History Film / Waterworld

** How exactly it happened is also unknown. The icecaps clearly melted (global warming and all), but there seems to have also been a geomagnetic reversal and the moon is far too close.

* ArtisticLicenseEngineering: [[spoiler: In the end, the Mariner takes a wooden yacht, sets it back on water and sails off. In reality, a wooden hull that would spend more than few years out of water would dry out, deform and became extremely leaky, if not outright fell apart in contact with water]].

** Mount Everest is shown to be an island that rises a few hundred feet above the sea. But Everest is hardly an isolated peak; there should be plenty more dry Himalayan mountain tops in clear site.

** The underwater city is said to be Denver; skyscrapers there top out at over 700 feet. Even if the water is just above the top of the buildings, that's 'way' deeper than Helen could go without specialized equipment and breathing mix.

** The underwater city is said to be Denver; skyscrapers there top out at over 700 feet. Even if the water is just above the top of the buildings, that's <em>way</em> deeper than Helen could go without specialized equipment and breathing mix.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Enola not knowing how to swim doesn't sound as silly when you know that, for centuries, it was a skill that was actually ''discouraged'' among sailors. Before the advent of aircraft and GPS, if any help was not immediate for a shipwrecked sailor, then swimming would only delay the inevitable. Therefore, it would be better to drown quickly.

Set InAWorld [[AfterTheEnd where the polar ice-caps have melted]] due to havoc caused by a geomagnetic reversal. [[TheGreatFlood The world is now covered by water]]. What's left of humanity is surviving on ramshackle crafts tied together to make Atolls (villages). The Mariner (Costner) enters one of these Atolls to trade, but is discovered to be a mutant and sentenced to death. A gang of raiders known as ''Smokers'', led by Deacon (Hopper), attacks the Atoll. A woman named Helen (Tripplehorn) and her adopted daughter Enola (Tina Majorino) bribe the Mariner to take them to the mythical Dry Land, which no one has ever seen. Conveniently, Enola's back has been tattooed with a map indicating the alleged way to Dry Land. However, with The Smokers hot on their tail, their journey encounters more than a few bumps along the way. And the Mariner is not your traditional plucky hero. He's just looking out for himself.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: the various atoll survivors who don't follow The Mariner to [[spoiler: Mount Everest]]., various smokers who [[spoiler: presumably drown at the end]]. and the incompetent gunner who cost the Deacon his eye and is never seen again afterwards.

* TechnologyPorn: Countless shots and takes all over the trimaran, establishing both the impressive stash of old tech and trinkets the Mariner owns, but also how he adopted the giant vessel for solo sailing.

* TheSheriff: The Coral Atoll enforcer, who serves at TheBigGuy, and a ReasonableAuthorityFigure who is one of the few aversions of TheSocialDarwinist to appear.

* RegionalRedecoration: ''Waterworld'' has a similar situation to ''Film/{{AI}}'', except the ''entire world'' is underwater. [[spoiler: Aside from the very tops of the Himalayas.]]

* FantasticRacism: You'd believe that being able to breathe underwater would be quite a desirable asset in a ocean world, but [[WhatAnIdiot people seemed to think otherwise]]. Downplayed in both the novelisation and the extended cut[[note]]People consider this mutation to be ''highly'' valuable, but it means an extra mouth to provide water for and the ruling clique of the atoll is paranoid about any disruption of the status quo that keeps them in charge.[[/note]].

** After Enola waves at a plane of "Smokers" flying above them, the Mariner dope-slaps her and yells, [[http://www.hulu.com/watch/22664/waterworld-what-are-you-thinking "What are you thinking about?!?"]]

* ConflictBall: Helen, listen, first of all, when you've just blackmailed a man into saving your life, expecting trust is a little much. On top of that, in the middle of a firefight when that someone is trying to save your life ''and'' his is a really stupid time to answer any random question he asks you with "Can I trust you?!"

* CoolPlane: The Smokers' seaplane. Cool by virtue of being ancient, rust-colored, and probably the last of its kind. Also, piloted by Creator/JackBlack.

* EndingAversion: The most maligned parts of the movie come from The Mariner, Enola, and Helen at sea, while the Smokers assault on the Coral Atoll had enough action and suspense that it would have made a good climax for a short film.

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Don't like Kevin Costner's [[LamarckWasRight gills]].

* CharacterDevelopment: Kevin Costner's character changes from {{Jerkass}} to JerkWithAHeartOfGold halfway through the movie and loses his "jerk" persona by the end of the movie. He's still far away from being a likable, charismatic individual, but at least stops snarling at people just for standing too close to him.

* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: Just one word: Portogreek. And it sounds like neither.

* OfCorpseHesAlive: The Smokers make the residents of a small trading post, whom they've recently killed, appear to be waving to the Mariner as the latter approaches, intending to draw him into a deadly trap. [[spoiler:The Mariner doesn't buy it, since there is nobody to reply to his calls in Portogreek]].

** If you melted all the ice on the planet, you would cause a 60 metres (about 190 feet) rise in sea level, which is a lot, but only lowland areas would be seriously affected, and at the very worst people would have to resort to living on long chains of large islands. [[spoiler: Everest would ''still'' tower six miles above the sea, and it has the rest of the Himalayas to keep it company]]. In fact, to replicate the situation in the film, three times the entire world's water supply (freshwater and all) would have to appear from somewhere.

** The Smokers in general run on this. You'd think that in a world where nothing has been manufactured in centuries, bullets would be an incredibly valuable commodity, but they seem to have an endless supply of ammo for their almost exclusively automatic weapons. Everyone else makes do with jury-rigged harpoon guns, water cannons, javelins and good old-fashioned melee weapons.

* TechnologyPorn: Countless shots and takes all over the trimaran, establishing both the impressive stache of old tech and trinkets the Mariner owns, but also how he adopted the giant vessel for solo sailing.