Mini-Canon: Mad Max

[@EPWillard]

i like the idea that mad max is simply a concept or folk hero character, someone who appears in the stories around the campfire.

[@elieleblanc120]

Ernwaffles that is kind of how the movies are written

[@dalellll]

Absolutely agree. I think this is even canon. The second and third movies are explicitly campfire stories with a narrator framing them, too.

[@dragonkings01]

EXACTLY

[@sailorrenek7823]

Fury road for me is not a mad max movie at all. It does not feel like its in the same world when you look at all the high tech looking vehicles compared to the vehicles in the real mad max movies. All fury road is lets make a bunch of cool looking stuff throw in some crazy stunts and action and some luke warm story and call it great.

[@robertmartin2936]

Well, that's certainly a hot take, but you've missed most of the subtext of the film and background and identity of the title character.

[@zerosysko]

"Masculificent grunt machine Tom Hardy" "Pitbull-Elf hybrid Tom Hardy" LOL

[@quiroz923]

Fury Road is a story about a guy who regains his humanity by helping other people regain theirs. Also, in terms of Miller's oeuvre, it's also about an animal learning to speak and to live with others. You know, like Babe.

[@BvousBrainSystems]

Miller's is a weird filmography where Mad Max stands alongside Babe and Happy Feet. Kind of like how Steven Spielberg goes from E.T. to Shindler's List. I love it.

[@judsongaiden9878]

@@BvousBrainSystems Not so weird when you consider George Orwell not only wrote '1984' but also 'Animal Farm'.

[@BvousBrainSystems]

@@judsongaiden9878 Animal Farm is about the inception of a totalitarian regime, 1984 is about a fully achieved totalitarian regime.

[@judsongaiden9878]

@@BvousBrainSystems I was trying to equate 'Animal Farm' (which is about the horrors of collectivism) to 'Babe' (which is about the value of individual life) and/or 'Happy Feet' (which is about the triumph of the individual over the collective).

[@BvousBrainSystems]

@@judsongaiden9878 Oh, that flew over my head... Wait, is Babe really about individualism??

[@Skreezilla]

Mad Max was a documentary of Australian daily life, IDK why america thinks it is post apocalyptic.

[@vanyadolly]

That might actually apply to the first one as far as I'm concerned.

[@overthepage1326]

Skreezilla as Australian can conform

[@PsychoRider666]

Americans need to spend a summer in Australia

[@anlizheng6134]

The first movie, pretty much, with a bit of exaggeration, at least once you get outside the city.

[@davidemansi1888]

What was that? "throw another shrimp on the barbie"?

[@vonneely1977]

It is entirely possible the Mad Max and Judge Dredd exist in the same world, separated by nothing but physical distance.

[@DSFARGEG00]

Now there's a fun idea.

[@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick]

Von Neely That’s amazing. I love the idea that Australia is just this giant land-of-the-lost that the rest of “civilized” society just kind of nuked and forgot about.

[@wjzav1971]

I had the same idea too XD

[@BostonMBrand]

@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick Although I have absolutely no knowledge on the lore of Overwatch, I've read that the world of the game includes a mad max style Australia.

[@PosthumanHeresy]

It could be the same world as a lot of works really. There's no reason to presume that some of America and China didn't screw off into space and become some sort of Alliance.

[@christianhansen2569]

I rate this video Shiny and Chrome out of 10.

[@xaviconde]

I'd rate it "Mediocre Lindsayyy!!"

[@codiserville593]

May it Ride Eternal

[@jlworrad]

I think there is a definite continuity but it's the continuity of myth. He's a legend figure likely comprised of several real men, much like Robin Hood (that's why his face changes and he seems to be operating over several generations). Everywhere Max goes from MM2 onwards he's accidentally involved in setting up a new civilisation. We as the viewers are actually looking back from a post-post apocalyptic future at the founding myths of our societies, which involve a lone man in black with a bad leg. For me, a big clue is in the title 'Fury Road': no one calls the road that in the story, rather the story explains why the road has that name, it's an explanatory myth. The movies are a sort of connected mythology, a diesel fuelled dream time. Liked the vid by the way! :)

[@wratched]

That was pretty cool, and I agree; what point is continuity in a world without history? When society falls, legend takes over.

[@ConnorNotyerbidness]

James Worrad nux actually calls it the Fury Road early on, but i think hes speaking in a general slangish kinda way. "If i die ill die on the fury road" its like how they say mediocore as more than just that to them it has a religious conotation to the cult of V8 (im not making this up thats what its called) so i think in that sense its more just what they probably call the wasteland. Idk just a guess

[@ComicCrossing]

I think its less multigenerational than one generation past. Max in Fury Road is a kid the OG Max saved in the past. He learns about concepts such as cops and roads from Max and maybe even gets his car from him. But new Max sorta loses his identity on the lonely road and starts to identify more with his hero and it all gets jumbled up, especially after hes kidnapped and tortured and all that jazz.

[@wppb50]

I figured "Fury Road" is, like, metaphorical; it's where the road wars happen. Like how the Viking-age sagas called the ocean the "whale roads."

[@bobross8424]

I always imagined the wasteland as a sort of personal dreamlike hell made specially for Max to punish him for seeking vengeance. I like your explanation too. I think that’s one of the reasons why these movies are so good is because you can add your own explanation to certain things.

[@AcolytesOfHorror]

"Death. It's coming, I promise." - Lindsay

[@APmain-dg6bh]

+

[@dylanchouinard6141]

What do we say to death?

[@DarthUchiha91]

@@dylanchouinard6141 "F-fried pickle chips?"

[@henryrice9263]

I really loved the point about how Max gets the shit kicked out of him and spends 0 time being a jerk about it. The male and female lead acknowledge eachother and it doesn't even have to be a romance! Genius!

[@geneirai]

my fave fact of fury road is that, while filmed in Africa, it's strongly suggested that the 'setting' for the movie is the pacific ocean, dried up after years of harsh weather.

[@sashafortis]

It was slated to be filmed in Australia...but it literally rained too much. They loaded all the vehicles and equipment and went to Zaire.

[@Echoshock1]

That might be because of the asian population already in australia at the time of civilization's collapse though.

[@henrycurtis3652]

Can you go on about Asian-inspired slang?

[@giorgialadashvili4771]

Wow, that would be very interesting, but I don't remember it being "strongly" suggested anywhere in the movie. Maybe when Max tells Furiosa that even after travelling 160 days in one particular direction the only thing she would find is "salt".

[@davidemansi1888]

@@giorgialadashvili4771 Yeah, in fact I travelled in Australia and it's easily crossed from either side in 48 or 96 hours roughly with a car, without breaks. Even with frequent stops it would not take 160 days to get to any shore.

[@wynnefox]

My personal canon is that the first movie was probably the most honest and was told from Max's view. The other 3 though were not. Each was told by people who encountered Max and so is tainted by their views on him.

[@NumberOneBOB]

That actually makes sense, when looking at the style the told the stories through. And, especially, when you look at the endings.

[@TheSemaj666]

My head-cannon is that they're all honest from Max's point of view but everything gets crazier and crazier just like him.

[@piratetv1]

i think all the movies are told as legends. the road warrior is told by the feral boy after he grows up and leads the group max helps escape. thunder dome is likely told by one of the lost tribe. fury road may be told by furiosa or even nux

[@JamesWVanFleet]

Yeah, "Road Warrior" and "Thunderdome" have pretty clear narrators in the Feral Kid and Savannah Nix. "Fury Road" gets a little trickier, because it's the first film narrated by Max (at least in the opening), but then the ending features a quotation from a fictional in-film source called the "First History Man," which suggests that written history resumed at some point, and the story of "Fury Road" was transcribed by this unknown future man.

[@piratetv1]

James VanFleet that's true. we do see who told the story, if only in writing. there is a history man in the fury road comics. he has the whole story tattooed on his skin, like miss giddy also has historical knowledge tattooed on her.

[@tylerskiss]

The blood-bag was more a way to stave off the half-life. It's not filling Nux with adrenaline, just keeping his two mates from chewing on his windpipe a bit longer. The fact that Max is viewed as a "feral" and the fact that these people don't quite understand how blood works (they consider it like gas that runs out) leads Nux to believe if Max is crazy, then he has crazy running through his own blood now.

[@Antiganos]

Cyril I believe she was referring to why Max was strapped on the front of the car, as opposed to anywhere else, which was probably Nux's idea to make Max produce more adrenaline out of fear (obviously not how medicine works but Nux ain't a doctor)

[@matt755spruce]

Dillon Orr actually, if blood is flowing from max to nux, and it is full of adrenaline nux would feel the effects. Perhaps why during the transfusion nux is more aggressive, twitchy and excitable than the rest of the movie. It's like someone shot him with a epipen!

[@helenanilsson5666]

matt, well that and in the rest of the movie he is slowly dying from anemia (and whatever else he's gotten from radiation poisoning) since he isn't getting any blood transfusions. Granted the movie doesn't span over a very long time period but we also don't know how much blood was actually transfused to him before his blood supply was cut off.

[@geneparmesan8748]

Dillon Orr - I think Lindsay might have just been wrong on why Nux was using Max's blood - I don't think there's any adrenalin aspect to it at all. Max is strapped to the front of the car because they were under short notice, and that was clearly the best place to put him (there was no room in the cab, which only had one seat and then a bunch of fuel tanks). It's not like Nux straps blood bags to the car all the time. Slynt actually argues that Nux shouldn't be allowed to drive in the war party because he'll drop without the blood, Nux proposing bringing Max seems more like a spur of the moment decision than their business as usual.

[@aarononeil9832]

The vague continuity is and always has been intentional. The idea of the films is that Max is less a real person and almost more like a legend told by people in the waste land. Road Warrior and Fury Road portray this best, with the first film essentially being a prequel and Beyond Thunderdome being a little more Hollywood mandate because the second did well.

[@tylerskiss]

Ex-act-Ly. The end of Mad Max 2 established this idea perfectly. You are pretty surprised to find it is the Feral Kid telling the tale at the end. These are tales told 'round the fire. This is also how the Interceptor keeps coming back after getting destroyed over and over.

[@Drog007]

Robin Hood / King Arthur of the wasteland?

[@jaylink1037]

Aaron O'neil Said exactly what I was going to lol. The world has died, history is not oral and VERY confused at best. The radiation isn't truly mentioned but in Fury Road, the Many Mothers talk of the ground and bones going sour. Without the vocabulary they are basically saying radiation poisoning has destroyed everything. As no one really knows who Max is or why he is there he becomes this Warrior legend. That's how the car, timeline etc gets messed up. These are stories told by whoever has come across him. I think of him like a Ronin Samurai, wandering the wasteland trying to find a way to forgive himself and find peace but everyone else had other plans and he just won't die for them lol. Seems people have lost civility and all knowledge is used as a means to power, Max doesn't want power, just to be left alone by Fury Road, which may or may not have happened before Road Warrior. As these are stories being told about him they tend not to be exactly right per timeline. Hell the people's telling them may not have ANY understanding of time being day counting used by Furiousa and on his back tattoo/Slave ID. I'm afraid people would quickly De-evolve to this level if SHTF. Nuclear isn't necessary for our "society"to break down. Two weeks without power and people were getting weird a few years back from the summer storm here where I am. Give it six months idiots would forget how to hunt, grow stuff etc. So they turn to violence"it's easier to take than work for stuff" btw that "stuff" is the very things he uses to stay alive. I call see why he will fight for it esp the car 😉😉

[@marcelloursic424]

Well said

[@basedbattledroid3507]

It's the best part about being Australian: you go out to the "Post Apocalyptic" part of Melton where they filmed it and everything looks the same, lol, even the biker gangs. If you look in the background in some shots you can even see the skyscrapers of the city of Melbourne, my city. And Pitbull-Elf-Hybrid is the perfect description for Tom Hardy, with his forehead that looks like roast beef and his dreamy eyes.

[@tcfween]

The car, Lindsay! The car! IT is the continuity. "The Last of the V8 Interceptors" is as close to folklore as possible for an Aussie born in 1971 as I was. That car WAS the films for a huge chunk of the Aussie movie-going population. It's importance to the canon simply cannot be understated. And there it is, right at the start of Fury Road. As an adult in the cinema seeing that car in that opening scene transported me back to the early 80's with such force as to disorient me briefly. That car was the binding force to a generation of teenagers who argued passionately about the possibility of a supercharger that can be disengaged, seriously, it lead to schoolyard fights. Of course, someone looking at those movies from a younger person's perspective, it makes sense that they wouldn't know how deep the muscle-car culture runs in the Aussie psyche but let me assure you that car is a thread which really should not be overlooked. A great video as always nonetheless.

[@alisonjane7068]

i went to see fury road with my ex...he didn't like it. that was the moment i knew it wouldn't last!

[@wizardom]

good riddance! this movie is genius

[@Hippidippimahm]

Fury Road was such an amazing experience. I’ll never forget laughing so loud when the guitar-playing guy is completely bandaged and still shredding that people shushed me 😭 so many scenes were horrifying perfection. I miss the Before Times 😭😭😭😭

[@Crazy_Diamond_75]

I still find it amazing how such a simple movie, at least on the surface, can have so many nuances.

[@TheGrayMysterious]

There was actually a Miller-approved comic that came out that explained the girl as being the kidnapped daughter of a woman who helped Max during a competition he entered to win a V8 engine for his new Interceptor (after the original was destroyed in MM2), who ended up dying along with her mother after being run over by a Buzzard (the spiked-car guys).

[@insanebase8883]

Sounds like the story from the game, which is supposed to be a prequel and Scrotus, the warlord that is the big bad in the game, one of Immortan Joe's sons.

[@foolofatook84]

@@insanebase8883 The game was indeed based on the same story. In the beginning of the game's production Miller shared his notes on that backstory with the developers.

[@Botjer1]

In a postapocalyptic world "stuff" becomes the difference between life and death.

[@Dawnrunner42]

Johan Ottosson and where would we apes-with-opposable-thumbs be without our tools?

[@alepolait8951]

Like toilet paper. 2020 si weird y’all

[@HermeticWorlds]

The woman and girl in Fury Road that we see in flashbacks are characters from the Mad Max computer game (2015). The game and film are closely linked storywise, the film starts where the game ends. The game is excellent, very underrated, it was released on the same weekend as Metal Gear Solid 5 and did not sell well.

[@PatriciaCross]

Max is a folk hero Someone Max-like was involved in this story, and over time and word of mouth people inserted Max. Only story he is definitively a part of is the first; the rest have some sort of narration of someone telling a story and putting the folk hero into the narrative.

[@SA-mo3hq]

Alternative theory - Max is a Fallout ghoul who is *really* good at makeup

[@Edawan00]

I just played the Mad Max video game that came out in 2015, and while it's not said explicitly, it can be seen as a kind of prequel to Fury Road that could explain the flashbacks Max has in the movie.

[@tsukishiro70]

The woman and the girl in Max's flashbacks are Hope and Glory, killed by Scabrous Scrotus, one of Immortan Joe's sons, and ruler of Gastown, the city Imperator Furiosa's convoy was originally heading to, in the Max Max video game. Max killing Scrotus is what set up the chase scene where the War Boys are hunting Max at the start of Fury Road.

[@piratetv1]

the first part is what ive heard as well. the beginning makes a lot of sense if it was just after the game ending.

[@tsukishiro70]

I also think the reason why Joe didn't just have the man who killed his son also killed was because Scabrous Scrotus was an embarrassment as he was just too evil for even Joe to tolerate. He may have looked on Max as having done him a favour. That said he wasn't going to let Max off with it, which is why Max ended up as Nux's bloodbag.

[@hankelntoaster3849]

Eventhough the flashbacks Max has in Fury Road can be tied to the events of the game, there are also two(/three?) Mad Max comics which were released before Fury Road, that feature a woman and a girl both being run over by the Buzzards at the end. The comics tell us also how Furiosa meets the Wives and close with one of the last panels portraying the 'History-Man' seemingly telling the reader about the events prior to Fury Road's story in front of what seems to be the newly founded village at the citadel after Furiosa reorganised everything there.

[@shmee123ful]

I also played that game though I never finished it as I quickly became board and there were a few glitchers that prevented me from progressing but I thought the game was set after the movie as you Max kiss Imorten joes last son in the intro

[@sonicpsycho13]

After recently rewatching this, I think the war boys, or at least a few including Nux, are supposed to have leukemia. They're anemic, because they have trouble making their own red blood cells, so they need to take blood from donors to survive. They're not taking Max's blood strictly like a drug, but for basic survival. It's still a violation of Max's bodily autonomy, but it does have a clear motivation in this world. Leukemia would also be more common in this world, because of the nuclear fallout, as we've seen from the result of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[@maybeyourbaby6486]

I love how Fury Road is one of those movies that make more and more sense the more you think about them haha

[@TheAlexR96]

You and Mad Max: Fury Road are my favourite things.

[@internetomatic]

I've loved Mad Max since the 90's when I watched them as a kid. I identified with the whole wasteland thing strongly, since parents weren't around and we lived in a very rough area where people getting shot over a few bucks was a thing and you'd get hounded and even assaulted on the street for being young and pretty, or for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The series was a big part of who I was growing up. Cringe, I know, but still. I was a kid. Anyway, I felt like Fury Road was the best Mad Max yet. It dealt with PTSD and sexual violence in such simple, yet evocative strokes. Anyone who actually has PTSD will likely notice all of the little details Tom Hardy adds to his character to make it feel legit. It was one of the best examples of PTSD I've seen on screen. I feel like all of the fanboys who shriek and pout over changes to their precious fandom are just ignorant. Change is a part of life that we have to accept, and the change here was all excellent and needed. It captured the *spirit* of Mad Max, and it built on its foundation of struggle in insightful ways. It included women's stories in ways that other action movies just don't. I know it sounds silly to say, but Mad Max has always been important to me, and I'm glad it changed. I'm glad Miller thought to take on a feminist scholar to advise him. I'm glad it became a story about survival and mutual aid, and I hope the next installment, if it happens, continues to change in interesting ways.

[@jamesmcintosh4085]

Lindsay, you are without question the greatest film reviewer ever to exist.

[@Lobomutante]

The fact that Max has no need to prove his masculinity because, by now, everyone who is alive is Badass in one way or another. "Hey, you are alive. You can fend for yourself." Gender is not even an issue here. Also, the MilkTanks.

[@Dawnrunner42]

Lobomutante this. Life itself, survival itself, becomes the sole metric of strength and worth in that kind of environment.

[@APoleYouKnow]

Real men don't have to prove their masculinity.

[@Bluecho4]

Agreed. If they can survive in the post-apocalypse of Mad Max, they are, by definition, badass.

[@rikeag4057]

I agree that gender is not an issue here regarding how badass they are in that world. But gender seems a big thing, with the film depicting the various roles that women could have, from pretty plaything, breeder, milk cow, to warrior. Still thinking about the male roles.

[@mychannel-rt2gn]

@@rikeag4057 in fury road men have the same roles they do in our world e.g warrior, doctor, planner. It’s not like a guy could be a breeder or a milk cow like a woman could be a warrior, she won’t be as strong as the men but she’ll get by

[@DiamandaHagan]

I think Fury Road is a retelling of events Mel Gibsons Max took part in. The storys being told a few generations after the fall so that's how its shown (kind of like how Shakespeare plays portray the ancient past as pretty much Elizabethan).

[@zerosysko]

I like this take on it.

[@elieleblanc120]

DiamandaHagan well, the movie was written as a legend told long after the fall, longer than max, and it was supposed to be the last adventure of max (wich was supposed to be played by a 50 year old Mel Gibson), so it needed to be the biggest. It isn’t a retelling of the 3 first movies (I dont think this is what you meant), This is why the movie hasn’t that much dialogue, because legends are mostly told through actions, not dialogue

[@dragonkings01]

Well said, All the stories but the first film are structured this way. A mythological character. Just my take anyway, btw love you channel too

[@pisse3000]

DiamandaHagan Nice. That's how I'll chose to see it from now on.

[@garyhost1830]

Élie Leblanc came i to say the exact same thing. Pity mel had all that bad press it would of been great to see it with him in it.

[@monopolfilms]

"but there's never any egotistical butthurt about it." - nice catch. That does set Max apart from most male protagonists, especially in the Marvel universe (I'm looking at you Star Lord).

[@oscarmccormack1611]

Yeah, but kind of the point of Star-Lord is that egotism being so toxic to his own life, and fighting that is a major part of both movies.

[@coryr4335]

You're right, stuff is so many peoples' motivation. And it's everywhere. There's stuff around me now. Stuff inside me. It's inside my thoughts. My stuff is me and I am stuff.

[@Antiganos]

Michael S Somebody watched Fight Club

[@harjutapa]

My headcanon is that Mad Max is immortal, has amnesia issues, and just wanders the wastelands as some sort of weird apocalyptic savior figure.

[@judeconnor-macintyre9874]

My headcannon is that he's not real, but a bunch of people, but over time those people were merged into one folk-hero.

[@ZombieChimpanzee]

"Mad Max: Oh YAY! A Budget!" I like it. also, that Dog was awesome. it's heavily implied Max raised it. and it's definitely a exceptional dog, and its Max's tether to his humanity. sure he cares about stuff, but that Dog is his best friend, and he probably treats it more like a partner in or kid than as most treat dogs or tools.

[@dragonkings01]

Carl Deaton the dog was the puppy from the first film.

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

@@Malky24 Yes, but the fame went to its head a bit and it developed a messiah complex and a cocaine habit. It eventually cleaned up and became the Russell Brand of who we tolerate and ignore.

[@katherinemorelle7115]

Malky24 which is not unusual for Blue Heelers. Bloody good dogs, they are.

[@famuel2604]

what I find interesting going back to this is that Lindsay's reading of the first three Max movies as a three act max story is pretty contrary to how George Miller tends to talk about Max as this continuity-less hero figure who just rocks up for whatever story is going on in whatever new vague apocalypse-land is happening. That said Fury Roads original concept had Gibson in the role, and word of god is that the universe is far enough along in FR that Gibson would be the right age for the Max character. He's old enough that the old people who've survived like him and Immortan Joe grew up pre-pocalypse, but Furiosa won't remember it if she were alive at all then.

[@lukep692]

So much about Fury Road was awesome. Everything from the sets, to the acting, the plot, the lore, and the themes. It all came together to make a really dope movie that managed to take all the weird stuff and make it feel not so weird. Also guitar guy was great.

[@unit0007]

Sometimes stuff is survival, and can be used interchangeably. Survival isn't always avoiding being horribly murdered by immediate action by some agent. Sometimes survival is the ability to secure stuff for yourself, so that you wouldn't die slowly from lack of stuff that keeps you alive. And the way I experienced the story in the second and third movie, was that Max was motivated by survival, for which he needed the stuff. The stuff was a means to an end. And thus I don't see a change in motivation in the fourth movie. Also, the idea that stuff is life and incredibly scarce, is a genre staple of post-apocalyptic-wasteland fiction in both literature and cinema. Also I find the whole anti-stuff mentality to be a massive cop-out on the part of many film critics. You can literally point your finger at anything (water, oxygen, heart transplant, lifeboat, food, fuel, dialysis machine) and yell out "stuff!", but that isn't an argument for anything, and it doesn't make said stuff any less vital to the characters or the story.

[@torenatkinson1986]

Here's a list of all the post-apocalyptic fiction which is in one way or another about stuff: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction

[@FanFicnic]

I spit out my drink at "pitbull elf hybrid Tom Hardy"

[@judsongaiden9878]

It's especially funny since he's a dog lover.

[@Equinophobe]

I love that you opened with the “H’okay. So.” from the old “End of the World” animation. Super clever choice for starting a discussion about a post-apocalyptic world.

[@QBG]

I like the idea that the "continuity" is more or less impossible to follow because we're seeing these stories through the eyes of Max, a man who's become more and more insane with each passing year roaming solo through a post-apocalyptic hellscape. The events and characters of each film get progressively more outlandish and unbelievable, not because this is what the world and its people are actually like now, but because Max himself is more and more disconnected from reality and this is how _he_ sees it.

[@OcarinaSapphr-]

There was a doco or something, ‘Not Quite Hollywood’ & a feature in mag, where Steve Bisley (Max’s partner) talks about the production; all I could think while watching/ reading: no such thing as OHS! They may not have had a budget, but damn if our early movies didn’t come with *great* ‘Behind the Scenes’ stories- not merely tantrums or diva behaviour, but an incredible look at earlier filmmaking here.

[@lauren8135]

Pitbull elf hybrid might be the best description I have ever heard of Tom Hardy. Like weirdly spot on.

[@ropesquid2085]

I'm endlessly fascinated by the effect Mad Max had everywhere BUT Australia. As an Aussie, it's one of our most successful cultural exports but it's not one of the big movies you think of when you think of our local industry. The Americans loved it so much we got Tina Turner and, as referenced, that iconic filmclip for that song who's name escapes me. Even more interesting is that a Japanese dude watched the Mad Max films and started writing a little ol' manga called 'Hokuto no Ken,' more widely known as 'Fist Of The North Star' and the action genre was never the same with it's influence being nuts

[@diy_cat9817]

As a Wastelander, I feel strange hearing you speak about my Lord and Savior Humungus like this. #warboysmatter

[@piratedemoness]

The people in the visions Max has are actually explained in a comic series that was put out not long after the movie, the same comic series also gives some backstory to the wives and Nux. Very good reads and its interesting to watch the movie again after reading them.

[@moopara7991]

I think I'm in the wrong year

[@finalizer0]

it's a very loose continuity

[@workinprogress9710]

One of my favorite (if unlikely) theories is that Max is an incredibly put-upon immortal who's spent so much time wandering and road warrior-ing that he's almost completely forgotten who he is or where he came from. No time for "why am I still alive after all these years" just "I'm alive, let's keep it that way"

[@FXJunky]

Did... did you just reference the end of the world meme from like 15 years ago?

[@flippyhairproduction]

Jarrod Clark You mean the BEST meme?

[@FXJunky]

Yes... yes i do!

[@fengy5629]

..."but i am le tired"

[@FXJunky]

zen take a nap, ZEN FIRE ZE MISSILES!

[@humanrich]

Haha, glad I'm not the only one who heard that.

[@LigerFan]

If Max's wife wasn't dead by the time Max got to her, she certainly was very shortly after he got there.

[@zvonimirkrajina2211]

Loved the video but You lost me on one thing: In fury road it's about survival and in the early ones it's just about stuff? Stuff like his car and fuel. Literally the stuff he needs to survive. So...

[@yxngraspy3291]

in fury road it's about *personhood

[@shotgun6X]

It's not that the stuff isn't important, but how it is framed by the movie and cinematography

[@Stand_By_For_Mind_Control]

The little girl you see is named Hope. There was a video game tie-in and you're tying to save an enslaved little girl and her mom, respectively called 'Hope & Glory'. Yeah, it's canonical.

[@lermi389]

The war boys probably had leukemia (short livespans and swollen lymph nodes) so a blood transfusion might help them

[@SM-vd2iz]

More Mad Max forever and ever and ever. Thank you you lovely person you!

[@SM-vd2iz]

Pitbull/elf hybrid...yes

[@randomchance7796]

When it comes to pacing, moviemakers before the 90s took time to set up relationships and you got to know the characters before the action started so it meant something to you when things went badly wrong. John Wick had a puppy for 15 minutes then it died in a robbery. That gives the protagonist an excuse, a signal to the audience that the violence will now commence but not anything more. Had the movie spent even a few minutes showing him training the puppy and him playing with the bigger puppy then walking with the dog, now it has meaning and impact when the dog is killed. The audience now has that emotional connection and investment in the revenge action.

[@bismuthcrystal9658]

I'm a bit worried about Fury Road sequels, but at the same time I can see them being brilliant. If they do a sort of picaresque, Grey Mouser sort of thing, exploring and slowly growing and revealing the character, while making sure each story is complete and stands on its own, I'd love to see that. I feel Fury Road potentially lends itself far better than any other franchise to... enfranchisement, so to speak. This never-ending sequelization of IPs that perform well. Just as long as they do it right.

[@jaymaple7473]

Would love to see an episode that explores the black chrome version as it highlights visual storytelling in a beautiful way. Funny side effect of watching the version stripped of dialogue more times than the original is that I get weirded out when I hear them speak now lol

[@bluesuncompanyman]

The Max stories are mythical anthologies. There is one thing that Road Warrior, Thunderdome, and Fury Road all have in common: Storytellers. The narrator from Road Warrior is revealed to actually be the Feral Kid who is at the end of his life and recounting a tale from his long-ago youth. The Thunderdome story is revealed at the films end to actually be one of many oral histories the kids are passing down to their younger generations. Fury Road features "history men" who tattoo historical records to their bodies and the end of the film implies that the entire Fury Road movie was in fact a mythical story retold by a History Man. The only film that might be considered "true" is the 1st one which tells us how Max first set out into the wasteland. After that - we only have myth to guide us. It's quite beautiful actually.

[@lhfirex]

I always though of at least this amount of continuity between Mad Max movies: The first's ending directly leads into the second's beginning. The low budget in the first can be used to infer that Max is a cop in one of the safer societies after the apocalypse, someplace close to surviving tech and infrastructure desperately trying to fend off invaders through their road cops. After the end of the first/beginning of The Road Warrior, Max loses it (goes mad) and leaves the relative safety of the other road cops for the wasteland at large. The rest of The Road Warrior, and the other 2 movies, are tales told out of chronological order about Max and the things that happen to him in the wasteland. My headcanon for a timeline with all of the movies is Mad Max, The Road Warrior, Fury Road, Beyond Thunderdome. The little girl that Max keeps seeing in Fury Road is what he imagines his daughter would've looked like if she hadn't died, so in Fury Road she's a kid instead of a baby. Now, there's a problem with this headcanon and it's his car. The car explodes in The Road Warrior, but one of Humongous's guys drives another V8 pretty similar to Max's car, and they all seem to flee, give up, or die in the tanker chase at the end. I don't remember seeing that other V8 car get destroyed, so I think Max takes it and makes it his new ride at the end of that movie, and that's the car that the War Boys take when they capture Max at the start of Fury Road. Really though, I think the only true continuity between movies is the end of 1 with Max driving off, and the start of 2. It's probably better to just say Max is some kinda folk hero/legend of the apocalypse survivors after they rebuild civilization.

[@DJ_7654]

I recently rewatched the 1979 movie for the first time in decades and found I really enjoyed it. As a movie, it really feels like the director could never figure out what kind of movie he was trying to make. Partly it seems like he wanted to make a science fiction movie; for one thing, physically Gibson is almost a perfect morph of Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. There's also a scene where members of the biker gang are chasing Max's wife through the woods; these bikers aren't anything like the other gang members; these are wearing round silver helments and matching black suits and look entirely like aliens in space suits. I think this explains the grafted-on psuedo-post apocolyptic theme, because, that's a nod to the director's desire to do science fiction. Meanwhile, sometimes it seems like the director wanted to do a slasher movie. Jump scares are scattered throught the movie, particularly in the aforementioned scene in the woods with the aliens, which is definitely styled like a horror movie scene. But the only funding he could get was for a muscle car chase movie, so he did what he could, crashed a few muscle cars and tried to shoehorn the science fiction slasher horror parts in where he could. This gives the movie a really enjoyable amateur feel, a director with no budget and thus no one paying attention to what he was doing. In the end, this gives it an almost "art house" feel. This is so utterly unlike the next movie (Road Warrior) that it's laughable that anyone complains about continuity with the reboots. The most enormous continuity error is between movies 1 and 2, and 2 and 3 are close behind. The franchise has no continuity at all, and honestly, that's pretty cool. It's the only franchise I know of that's just like, screw continuity. We don't care.

[@Solas67]

I just had to write to you! :) I had one of your other videos featuring this movie talking about setup and payoff, and I'm genuinely happy you did that and this one. I personally consider Fury Road not only an instant classic but one of the best action let alone general films of the last ten years. Miller is genuinely unafraid to treat his audiences like adults and thinking, reasoning creatures and is confident enough to be able to do so. I adore this film as a break and a gust of fresh air into an otherwise superhero dominated stale landscape. And with Disney now monopolising so much real estate and even seemingly able to out-Lucas Lucas for merchandising nostalgia, filmmakers like Miller are in smaller numbers than I'm comfortable seeing, with more and more aping quality of the past but without adding to it. Thanks again for putting this out there; there's something to the mythic hero mixed with unreliable narration that's incredibly appealing to me with this series, and yet keeps Max the character consistent, which is no small feat. I'd love to see more of your thoughts on this series.

[@The_Room_2_Doggys_Revenge]

the big difference i think between Fury Road and the first three is that Furiosa is arguably the main character (or at least her quest is the main one) and Max is almost a side character

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

Been a huge fan of the Mad Max series for my entire life, looking back on it - I think Fury Road is the strongest of the lot.

[@DEE_EXX]

As far as artistic filmmaking goes,u r correct...Fury Road is the best film in the series...but as far as a more max-centric story goes,it's the worst lol

[@aquin3066]

@@DEE_EXX None of the films are Max-centric. Maybe the first one but that's it.

[@timothymclean]

I could see more Mad Max films being made in an episodic fashion, like the first two sequels were. Essentially-complete story, wander off, find people who need help, essentially-complete story, repeat. The only difference is that Max wouldn't be alone, which could be made interesting in and of itself. Now that he's interacting with other people in a non-hood-ornament fashion and nobody's shooting at him, how does he act?

[@Mo11y_Mi11ions]

The missing characters that haunt him are in part from the comics that act as a prequel to Fury Road. They also tie the films together.

[@devinangola3458]

It's a tale told many years in the future, a fable or an old timer talking about the past around a fire, embellishing the tale. Part fable part true, that's what makes max such an interesting character in the sci fi action movie world, the world exists and max is along for the ride! Furiosa comes out in 2022 and another MM after. Can't wait!

[@michellesetyadi00]

I've just bumped into your channel and I have no regrets! Love your content!

[@Leftistattheparty]

I think something that is really interesting is the story that is told through the mad max video game. The motivation for max is both survival and getting through "The Plains of Silence".

[@gailcbull]

I was never a fan of the first 3 Mad Max films, but "stuff" as a motivation makes sense in a post-apocalyptic world. In a world where everything is scavenged because (after hundreds of years of being made dependant on capitalism) we no longer know how to make anything for ourselves, the loss of any physical item is not only annoying, it's potentially life-threatening.

[@MrZorg5000]

There's a Fury Road prequel comic that explains a few things, one being the little girl he is haunted by, or at least I think it's supposed to be the same girl. I like to head cannon that, after Thunderdome Max feels a bit better about helping people and tries again to aid others but fails (maybe multiple times). Causing him to distance himself from people even more than before, while constant memories of his failures drive him mad.

[@cizlerable]

I rewatched some Loose canons and I really enjoy them. Just one pointer: your monologue compared to the clips is really quiet. Could you turn yourself up a tad in future videos?

[@craigkingdon4424]

the video game apparently is a prequel to fury road, and it features a curly haired little girl who max is very much responsible for not saving in time, and who gets tortured and dies in his arms. George miller stated it was canon but didn't say where it fits in the timeline

[@Antiganos]

Craig Kingdon Miller actually doesn't view the game as canon, as the developers didn't actually know/ portray the lore. According to the game, Max has an 11 year old daughter, according to Mad Max, Max had an infant son, and so on. However, the game was based on early story concepts of the comic books, which are similar to the game's story, except that they are canon and make sense with the lore of the first 3 films. Basically, the game was made using canon material that went through a bad game of telephone with people that thought they could change the story, so it's close, but not quite there.

[@consecutiveprimes]

Yep, she got friged. At this point we out to stop calling it "women in refrigerators" and change it to "women in the walk-in cooler".

[@ernestopoisota9918]

The visions max had came from the prequel comic where he met a little girl

[@r.j.macready]

interesting take on the end of Road Warrior, I always interpreted it as he knew he was the bait/decoy. I felt this was shown durring a non verbal signal between max and papa gallow. I always thought the sand through the hand shot was just for audience benefit.

[@kumaraditya209]

it's amazing how people just forget that there was a Mad Max game too and after watching your video Im pretty sure that the movie continues from where the game ends as there's a girl in game who with her mother Max is unable to save and thus the hauntings begin. Also it's an amazing game play it if you can.

[@rafi7126]

"Pitbull elf hybrid, Tom Hardy"...I can't tell if thats a good thing or a bad thing.

[@elieleblanc120]

Also, I feel really sad about the incredibly low amount of material released within the mad max cannon, there are the 4 movies, the 2015 Game and the 4 comics

[@DEE_EXX]

Isn't that enough?

[@elieleblanc120]

@@DEE_EXX I mean I wish there was even more tho. The comics are really short, and the movies can be watched in a day.

[@acousticmonkey2209]

I've never thought about it before, but as said, in the original movies he just wants his stuff back. In the last movie, he _was_ the stuff that they wanted back. And he was helping keep the "property" of Joe away, thus stealing the stuff.

[@20110102]

also at 8:04 max is supposed to be around 50-60 here, due to the movie not having been filmed in 2006 and being delayed till 2015 they (miller and the studio) decided to change things up to help new fans of the series getting into the mad max movies. Which lead to fury roads's cannon being a little more fluid.

[@xizore]

I quoted Fury Road for months after I saw it. How often do movies elicit that response these days?

[@hpeajay]

I have bronchitis and have been binge watching a ton of your stuff this last weekend in a fevered dream state :-) Just wanted to say I love how they are not trying to force a continuity on these movies. Last thing I'd want is yet another reboot of a series. I like the idea that these movies are a just reflecting a futuristic kind of folklore. And Fury Road is just another "myth" or "legend" about this guy named Max.

[@nMsFreeStyleZ]

7th time I watch this video and I feel like I learn something interesting every time, thanks a lot for all the effort Lindsay, hope to see a lot more content come from your way

[@Albert-lj5jb]

There's a channel here on youtube dedicated to mad max that explains in great detail how Fury Road fits into the series. It explains why it doesn't make sense that Tom Hardy's' Max is able to remember the time before the collapse of civilisation, when he's clearly not old enough to even remember those times, let alone have been old enough to be a cop.

[@antoinechery9117]

'Fury Road' is indeed canon and takes place years after 'Beyond Thunderdome'. The whole timeline was clarified in the official comic book.

[@valbourne1797]

I like the apocryphal folk hero interpretation I've heard. That the continuity is totally jumbled because the unspecified and unreliable narrator of Max's tale was going off second or third hand accounts cobbled together from a number of people's descriptions, and muddied by the slight changes of each retelling. He does seem a lot like a mythical figure in the Mad Max continuity, wandering into other people's stories and out again, more of a timeless archetype of broken wasteland wanderer than literal historical figure. Its more likely that he is a number of different similar people all lumped into one character and described that way out of tradition.

[@ben2741]

In the road warrior, Max wasn’t motivated by stuff. He has stripped down to the base instinct of survival (the narration at the beginning mentions this). Survival at the animal level means competition for resources. And if you’re not hanging out at the coast of Australia, there’s a shit ton of Jack shit in the way of food and water. Meaning that a car and fuel to run it are a means an end. That’s why max tries to ingratiate himself with the group at the oil well/refinery upon awaking and having lost his car; he’s all kinds of dead otherwise. He’s still driven by the instinct to survive. And this is demonstrated right up until just before the crash with Humingus. He pushes the feral kid into the roof of a semi truck going full tilt on a freeway on order to get a few precious shells. And no, him pulling the kid back isn’t Max suddenly finding compassion. That’s just him being calculating again. The situation has changed and is about to get crazy. There’s no need for the kid to be on the hod of the truck anymore. And upon the realization of how he’d be tricked, Max continues to go with instinct. It’s implied that he could have followed the gyro captain and he kid to rejoin with the group, but he goes off alone because his instincts tell him that he’d be better off without such people

[@StalinBrosef]

Fun fact the actor who played Immorten Joe also played Toecutter, the big bad from the first film, which also ties into that theme of deconstructing the film's older themes, as the only actor who's connected to the previous films is the villain and haunts our protagonist at every turn, casting a shadow over them as the legacy of the franchise did over this film on its release.

[@lukeparnell5572]

That AlbinoBlackSheep reference was amazing

[@timothymclean]

I'd love to see a Fury Road 2 where Max and Furiosa get tangled up in some new wasteland mess which ends up with Max going through a character arc that lets him let other people into his life again.

[@smjaiteh]

I always thought Max didn't get mad, but he _went_ mad. The entire series sort of takes place in a reality, buts he's drifting in and out of his own mind half the time. It's the reason why he should be like 60 years old, but he's actually about 35.

[@MrDshaw1988]

There's a Mad Max game that was supposed to explain the little girl and fill out the continuity a bit better. Due to creative differences the stories never quite lined up. I think its meant to take place after the events of Road Warrior. It shows the evolution of Max throughout the game. Going from the Road Warrior to the Feral man we see him as at the beginning of Fury Road.

[@ronaldthompson2107]

He wasn't "duped", he knew he was merely a decoy so the community could get away.

[@douglasphillips5870]

I liked Fury Road, but I also liked Road Warrior. The themes were different, the characters were different, but they both told good stories. Even with the STUFF.

[@johnhill9595]

I picture Max as a wraith - forever wandering the wasteland and helping people.

[@oooiluvpancakesooo7781]

Most people don’t know (because it was never really advertised) that there was a batch of 4 cannon comics that kind of explained the hallucinations that max is seeing. One comic was about how furiosa met the wives, another is about immortan joe and nux , and the other two are about max and the little girl. I think I bought them off amazon. But they came out shortly after the movie. So if ur curious about that, now you know.

[@sergiog.6497]

Fury's Mad Max is actually the feral kid from Road Warrior. This is tied in by scene of him giving the music box to one of the breeders, just like when it was given to him by the Road Warrior. Mind blown!

[@aquin3066]

Not really. That's just a fan theory.

[@jonmercano1138]

So let me see if I got this straight. The Mad Max franchise is about...........stuff. Pure genius.

[@oftinuvielskin9020]

No. Mad Max's primary goal is aquiring stuff - until Fury Road when his goal is aquiring his own freedom Freedom > Stuff, therefore Fury Road is more compelling

[@fuzzyhair321]

Don't touch my stuff mate, it's an Aussie thing

[@chris-uq5xx]

I like to watch Fury Road with Max as the feral kid from RW all grown up. Can barely speak, grunts a lot, knows Max was a cop but not much else, Slint even calls him a feral blood bag.

[@BostonMBrand]

It's also worth mentioning how much Mad Max has influenced the post-apocalyptic science fiction genre, especially with the ascetic of the world.

[@vsGoliath96]

Hey, here's a fun fact! The little girl actually appears in the video game tie in released alongside Fury Road. It's considered a canon prequel to the events of the movie.

[@professorpeachez]

One of my favourite theories (and its a bit of a crack one, Ill warn ya) is that Furiosa is a re-incarnation of Max's wife in the first film (especially noted because when she is seen in the hospital at the end, she is missing an arm) and that she has come back to get revenge for her family against Immorton Joe who is coincidentally (OR MAYBE NOT IDK) played by the same guy's character who killed her in the first film. Really ties it all into the theory that Mad Max is the sort of campfire tale - turned- established myth.