Headscratchers / Maximum Overdrive

• So they're running off to an island without machines. I sure hope the machines aren't running a few warships and aircraft carriers....
  • All they would have to do is conceal themselves while they wait it out. It's been shown the machines can only see much in the same way we do.
    • Seems like the original troper who posted this forgot that the Earth was going to be in the comet's tail for eight days, which is what is causing the machines to have sentience. By the time the survivors make it to Haven, the closing text indicates that they survived to make it there due to Earth passing through the tail.
• Why does that one truck have the Green Goblin's face on the front?
  • Most likely a custom job by its owner/driver; there's also a Green Goblin Jack-in-the-box in the cab. Since it seems to be the ringleader of the other trucks, it conveniently helps the truck stand out for the audience.
    • Its a truck for a toy company. The company probably decided to put it on there, even if it looks terrifying.
• According to the final text crawl, a USSR satellite equipped with nuclear missiles and a laser cannon managed to destroy the alien UFO before the invasion occurred. But no explanation on how that machine was able to resist being turned against humans unlike a majority of the other machines on Earth.
  • Well, considering that all machines were targeting not just humans, but animals too (as seen with the toy car that wedged itself in the mouth of the dog that Deke sees while riding down the street), it's safe to say that the machines were targeting any and all life, not just humans alone. And the aliens may have unexpected think that Earth didn't have such a space-based system.
  • Another alternate possibility is that the Aliens had turned off what it was that allowed the machines to become sentient, thinking that most or all humans were dead, and the satellite switched back to it's original default programming, targeted and fired at the UFO before the aliens could realize they made a mistake, the satellite may have mistaken them as a nuclear missile.
  • The exact nature of the force bringing the machines to life is never elaborated on. It could be that, being in orbit and above the planet, the satellite was out of range of whatever the aliens were doing.
  • The UFO only controls vehicles on Earth. The "weather satellite" is orbiting the planet, and thus isn't within the area that's being controlled.
  • Maybe the aliens believed the orbital weapon's public designation as a "weather satellite" and left it alone, not realizing it was armed until too late.
• The possesed machines can move and function fully on their own, including parts that are not motorized and normally need some external force to be applied, so why can't the gas pumps just do their thing without human assistance? There is obvious invisible force aiming and pulling the M60's trigger on the utility carrier, so why can't the same force just make the hoses float to reach the vehicles? And speaking of the M60, why does that get possesed but all the guns in the gas station are inert?
  • Two possible reasons; they are underground and whatever signals the aliens/coking is/are using/giving off may not be able to reach them or since they are on shelves and aren't loaded, there's no use for them. As for why the machine gun turret is alive and not Hendershot's rocket launcher, perhaps being attahced to a sentient vehicle has something to do with it.