Talk:Maximum Overdrive

Box Office
Does anyone know how much this movie cost to make and how much it made at the box office, is making now etc.? Doovinator 06:33, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Plot hole error
I would also like to add, the truck was not a Western Star. It was a Kenworth.

I want to be sure I'm not the only person who noticed this before I make any changes, but the first plot hole in the plot hole section states "But the main characters escape to an island on a boat with an outboard motor." This is false, they are on a sail boat, there is no visible engine, there's a rather large sail, and there is no engine noise.--Anthonysenn 07:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I waited about a week, no objections, so I updated it. --Anthonysenn 04:06, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds kinda trivial anyway really, considering the other plot holes hehe

Did anyone catch the part where they relad the LAW? LAWs are designed to be thrown away after use.
 * Where'd you get that from?

Its true. The M-72 Law was designed to be a oneshot disposable rocket launcher. In the film they seem to be using vintage Bazooka rounds. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.231.239.198 (talk) 18:25, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Movie Ending
As the movie ends, it is mentioned that a UFO was destroyed by a Soviet "weather" satellite with powerful laser cannon and Class IV nuclear weapons, which may be powerful H-Bombs. Martial Law 07:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC) :)

Not based on.
If, as the intro states, this movie is "a screenplay inspired by (but not based on) King's short story "Trucks" " then should it be in the "Films based on Stephen King's works" category? Irrevenant 07:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The Stephen King article states, contradicting the first paragraph here, that the film is not based on "Trucks." Could somebody clarify and correct? Thanks, --Ben T/C 08:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Stephen King loosly based this film around one of his earlier short stories, Trucks, but the differences between the film and the short story are actually slight. Both involve trucks coming alive and trapping people in the Dixie Boy Diner, demanding to be refueled or threatening to run over the patrons. I think it would be more than reasonable to put this film into the "Films based on Stephen King's works" category. Jimd 16:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Tongue-in-cheek???
I gotta question the neutrality of the facts presented about this movie because, in my own personal opinion, the movie was not blatantly tongue-in-cheek. I felt it was well made for it's time, and it did its job of scaring the crap outta me when I was a kid. Upon viewing it again, I admit the acting style and characters were rather... 80's style... but saying that there was little effort put into making it a serious horror is like saying Lost Boys was a cheesy movie because of the 80's soundtrack throughout. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tfunk3780 (talk • contribs) 17:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC).


 * I can see how it could scare a child watching it, but for adult audiences it was/is obviously not a horror film which took itself seriously, unlike the Lost Boys (which had some decent special effects and genuine horror moments). This is nothing to do with the fact Maximum Overdrive was made in the 1980s, its just a very, very cheesy film (but still great fun in my opinion!) with hammy acting and daft FX. This is an neutral statement as Stephen King himself called it a "moron movie", and in the trailers for the film he joked about how un-serious the feel of the film is. Every review I've read about the film stated this too. Jimd 16:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree. The tongue-in-cheek description of this movie seems like an afterthought, possibly added by King after viewing this thing and realizing how bad it is.

Honestly though, why would King decide to direct a tongue-in-cheek comedy version of one of his serious short-stories? Is he known for doing this? Has he directed other comedies since then? I find it a LOT more likely that this movie was supposed to be serious, but as a first-time director, King failed miserably and then tried to save his credentials by claiming the movie is tongue-in-cheek.

The AC/DC soundtrack doesn't work in the movie at all, but they are said to be King's "Favourite Band". If you were making a movie meant to look cheesy and lame, would you use your favourite band's music? Again, it's a lot more likely that King was being serious and sincere.

Either King is the all-time best Campy movie director in the world (on his first attempt!), or he's just a shitty director that made a bad movie. The fact that he hasn't directed another movie since Maximum Overdrive pretty much answers the question doesn't it?

Remove the "tongue-in-cheek".


 * I think he was on a lotta coke at the time, and I gotta admit, it was probly quite fun & that may explain some of the 'cheesyness' - but I bet there was a diversity of opionion among the cast and crew about wether they were actuly going for something serious or not.


 * Cocaine isn't the best judgment enhancer in the world, and King freely admitted to an interviewer that he was "coked out of [his] mind all through its production, and [he] really didn't know what [he] was doing." I've heard a creative writing lecturer say that when you undertake to write under the influence of drugs, you're "tip-toeing on an edifice overlooking (you have to visualize here a five-foot tall English professor jumping on the top of a lecture desk at this point, declaiming loudly... ) a vast steaming morass of manure, and preparing to dive right in!"  The prosecution calls Stephen King, William F. Burroughs and Carlos Castaneda as their next witnesses...


 * When King is doing "tongue-in-cheek," we're talking portions of The Stand (as when Randall Flagg rescues Lloyd Henreid from starving to death in a jail... he deadpans, "Pleased to meet you, Lloyd. Hope you guessed my name." A blank-faced Lloyd says, "Huh?"  Flagg smiles affectionately and mutters, "Just a little classical reference.")  THAT is "tongue in cheek."


 * What King did in "Maximum Overdrive" was 'gypping a motion picture bank out of investment money.' Just so we're clear.  "Tongue-in-cheek" is almost always intentional, while, when old Steverino makes something in the toilet that looks like Abraham Lincoln in profile after ODing on Ex-Lax, he doesn't get to claim credit for artistic inspiration.loupgarous (talk) 17:31, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Max overdrive poster.JPG
Image:Max overdrive poster.JPG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 04:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Urban Legend?
Why is this listed as a film based on an urban legend? I don't want to take that out without seeing if there's some reason for it, but as any such urban legend isn't listed in the article itself, and it.. isn't based on an urban legend, I see no reason for that being there. --user.lain (talk) 07:01, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Removed. If it is part of an urban legend then somebody who can cite it can reinsert it.   a_man_alone (talk) 07:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

It could be inspired by the urban legend known as Killer in the backseat — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.35.214.71 (talk) 06:12, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

The Future
This film was released in 1986, but it takes place in 1987. That qualifies it being a movie set in the future. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a good example of a movie that's set in the future, even though that time has now passed. I keep trying to categorize it that way but my changes are removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.151.28.228 (talk) 01:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I haven't removed your changes but would like to offer a reasonable explanation for the removals (which ought to have been commented on here, by the way - hint to the Phantom Midnight Editor responsible).  A story set one year in the future isn't really sufficiently removed from the present to qualify as "future fiction" UNLESS there's some earthshaking development between then and now that changes society.  (Almost all good science fiction could just as easily be called "sociological fiction," because it's concerned with how changes in our science affect people as individuals and as society.)


 * 2001: A Space Odyssey and all other science fiction set in a time far removed from the time it was published or in the case of that film, released to theatres, are set in a future time when sweeping changea have been made to society by means of science; many things in Stanley Kubrick's film are still "futuristic" by our own society's standards, probably because Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke (the screenwriter and consultant on scientific matters) both assumed a straight-line progression of technology and society from 1969, when the film was released. However, society and history never progress like that; it's all in fits and starts.  No one realized that almost all the progress required for that future society depended on cheap computers to make really huge calculations affordable, thus making huge engineering projects affordable again.  We're just now moving into the sort of scientific society that is the background of 2001: A Space Odyssey.


 * Richard Matheson's I Am Legend is an example of a "next year" story that is science fiction and arguably futuristic (even though he published it in 1955) because, again, a sweeping scientific event - a plague that turns everyone into vampires, but is still accomplished by a scientifically plausible agent, a microbe - occurs "next year" and changes society profoundly. That is a futuristic setting happening just "over the horizon.".


 * In the case of Maximum Overdrive, we're not really presented with a scientific change - a meteor sweeps over the Earth and animates all the machines - that could just as easily have been because the meteor was the herald of some malevolent god who made all this happen. It's probably a case of a deus ex machina - but in this case, it's a contrived beginning to a plot difficulty, not a contrived end to one.


 * In any case, it could just as well have happened the year the movie was made, the year after, or the year before. The setting isn't "futuristic."  Now, King HAS done future fiction (or at least "not this year") - his miniseries Golden Years is set in an America in which the Defense Department and our Federal police agencies have been replaced by the "Security Department," which seems to have a blanket brief to conduct dangerous experiments involving particle accelerators and time dislocation (but shockingly poor safety regulations).  Either that, or someone was doing daffy dust again when writing the script.


 * In Maximum Overdrive, it's same-o, same-o America, just the machines all want to kill us. Not future fiction.loupgarous (talk) 18:19, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Reasons for deletion not clear
I noticed the article needed improvement and made some changes. The article as a whole was tagged as needing more references, since 2016 apparently. While improving the article I tagged specific sentences that needed references. Very soon after a user deleted two unsourced statements but the deletion seemed sudden and very strange and selective since other unsourced statements were not also deleted.

I was surprised by the sudden delete, of statements I had only just tagged as needing references. It seems likely that someone would be able to find a reference for Leonard Maltin (perhaps using Google books). It seemed likely that a reference for the Golden Raspberry awards could be found. It seemed less likely that a vague mention of comments from some interview in some unknown publication about "The Dome" but strangely that unsourced statement was not deleted.

So I restored the statements as none of the statements seemed contentious and seemed likely that given time someone would be able to add sources. As a show of good faith I made an effort to find a proper reference The Golden Raspberry awards. Technically the sentence about the Golden Raspberry awards wasn't unsourced, the article introduction did include a reference to the IMDB awards page, but since IMDB is not the best source I removed that and replaced it with a better reference. (I also corrected the runtime.)

I was very surprised then to have my edits reverted wholesale. I thought my edits would be taken in good faith and that others would realise the article is a work in progress.

I hope someone can explain why it is necessary to immediately delete the statement from Leonard Maltin rather than keep it with a citation request. I hope someone can explain why it was necessary to delete the Gold Raspberry awards even after a better source was added. -- 109.79.81.140 (talk) 22:34, 27 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Searched Google Books and found what I think would be enough of a reference for Leonard Maltin https://books.google.ie/books?id=PvcLAQAAMAAJ&q=inauthor:%22Leonard+Maltin%22+%22Maximum+Overdrive%22&dq=inauthor:%22Leonard+Maltin%22+%22Maximum+Overdrive%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja59XK6LziAhUKVRUIHaemDt0Q6AEILjAB
 * Someone who knows the best formatting for Google books references might add it to the article please? -- 109.79.81.140 (talk) 23:06, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Revert again, no reason given. I still have no idea what he's thinking. -- 109.79.185.11 (talk) 01:08, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

King himself described the film as a "moron movie"
Can we cite this, please? It's not in the citation currently marked [7]. Renard Migrant (talk) 21:28, 17 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I looked through older versions of the article and found the reference.
 * The reference was removed for no apparent reason by an anonymous IP editor.
 * I don't think it needs to be in the Lead. I do think it needs to be presented with more context. -- 109.79.161.55 (talk) 02:33, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The two citations claiming King 'disowned' the film and intended to never direct again do not support either statement. He calls it a moron film in regards to how they should market/release the film, and that citation explains how he made a sacrifice for the type of release he preferred, and no mention of disowning. The other citation clearly states he DOES intend to direct again. Who wrote this nonsense? 69.112.36.233 (talk) 16:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The two citations claiming King 'disowned' the film and intended to never direct again do not support either statement. He calls it a moron film in regards to how they should market/release the film, and that citation explains how he made a sacrifice for the type of release he preferred, and no mention of disowning. The other citation clearly states he DOES intend to direct again. Who wrote this nonsense? 69.112.36.233 (talk) 16:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)