EPISODE 119 - Maximum Overdrive: LIVE!

[JulyDiaz 2797]

LIVE from Largo in Los Angeles, TV’s Andy Daly of Review joins Paul, Jason, and June to discuss Stephen King’s only directorial effort: Maximum Overdrive. They’ll talk about the AC/DC soundtrack, what kind of machines can become sentient, the newlywed couple, Emilio Estevez licking a forehead, what exactly a “road twitch” could be, and cocaine. Plus, everyone discusses one of the most disgusting scenes in film history after some ridiculous 2nd Opinions!

 

Check out Blake Harris' Oral History of Maximum Overdrive over at www.slashfilm.com!

 

People of the internet: The League is back on FXX 10pm on Wednesdays! A while ago, Paul and Rob Huebel did a comedy special on a 60 foot glass bus that traveled around LA and now you’ll be able to see it. Go to https://itun.es/us/3M4J9 now to buy it!

 

The Hotwives (Casey Wilson, Danielle Schneider, Andrea Savage, Dannah Phirman, Tymberlee Hill, Angela Kinsey, Erinn Hayes) are back and this time they are in Vegas baby! Watch The Hotwives of Las Vegas on Hulu today!

Also, check out June in Grace and Frankie available on Netflix, Paul in Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp on Netflix, all the episodes of NTSF:SD:SUV:: on HULU for free, ScheeRL on YouTube here:

, and Jason in The Dictator (he’s still in it!).

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

Jason's version of "Best Around" needs dubbed into "Karate Kid" NOW, jerks!

[Cockney Mackem 514]

Fucking. Hell.

 

[Bumpy 1674]

"I am fascinated by truckstops, in general." -Maximum June

[CatarinaSerra 1]

Great job you guys! Killing it as usual.

[DanEngler 5249]

WARNING

This episode contains a spoiler for the Breaking Bad finale.

Skip from 1:23:00 to 1:24:00 to avoid being spoiled.

[Bumpy 1674]

WARNING

This episode contains a spoiler for the Breaking Bad finale.

Skip from 1:23:00 to 1:24:00 to avoid being spoiled.

 

I could get used to this...

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

been looking forward to this ep for a while

 

[RyanSz 3140]

WARNING

This episode contains a spoiler for the Breaking Bad finale.

Skip from 1:23:00 to 1:24:00 to avoid being spoiled.

Dammit my whole point for coming onto this thread was to spoil shows.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

I really didn't understand all the stuff about intergalactic trade federations in the opening crawl...

[Cameron H. 23786]

Like Paul, I also did a little research into the term “road twitch” and got the same result: nothing. However, digging a little deeper, I think I have come up with the answer. I looked up the word “twitch” (having somehow forgotten what the word meant) and came up with this definition:

 

Twitch—verb—give or cause to give a short, sudden jerking or convulsive movement.

 

Given this definition, I think we can assume “road twitch” would be like saying “road jerk” and would be something akin to getting or receiving “road head.” In this way, “road twitch” acts like a gerund--a word that can be used as both a noun and a verb. As a verb, it would mean jerking someone off while they are driving, and as a noun, it would be like a hitchhiker who might give a handjob to a driver in exchange for a ride. For example: The Road Twitch gave me road twitch for a ride to Atlanta.

 

Boom, bitches! What do I win?

 

 

 

(Who says an English Degree is worthless?)

[wyldride 285]

Automatic sprinklers are controlled by electricity. Water pressure moves the moving parts, but electricity turns the water off and on.

[Henry 3777]

I had the same thought as Andy regarding the sewers, and my conclusion was that Stephen King just likes to make his characters crawl through sewers. Just off the top of my head I can think of two other instances: the kids in "It" and Andy Dufresne in "Shawshank Redemption". I'm not thoroughly familiar with the entire Stephen King library so that may or may not be it.

[ChunkStyle 1160]

Great episode. I thought the gang hit most of the insane things in this movie.

 

I thought the weirdest choice in the movie was when Emilio Estevez was absolutely giddy when the power got turned back on so they could fuel up the trucks. "I just hope none of them left the house without their American Express card!"

 

My favorite dumb bit in the movie was the toilet paper truck that got blown up appeared to be transporting thousands of loose rolls of toilet paper. As you do.

[NathanielParker 43]

As a cocaine-inspired correction as to why some things were coming alive while others weren't, I think there's one sentence about how the comet (that ended up having nothing to do with it?) was affecting things at different rates. I don't know why that would happen, but there is that one line to brush over any questions about what's going on.

[pscudese 701]

Can someone please explain why the 2nd "P" in Happy Toys was incredibly small and not properly placed on the truck? Was it just a shitty mistake by the props department and when Stephen was informed, in his coke fueled mind he said it was important??

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Pete "The S Man" Scudese

[pscudese 701]

So where were the parents of the little leaguers? I mean the stands were full of people watching the game. We immediately cut to coach getting sodas. Where the hell did the adults go? If you pay for extras in the stadium, just fill the damn scene by the machine!

 

 

 

- Pete "The S Man" Scudese

[pscudese 701]

So if the aliens (or a comet) are controlling machines, then why did "they" allow the warning message of the attacks over the radio? Wouldn't they censor that so people don't defend themselves?

 

 

 

 

- Pete "The S Man" Scudese

[pscudese 701]

More connection to Breaking Bad/Vince Gilliam...

 

The guy who was essentially electrocuted/blown up was none other then...

Giancarlo Esposito

 

 

The best villain from the series.

 

 

 

 

 

- Pete "The S Man" Scudese

[Count Magnus 27]

I think I might have worked out some of internal logic that caused so much consternation for the team vis-a-vis the UFO, the Soviet satellite, the role of the comet, which machines were animated and the nature of the control of those machines.

 

Aliens are absolutely behind all this mayhem. They have either built a fake comet or built onto an existing comet an apparatus for animating and controling machines as a way of conquering planets. The UFO mentioned in the end title card has used the tail of the comet to hide itself from detection.

 

These aliens are able to animate electrically powered machines and some electronics (the ATM, for example). However, they are not able to take over EMP-hardened electronic equipment, for some plot dictated reason. This is why we see a machine gun equipped jeep among the maximum overdrivers, but why we haven't seen a full-blown Skynet event. Missile contol systems, nuclear power plants, satellites, etc are immune to alien control.

 

However, there are a couple of days of chaos and confusion among the militaries of the world in the immediate wake of the UFO takeover. Not every system is EMP hardened, a lot of personnel is caught out in the open when the machines come to life, etc. Thus, from the vantage point of one little truck stop in the middle of nowhere, it looks like the machines are taking over and no one is there to stop them.

 

Eventually, the Soviet military, possibly in coordination with NATO for all we know (and the efforts of the world's superpowers to cut through the confusion in order to unite against the alien menace might also contribute to the lag between the start of the takeover and the destruction of the UFO), is able to find and, using an armed satellite, destroy the alien menace. Somehow, the goverments of the world realized that while the animation of these machines was being accomplished through the comet, the intelligent control of Earth's machines was done from the UFO. Destrying the UFO would endthe direction of the machines, and then it would just come down to holding on until the Earth passed out of the tail of, and thus the deletorious effects of, the comet's tail.

 

Now, having been a teenager during the last phase of the Cold War, I think I remember that the Reagan adminstration had levelled accusations that the USSR had violated the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 by placing nuclear armed satellites, or had plans to do so, as a means of garnering justification and support for the Strategic Defense Initiative. It stands to reason that in such a climate, the idea that the Soviets had nukes in space would not have seemed too far-fetched to use in a movie about the brave last stand of the criminal, inbred and/or just backwoods crazy denizens of a North Carolina truck stop in the war against the Green-Goblin-faced-tractor-trailer uprising.

 

Either that or I'm just not doing enough coke to see the real story going on here.

[wyldride 285]

So, Occam's razor: The comet is cover for the alien craft to discreetly wipe out humanity via its machines, but an automated Russian "weather satellite" destroys the aliens, probably because it thinks it's an American satellite, and a threat.

[pscudese 701]

So let me get this straight...

Anyone has access to a rocket launcher.

Anyone who shoots the rocket launcher; hits and destroys a truck.

There is no statement that "we have a limited number of rockets."

 

So with this information, stop fucking and start blowing up some god damn sentient trucks!

 

Also, why are these dum-dums just hanging around? Did any of them stop and think... "Hey. Maybe we should round up and smash anything that is electronic?" I mean they played the juke box later in the film and guess what... It essentially exploded.

 

Oh and you have to love the random placement of The Last Supper on the juke box. WHAT?!

 

 

- Pete "The S Man" Scudese

[NathanielParker 43]

I want to come to this great movie's defense again.

 

Emilio clearly specifies how he wants to get a sailboat to get to the island, not a motorboat.

 

As for how the drifter girl knows so much about comet times, we first see her tuning in the radio trying to get information. I can only assume that the entire planet being in a comet's tail for a week or so would be a pretty big news event, so she most likely picked all that up from the radio.

[pscudese 701]

Besides no fecal matter on any of their clothes, no one is wet after traveling back and forth through the sewer.

 

- Pete "the s man" Scudese

[pscudese 701]

The BEST line in the entire movie belongs to our beloved Road Twitch....

 

When Emilio decides to give in and provide the trucks with "pure uncut" gas, she says:

 

"It's like Neville Chamberlain giving into the Nazis."

 

Huh?

 

Obviously you are wondering, who is this Neville guy. Well per Wikipedia, "Arthur Neville Chamberlain was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany."

 

Why on earth would this hitchhiker know this? Gotta love a coked up Stephen King.

 

- Pete "The S Man" Scudese