Jolt Country

From spaghetti westerns to over the top gorefests, if there's one country you can count on for providing questionable theater experiences, it's Italy. Warriors of the Wasteland is no exception to the rule. Originally titled "I Nuovi Barbari" (The New Barbarians) in Italy, it was released less than a year after Conan the Barbarian which presumedly had audiences wondering where all the swords and muscles were. Most likely, the title was changed for American audiences to to draw comparisons to the second Mad Max film, 1981's The Road Warrior.

Comparisons to second Mad Max film don't stop with the name, as the entire plot falls somewhere between "inspired by" and "directly aped." In this post-apocalyptic society, an evil band of warriors known as the Templars wander the landscape in search of surviving humans in order to exterminate them and also destroy any books they may find because, weird. The Templars ride around in futuristic dune buggies and on motorcycles, all of which have been spray painted silver from top to bottom. All the vehicles have been modified with largely inefficient weapons, like flamethrowers that only shoot enough fire to burn a single person, which is weird in a land where everyone owns a laser pistol or rifle with infinite shots.

This universe's Mad Max is Scorpion who, with his frenemy Nadir (played by former NFL star and writer/director/actor Fred Williamson, who starred in, among other things, this classic) cross paths multiple times and fight the Templars. Scorpion's car, obviously inspired by Mad Max's Interceptor, is a black sedan with some hoses duct taped to the hood and a solar panel mounted to the trunk. Everything in the film feels like it cost $20 to make. The defending nomads protect their encampment with walls of empty beer kegs which have to be precariously balanced in the first place, offering no protection whatsoever. All of the cars, all of the sets, all of the costumes and all of the characters look like the Dollar Tree version of Mad Max. All the stunts are in slow motion. All the car chases are like 20mph.

For the most part the film follows the beats of The Road Warrior until about 2/3 the way through the film at which point Scorpion is captured by the Templars. The leader of the Templars announces he is going to turn Scorpion into a Templar... and then he anally rapes him. Like, in front of 100 Templars, god, and everybody. I'm pretty sure that didn't happen to Max Max. Eventually Scorpion escapes, teams back up with Nadir, and returns to kill all the Templars. As the leader attempts to flee, Scorpion pulls up behind his car and runs a gigantic metal drill bit through the car and into the leader's butt, killing him -- literally fucking him in the ass to death.

Oh, those wacky Italians.

There's a wacky John Carpenter-esque soundtrack, at least one decapitation, dozens of exploding arrows and some decent makeup work, but there's only one thing you'll be talking about after the film, and it won't be any of those.

Flack wrote: Fri Feb 17, 2023 10:18 pm In this post-apocalyptic society, an evil band of warriors known as the Templars wander the landscape in search of surviving humans in order to exterminate them and also destroy any books they may find because, weird.

You destroy books because it deprives anyone from the information that book provides. Book burning as a means to make people stupider has been a practice going back centuries. Right now, in addition to committing genocide on the Uyghurs, China is systematically destroying their culture by burning the books of their heritage and history.

As far as this movie is concerned, whenever there is a successful movie or franchise others will try to "cash in" by doing similar or copying the concept of an existing film. "Jaws" inspired "Great White," which. when Universal sued them, was determined by the court to not be infringing.

Apocalyptic survival horror films touch people's primal fears, threats to one's base needs, food, water, shelter, protections of civilization, etc. Whether it's a desolate environment with no law and requiring one to fight back to protect everything they have (like Mad Max) or a desolate environment with no law and requiring one to fight back to protect everything they have (like Death Wish). Where one becomes successful they can spawn clones.

Do they have Italian accents? That's the important thing.

And it seems important that the car weapons are deployed from the compartments as slowly as possible befor they are fired.

Tdarcos wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 10:02 am

Flack wrote: Fri Feb 17, 2023 10:18 pm In this post-apocalyptic society, an evil band of warriors known as the Templars wander the landscape in search of surviving humans in order to exterminate them and also destroy any books they may find because, weird.

You destroy books because it deprives anyone from the information that book provides.

In full disclosure, shortly before tearing up the single book they found the barbarians killed everyone in the camp, so the nomads were doubly deprived of future learning experiences.

Flack wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 5:58 am

Tdarcos wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 10:02 am

Flack wrote: Fri Feb 17, 2023 10:18 pm In this post-apocalyptic society, an evil band of warriors known as the Templars wander the landscape in search of surviving humans in order to exterminate them and also destroy any books they may find because, weird.

You destroy books because it deprives anyone from the information that book provides.

In full disclosure, shortly before tearing up the single book they found

That's not what you said, as noted above you said 'they destroy books." You gave the impression they went arround like Terminators slaughteting people amd detroying their civilization. If you incorrectly describe the environment, don't proceed to criticize me for judging conditons based on your flawed description. As a programmer, you should know the rule about "garbage in, garbage out." Start with bad info/data and you aren't going to get good results.
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Sent from a mobile phone.

Dude, up your meds!

Tdarcos wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 9:27 am

Flack wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 5:58 am

Tdarcos wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 10:02 am
You destroy books because it deprives anyone from the information that book provides.

In full disclosure, shortly before tearing up the single book they found

That's not what you said, as noted above you said 'they destroy books." You gave the impression they went arround like Terminators slaughteting people amd detroying their civilization. If you incorrectly describe the environment, don't proceed to criticize me for judging conditons based on your flawed description. As a programmer, you should know the rule about "garbage in, garbage out." Start with bad info/data and you aren't going to get good results.
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Sent from a mobile phone.

Wrong.

Tdarcos wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 9:27 am

Flack wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 5:58 am

Tdarcos wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 10:02 am
You destroy books because it deprives anyone from the information that book provides.

In full disclosure, shortly before tearing up the single book they found

That's not what you said, as noted above you said 'they destroy books." You gave the impression they went arround like Terminators slaughteting people amd detroying their civilization. If you incorrectly describe the environment, don't proceed to criticize me for judging conditons based on your flawed description. As a programmer, you should know the rule about "garbage in, garbage out." Start with bad info/data and you aren't going to get good results.
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Sent from a mobile phone.

Actually I said "they destroy any books they find." On that day, they found one.

Another thing I've learned as a programmer is that no matter how much time you spend working on a user interface, at least one person will have trouble using it.