, AC/DC did the score for both Maximum Overdrive and Iron Man 2, why don't they do an Iron Man/Maximum Overdrive crossover, where Rea-M returns, and Tony Stark has to fight his own suit? With AC/DC playing all the way through.

[Smigg 1488]

http://www.amazon.com/Maximum-Overdrive-Emilio-Estevez/dp/B0002B161E/ref=aag_m_pw_dp?ie=UTF8&m=A1KY5ST6WDO5DX

 

You want the DVD? It's only gonna cost you $69!

[RyanSz 3140]

Good thing I got my DVD before the apparent shortage, getting it for $5.

[Smigg 1488]

I think they probably saw the sharp uptake of DVD sales, from zero to about 14 and thought "Oh shit, jack the price up, we're gonna be rich!"

 

Then you take a look at the Amazon seller:

 

Drop Dead Fred - $99

Tony Hawk Underground 2 (on the PlayStation 2) - $40

So, I think they're a bunch of piss takers.

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

In the other Trucks movie, Trucks, the trucks just drove by the pumps a lot and honked at them until they got the message.

 

hold up ... is trucks from the same short story? ... they got 2 movies from 15 pages???

 

and after stephen king said in the trailer "if you want something done right ...."

 

is it worth a watch?

[RyanSz 3140]

 

hold up ... is trucks from the same short story? ... they got 2 movies from 15 pages???

 

and after stephen king said in the trailer "if you want something done right ...."

 

is it worth a watch?

Yeah the short story was titled "Trucks" and the second movie follows it a little better in that the characters have really no idea why the machines have begun attacking them. It's more straightforward than Overdrive which is flat out bonkers, but I feel it's a worse movie. There are some great crazy scenes like the toy truck curb stomping a mailman and the hazmat kill scene, but other than that it's pretty boring. If you have Prime you can watch it for free but do it only for a couple scenes.

[ocean_machine 56]

What does June think gravity is?

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

Yeah the short story was titled "Trucks" and the second movie follows it a little better in that the characters have really no idea why the machines have begun attacking them. It's more straightforward than Overdrive which is flat out bonkers, but I feel it's a worse movie. There are some great crazy scenes like the toy truck curb stomping a mailman and the hazmat kill scene, but other than that it's pretty boring. If you have Prime you can watch it for free but do it only for a couple scenes.

 

brenda bakke is in it ... sold

[Joven 373]

Yeah the short story was titled "Trucks" and the second movie follows it a little better in that the characters have really no idea why the machines have begun attacking them. It's more straightforward than Overdrive which is flat out bonkers, but I feel it's a worse movie. There are some great crazy scenes like the toy truck curb stomping a mailman and the hazmat kill scene, but other than that it's pretty boring. If you have Prime you can watch it for free but do it only for a couple scenes.

 

I still contend that Trucks is the better movie of the two. (like from a technical, storytelling, editing, etc standpoint. Maximum Overdrive is still the better HDTGM movie, however.)

[ErinO'Neal-Robinson 1]

I was surprised that no one brought up that the only vehicles that seemed to be sentient were commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles were somehow not affected? Was Stephen King trying to make some sort of weird labor parable?

 

Also I am pretty sure that Judge John Hodgman ruled that a machine gun is in fact a machine but not a robot. Hopefully that helps anyone having that argument.

[FisterRoboto 7499]

I gathered from watching sci-fi shows that English is basically the intergalatic lingua franca, and almost all aliens know English.

It definitely is in many sci-fi-type shows. However, two movies that have avoided that have since become classics: Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Fifth Element.

 

In particular, I love the way The Fifth Element handles it. What it proves is that it's not SUPER hard to make an alien character speak English in an somewhat believable way (compared to the rest of the movie, this is the most believable aspect).

 

But then again, as Jason said frequently........cocaine.

[joshg 207]

Since Donald Trump is everywhere these days, I feel obliged to point out that the second Mrs. Donald Trump, Marla Maples, makes her screen debut in this film.

 

In this scene she is either being assaulted by a flying watermelon or she just realized she forgot to sign a prenup.

[DanNicholson 83]

MATHS TIME!!!

 

Bit of talk on the podcast on the refueling scene and how everyone was flaking out. To put in in perspective,

• A Truck Stop of this size will hold on average 45,000 gallons of diesel onsite (not including back up tanks)
  
• Your average mid-sized 18 Wheeler will hold 290 gallons of diesel
  
• This means there is enough fuel to top up 155 trucks
  
• With a high flow pump, it would take on average 15 mins to top up each truck.
  
• Not counting for changeover of trucks, that makes 2325 mins (38.79 hours) of total fueling time
  

Given that it appears they are running 4 pumps at the same time during the epic fueling montage, that accounts for 9.7 hours at the pump.

 

In 90-100 degree weather, that puts them at extreme risk of heat related illness (heat stroke or heat exhaustion). This makes this the most accurate and well thought out scene in the whole movie. Probs ran out of coke that day.

 

TLDR. Fueling trucks in 95 degrees for nearly 10 hours. Emilio flaked out from heat stroke.

[StoopidChris 16]

**Corrections and Omissions**

 

I don't think it was ever the intention that the gravity of the comet was the cause of anything...at all. The gravitational pull of the Rea-M Comet would be so minuscule that the trucks themselves would have a greater gravitational effect on each other than any effect from the comet itself. I believe the idea of passing through a comet's tail having hazardous consequences is inspired by the global panic caused when Earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet in 1910. The comet was discovered to have Cyanogen--a highly toxic compound--streaming out behind it. The ensuing paranoia prompted the marketing of special gas masks, anti-toxin pills, and many other types of snake oil. The Cyanogen was very diffused, and, obviously, nobody died from poison raining down into our atmosphere.

 

Also, I'm surprised you guys didn't mention "Trucks", the second attempt to tackle this short story in 1997. We accidentally started watching it for 30 minutes before I noticed that Emilio Estevez had not yet made an appearance. "Trucks" is even more poorly acted, directed, and paced, if you can believe it.

 

A NYTimes blurb: http://query.nytimes...9649C946196D6CF

An ad for survival: http://imgur.com/3EA7ibd

"Trucks": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120380/

[NathanielParker 43]

Coincidentally? Haley's Comet also showed up in 1986, when this movie came out, and all that 1910 scare stuff was pretty big in the news.

 

All I remember is I never even saw it anywhere in the sky.

[joshg 207]

Which made George Romero sick! It all makes sense now...

 

According to Blake Harris's Oral History, Stephen King screened movies for the crew with his own running commentary. The original Godzilla and...wait for it...Night of the Living Dead.

[RyanSz 3140]

MATHS TIME!!!

 

Bit of talk on the podcast on the refueling scene and how everyone was flaking out. To put in in perspective,

• A Truck Stop of this size will hold on average 45,000 gallons of diesel onsite (not including back up tanks)
  
• Your average mid-sized 18 Wheeler will hold 290 gallons of diesel
  
• This means there is enough fuel to top up 155 trucks
  
• With a high flow pump, it would take on average 15 mins to top up each truck.
  
• Not counting for changeover of trucks, that makes 2325 mins (38.79 hours) of total fueling time
  

Given that it appears they are running 4 pumps at the same time during the epic fueling montage, that accounts for 9.7 hours at the pump.

 

 

In 90-100 degree weather, that puts them at extreme risk of heat related illness (heat stroke or heat exhaustion). This makes this the most accurate and well thought out scene in the whole movie. Probs ran out of coke that day.

 

TLDR. Fueling trucks in 95 degrees for nearly 10 hours. Emilio flaked out from heat stroke.

Yeah that's what I got from the scene when I saw it, we really didn't know how long they were out there working, since we got the fueling montage. Also their hands might have been blistered and tore up because the pumps were forcing them to manually hold the fuel release as a way to make sure that at least a group of them were always working and not just setting the hold latch and then running off to try and form a plan of attack. Seeing that they would be holding their hand in the same position for 10 hours, while eventually getting exhausted under the summer heat, they might bang up their hands by accidentally releasing the handle during a dehydrated haze and try to correct it quickly, like when you try and catch something mid-fall.

[MattPunchman 3]

Would Maximum Overdrive had been better if Nickolas Cage wrote it?

[Cockney Mackem 514]

So, uh, sorry if this has been said already, but apparently Stephen King's first choice for the role that went to Emilio Estevez was - Bruce Springsteen?

[Cockney Mackem 514]

Would Maximum Overdrive had been better if Nickolas Cage wrote it?

 

How about Nic Cage's face on the front of the truck?

[SeanM.Corkery 16]

I didn't see if anybody else addressed this yet, but you guys made Breaking Bad references in this episode yet neglected to mention Gus Fring was in the film.

 

Giancarlo Esposito was the teenager that gets electrocuted in the arcade!