im a bit late here but i would like to point out that for a very long time most seamen couldnt swim either especially th
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Waterworld
wildfire160 — 15 years ago(March 21, 2011 08:10 PM)
im a bit late here but i would like to point out that for a very long time most seamen couldnt swim either especially those on sailing ships,im not certain of the percentage of the crew in Admiral Nelsons fleet at Trafalgar were non swimmers but i seem to remember it was quite large
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Xavior_Penguin — 14 years ago(August 21, 2011 05:51 PM)
That was an elaborate explanation, a better one than I could've asked for. I think of me as fluctuating between inability to understand and not giving enough of a sht to understand. But you should credit yourself, because I now understand.
~Lance -
langedor — 14 years ago(March 25, 2012 04:54 PM)
"How can people on a planet that is 75% water not swim?? Not too bright are you?"
Erm, because the vast majority of people live on land. In this film the planet isn't just 75% water, it's 99.99999% water and people live on boats. Bit of a difference.
Lay off the OP, it was a valid question and he's accepted he may have been wrong. -
MasterNemesis — 14 years ago(March 29, 2012 06:42 PM)
I have a lot of family who are fishermen, the majority of whom can't swim, that's right people who make their lives on the sea, who can't swim a stroke. The main reason being, knowing how to swim in the open ocean usually ends up the same if you can swim.
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tvbuff-7 — 14 years ago(March 29, 2012 10:00 PM)
This is an odd thread. She was a little girl, she didn't catch on to swimming yet. Did anyone in the movie really spend anytime swimming except for Mariner? Fishing and finding fresh water are the two things you need to master to stay alive, maybe a little sewing. Swimming seemed like a dangerous activity. I don't know what that fish thing was, but it didn't look friendly.
I imagine there are a whole lot of people on Dennis Hopper's tanker that never got into the water. Yeah, it's a water world but most of them seemed to spend most of their time avoiding the water. -
coolguyjames_nz — 13 years ago(October 03, 2012 05:45 AM)
OP.
Did you watch the entire movie? No one can believe that she can't swim in the movie, Costner is like WTF, and then the woman explains why I thought it was beep at first, but then they give a slight explanation. Not everyone can swim well. It's not amazingly unbelievable. -
MedianFire — 13 years ago(December 29, 2012 11:22 AM)
She WAS from the Dryland, in a dreamy symbolic mythological sense. When on the land, she was "home now", remember? I think her not being able to swim was a great way of linking her deeply to the Land. In fact, I would like to se a more apparent disagreement of her with the sea and water.
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gcattanach — 12 years ago(August 27, 2013 05:57 AM)
There wasn't any mythological aspect to her being from Dryland; when they get to the hut on the land at the end of the movie, we see several papers with the same design as the map on her back. The two skeletons are her parents and they designed the diagram and put it on her back. She also 'knew' the music box. Everything she drew on the boat, etc, was from her memories living on Dryland.
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LosGanjales — 12 years ago(July 17, 2013 09:00 AM)
even if she could swim, where should she swim to? so there is no point in learning how to swim if there is no way out.. and it's not like they are having pool partys every day it's another time where swimming is not linked to having fun. that is when she learns how to swim with the mariner..
and also, if she went for a swim she would have to do it fully clothed because of her back tattoo, which would be suspicious, so i think her mom didnt want her to go swimming.. -
wildfire160 — 12 years ago(July 18, 2013 03:05 PM)
Its not unusual for some marine societies to have a lot of non swimmers, hell of a lot of sailors in the Royal Navy in the 17th/18th century couldn't swim either,it really isn't that unusual
"Nee ta ma duh tyen-shia suo-yo duh run doh gai si" -
Technomage001 — 10 years ago(October 11, 2015 11:48 AM)
Old post but I had to comment on it. I saw a movie not to long ago (The Water Is Wide) about a group of people who lived for generations on an island off South Carolina. Even though drowning deaths happened from time to time. No one on the island could swim. I thought it was odd but a little research proved it was true. They didn't even know what Halloween was they were so separate from the mainland.
The Water Is Wide
Pat Conroy, an ambitious, slightly rebellious idealistic teacher accepts Bennington county, SC's school board superintendent's offer to teach the all-black kids of the pauper fishery community on Yamacrew Island.
Based on true events. -
vendor-14 — 10 years ago(November 26, 2015 08:51 PM)
I just re watched this movie, and while arguing with the Mariner about the existence of Dryland, Helen has a line about the earth they discovered when they found Enola being darker than the earth the Mariner had on his plant. From this I concluded that Enola was the lone occupant of a drifting boat that made it to an atoll, kind of like a variation on Moses.
When they later arrived at Dryland, it became apparent that Enola had been launched from the beach by a dying couple. I got the idea that she arrived on the atoll as an unwanted (for lack of enough resources to go around) infant or very young child, and may have been indifferently cared for until Helen took her on. Enola's not being able to swim could have been the result of having no real parent to care enough to teach her.
As a plot device, not being a swimmer set Enola apart from the other humans and made her different from them. This gave Enola another point of contrast with the Mariner. He has gills, she can't swim. He's silent, she talks. He owns chalk as a possession, she draws land animals with it. He's of the water, she's of the land.
Enola's inability to swim also sets up the pivotal scene in the movie, where the Mariner cares enough to teach her. This sets up a powerful bond between them that guarantees the Mariner will do anything to rescue her when the time comes.
So from my perspective, Enola's inability to swim made sense and helped to drive the plot and emotional arc of the movie.
