Future War: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"From the future traveled a master race of cyborgs. They made abductions from Earth's past. The dinosaurs were trained as trackers. The humans were bred as slaves. Now a runaway slave escapes to a place his people call [[Heaven]]... we know it as Earth."''|''The [[Opening Narration]]''}}

 

 

The story concerns "[[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"|the Runaway]]," a slave who escapes his cyborg masters' spaceship and crash-lands just off the coast of California. Two cyborgs and a pack of dinosaur puppets are dispatched to recapture him. The Runaway kickboxes one of the cyborgs to death and takes down a dinosaur puppet, but is then unceremoniously [[Crash Into Hello|hit by a car]] driven by Sister Anne, a hooker/ganger/druggie-turned novitiate nun. Anne takes him back to her home, a half-way house inhabited by overweight men, and nurses the Runaway back to health. With him choking her and all, they seem to be hitting it off, but their growing bond is interrupted by a dinosaur puppet attack that claims one of Anne's friends.

 

 

Our heroes reunited, Anne calls in some favors and enlists the aid of her former clients/gangmates/customers to raise a small army to combat the dinosaur puppets. Since said puppets are known to congregate near water, the last half-hour or so of the film takes place in what is meant to be a water treatment plant, which the gang blows up after suffering heavy losses. At the end, Anne's final vows are interrupted by the second cyborg showing up for one last kickboxing match, but the good guys win, Anne becomes a nun, and her halfway house "scores" a new counsellor.

 

 

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** An arguably less justified (or at least more conventional) occurrence; the film's original ending involved Sister Anne leaving the convent to team up with the Runaway and help deal with any more Cyborgs that might come back from the future. As it turned out however, one of the film's main backers was a devout Catholic, and he demanded that the ending be changed so that Anne did join the convent after all. This also resulting in the ending which shows the Runaway becoming a counsellor.

* [[Explosive Leash]]: On the dinosaur puppets. "No wonder fossils are so rare."

* [[Fan Nickname]]: ''Future Wax''. Due in large part to how the title scrolls onto the frame in the opening (left-to-center zoomed in, then pulled back so the title fills the frame) so that the "r" is the very last letter to be revealed.

* [[Filler]]: The flashback and flash forwards smack of this.

* [[Gender Blender Name]]: According to the credits, the actress who played Sister Ann is named ''Travis''.

* [[Hey, It's That Guy!]]: The film's star Daniel Bernhardt plays one of the upgraded agents in ''[[The Matrix]] Reloaded'' (the one who fights Morpheus on the truck). It's both frightening and uplifting to know that this movie didn't kill his career.

* [[Hollywood Cyborg]]: "Cyborg" meaning "someone wearing black clothes and clown makeup with maybe a camera over one eye while moving stiffly as whirring sounds are added."

* [[I Work Alone]]: Sister Anne uses this line on the Runaway, which makes no sense.

* [[Jurisdiction Friction]]: The Feds are interested in the Runaway's story of time-traveling cyborgs, and shut out the local police who captured him. It doesn't matter, seeing how they're all dead in the end.

* [[Magic Countdown]]: Even on screen, it goes faster than it should!

{{quote| '''Tom Servo''': Introducing new, faster seconds.}}

** To be fair, plaid is stereotypically associated with gangbangers. Of course, that doesn't explain why everyone else is wearing it, too. The Film was actually filmed in 1994. It wasn't relased until 1997. So it make sense since '94 was the hay day of the Grunge era.

* [[Neighbourhood Friendly Gangsters]]: Always ready to help.

* [[No Budget]]: None. See Mary Jo Pehl's comment about the ''cardboard TV camera''.

* [[No Name Given]]: The Runaway is never even given a nickname to be referred to by for convenience's sake; even the credits only list him as "The Man". And that doesn't make any logical sense, he is clearly not cool enough to be the Man.

* [[Non-Indicative Name]]: See Crow's quote at the page top.

* [[Poor Man's Substitute]]: The Runaway, Daniel Bernhardt, is a European martial artist with a thick accent.

* [[Shirtless Scene]]: Even if he has to clearly do it himself...

* [[Stock Sound Effect]]: Often not well-matched with the visual, such as the cyborg sounding like a car's suspension when he deflects a cardboard box, or when two characters open a wooden door in a house and it sounds like a steel door on a ship or a submarine, or when we hear crickets chirping even though it's clearly the middle of the day...

* [[Unexplained Recovery]]: The Master Cyborg that the Runaway beats up in the police HQ and left pinned under ''an exploding dinosaur'' later ambles into the dam for a rematch with the Runaway.

** Later on, after being trapped in ''an exploding dam'', he crashes through the ceiling of the church in the finale for a ''third'' fight with the Runaway.

** Or, you know, giving themselves prosthetic opposable thumbs...

* [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?]]: Dinosaurs! Cyborgs! Kickboxing! Gangs! Cardboard boxes!