A gang of 'pirates' needs your help to build a replica of the Exxon Valdez from Waterworld

A few dreamers are trying to save a big prop from Waterworld, and they would like your help.

Paul Miller, an artist and self-professed “post apocalyptic film fan” is using Indiegogo to try to raise money for supplies to finish a replica of the Exxon Valdez used to simulate a giant explosion in the movie Waterworld.

Waterworld! That’s a movie you probably don’t remember if you’re a teen. Let me explain, in case you’re a teen.

In the 90s, people used to give money to a man named Kevin Costner to make movies. Many were long movies. Waterworld was not the longest, but it was the most expensive. It cost $172 million to make. By sheer numbers that’s less than it costs to make many recent blockbusters, but once you adjust for inflation Waterworld is still one of the most expensive movies of all time.

The denouement (which, according to the Michael Bay French Dictionary, means “big explosion”) consists of Kevin Costner’s character blowing up the wreck of the Exxon Valdez, which the bad guys use as a base.

To film that explosion, the filmmakers made a 100-foot long model of the Valdez, used pyrotechnics, etc. etc. You know the drill.

Last year one of Miller’s friends, Ron Griffith, bought the carcass of that model for “Wasteland Weekend.” Wasteland Weekend is a “post-apocalyptic festival” that Griffith, Miller, and a gang of pals who go by “The Pirates of the Arid Seas,” attend in Southern California. They want to bring a smaller version of the replica, using original parts, that they call the Deez Jr. Apparently it’ll be the site of their Post Apocalyptic Swimsuit Contest. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Earlier this summer Miller ran a different Indiegogo campaign to retrieve the carcass before it got trashed. They didn’t raise all the money they asked for that time, but Miller says on the new fundraising page that he “was able to figure out how to build the movable homage to the Sci-Fi film for $2500.” Now they need $1500 to finish the job. They’ve raised half of it in a day, though $700 of that comes from a mysterious, pseudonymous donor called “aquaticvisions.”

This is goofy as hell, and it’s hard to think of a film that on its own merits is less deserving of such loving work (even if Kevin Costner insists it’s “beloved…around the world.”). But the heart wants what the heart wants, and if the heart wants to build a replica of the Exxon Valdez, I wish them luck. They seem to have a pretty good shot, unlike those Lord of the Rings chumps.

Ethan Chiel is a reporter for Fusion, writing mostly about the internet and technology. You can (and should) email him at [email protected]