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UNITED STATES · 1995
Waterworld
Synopsis
In a futuristic world where the polar ice caps have melted and made Earth a liquid planet, a beautiful barmaid rescues a mutant seafarer from a floating island prison. They escape, along with her young charge, Enola, and sail off aboard his ship. But the trio soon becomes the target of a menacing pirate who covets the map to 'Dryland'—which is tattooed on Enola's back.
Cinematic DNA
Kevin Reynolds and Kevin Costner conceived Waterworld as Mad Max on water. George Miller's The Road Warrior—the post-apocalyptic scavenger society, the makeshift vehicles, the tribal hierarchy of survival, the lone wanderer who won't commit—became the exact architectural template. Reynolds cited this in production notes. The difference: Miller's desert becomes Reynolds's ocean, but the savage economics, the barbarism with its own honor code, the reluctant hero trapped in a world he didn't choose—these are Miller wholesale.
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Films with Similar Themes
post-apocalyptic world · ocean survival · treasure hunt · fugitives on the run · mutant protagonists
