Skip to main content

story identification - Sentient truck with living flesh human mouth built into dashboard?


Does anyone remember the title of this (possibly straight to video) movie from the late 1980's / early 1990's?




  • Live action.

  • English dialogue, but this could have been a dub - the credits indicated that it was made in Hungary.

  • The opening theme was a monotonous song - the lyric "to reach the end of the line" was repeated a lot.

  • The setting was an authoritarian police state, possibly post apocalyptic.

  • The protagonist was the driver of a sentient truck.

  • The truck's name was "Monster".

  • The truck could speak via a living flesh human mouth built into the dashboard.

  • The opening titles may have had a wireframe animation of the truck.

  • The protagonist rescues a young girl and agrees to escort her to a sanctuary.


  • The protagonist dies towards the end, and his role of driving the truck is taken over by the young girl that he rescued.



Answer



This is Terminus (1987).



In the year 2037, an international sport has been established, wherein a driver of a truck must cross the country and arrive at a designated terminus, while confronting obstacles and enemies along the way. The lead truck, named "Monster", has been designed by a boy genius (Gabriel Damon) and is to be piloted through the course by a woman named Gus (Karen Allen). Eventually, the truck's AI fails and Gus ends up in uncharted territories. There, she encounters leather-clad "hoods" (hoodlums) that torture her and eventually kill her. Prior to dying, she befriends a fellow prisoner (Johnny Hallyday), who later uses the truck to rescue himself and a young orphan. Meanwhile, the boy genius watches them by an artificial satellite so that he may see how well the truck's software works. The conclusion reveals that as he watches the truck, he is himself watched and evaluated by the sinister doctor (Jürgen Prochnow) who cloned him.



You can see the truck in the clip below, along with the dashboard mouth






For the record, the song you're referencing is "End of the Line" by Stan Ridgway, specially commissioned for the film along with the "Love Story theme".



There's no one here who shares my views
Or sees the way I can see
But there's just one thing that you'll understand
You'll have to even up with me
At the end of the line (x2)







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more