Oddly Small Organization
- Each gang was only allowed to bring nine members to the big meeting, but as we see, even fourth-rate gangs like the Orphans actually have many more members than that. So why is it that when the Warriors finally make it back to their home turf, they are unable to call on any extra help?
- There is no reason whatsoever for the Warriors to call for reinforcements after they arrived at their hangout. They'd already been cleared of any wrongdoing by that point and the Rogues were being destroyed by the Riffs, so what they would need reinforcements for is anyone's guess.
- Because they're a small gang and don't have extra help. Their theme song is "Last of a Ancient Breed" and it's mentioned that no one thought The Warriors would ever make it home and no one in the Riffs (The largest and most powerful gang in New York) even knows who they are. They only had nine members to send to begin with.
- The game kinda jossed that. Mostly it's just more likely that they didn't have time to head back to their hideout for backup with the Rogues chasing them down as soon as they made it to the Island. It was dawn after all, and they were only awake because they'd been running all night.
- The movie's deleted beginning scene does mention there are over 120 members in the gang, but it is entirely plausible that they had no chance to contact anyone for help and that, at that time in the morning, no other Warriors might be around the area.
- Plus, on top of all that (odd hours, always on the run, etc), this is the era before cell phones. Meaning calling help requires a landline - rare unless you count a working phone booth and having change. And if their hideout is an old abandoned amusement park, there may not be a phone on the other end. Heck, they may not even remember the number.
- Not to mention the difficulty in actually rendezvousing with any potential backup, if neither party of Warriors has the means to communicate on the move.
- They didn't have enough time to call for reinforcements, if any exist in the first place. From a storyteller's perspective, there are lots of reasons why it would be unsatisfying for this to happen. There'd suddenly be a bunch of strangers on the hero's side that we'd have no emotional attachment to. If the Warriors were to suddenly outnumber the Rogues, it would undercut the tension of their final confrontation. When the Warriors get complimented for their toughness and walk into the sunrise, there would be a bunch of extra Warriors with them who hadn't experienced the events of the movie.
- The comic sequel Jailbreak shows that the Warriors have numbers comparable to those of the Riffs, the strongest gang, so it's less that they don't have extra help and more that said extra help are unavailable in the early morning. Supposedly, they could have hid and waited for more Warriors to show up, but Swan felt that their Home Field Advantage was good enough.
Nobody has a car? Or access to a car?
- I'm sure there's a plausible reason for this, but why in the world don't The Warriors find some other way of getting home? Are we meant to believe that, of these hardened gang members, who appear to be in their mid-20s, not one of them could hotwire and/or drive a car? And if there are roadblocks or cops checking vehicles on the bridges/tunnels etc., how is it that other gangs are able to get about? The Rogues have a car, they seem to be able to go wherever they want (all the way to Coney Island, by the end of the film) and their car is covered in gang graffitti!!!. If the Riffs are from Gramercy Park, that's in lower Manhattan, and they seem to get back to their turf just fine, and then they too show up in Coney for the finale. Considering that, in this version of New York City, there doesn't seem to be any pedestrians or traffic to speak of at night, they probably could have been home within an hour or so if they'd boosted a couple of cars or a van and just rode home.
- The film will end so fast that it would be a joke so let's just leave it at that.
- The characters arent supposed to be 20-somethings for one, thats just the actors. They're supposed to be high school teenagers. Second, its entirerly possible none of them know how to drive, being impoverished teens from the slums. Third, because the story is supposed to be compared to an army having to cross hostile territory on foot, so you'll just have to deal with it.
- But...That's why the Headscratchers pages exist - to discuss factors that should cause the film to immediately end. Otherwise the answer to everything on all the pages would be "Because the film/series/game/whatever would end if that happened, now suck it up and deal with it." Come on, that's not constructive. So let's see: Nowhere is it stated that the characters are supposed to be high-school age. I've never seen anything in any official media that even hints at the characters' ages; it's certainly not mentioned in the film itself, so if you've got an example of Word of God on this, please share. If you're referring to the book, then that's a totally different set of characters and their gang's not even called "The Warriors". In the film, the characters all look and act in a manner which suggests they are about the same age as the actors portraying them. Secondly, even if they were supposed to be teenagers, then surely that would mean the Turnbull A Cs and The Rogues are as well? And we see them driving around. Or are only The Warriors meant to be teens and everyone else is in their twenties? And it would seem logical that they can drive - kids from low-income areas would probably be more likely to get involved in joyriding and the like and the videogame includes a minigame where you break into cars and steal radios.
- Joyriding was not a major issue until years after the movie came out and over a decade after it was set.
- As with most thrill crimes, joyriding is more typically a crime committed by middle class or wealthy kids, not low-income ones.
- Even today, it really isn't unusual for people that live within New York to not know how to drive, especially for low-income people. It was much, much less common to know how to drive for New Yorkers when the movie was set.
- Unless you know the basics of how the car ignition system works, hotwiring a car is pretty much impossible. When the movie came out, you couldn't just Google it. It isn't an amazingly difficult skill to learn, but it wasn't something people easily picked up back then.
- On top of that, much older cars can't be hotwired. When the movie was set, those cars were still very prevalent, meaning that even if they knew how to hotwire a car and drive, they would still need to find a car that could be hotwired in the first place, which would be more typically seen in much wealthier areas than the movie takes place.
- The radio mini-game is completely irrelevant. Back when the movie came out, car locks could easily be forced open and you just had to rip the radio out of the dashboard. It took absolutely no skill or knowledge, which is why it was such a prevalent crime. Someone stealing radios almost definitely wouldn't be someone that knew how to hotwire a car. Stealing a car is a much more lucrative and far less conspicuous crime.
- When talking to the Orphans, Fox does mention the gang spends time at a youth center talking to a social worker (a bit of a Mythology Gag; in the book, the gang tries to get ahold of this social worker to drive them home, but they lose patience). That would seem to indicate they're not as old as they appear.
- Constructive, no, I'll admit. But common sense, yes. Even if they can drive, hotwire cars, etc., again, the film will end rather quickly, most likely less than 10 minutes, a short film. On the other hand, getting at least 2 cars and then road blocks might get in their way, they will have to ditch their stolen cars anyway so, again, in other words, it would be better to run for it.
- It's also unlikely that the Warriors would know the roads well enough to make the journey back by road.
- As for "the other gangs getting around much more easily"- not necessarily. Each gang sent nine members to the meet-up, but the ones the Warriors encountered could have been the ones who stayed behind and listened to the DJ's play-by-play. The only gang member who for sure travels a significant distance by car is Luther, who, judging from those phone calls he makes, may have some kind of political connection to allow him to get around roadblocks note .
Cyrus' plan
- Is it just me or does Cyrus' plan come off as being Awesome, but Impractical? Let's say that an army of 60,000 gang members took over the city...And Then What? Cyrus talks about overpowering the mob; what's to stop the mob from having some hitmen take out the most powerful or influential gang leaders? Also, the governor of New York could easily send in the National Guard or state militia to restore order. Would even a 60,000-strong gang army be a match for soldiers armed with machine guns, tanks and helicopters?
- That's presuming he's speaking of some kind of revolution, which would wind up as well as you described. But there is the option that Cyrus is speaking instead about the gang's becoming a confederation of criminals, similar to the Iroquois Confederacy since the movie draws heavily on making the Warriors appear as Native Americans. The crime syndicates rely on many street dealers and hoods to either move product or act as muscle, and if the unaffiliated street gangs are enforcing taxes on these movements rather than holding running street battles that are bad for business, the mob would have to either work around or with Cyrus. You are right about elimination of Cyrus (as mentioned in the first WMG), but for the sake of this problem it's more in line with how long Cyrus realistically thought that such a confederacy would last when many of the gangs have clearly deep-seated aggravation against one another rather than taking on the mob or government.
- It should also be mentioned that the movie is supposed to be 20 Minutes in the Future, according to Word of God. If society is broken down enough, and there is at least some implication that it is, it's possible a mass gang could do some damage.
- There's also the simple idea that you are entirely correct. Just because he has a plan and the charisma to put it into action doesn't mean that his plan is any good. He seems to think that sheer numbers will guarantee their success, when the movie shows that all the syndicates would need is a single skilled hitman, or to find someone like Luthor in the gangs to kill Cyrus for them.
- Cyrus's plan is a reflection of concerns of the film's era. At the time, gang violence was becoming a growing public concern, particularly in New York City, which was in the midst of a huge spike in violent crime. People felt like gangs were overwhelming the city, so Cyrus's proposed nightmare scenario of street gangs muscling out all rivals to rule the city, like barbarians sacking Rome from the inside, is the full expression of that fear. It's not really supposed to be a plausible idea, and even in-universe it's presented as a ludicrously audacious scheme that collapses the very moment he proposes it.
- The Warriors themselves do discuss this on the train home, reckoning that the plan was flawed. In the game, Masai even tells Cyrus that the plan is flawed and in the comic sequel, he states the dream died with Cyrus.
Something you'd like to share with us?
- I mean while like everybody else, Fox saw Cyrus get shot and fall to his death but unlike everybody else, he did see Luther with a gun and could've realized that it was him, which it was. I can understand he was trying to piece the puzzle fast as he could as as the latter tried to shoot him before the cop lights blinded him for a mere five seconds, allowing him to escape. I'm also surprised Fox didn't say this knowledge to Swan and the rest of the gang.
- Who's to say he didn't? Sure, he doesn't say it in any of the scenes but "I saw one of the Rogues shoot Cyrus!" isn't exactly something you keep to yourself, especially when everybody else is wondering what the hell just happened.
- It is implied that he did say something. How else would Swan know Luther did it? To be fair, Fox was originally to be Mercy's love interest before he was written out during filming, so in the original planned script Fox is probably the one who asks this. That being said, it's more than plausible that Fox filled Swan in during the train ride after they elude the Turnbull A Cs.
- If we're going with this, it's possible that Swan, to keep the surviving members of the group from becoming demoralized, made an executive decision to keep this information between him and Fox so the rest of the gang didn't know how seemingly hopeless their situation was. Everyone was operating under the assumption that every gang they came across was hostile, so keeping the fact the Warriors specifically were the only ones being targeted by every gang in the city a secret had (almost) no negative impact on the group's strategy, tactics, and mode of operation.
- It's mentioned in the making-of documentary that originally, Fox was not scripted to die the way he did in the film. Due to a conflict between the actor playing Fox and the director, the actor refused to show up on set anymore and Fox's death was filmed with a double (in fact, the moment you know the double takes over is seen when the members scramble in the subway after the cops find them at the stop prior to Union Station, as his face is facing away from the camera while he's running with Mercy, and you don't even see his face during his scuffle with the police officer, with only his voice being used, which could have been from cut footage). There's a good chance that the original version of the story, where Fox lives, would have had him reveal that he saw who shot Cyrus to the group during the earlier scenes. However, there's a chance due to the behind the scenes conflict, that particular scene hadn't been filmed for the film in the first half of the story (remember, films are not filmed in sequence, so a bulk of the first act may have not been completed filming by the time this problem came up) and the changes made to the story to have the Warriors unaware that they were being targeted until when they're closer to home ended up being how the film played out.
Cleon wastes time
- Why would Cleon stay to survey Cyrus' dead corpse instead of regrouping with the rest of the Warriors?
- The moment something shocking happens, people usually do not think straight.
- I always assumed, based on his reaction to the speech, that he was impressed and inspired by Cyrus' vision, possibly to the point of hero worship. As far as I'm concerned, Cleon was just stunned from watching his hero die.
- Yeah, various Warriors describe Cyrus in reverential tones as "magic" and "the one and only." He's a king to them, if not a god. The fact that someone could shoot him beggars Cleon's imagination enough that he can't help but gawk.
Riffs don't bother with interrogation
- While we don't see Masai and the Gramercy Riffs avenging Cyrus' death by ultimately killing Luther and his crew, but wouldn't they ask Luther why he shot Cyrys like Swan did earlier? Don't get me wrong, I can understand them wanting to get it over with but if I was Masai, I would love to know the reason why Luther did it. And having watch the movie numerous times and remembering Luther phoning someone at the candy store and it seemed like someone paid him or gave him an incentive to take out Cyrus.
- Their leader Cyrus was shot dead. It does not matter why Luther did it anymore. Even if the mastermind was taken out, then what? Less dangerous people on the streets but Cyrus will never be back from the dead.
- As I recall, one of the Rogues had already arrived at the Riffs' hideout, with the implication that he informed on Luther. This is why the Riffs arrive at Coney Island already having changed their target to the Rogues instead of the Warriors. While squealing on Luther, the informant Rogue probably told Masai that Luther did it for "no reason. He just likes doing stuff like that," as Luther himself admits.
