Filmmaker reacts to Mad Max (1979) for the FIRST TIME!

[@JamesVSCinema]

Yeah, I'd be pretty mad too. Want to vote on what I should watch next? Click here! www.patreon.com/jamesvscinema Re-watching Blade Friday/Saturday! Enjoy the day!

[@baohweeb6935]

James, i know you are a big Berserk fan. So i will already say a fun fact about mad Max and how it inspired Berserk.... Max on The first 3 movies was Miura's biggest inspiration for Guts besides Kenshiro from Fist Of The North Star and Violence Jack from Violence Jack and Akira Fudou from Devilman. If you have read The prototype for Berserk, you will see The similarties that earlier Black Swordsman Guts had based on Max,both are anti-heroes that have a tragic past and go on their own journey for revenge Who later troughout their series tries to make themselves not care about other people,even though they clearly still have their good nature about them and ended up giving in to their morality and saving people in need..... In fact,Miura stated that he wanted a main character that had a cold and stoic and non-heroic personality while still being able to represent Rage in such a realistic manner like Max did on The older movies. And also, you Definitely should watch The Road Warrior,not only it is The best sequel of The franchise besides Fury Road but it is also where The world and Max becomes what they are on that movie. And also because you will see how Max inspired Guts later on road warrior movie due to a wound on his eye that makes his eyelids swell and cover his eye( Just like Black Swordsman Guts).

[@st3wi3D]

The first Anti-Hero in cinema.

[@CousinCreepy]

The next in this series - The Road Warrior and then Beyond Thunderdome!

[@clearsmashdrop5829]

@@CousinCreepy Seconded.

[@scottlette]

I will always remember my brother’s descriptive summary of Blade. ‘That movie where Wesley Snipes walks like he had a carrot up his ar$e…”

[@jereXIX]

Cool fact: the actor who plays the villain Toecutter in this film plays Immortan Joe in “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

[@gunlean7738]

Cool he did that and did the same recasting the actors playing Gyrocopter Pilot in 2 & 3 and Benno 1 & 2 (old ladies son near beach/holiday house)

[@ikedewinter1213]

gyrocopter guy plays the mouth of sauron In lotr

[@gunlean7738]

@@ikedewinter1213 who??

[@ikedewinter1213]

@@gunlean7738 the dude that gets his head cut of by aragorn at the end

[@gunlean7738]

@@ikedewinter1213 oh right..i'm not that familiar with lotr's. I looked it up tho, all u could see is dirty sharp teeth...lol

[@alanhembra2565]

The Mad Max series shows the fall of civilization. This one shows the world just before the final collapse. The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2) shows the world a few years after the collapse, Beyond Thunder Dome (Mad Max 3) shows the bleakness and insanity as humans fall back into tribes. So worth watching all three of the original trilogy.

[@CapteinRiggs]

'The Road Warrior' is soooo good. Thunderdome is kinda goofy..

[@gutz1981]

@@CapteinRiggs Beyond Thunderdome is off balance cause while location hunting, George Miller's good friend and producer Byron Kennedy died in a helicopter crash as he was also a pilot. By that stage, Miller had lost interest in the project and a second director was brought in by Warner Bros to finish the film with him. Miller did the action scenes, while Ogelville did the drama, hence the off balance.

[@themanwithnoname4385]

In between the road warrior and thunder dome a nuclear war happens. It's referenced a few times in the thunderdome. Also in one of the scenes when max first gets to bartertown theyres a water merchant and max pulls his gieger counter out and it goes insane with the amount of rads the water has

[@scottsv96]

One things for sure, all 3 beat the hell out of the new one.

[@artboymoy]

That's the way I see these films. Mad Max is the fall, Road Warrior is the bottom, and Thunderdom is the crawling back to civilization by the end.

[@garthgourdon643]

A fact I always thought was interesting, is that the Director and creator of Mad Max was actually a paramedic. He had first hand experience on the kinds of accidents, collisions, wipeouts, and injuries depicted in the film. Which only adds to the gritty reality because literally everything is 100% practical effects. Not a single green screen.

[@AlexG1020]

ya taking the engines out of the cars for some of the crashes was genius stunt direction

[@rrmenton8016]

That is an interesting fact: I don't know if its true, but I read somewhere he got the idea for the film while working in ER and seeing all the traffic accident victims!

[@dannya8614]

Really? In retrospect it makes sense.

[@teanosuger]

He was a Doctor covering accident and emergency

[@kieransanders2133]

@@rrmenton8016 Miller's initial concept was for Max to be a journalist reporting on accident scenes and losing it from the horrors he saw. It was also going to be set in the modern day, but they could't afford to film in heavily populated areas, so the near/post apocalyptic aspect was from necessirty to explain the empty streets and busted industrial sets.

[@Weazel1]

This was George Millers first film. He got the high speed motorcycle footage by sitting on the back of another motorcycle, no helmet, camera in hand following the action. He directed all the Mad Max films as well as Happy Feet.

[@rrmenton8016]

I love that the guy who made mad max also made happy feet!

[@MuadDib042]

And Babe

[@chn71]

You definitely have to watch The Road Warrior, they did groundbreaking stunts that no one at the time had ever dared to do.

[@LoneWolf_Cub_Ogami_Itto]

I think you mean Mad Max 2.

[@scottlette]

@@LoneWolf_Cub_Ogami_Itto Bloody Oath!

[@AlexG1020]

Plus the aesthetic is soooo influential to the apocalypse genre, Road Warrior and A Boy and his Dog

[@chn71]

@@LoneWolf_Cub_Ogami_Itto It was released in U.S. theatres as The Road Warrior. The first release of Mad Max didn't gross very well in America, so Mad Max 2 was renamed here.

[@LoneWolf_Cub_Ogami_Itto]

@@chn71 oh I know, it's the first thing you say to someone who brings up either The Road Warrior or Mad Max 2

[@donna25871]

The days when Mel had an Australian accent! Even in these early films you can see the camera loves Mel and he had ‘it’. You need to see the sequel (Mad Max 2) it is a masterpiece.

[@DanielS2001]

Fun fact: The stunts in this film were so impressive at the time, when the film made it's U.S. release, Hollywood stuntmen were jealous about how well the stunts were done. They spread a rumor that a couple of stuntmen died in the making of the film in order to give the film a bad rap.

[@rrmenton8016]

To be fair, one guy did almost die in the sequel, "the road warrior". When you see the guy go cartwheeling off the bridge, that was totally not planned, he caught his foot and went spiraling.

[@Carandini]

A stuntman did die. One of the bikers on the bridge. Because of Australian laws at the time, they could still use the footage.

[@Carandini]

@@rrmenton8016 And he was the stun co-ordinator, so the guy who was in charge of the safety of the stunts. The cartwheeling might have been planned, but missing the boxes to break his fall definately wasn't.

[@theblobconsumes4859]

@@Carandini This isn't true. It's a debunked myth and has been for many years. The stuntman for that scene had already come out to say that he didn't die from it.

[@gutz1981]

@@Carandini No he wasn't. The stuntman you are referring to who did the stunt is Guy Norris. At the time he was just another stuntman, be it assistant to the coordinator who in this film was Max Aspin, though he too suffered an accident that sent him to the hospital. Guy would become stunt coordinator on Fury Road some 30 odd years later.

[@GUS-fs8pq]

This I would say is the definition of “Ozploitation”, Guerilla style filmmaking, shoestring budget all based on really bizarre, chaotic almost satirical look at all the craziness of rural Australia in the 70s. Some of the actors where even payed in cases of beer by the director.

[@TearDownGenesis]

I think the director even used his own car in one of the car wreck scenes.

[@ThirstyUrkel]

Have you seen Not Quite Hollywood? It’s a 2008 documentary about the history of Ozploitation films. The stuff that was being put out was just bonkers.

[@rrmenton8016]

That was a super fun and awesome documentary. Makes me feel jealous of that time of absolute guerilla film making.

[@Browncoat66]

Nothing much has changed either. Except we have Facebook and KZbin!

[@GUS-fs8pq]

@@TearDownGenesis Yeah it was the Van in the first chase.

[@philmakris8507]

Fun fact James. When this film was first shown in the US( mostly in drive-ins) the distributor didn't think American audiences would be able to understand the Australian accents so they had the film dubbed by voice over actors for North America. It was a number of years until the film was available with the original dialouge. The "experimental" thing you are seeing is actually an old techniques from early westerns. The filming was done at real world speeds and sped up to make the chase scenes look faster.

[@BlueSuress]

It's called fast motion!!

[@nightking0130]

That blue van that gets destroyed in the opening chase was George millers own van. He sacrificed his own car for the sake of shooting that stunt. What a legend. He really had a lot of faith in his film as he should.

[@gutz1981]

No it wasn't. It was a shell they got from the wreckers. It was originally white and they painted it blue to match George's who he himself said they could not afford to crash his van cause he was using it still as production and crew transport from scene to scene. The drive up before the Crash is George's van, then the impact is just the shell. The give away is when the crash happens and you see the doors fly open, you can still see the while of the interior of the van, where as if you see production shots of George's Van, it was factory blue in and out.

[@Otchoe]

@@gutz1981 exactly, you can literally see it in the shot

[@nightking0130]

@@gutz1981 I think your right I watched that clip ten times over now and it looks like a different shade of blue on the van. Also I forgot cars just don’t disintegrate like that. Thanks for pointing that out. Man cinefix lied to me.

[@MatthewJarvis-zw2sz]

@@nightking0130 You can tell the van is a shell by how quickly it snaps round after being hit, due to the lack of an engine.

[@shainewhite2781]

I saw this film on the Sci Fi Channel in 2000 and it was pretty insane! Then 2 years later, I watched Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior on the now defunct UPN network. Mad Max 2 is now considered to be the best action movie ever made.

[@brennomachado855]

Terminator 2: am i a joke to you?

[@jakesaglio6288]

@@brennomachado855 cheesey trash ball dick movie 1st terminator is way better

[@shootingreal5945]

The Road Warrior is certainly one of the best post apocalyptic action movies ever..in my top 3 of best of all time.

[@rrmenton8016]

I love T2, but its got the benefit of cgi. Road warrior is all practical and in my opinion, one of the most Bad *ss things ever committed to celluloid.

[@planetfourthreich3022]

Not bad idea. But James already mentioned good point ,with current rate of gas prizes = Mad Max !

[@TJMiton]

'The steering in on the other side!' it's set in Australia bro :) This is an all time aussie classic. They had actual zero money (300k) so the crashes are all 1 takes, the crew/extras were paid in slabs of beer, and they just asked a real biker gang to be in the movie. 40+ years later it's still a blast :)

[@ams914]

Yeah that was hilarious hahaha. I hope James knows about right side driving.

[@GreenCrim]

The blue van at the start was the directors personal vehicle that he sacrificed for the cause.

[@lookatzett7861]

I really have a special attachment to this film. When I saw it for the first time, it was a few years before the release of "Fury Road" (I didn't even know they were going to make a Mad Max 4). At that time, I was 14 years old and my father absolutely wanted to show me this, he told me : "when I was a teenager, this movie came out and we fucking loved it !!!!" 😂😂. It was so cool to be able to see it with my dad, it's unforgettable ^^

[@hgman3920]

Road Warrior is by far and away my favorite of the Mad Max Films. Looking forward to your reaction to it.

[@zairac2564]

This ending is the OG Saw. I'm pretty sure the writers of Saw thought "Love this scene! What if we made a whole movie of this?"

[@scrinbot]

i´m glad you choose the original Australia dub version.

[@Bryan_Master_Blaster]

A cool fact: The villain - 'Toecutter' - in this original "Mad Max" film was portrayed by actor Hugh Keays-Byrne. They brought him back to play the villain - 'Immortan Joe' - in the recent "Mad Max - Fury Road" film!

[@johnfriday5169]

And next, The Road Warrior. The original Mad Max wasn't released in the states until after The Road Warrior so the second movie was my first introduction to this world and it did not disappoint. In fact it's top 5 movies ever for me.

[@nickfatsis9607]

Who told you that? Mad Max was released in the U.S. on 1st Feb, 1980, Mad Max 2 was released in the U.S. on 6th May 1982.

[@johnfriday5169]

@@nickfatsis9607 you're right, Mad Max had just hardly been seen by anyone thus the title The Road Warrior rather than Mad Max 2. But, I swear I heard in a commentary or someplace the original wasn't released in the U.S. until after the sequel gained popularity. Guess I was mistaken.

[@nickfatsis9607]

@@johnfriday5169 you're correct about not many people seeing it in the U.S. I have seen newspaper clippings from the U.S. advertising Mad Max and calling it "Mad Max 1" the tag line was something like "Max had a job, a wife, a family" along those lines, I'm not sure if that helped with promoting the movie.

[@johnfriday5169]

@@nickfatsis9607 I've never seen it but apparently it had a terrible dub for american audiences that didn't help either.

[@nickfatsis9607]

@@johnfriday5169 Yes, the American distributors felt that the American audience would have a hard time understanding our accents, I have a copy of a DVD that was released and has both the Australian and American audio, the dub does sound pretty bad!

[@scottlette]

George Miller is one of the nicest blokes from the film industry that I ever had the pleasure to speak with. He showed up at the post-production party for Croc Hunter, my wife was a stand-in for one of the other characters in the movie. His made-for-TV movies that he produced with George Kennedy in the 1980s here in Oz were similarly fantastic, if different in theme than Max’s world.

[@revaflowers3115]

I think this is the grittiest and most visceral of the Mad Max movies.AS the movies progress and we venture further from the event that ended traditional society,the movies are more fantastical.This movie still shows towns still trying to enforce and protect the increasing rebellious and hostile people running rampant along the roads.

[@michaeltaylor8835]

The best of them all

[@jimtatro6550]

When this movie came out theatrically and originally on cable, the voices including Mel Gibson was horribly dubbed into American sounding English. The Road Warrior is incredible, it’s Fury Road 30 years earlier

[@zimmicks3170]

Mel Gibsons voice was not dubbed, but other actors were. The dubbed version is the one I grew up with, and I am shocked at how terrible these voices sound in this version he is watching! My jaw is on the floor with just how bad this sounds lol. Give me the gritty-sounding dubbed voices any day of the week. These voices sound like weak kindergarten teachers. Totally ruined the gritty 70s movie immersion for me here.

[@rrmenton8016]

I remembering seeing that! It was horrible! As if "Australian" was a foreign language! 😆

[@jjkhawaiian]

@@rrmenton8016 Heavy accents Americans have problems understanding. Even though it is English.

[@originalzombie1974]

It wasn't an issue of understanding the accents. It's been documented that it was because the music drowned out the voices in crucial scenes. They were proud of Brian May's "Hitchcock-esque" soundtrack and they cranked it. The American distributors didn't want to send it out like that. Unfortunately once you've replaced a few lines with American voices you have to replace them all. The thing about Americans "not understanding Australian accents" is somebody's assumption run wild. It's never been true.

[@edwardsighamony]

George Miller got the idea for Mad Max from his time as a doctor. When he was doing his residency he worked on a lot of victims of car accidents. You should check out some other movies from the Aussie New Wave. Just off the top of my head: Wake in Fright, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Breaker Morant, Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously.

[@Browncoat66]

Stone is also AWESOME Hugh Keays-Byrne is in that too as the Grave diggers bikie gang leader. Also the actor who played the Nightrider (Vince Gil) was in it too.

[@TheWaynos73]

Miller was originally going to make the Max character a journalist covering the road carnage but decided he would make him a cop instead.

[@istvanvilmos8400]

@@TheWaynos73 Miller changed Max to a cop because it would have been too costly to get the permits to close the streets off in Melbourne.

[@TheSmitj167]

Hey man...thanks for watching another absolute classic. Somthing to remember is that these aren't meant to be a chronological account of max, but rather the telling of the legends of "MAX" in the post apocalyptic world. Keep watching the max movies, they're all bangers.

[@rrmenton8016]

A valid point you make. I always here people talk about plot holes in the chronology, or same actors playing multiple parts. But I take it like the legend of Robin Hood, or Samurai legends; there not meant to be "true" so much as multiple stories about a mythical character. The (unreliable) narrator from road warrior and the storyteller from thunderdome make me think, this is not canonical storytelling, but legends from the apocalypse. Max may not even be a real person, but just a legend about the future dark ages. I love that. Cuz you can do anything with the character, like Conan the Barbarian, or the Lone Ranger.

[@jovanjorgovan23]

They were ALWAYS chronological. This lame, nonsensical argument was only invented in c. 2016 to justify to completely disjointed Fury Road. It was always so chronological Max would have injuries in second and third the sustained in earlier ones, even damage on his costume. Have you ever seen these films? Or just Fury Road.

[@rrmenton8016]

Well, I guess, if you wanna, you can have an argument about what's "true" in some fictional movie. But its all just a story, so any one way of thinking about is as valid as any other. To me, mad max is a "legend", no continuity required.

[@jovanjorgovan23]

@@rrmenton8016 Yeah, no fanbase ever benefited from relativisation, and neither shall we. Miller went out of his way to show the continuity (the montage, the age, missing sleeve and hurt knee in Road Warrior, damaged eye in Thunderdome etc.) and it was like that for 35 years until fans of Fury Road, a sloppy, pointless yet perfectly timed cash grab with a fantastic marketing, decided to invent themselves a more preferable history of the movie where their favourite film would not be just Miller's half hearted attempt to milk the cash and long overdue recognition for himself and the legendary franchise/character he's made (and then humiliated)

[@rrmenton8016]

I m a fan and I benefited from 4 movies I enjoy. Im not stressed about caring about continuity. I enjoy these films exactly how i wanna. So its all good man. You do you. I love the myth.

[@anthonymunn8633]

I love this and The Road Warrior.I love the fact that both are basically Westerns in futuristic garb.

[@ashsmith3695]

This is the most “Australian” film ever. The slang, the terminology, the environments used. Makes you proud to be an Aussie. I first saw this on videotape in the very early eighties. One of those movies that has a vibe all its own.

[@Gruvmpy]

One thing I love about this first one, is there's just a vibe of the landscape that feels so recognisable as an Australia, like it could of been filmed around the corner from my old place, those two land country roads, particularly during the intro.

[@nickfatsis9607]

I visited lots of the filming locales used in Mad Max every few years, some look exactly the same, some are gone forever!

[@Cryptid_Renfri]

I was born and currently live in rural Central Victoria where a lot of this was filmed. Feels just like home to me when I watch it.

[@sntxrrr]

This was a low budget movie so many decisions were made for practical budgetary reasons, I'm sure that also greatly effected the world building we got here. But this actually worked in its favor. Instead of a full post-apocalyptic world we see in most movies (and indeed in all later Mad Max movies) here we get this in between world where society is still trying to hang on but there are these big ugly cracks. Just one of those things that make this movie still interesting after all those years. Now, on to The Road Warrior!

[@MFPMapFilmProductions]

Saw this in Australia back when I was 4-5 in 1985. Saw the tv cut and we recorded it and I would watch it over and over again. It became my obsession and the movie that helped kick start my channel with that one video about the car and its history.

[@nikolaiquack8548]

"How one director's idea is this and how another director's idea is this." Yeaaaah, I know you like not doing much research on these, but the same director literally directed all of the Mad Max films. And yes, this is indeed the first one. Made with a shoestring budget.

[@JudoGeoff]

I came in to see if someone else pointed this out. It makes sense to avoid spoilers and such, but knowing the fundamental background is usually justified (I'd argue even desirable) so one knows how to evaluate what they're seeing. Whether it's knowing that a film was done by the same director as another, or whether it's the first in the series.

[@deptusmechanikus7362]

Maybe not so much Thunderdome. As I heard, he kinda took a step back and allowed assistant director a lot more freedom due to personal circumstances. Not throwing rocks at anyone, but this might explain differences in writing and atmosphere with the rest of the series

[@nikolaiquack8548]

@@deptusmechanikus7362 Ahhh, very interesting. I had never heard about that before. Thanks for mentioning it. I agree that it would make sense with how different Thunderdome feels from the rest.

[@ariannaaladich6724]

I just got SO excited to see you reviewed this movie! I love it so much! The piece itself is filmed in such a different way: visually, auditory, and storytelling wise. I also think the energy created from being filmed in such an anamorphic format goes crazy, too. It’s perpetually captivating! Loved your commentary as well, definitely laughed along with you ✨

[@44excalibur]

It's funny how you mentioned that what you see in the film is "what's gonna be happening soon" with gas prices going the way they are. The USA and the rest of the world were in a similar situation in the late 1970s when Mad Max first came out. The entire world was going through an energy crisis and a gasoline shortage due to a combination of wars and crises in the Middle East and OPEC shutting down production and distribution, causing gasoline prices to soar and lines at gas stations forming for miles. Mad Max was a reflection of the direction the world seemed to be going in 1979, in a dystopian setting of a collapsing infrastructure and urban decay. The sequel, The Road Warrior, was practically an entirely different movie, depicting a post-apocalyptic world in the wake of a nuclear holocaust.

[@jjkhawaiian]

I watched the gas shortage turn into a crisis, along with the Iran hostage event. Iran invaded the American embassy after the then Shah of Iran was ousted and exiled himself once the revolution took hold by the muslims. They took all American civilians as hostage and I believe killed military staff, too. It got so bad that you were only allowed to gas up on even or odd days based on the last number of your license plate. Lines stretched for miles and miles at every station and some were abandoned in line cause they were out of gas. This was all under President Carter. Stations constantly depleted supply, which exacerbated the issue. I was 16 in 1979. We lived down the street in full view of a nearby gas station.

[@44excalibur]

@@jjkhawaiian I was nine years old. I remember that.

[@skyscreamstudios]

What I love about the Mad Max movies is that each one is it's own thing with it's own vibe.

[@danielbullock1019]

Hugh Keays-Byrne, the guy who played Toecutter in this movie, (the main villain) also played Immortan Joe, the main villain in Mad Max Fury Road.

[@tofersiefken]

This IS the original Mad Max, the second one is The Road Warrior which was my introduction to the franchise during my college years as a film student. I then went back to see this one to understand the back-story of the title character. The third one is Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. It was a lot more "commercial" whereas the first two had more of an independent film motif. I'll be here to enjoy all of them with you. I love this franchise.

[@Thierry-B.]

Great reaction. BTW, the way the director directed the car chases was inspired by Vanishing point which he likes a lot. A movie you should see!

[@rrmenton8016]

Vanishing point is awesome! I hate using words like "existentialism" cuz it always sounds snobby, but damn, that movie asks deep questions, through the filter of a baddass vehicle movie!

[@WolfHreda]

Absolutely.

[@Bashimillar]

without doubt there was also some influence from Peter Weir's "The Cars that ate Paris"

[@kingscorpion7346]

as I understand it, the actor who played the lead villain from 1979's Mad Max returned to play Immortan Joe in Fury Road.

[@teanosuger]

He certainly did

[@Armitage1985]

The girl in the flashbacks in Fury Road is not his daughter, but a girl named Glory. Glory and her mother are characters from the Mad Max comic series. Max saves them only to watch them die from being run over by a tribe called The Buzzards. They are one of many he couldn't save.

[@gunmetal2890]

Thank you for using the Aussie version and not the US overdubbed... ruins the experience... Especially given I am an Aussie lol... thanks for your content... you need to watch MadMax 2 and 3 now... worth it. Cheers

[@justinpeck6015]

Love this movie. This is the first one. This one and Road Warrior the second movie are my favorite. But i love them all. And the one with Tom Hardy is really great to and so cool.

[@justinpeck6015]

@@accordgolfer same

[@astromanjdh5908]

The first 3 movies, Mad Max, Road Warrior, Thunderdome were all in chronological order, with the newest being a spiritual sequel in the spirit of the Clint Eastwood "man with no name trilogies". All canon from my view.

[@redtailzephier4141]

This was the first film I ever watched, based on where I was living at the time I had to have been 5 years old. I'd go to the library with my mom and she said to pick out a movie, I grabbed this one cause the cover looked cool. I watched this everyday and return it to rent it again, I was hooked.

[@MFPMapFilmProductions]

Fun Fact: The Grease Monkey who Max drops the car on is Nick Lathuris. A fellow Greek Australian like George Miller and Co-Writer of Fury Road.

[@nickfatsis9607]

"Said they were headin' north............maybe"

[@solyentbrak1]

I love at the end when hes setting that trap for Johnny, you can see Max have a face like hes almost regretting what hes doing, then his next face is like hes actually becoming insane, really great call back to how he feels like hes losing his soul on the road, loved watching your reaction!

[@blytheguy7510]

This film was a big influence on 80s action cinema. Also, you gotta give a shout out to the awesome work of the stunt team.

[@TheWaynos73]

Miller loved Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and the bizarre future dystopian culture from the film and decided with Max he would fuse that with Australian’s almost religious car culture of the 70s - with Fury Road the car culture religion is ramped up to the point where Joe’s V8 cult worships cars like deities.

[@MFPMapFilmProductions]

You should watch Mad Max 2 soon to keep this one fresh in your mind and to see the massive contrast and the progression Miller had for Fury Road.

[@rrmenton8016]

Man, I go back and forth all the time about whether road warrior is the greatest action movie ever made! Certainly a classic, and if not the best, easily in the top 3 or 4. I love fury road, but with road warrior, it feels like I got sandy grit from australia's dead heart grinding in my teeth!

[@Drforrester31]

For a first time filmmaker, Mad Max is definitely something special. It really grinds to a halt when he and Jess first leave after Goose's death, but beyond that it's got great pacing and incredible stunts, plus a very young Mel Gibson giving an awesome performance

[@rrmenton8016]

My favorite gag in this movie is when you see his happy home with the romantic sax playing, setting the mood, then you realize, damn, thats actually his old lady, playing the sax! Makes me laugh everytime!

[@stevetreloar3129]

The late Hugh Keays-Byrne returned to the Mad Max series to play Fury Road's primary villain Immortan Joe, decades after he played the original Mad Max's antagonist, Toecutter.

[@bertalach]

It took me a few years to rate the original Mad Max. It wasn’t as post apocalyptic as I liked and I preferred 2. The more I read, the more I learned to more I appreciated the genius of this film!

[@bbb462cid]

Mad Max is brutal. Road Warrior, the violence and insanity is the default but in mad max iit's a world starting to eat itself

[@bradmcdorfhead2745]

This movie is authentic and real. I saw it in High School. I had no idea that the future of movie making would be so pathetic. . . . and RIP Jim Goose and long live the KZ 1000 Kwaka!

[@toddtangen6750]

Now, you MUST watch The Road Warrior. Also, the guy who played Toecutter in this one played Immortan Joe in Fury Road.

[@michaelnuzzo5698]

Fury Road is after the collapse of society but this one is as society is collapsing. This movie was also originally released in the US with the dialog dubbed with American accents. The writer/director was inspired by the wounds he saw from fights at gas lines while he was working in the ER.

[@1995deathcore]

Was looking for someone to do a reaction to the first mad max but everyone was doing fury road and my man you pulled through 🤙🏻 that’s why you’re the best 👏🏻👏🏻

[@kareningram6093]

Also, in response to your question about the audio, this might help explain some of it. From wikipedia: "According to Miller, his interest while writing Mad Max was 'a silent movie with sound', employing highly kinetic images reminiscent of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd while the narrative itself was basic and simple. Miller believed that audiences would find his violent story more believable if set in a bleak dystopian future."

[@steved1135]

Nice James. So glad you didn't skip this one and go straight to "Road Warrior". I love this movie. really interesting camera angles and shot selection.

[@gelsol]

My favorite of all the Mad Max films. This one just seems more unhinged and real. The very real stunt driving helps. I also like where it takes place in the timeline, right before the world collapses and is overrun by mohawked leather daddies. I don't believe there's a movie before this one, but if you could count a prequel, it would be the 70s Aussie movie STONE, which has some of the same actors (Toecutter/Night Rider). It's a pretty cool film with a dope soundtrack.

[@jonathanross149]

"My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. But most of all, I remember the road warrior, the man we called Max." Get Ready for the next adventure

[@lonelyplanet1080]

Thanks for dropping this reaction, I always did like these films

[@danielkemp4801]

The cars were Australian Ford Falcons, Night Riders Holden Monaro, and a Chevy Impala (orange with flames). Max's panel van is a GM Holden Sandman panel van. The bikes were Kawasaki KZ-750 and KZ- 1000.

[@davidconway6874]

The interceptor Max had at the beginning of Fury Road was not the same one he set out with, he spent the better part of 15 years rebuilding it from scratch.

[@jjkhawaiian]

The interceptor was destroyed in MM2: The Road Warrior

[@davidconway6874]

@@jjkhawaiian SPOILER ALERT!

[@alexanderharper5450]

I've heard that the character of Max is meant to be a like that of a folktale of the wasteland, someone that people tell tales about around the campfire. His deeds and adventures are talked about across the wasteland and that the movies are just some of these tales. Like a folk hero.

[@jjkhawaiian]

At the end of Road Warrior, the survivors speak of that persona. The third one goes deeper into the tale and legend.

[@Tonyrayyt]

You really have to check out the documentary of the making of this film. It will blow your mind. It was made on an extremely cheap budget, one take multiple shots and they had to be quick since the filming was done in Australia, they had to shoot the scenes, pack up and move to another spot before the law enforcement caught up with them. In a few scenes, stunt men actually had fatal accidents and they left some of it in the film.

[@nickfatsis9607]

That's a myth, the stuntman you're talking about, his name is Dale Bensch, he's alive and well, he's on Facebook.

[@victorplekter613]

Always great analysis. thanks ..It is a prequel in the time-line. This was when the world was descending into chaos, but before the apocalyptic wars. The next movie in the series seems to be after the wars.

[@sanseverything900]

Mad Max 2 was my first introduction to the franchise. I was about 12 when I first saw it and loved it. Shortly after, Mad Max 1 was on TV and I remember being bored by it, thinking there wasn't enough action and there was too much talking, lol. Nowadays, as an adult, I have a lot more respect for that first film and appreciate how it laid the ground work for such an influential series.

[@absurdityisthenorm]

Gorge Miller has a wild filmography. Mad max, to Happy feet and back to mad max 40 years later. Plus the actor who played Toe Cutter played Imorten Joe.

[@Lord-E-Lordy]

I was waiting for someone to mention that.

[@patrickmassonne1919]

THANK YOU JAMES! One of my top films ever! Saw it in the theater and was totally blown away! It had the exploitation feel in Spades + the Aussie madness! Matchless! Peace.

[@filipohman7277]

Awesome Movie and Work Bro, Thanks 👍👍👍😎 Greetings from Helsinki, Finland 🇫🇮🇺🇸🇫🇮🇺🇸🇫🇮🇺🇸

[@CroPETROforeverHR]

Man, Im from Europe, my friend I love your videos, just want to tell you, I watched this movie like... 50 times hahaha, I swear, grew up with this movie...I love your reactions... to this day I sometimes imagine myself Im Mad Max entering in my car hahahahhahhahahah, trust me man, I cannot even explain it. Love your reactions, love how you always pay attention on camera angle, you're THE MAN, greets from Croatia (one small country in Europe).

[@theblobconsumes4859]

I think you'll love the other films in the series. Road Warrior and Thunderdome are incredible. Yes, I love Thunderdome too.

[@garypaterson1477]

Thanks for this, your thoughts and insights are great to hear, as always, stay awesome, stay genuine.. much love

[@ichigen511]

Dude watching you enjoy my favorite movies with insight as a director is just the best. Nothing worse than showing someone you love a movie you like and their not interested looking at their phone or going to the bathroom when something dope is about to happen. Ugh! You are dialed in and it makes me happy. Cheers!

[@Harv72b]

Regarding the sound quality: the film was edited (to include sound) using a small, home-built "studio" inside a friend's apartment, over the span of seven months. So it's very possible (probable, even) that the odd mixing choices you picked up on are just a result of the "amateurish" post-production methods. George Miller did also say that his initial vision for the film was "a silent movie with sound", so it could also be a conscious decision to minimize the importance of dialog to the overall product.

[@originalzombie1974]

It's been documented that they cranked the music because they were so proud that they'd captured the essence of a Hitchcock movie soundtrack. The music drowing out dialogue was the whole reason American distributors dubbed it. The thing about "not understanding Australian accents" was always BS.

[@stewrmo]

All these years later and I still want Max's car more than anything! 🚔

[@dtr_richie6465]

Fun fact - The end scene with the car blowing up and the hacksaw in MadMax is credited by the writers of the movies SAW as the original idea of their movie 🍿🍿🍿🎥🎥 Keep up the good work James, always great to watch you 👍👍👍👍

[@tylerstoneman4114]

Oh yes!! So excited for you to watch the second movie!

[@juvandy]

As a yank who moved to regional AUS to do biology, I've had a lot of fun finding the places they filmed for Mad Max. I really love how this film captures the scenery that is common in Victoria and parts of South Australia. Max's house reminds me strongly of a shack I stayed in for a few nights on Kangaroo Island a couple of years ago.

[@nickfatsis9607]

I've visited lots of the filming locales many times over the years, it's still a great experience every time!

[@davidkulmaczewski4911]

This is Max's origin story, the other movies show some of his adventures. He's a myth....

[@AlexG1020]

I grew up watching The Road Warrior as a kid never knowing there was a Mad Max1. Makes it feel like a Prequel to me, I love it.

[@lindanicholson950]

We see how he hurt his leg, why he likes a little music here and there, why he has a soft spot for a little boy, where he got that car, why he might like to have a pet, and the answer to the question "what happened to you Max?"

[@daz_n]

That end scene is basically the premise for the Saw movies. 😁

[@MrStyn-ud3bj]

Hope to see you watch "The Road Warrior (A.K.A. Mad Max 2)" and Mad Max 3 "Beyond Thunderdome". The Road Warrior is my favorite and it really shows what the world was changing into.

[@kylegerhart4122]

You’re gonna love Road Warrior so much dude! Stunts are truly one of a kind (at least until Fury Road, but they did it 30 years earlier!)

[@DonnaCPunk]

This has always been my favorite of the Mad Max films.

[@heisenteller_]

I love Mad Max, one of my favorites franchises and the game is 🔥 too, underrated masterpiece.

[@jBownz]

$400k to make this movie. The movie made $100,000,000.00. pretty much speaks for itself.

[@DanJackson1977]

Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior) is where Mad Max as we think of it begins. In Mad Max1, society is on the edge of collapse. In 2 it's full on post apocalypse.. and in 3, societies are reforming... then theres the bleak insanity of Fury Road.

[@viddiot]

Wow! Good choice...welcome to the beginning! The end is the beginning is the end. We used to cruise those roads, and this film is an accurate depiction of how people drove back then. Hahaha! This and No.2 are masterpieces.

[@JasonHeathArtist]

Another cool note, the actor that plays Toecutter also plays Imortan Joe in Fury Road

[@rs91268]

Awesome reaction sir

[@HugoMechE]

Personally I think these movies get better as they go. The world building they do in each one is amazing.

[@chrisbfreelance]

You are in for a treat with The Road Warrior, it's arguably the best road and post-apocalyptic movie in cinema history, and to boot a stand out action film.

[@mattm4570]

Hey man enjoy your channel and it’s a great movie I’m 40 now and I first saw it when I was 6. Keep safe and well 👍 Matt from Australia 🇦🇺

[@digimortalone2759]

The blue van that gets destroyed in the opening chase was director Miller's van. Also alot of the "chase" scenes were filmed by a camera man on the back of a motorcycle with a hand held. And yes, they were going that fast. Most shots are not sped up.

[@rflcanela]

LOVE YOU DUDE. NICE REVIEW

[@thefourty-yearoldgamer8289]

such a raw, original movie, love it..

[@deadcatthinks6725]

One of the V8 Interceptors (collectors) was for sale near where I moved to about 4 years ago, its existence & sale took me by surprise and by the time I had the cash it had been sold....so sad. Oh, Hugh Keyes-Burn, The ToeCutter, is Immortan Joe in Fury Road.

[@jonnyyen7169]

Love this film! Practical effects for the win! Low budget greatness! You have to check out the making of documentary. Explains a lot about the choices (money top of the list).

[@deltoidable]

This first Mad Max was shot with a limited budget which is why the audio probably sounded bad at times. This low budget accidentally inspired Mad Max is post apocalyptic aesthetic. The locations they could afford were very cheap, they mostly shot in am abandoned and run down Australian town. Also at the time there was a gas shortage that was all over the news, and Mad Max sort asks what would happen if this gas shortage was led chaos and destruction of society. These elements he later expounded on Mad Max 2, where the post apocalyptic Mad Max aesthetic we know was established. It wasn't even intended to be post apocalyptic at first, just a revenge cop movie, but the location and news events inspired what Mad Max became in pop culture. Also Mad Max isn't exactly a sequel movie, they're all related, but the stories are inconsistent. Some details remain the same between movies, others change, but they all are sort of stand alone movies. George Miller said he likes to think of Mad Max as a legend that gets retold over and over again in this post apocalyptic society, it's the story of a great Road Warrior, who's a tortured sole and saves people he comes across in his travel. I like to think of the original mad max as what actually happened, each movie is a distortion of the simpler true, the story gets more fantastical and further from the original truth each time it's retold, and as society deteriorates more and more and forgets what the world use to be like the legend becomes that much more epic.

[@nickfatsis9607]

Are you talking about the town the bikers come to to pick up the Nightrider?

[@danielpopp1526]

Fun Fact: the actor who played the gang leader Toe Cutter (Hugh Keas-Byrne) played the lead villain in "Mad Max Fury Road", Immortan Joe.

[@Browncoat66]

Hugh Keays-Byrne played the Toecutter in this film, he was also in Fury Road as Immortan Joe.

[@monogramadikt5971]

ive seen this a bunch of times but now i want to watch it again ;)