Maximum Overdrive it's a 1986 movie directed by Stephen King, loosely based on his short story Trucks. For reasons that I'll mention later, the inanimate machines in that movie suddenly become alive. And evil. Or just aggressive towards humans. Although all kinds of machines get crazy, the focus is on the trucks. The core of the plot revolves around a group of human characters trying to survive in the gas station surrounded by murderous trucks. Since seeing it, the movie has become an obligatory reference point for me, in everything that involves mentioning trucks, so when a couple of days ago I witnessed a pretty spectacular invasion of noisy vehicles in my usually quiet, lethargic neighborhood ...
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... the memory of Maximum Overdrive started rolling, pretty vivid in my mind.
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The trucks in the movie were brought to life by some mysterious cosmic force when the earth passed through the tail of a comment called Rhea-M rogue. Here, in my small town reality, the machines were brought in a more traditional way, driven by people.
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The vehicles that appeared near my house weren't the biggest out there.
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In some cities, surrounded by taller buildings, they probably wouldn't be able to leave a strong impression ...
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... but here, in the narrow streets of the old town ...
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... the trucks looked pretty impressive. And with a bit of imagination, you could even see them as threatening. Just like in the Maximum Overdrive movie.
If you take a look at reviews and ratings on the Internet, you'll see that Maximum Overdrive is far from reaching the maximum stars, grades. points or whatever evaluation thing the reviewers are using. But among the fans of dumb, campy B - movies with silly premises and unbalanced execution, the movie is highly regarded. Being one of those fans since my childhood, I can only praise Stephen King's directorial debut.
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The parts of the movie involving people in the gas station, and humans and their interactions in general, are pretty boring. But when the people interact with crazy machines, when the action heats up, the movie is a lot of fun. And even kind of brilliant at moments - in my opinion.
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The overall atmosphere it's a weird mix of serious threat, dark humor, and unpredictable or overly predictable silliness. Since, when it comes to movies and other art forms, in my world weird equals good, the atmosphere in the movie it's a strong positive.
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Intentional and unintentional humor rules in the movie, but when it comes to horror, there isn't much there. It's more about fun, comedy, amusement, and outbursts of relatively tense action.
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For me, Maximum Overdrive it's a good old bad B - movie of the best kind. It's bad enough to be good, entertaining, and definitely memorable.
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With all that said, one question still remains - What brought all these trucks and vans to my neighborhood?
Well, this was a protest march on wheels. You can call it a protest drive, I guess.
The small and not-so-small businesses that deal in construction and related stuff were asking to be allowed to continue working during the tourist season when small seaside towns like this one prioritize the tourism-friendly atmosphere.
I won't go too deep into the political analysis of this event because I'm not into serious analysis, but I can tell you that from my point of view the requests were silly and unrealistic just like the aforementioned movie.
One of my theories about the protest has to do with the recent change of the mayor and governing team in the municipality that has its administrative center here in Medulin, my hometown. The current administration isn't environmental devastation-friendly like those that came before since I can remember understanding the local politics, so this protest isn't so much about getting two more months for working but more like a part of the more general construction lobby agenda, and with bigger players being irritated with some other announced changes that include revisions of some very shady projects that abound in the attractive seaside areas. That doesn't mean that some or many people in that convoy weren't there for genuine reasons, just trying to get better work and gain opportunities in an honest and legit way.
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I can understand all those reasons but, as everybody that has seen my usual nature-oriented post can easily conclude, I'm kinda on the opposite side of that urbanization versus natural environment conflict. But, since in many aspects I'm a walking-talking contradiction, I enjoyed that loud convoy very much and had plenty of fun taking these photographs.
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Yes, I enjoyed the free show. And I wasn't the only one. These two ladies that I rarely see out in the street also looked pretty interested in what was going on.
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My friend Denis, commonly known as @denisdenis here on HIVE, was also shooting the scene with his fancy mobile phone.
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The lady in these two photographs didn't look impressed with the machinery.
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Some drivers were waving hello.
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At one point, the driver of this mixer truck got somehow distracted, got out of the line, and continued towards the tricky little street that passes by my yard and, about fifty meters further, gets very narrow. Seen from the first floor of my house, the scene looked pretty cool. The truck drove backward till the crossroad and reentered the convoy.
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With so much unusual traffic around, the presence of the police was inevitable.
Some cops were in unmarked cars. And now, after all these photographs, it's time for the grand finale! The following video will show you the things in motion and bring you the music made by the marching machines. Have a good viewing.
A convoy of trucks and vans passing near my house. It looks and sounds like some kind of celebration.
A truck driver wedding or something like that. But it was a protest march, actually. A protest drive through
small towns and villages. As often is case with my videos here on 3Speak, this doesn't look very interesting
as a stendalone thing, but in the context of the entire post on HIVE, it can be fairly attractive.
▶️ 3Speak
And that's it. As always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs and the video are my work - THE END.
That was a horrible video :)) I'm lodging a personal protest. Those noisy trucks are irritating.
I will though watch Maximum Overdrive. Don't know how I missed it. My kids were young then and we watched every zany B movie that came our way. Thanks for the referral.
Hope quiet has returned to your lovely town.
It's all quiet now. :) The motor show didn't last long. I saw that movie a couple of times on Tv long ago. To refresh the memory for this post I watched only some excerpts on youtube.
Hello everyone and my friend #borjan great post looks nice as they drive slowly, trumpets and make noise ... honestly they could still. stronger to ask me .;))
Soon I will post my oa announcing it in this he mine will be a little different which is normal ;))
Interesting, but not very environmental way to protest. Nice comparison to Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive.
Hi @borjan, I saw the video and heard the noise that the trucks and police patrols make, they are quite loud, I suppose they were also protesting since they do nothing to fix the noise and organize the caravan of vehicles, well everyone has the right to protest even the cops, they protest and you remember the movie, that minimizes the noise for you
I wish you a happy weekend
Thanks :) Have a great weekend.
Awesome it's a Christmas rally or tour lol.
😃
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