If Miller was able to make another one, and hopefully he will, what do ye think the story should be?
Yup, it's Max. I'm not 100% Miller has confirmed it, but he has also dismissed any quibbling over lore or canon … so sure, if you really wanted to you could probably say it's the Feral Kid - but equally, the series is just a cinematic form of fable and wasteland mythology; heck there's a more believable theory none of the Max's in the sequels are Max Rockatansky - that it just became a name attached to wandering nomads who helped folk out, then wandered back into the wasteland only to become legends told in the History Men's Word Burgers.
Is he though , the feral boys tribe had the car , the feral boy didn't speak ,Hardy barely speaks , Hardy doesn't play Max like Max, There's the music box , they call him raging feral multiple times ,He doesn't say his name and then at the end it's like he decides to be Max when he tells them ,
I'll be going seeing this again on Thursday, this will be the fourth time I'm going to see her on the big screen. Awful shame this isn't doing well at the box office, its pure brilliant escapism. The scene with the chrome truck being attacked by the flying demented bikers is just 10 minutes of classic action cinematic sequential brilliance.
They missed out on a Mel Gibson movie, a good old style high octane movie would have done well, Im hearing this film has lost a shed tonne of money
Absolutely. I'm only being flippant because nobody died. If the WarBoys knew how many people had witnessed their antics…
Nope, he's Max Rockatansky, just part of that fluid sense of Lore and canon.
You can sorta see it though: some of the stuntwork was so impeccable it was hard to see here and how the cuts or CGI were made.
No, apart from the fact that the Feral boy said he went on to lead The Great Northern Tribe there are a series of graphic novels that came out around the time of Fury Road that explains what happens before the events of the film.
Isn't Hardys character supposed to be the feral boy in Mad Max 2 , There's a lots off little hints & nods towards it ,
The irony of dying in a film littered with quasi-suicidal characters screaming "Witness me!".
That nobody ever died making that first movie remains a minor miracle.
Heck that nobody died making Fury Road is also a miracle. Even Steven Soderbergh agrees lol
https://theplaylist.net/steven-soderbergh-mad-max-fury-road-20171109/
I used to feel that way about the first film but liked it more after watching it again around the release of Fury Road. It helps that it's only 90 minutes or so, but like you say the budget was very thin.
For the truck smash toward the end, they paid some local $100 to use his truck. He was a bit worried about damaging it so he put some ply-wood over the grill, if you watch the scene closely you can see it.
'Beyond Thunderdome' is a genuinely good film. Its opening is superb, in fact I think it's the best opening of the three original films. The ending is excellent too. Where the third film falls down is when we meet up with the kids. I get what Miller was trying to do with all of that, but it's always just a let down and it brings everything to a crashing halt. However it's, as you say, a hell of a lot better than some of the trash that gets spewed out these days. But that's really not hard considering the poor fare that's on offer a lot of the time.
Personally, I feel that the worst of the original three is the first film. Sure, it's got something going for it in that it was made for tuppence ha'penny and the stunts can be great to look at. But it doesn't really get going until the last 15 minutes and for too long it feels dull. Also, I don't feel like I'm anywhere but the Australian outback in 1979, as opposed to the brilliantly realised post-apocalyptic world in 'Mad Max 2' and 'Beyond Thunderdome'. I get that 'Mad Max' is the epoch of the apocalypse and that not everything has completely fallen apart yet, but it's just not enough. Bottom line is I've always felt the first movie to be a real chore to get through.
Yeah, It's just the aspect of brutal warlords taking over the wasteland and indoctrinating some sort of brute cult control that we see in the third one with Aunties character, setting up the fortress with all its scams and forced control that only benefit her and her immediate circle. That's what Fury Road was all about, and I suspect what Miller was originally going for in Beyond Thunderdome, but the greasy Hollywood money got involved so it had to incorporate the money making shtick at the time, which was Speilbergian blockbuster works such as the Goonies/Lost boys etc. Thats why we had to suffer the lost desert kids, and why the whole thing became messy. The story of brutal warlords/warladies taking over is the entertaining aspect of the third one, and was IMO Millers original interpretation for it.
The train chase was fabulous, while Master Blaster and the overall aesthetic lended and argument that the iconography of Fury Road was directly related to Thunderdome more than Road Warrior.
Beyond Thunderdome is not a complete turd of a film but it is a much lesser film than either of the previous Max films, partly for the blatant "two stories inelegantly smushed together" aspect of the narrative and partly for the drop in age rating meaning that the violent nature of life in the post-apocalyptic outback was neutered.
It still has some great moments, mind, but I'd say it's the only Mad Max film (including Furiosa) that I'd have to give a caveat for when recommending it.
The production and world-building in the third one is brilliant though. Fury Road wouldn't exist without the world building aspect of the wasteland in Beyond Thunderdome, as weakish as the story aspect was.
Three's ugly duckling status suffers from it never originally being a Mad Max movie, but was a random script about lost kids living through the apocalypse; they put Max into it but it never quite escaped that sense of it being something else entirely.
3 is nowhere near as bad as people claim, it's better than many praised actioners. It's only weak in comparison to it's predecessor.
It's worth watching alone, imho, for Tina
Its a fine way to spend a spare day, if you have it, watching the three of Mel Gibsons Mad Max character films. Everybody loves the second one but the first film is just clever raw underground brilliance. And the third one is a hell of a lot better than some of the trash that gets spewed out these days. I've a soft spot for the third one really, its heavily dictated by the corporate Hollywood franchise machine, both in its production value (great) and its story (weak enough), but it's a spectacular barometer of what was eventually to come in our own age.
Max's V8 doesn't make an appearance in Beyond Thunderdome. He's using a camel drawn cart made from some previously motorised vehicle at the beginning of the film. That gets repaired in Bartertown and he uses it at the end.
The car Max drives in 'Mad Max' 1 and 2.. a V8 Interceptor (actually a Ford Falcon Coupe) is the same car you see at the beginning of 'Fury Road' and the brief cameo in 'Furiosa'. I can't remember what car, if any he drives in 'Beyond Thunderdome'. If we are attempting to impose a time scale or linearity upon these movies, it would not be unreasonable to assume that the 'Beyond Thunderdome' storyline takes place after 'Fury Road/Furiosa'.
There's continuity in the original Mad Max series in that it takes place in the same "universe" and it features a guy called Max. Beyond that, there's not much to point a finger at. But there doesn't have to be. It's the world that the audience is coming to these movies to see, not any particular character, or canon, or lore. But Gibson's Max is the same guy in all three movies and we follow him on his adventure through the wasteland. But the three stories are quite different and relatively unconnected, which isn't a bad thing.
Unfortunately though, for the likes of 'Fury Road' and 'Furiosa', it's impossible for me to see them as part of the original series of films with Gibson. To me they are their own breed, as it were. Hardy's Max just isn't Gibson's Max and he could just as easily be called Crazy Carl. I think it would have been better if 'Fury Road' hadn't included Max at all, in fact, and was just a continuation of the post apocalyptic world instead.
It's clear that Miller isn't all that enthused at building any kind of canon for his series and that's great, as far as I'm concerned. Because, almost inevitably, that canon gets muddled and confused, and sometimes completely contradicted. Hello Star Wars/Star Trek.
Bruce Spence is the “Gyro Captain” in Road Warrior. In Thunderdome he is a pilot called Jebadiah but Miller himself (I think) said he isn’t the same guy, he just wanted Spence again.
I figured as much about Miller’s attitude to canon and continuity from his comment that Furiosa “maybe takes place after Thunderdome / 45 years after the collapse”.
However nothing in the original three films or in Fury Road contradicts and they seem to have a continuity other than Bruce Spence playing two different but the same pilots.
that doesn’t make it any clearer at all :)
They're separate characters AFAIK albeit played by the same guy, again as part of the whole "canon doesn't matter here".
Was listening to the Blank Check podcast on this and seems like Miller retains full control of this property - hence the relative lack of output and merchandise. One worries once he passes we're gonna see the reboot appear not long after. Unless perhaps he passes the rights to an Estate?
If you haven't seen the older films:
Doesn't the Gyro captain appear in both The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome with no continuity?
The first thing to understand about Mad Max canon: there is none.
George Miller famously doesn't give a crap and doesn't even try to imply or suggest all the films are interconnected and trying to divine some kind of linearity between Mad Max, Road Warrior, Thunderdome & Fury Road is a fool's errand. Best way to think of it: the entire series are fables, oral history told between people of this guy called "Max" who kept showing up at various points - sometimes in defiance of apparent lifespans or logic - to help people out; then he disappears into the ether, never staying put.
But lore or canon? Nuh'uh, just ain't happening. Furiosa obviously IS a prequel to the titular character's backstory, but the main "Max" films simply don't have that kind of canon.
"Is Max’s car the same one he had in Road Warrior? That would mean Fury Road takes place before Beyond Thunderdome?"
I can't say for certain but here's a little something that may offer some clarification:
"The Mad Max cameo in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is so brief and seemingly insubstantial that it can barely be considered a cameo. It’s merely a cutaway to a wide shot of Max (played by Jacob Tomuri, Tom Hardy’s stunt double from Mad Max: Fury Road), his face not particularly visible, leaning against his V8 Interceptor, eating a can of food and casually staring out over a cliff into the emptiness below — a classic Mad Max stance, recalling the opening of Fury Road (although it’s taking place many years before that movie). Beneath him, way in the distance, we can see Furiosa slowly limping her way across the desert toward the Citadel."
Taken from Vulture.com
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