Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - WB (2024)

[ctg]

I always got the impression that there was some kind of civilisation somewhere - not very good civilisation,

Personally, I saw that as a false hope and that they'd be better doing what Max is doing by moving on like Nomads and endlessly searching for the better location. Immortan Joe's people is set for a period of time, until there are no parts to fix their cars, and when that's done, their stories disappear in the sand dunes.

Opening the dam and letting the waters run in the desert to create another green area is the light at the end of the tunnel in the Fury Road. As long as they can keep the water flowing, they can survive and prosper, but I'm afraid that they'll end up like people in Petra.

 

[Swank]

All I'm saying is that it's an origin story and I'm tired of origin stories.

Normally, I would be right there with you. Especially when talking about minor characters that are purposely mysterious in origin. Boba Fett and Wolverine are characters whose appearances were leveraged on backgrounds that go way back and cause other characters to defer to them. This kind of non-backstory that tells the audience "trust me, this guy is a bad-ass". When you then do the origin story it is always a disappointment because the story never rises to the level of cache the character had by being mysterious.

Furiousa doesn't have any real cache. No one seems quite as terrified of her reputation as the characters in the original Mad Max were of Max. She just seems to be another dangerous person in a sea of dangerous people. What is more interesting about her is that she has some moral imperative that matches Max.

So I don't see this film as the same kind of hoary silliness as the Clone Wars, Solo or Logan. This is just another Furiousa story, told out of chronological order. Much as Temple of Doom was. So it doesn't strike me as an origin story as much as 'the rest of the story'.

*Max's car gets destroyed in The Road Warrior and is back in Fury Road. Max, who seems to be in his 40s, was a cop before everything fell apart, but apparently the apocalypse happened 45 years ago. I like the idea of the Max stories being legends about the same man, like stories about King Arthur or Robin Hood.

To be fair, we don't know how far into the collapse the events in the original Mad Max are - clearly it is post collapse and the cops are just trying to keep a relatively civilized part of Australia from going further downhill. I think there was a general notion in the '70s that Australia's low population, agrarian economy, location and low profile world standing would make it somewhat immune to a brief nuclear war or economic collapse. The films seem to depict what happens when Max travels away from coastal cities and into the outback.

However, the new films depict a different timeline - instead of ammunition being a rarity, there is lots of it and weapons that weren't even around in the 1970s. And he is tortured by visions of a different child than his son in the first film. So I think it is fair to say that the new films re-write the timeline and Max's backstory.


However, it is tempting to view Max as a magical figure, like the Headless Horseman, that is so haunted by his past and values that he (and his car) keep re-emerging out of the wasteland as an immortal punisher of the unjust.


There is a real possibility that George will do with Max what he does with Furiousa and give us a prequel of the new version of his life.

 

[Judderman]

*Max's car gets destroyed in The Road Warrior and is back in Fury Road. Max, who seems to be in his 40s, was a cop before everything fell apart, but apparently the apocalypse happened 45 years ago. I like the idea of the Max stories being legends about the same man, like stories about King Arthur or Robin Hood.

Is it as with the original 1979 movie that society was already progressively collapsing when Max had his police career (and perhaps society had started collapsing years before due to energy shortage)?

 

[ctg]

Is it as with the original 1979 movie that society was already progressively collapsing when Max had his police career (and perhaps society had started collapsing years before due to energy shortage)?

Yes. If you check it out, you can see them having barbecues and things while the society crumples. It's very surreal. Especially when you then compare that film to later ones.

 

[Toby Frost]

IIRC, it seems that the various towns in Mad Max, while falling apart, are at least holding on to some kind of sanity. The first film includes a lawyer and a nightclub. By the second film, society seems to have completely collapsed and most people appear to be feral lunatics.

 

[Swank]

IIRC, it seems that the various towns in Mad Max, while falling apart, are at least holding on to some kind of sanity. The first film includes a lawyer and a nightclub. By the second film, society seems to have completely collapsed and most people appear to be feral lunatics.

The second film is out in the outback wastes, nowhere near the towns of the first film.

 

[BAYLOR]

IIRC, it seems that the various towns in Mad Max, while falling apart, are at least holding on to some kind of sanity. The first film includes a lawyer and a nightclub. By the second film, society seems to have completely collapsed and most people appear to be feral lunatics.

It does have one of the greatest film openings of time of all time.

 

[Brian G Turner]

To me the trailer looks somewhat cartoon-y, and the actress doesn't look like the original Furiosa. Which is kind of off-putting!

 

[BAYLOR]

To me the trailer looks somewhat cartoon-y, and the actress doesn't look like the original Furiosa. Which is kind of off-putting!

That actress doesn't quite match , yes it does look bit over the top and, its doubtful it will win the best picture category . But It will still give the audiences thrills ,chills, spills and epic chase scenes with over the top dastardly villains.

 

[Swank]

To me the trailer looks somewhat cartoon-y, and the actress doesn't look like the original Furiosa. Which is kind of off-putting!

You should see the guy they got to play Mad Max.

 

[KGeo777]

All I'm saying is that it's an origin story and I'm tired of origin stories.

Origin stories were far less common decades ago. There were special cases like Tarzan (you do wonder how he got into the jungle) or Robin the Boy Wonder and occasionally a movie might use it for special effect --the Harmonica character in Once Upon A Time In The West comes to mind.

I notice that characters in a lot of media in recent times will be more confessional and open up about their feelings too. They express fears and doubts or they psycho-analyze a lot more than you find 30-50 years ago. As opposed to having character traits revealed through action or situational dialogue alone.
One might even suggest that this origin trend is a form of character deconstruction or infantilization. It does seem to deny or subtract from the maturity of characters--Darth Vader and Indiana Jones come to mind.
I am not saying that having parents or some information about a character's childhood is necessarily a bad thing--it was used to good effect in Star Trek when we learn about Spock's childhood via his parents' comments--but that is different from seeing it for ourselves or having flashbacks.

I notice the show Reacher--which I have not seen but I read up on it and sure enough--there's lot of flashbacks to the character's childhood and mentoring.
It made sense in Kung Fu because he has a special fighting technique and it's an exotic concept, you want to know about it--- but do we really need to learn what childhood Sherlock Holmes or Dracula or Columbo had by detailed description or flashbacks?
Is it really that interesting to know (especially since the creator of the character is not involved so it is never going to feel genuine anyway)?

In the case of a woman with one arm in the wastelands--there is some reason to be curious how she came to be--I can think fo a few cases where a woman warrior is given a back story to explain how she ends up in combat or piracy but that's not always the case either. A line of dialogue can work at least as effectively as a flashback can too.

Emphasis on prequels can also dilute dramatic suspense since you know the character's future---or--if they decide to deviate from the known story--can make it less suspenseful since it becomes a parallel universe where nothing is set in stone.
This was a topic in a Critical Drinker podcast recently-the Multiverse Curse--he pointed out that the multi-universe stories were making the characters trivial since nothing--even death--was permanent.

I know that I am totally bored with Batman--too much Batman for me.
There's just too many Batmans.

 

[paeng]

Mad Max Timeline Explained: When Each Movie Takes Place

How does Fury Road fit with Mad Max 1-3?

screenrant.com

The first movie takes place in the mid-1980s, followed by the next movie which takes place only a few years later, and then the third which takes place around two decades after, or the early 2000s. I think the collapse, which took place between the first and second movies, was rapid, caused by a combination of peak oil and nuclear war. The latter is hinted at by the children in the third movie and depicted in the last scenes.

The fourth movie is supposed to take place several decades after the third one, with Max being young once more, the Interceptor back, etc., and the fifth movie set two decades earlier.

It's likely that the fourth movie was made for an audience that was probably too young to know about the first three movies.

Similar issues took place for other franchises.

 

[Swank]

The first Mad Max film was clearly after some sort of collapse.

 

[ctg]

I got chillies.

 

[Harpo]

That music sounds like the guitar riff from “The Man Who Sold The World”

 

[ctg]

That music sounds like the guitar riff from “The Man Who Sold The World”

Yep, it surely does that.

 

[Swank]

I'm for it.

 

[paeng]

It's like a superhero movie.

 

[Swank]

Saw it. Excellent. The shear will of the MC is breathtaking. A story told almost totally in action - and that is a compliment.

 

[paeng]

Max the Fifth | Not a Blog

Overall, though, ROAD WARRIOR is still my favorite Mad Max movie. FURIOSA and FURY ROAD both had their merits, but I’d still rank them below the second and third Mel Gibson films. The new ones are bigger and more expensive, and the action scenes are huge… but the worldbuilding, the secondary characters, and the stories cannot compare.

...

Maybe someone should hire him to do a remake of DAMNATION ALLEY. We’d finally get a proper Hell Tanner, and Roger would get the movie he always deserved.