Mad Max: Fury Road

29-06-2015 8:29pm

Re-watched it yesterday and loved it just as much and I have to say that the green screen work isn't quite as atrocious looking on a small screen. For me the film just works, it's two hours the starts with a bang and never lets up and I'm really excited to get the Blu-Ray and see the alternate cut. Started a new job today and think that my first treat is going to be a preorder of the special edition with the V8model.

ScumLord · 30-06-2015 12:29am

It's been years since I watched the old films. I'm going to go back and watch them again. Maybe it will help me appreciate the nuances of the latest film.

BuilderPlumber · 30-06-2015 1:04am

ScumLord wrote: »

It's been years since I watched the old films. I'm going to go back and watch them again. Maybe it will help me appreciate the nuances of the latest film.

I watched the original three in this order: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Mad Max 1 and Mad Max 2. After watching MMBT, I was fascinated by it and it weaned me off of my Vietnam war film period. I had heard of Mad Max but was expecting it before I got into it a standard cop film.

Of course, coming into the series via the third film meant I had missed a lot of the backstory. Max's refusal to kill Blaster, why Max goes from a personal motive to going out of his way to help the children and young adults, etc. all are explained by the man we first meet in the first film.

So, I went from 100% apocalypse of Beyond Thunderdome to the pre-apocalypse of Mad Max 1. Here the world looks normal but with crime out of control and a deep recession in place. Max is overall a stable man who is a very good cop and a loving family man. But when he loses his family, he hunts down all the bikers who killed them thus satisfying his own personal revenge and also the police force.

Then, it was onto Mad Max 2. The events of the first film are summed up in the opening minutes and an explanation of a major war and its affects are mentioned thus explaining what I saw in Beyond Thunderdome. Unlike MMBT, oil exists and perhaps we are witnessing the last days of it here before the world moved onto methane. The plot is similar to MMBT with Max this time helping out a community who are being terrorised by bikers and in the resulting action setpieces, killing most of the bikers and getting the people to safety.

Fury Road follows a similar plot to MM2 or MMBT with Max again helping people defeat a tyranny and improve their lives. It is uncertain when this was set but I'd say somewhere between MM2 and MMBT. There is talk of a future Mad Max film being a prequel that tells Max's story across a number of years. Perhaps, something set closer to the time of the first film would be interesting. Perhaps set as civilisation is in the process of collapsing.

Fysh · 30-06-2015 10:36am

ScumLord wrote: »

I just find most action and sci fi bland and half arsed. There's often little attempt to really make a world that makes sense. As a post apocalyptic film Mad Max doesn't really work. The world has ended but we still have many of the creature comforts of the modern world like the ability to make overly complicated clothes the ability to make hot rods which are going to require serious amount of power and consumables.

I don't mind action films I just like them to put in some effort into something other than the action sequences. I just can't turn off for these films anymore. But some films that are purely action based can create a believable world for themselves that makes sense. Films like district 13, dredd and starship troopers put an effort into the background noise that creates a believable world. I'll accept I've gotten awful picky as I get older, films have to put in a real effort to pass muster with me. Mad Max was too much style over substance for me.

I think, given that we have different opinions on Starship Troopers, this might be best filed under "different tastes"

For me the worldbuilding was fine, inasmuch as it fits with the camp "heightened reality" of the Mad Max series overall. But if it didn't work for you, then it didn't work for you and that's fair enough.

For what it's worth, I don't think you should have to make any effort to "switch off" for an action film - either it works for you and draws you in, or it doesn't. What draws you in and holds your attention will be totally subjective.

pixelburp · 30-06-2015 11:18am

I look back in here and people are mentioning Iraq and ISIS? Truly we're entering the late-stage of this thread. The Pedantic Era, if you will

I wouldn't always throw out the 'so what?' argument, god it can be too pat by half to dismiss actual problems in films, but like a lot of things context & tone count for a great deal. If a movie commits this much to its own insane internal logic - so what? Tone counts for a lot here and from the first scene it's made quite clear that Fury Road occupies some freakish, heightened reality; it's all a concept more than an actual world with rigid logic akin to our own; more comicbook than the actual comicbook films themselves.

Maybe in reality, resources and skills would be too scarce to build anything more advanced than a horse & cart, but that's completely beside the whole point of this mythology. It's the post-carpocolypse: If George Miller wants to McGuyver tank treads onto a 70s saloon, or show a flat bed sprouting dozens of high-fi speakers, who are we to quibble? Fury Road isn't The Road. Thank God.

TerrorFirmer · 30-06-2015 11:33am

The first film actually holds up surprisingly well - I watched it a short time ago after seeing Fury Road and although an entirely different type of film to its sequels, it's still a good watch.

rob316 · 30-06-2015 12:01pm

Anyone else think Tom Hardy's voice at the start of the movie narration is a bit like Bane?

ScumLord · 30-06-2015 12:04pm

rob316 wrote: »

Anyone else think Tom Hardy's voice at the start of the movie narration is a bit like Bane?

All movie action heroes have to put on a stupid gravely voice now. It's hollywood law.

e_e · 30-06-2015 1:57pm

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

The first film actually holds up surprisingly well - I watched it a short time ago after seeing Fury Road and although an entirely different type of film to its sequels, it's still a good watch.

I actually find the world more interesting in the first movie than Road Warrior and Thunderdome. It's halfway between the world we know and the crazy future landscape of the other movies. Seeing Max be relatively normal was intriguing too.

BuilderPlumber · 30-06-2015 5:21pm

e_e wrote: »

I actually find the world more interesting in the first movie than Road Warrior and Thunderdome. It's halfway between the world we know and the crazy future landscape of the other movies. Seeing Max be relatively normal was intriguing too.

It is an interesting world and a fascinating film. When it was made, I wonder what the intention was? It is based on oil scarcities caused by some unmentioned crisis. Society functions albeit crime is totally out of control.

However, many of the themes in the first film would be similar to what we would see in contemporary crime films and dramas. The deep hatred between the cops and the bikers would be very similar to how Nidge and cops hate each other in Love/Hate. The revenge theme could belong in a Death Wish film for example.

When the film was made, it was probably not envisaged just how successful it would be. The actual society was probably not deeply thought out: it was just a future where oil was scarce and crime out of control. The much bigger budget sequels turned things into 100% post apocalypse in the next 3 movies. Specific reasons for why the first film's world is the way it is are given as a major war that affects oil. This creates the world we know in these 3 films. Mad Max 2 and Fury Road still sees fuel and some vague remnants of the world we know but Beyond Thunderdome shows a very different world. We are given evidence in Beyond Thunderdome and Fury Road that the war was indeed nuclear. In Fury Road, there is also a mention of water wars as well as oil wars. With 3 films exploring the post apocalypse world, maybe as said it would be good to see another film akin to the first one exploring more of the immediate pre-apocalypse world?

Looper007 · 30-06-2015 5:44pm

e_e wrote: »

I actually find the world more interesting in the first movie than Road Warrior and Thunderdome. It's halfway between the world we know and the crazy future landscape of the other movies. Seeing Max be relatively normal was intriguing too.

I always got the feeling Max was a little on the edge even in the first one, even he say's he has to quit cause he's starting to love the violence.

It's the only film when the whole story is based around Max but I love the punky do it yourself feel of the first film, it's flawed and in some places hasn't aged well (the nightclub scene been one) but Mel Gibson is excellent hero and the villain's are great and it puts to shame a lot of today's action film's. the Car chases are exciting (Miller does it better then anyone) and the ending is certainly the bleakest in all the Mad Max Film's.

One thing I love about the Mad Max films is that the death of the good guy's actually shock and you feel their loss, that's why I find it mind boggling people say that their is no characters on story build in these films.

BuilderPlumber · 30-06-2015 7:11pm

Looper007 wrote: »

I always got the feeling Max was a little on the edge even in the first one, even he say's he has to quit cause he's starting to love the violence.

It's the only film when the whole story is based around Max but I love the punky do it yourself feel of the first film, it's flawed and in some places hasn't aged well (the nightclub scene been one) but Mel Gibson is excellent hero and the villain's are great and it puts to shame a lot of today's action film's. the Car chases are exciting (Miller does it better then anyone) and the ending is certainly the bleakest in all the Mad Max Film's.

One thing I love about the Mad Max films is that the death of the good guy's actually shock and you feel their loss, that's why I find it mind boggling people say that their is no characters on story build in these films.

It is clear in the first film that Max enjoys what he does but has doubts about what he does. His family clearly worry about his safety too. With the death of Goose, I think Max questions his motives .. is it police work or avenging his friend? So, he decides to quit only to lose his family and become the revenge focused man he feared he would become.

Max is a cop but his revenge mission on the Toecutter is exactly the same as Dano's attempted revenge on Nidge in Love/Hate. Cop or criminal, revenge for the death on a loved one is the same: personal and not exactly sanctioned by the organisation the person works for.

Like yourself, I felt sorry for a lot of the characters who died in the films. Nux in the new one, Jessie, Sprog and Goose in the first one and Blaster and the child swallowed by the sand in Beyond Thunderdome for example. The first movie's ending was the bleakest and even though the world appeared to be in the best condition, it offered the least hope at the end. Johnny the Boy may have been the most tragic of all. Clearly not as cunning and evil as the rest of the gang, he got caught in the thick of things (he may or may not have escaped at the end and perhaps he survived, became more serious and became a drug dealer in Dublin for a time until Nidge had him clipped!!

).

Some people are disappointed with the first film because it does not show the excesses of the post apocalypse shown in the later films. The nightclub scene and others like it contrast greatly with the poor conditions of the police HQ which leads one to believe government is crumbling and perhaps private enterprise supported by the criminals is keeping things going. That mechanic at the end implies he gets most of his business from the bikers.

BlitzKrieg · 30-06-2015 8:40pm

rob316 wrote: »

Anyone else think Tom Hardy's voice at the start of the movie narration is a bit like Bane?

didnt they originally start shooting this at the same time as dark knight rises?

Perhaps he still had a few bats in his belfry when he was on mad max...

MisterAnarchy · 02-07-2015 1:47pm

Got around to watching this recently and it was a huge disappointment.

I was expecting a good solid film with all the excellent reviews but what I watched was a mess.

Firstly there was too much action and whilst it was well shot and the cgi was good it was overkill .
The pacing was dreadful ,the film was just a 2 hour chase scene .

These modern blockbusters have almost no suspense as the action scenes are too long and unrealistic.
It was completely implausible that the

truck couldn't be stopped by such a huge armada of powerful and fast vehicles and weapons.

Vehicles in pristine condition,that seemed to have an endless supply of gas despite people seemingly having no food.

There wasnt enough of an actual plot ,or character development,and the film was too long .

Mad Max 2 was a much better film.

bucketybuck · 02-07-2015 2:06pm

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Mad Max 2 was a much better film.

And yet your criticisms apply just as much to Mad Max 2 as they do to Fury Road, considering Mad Max 2 was a film which also had a truck that couldn't be stopped by such a huge armada of powerful and fast vehicles and weapons. Vehicles in pristine condition,that seemed to have an endless supply of gas despite people seemingly having no food.

Thargor · 02-07-2015 2:14pm

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Vehicles in pristine condition

Whaaaa?

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

seemed to have an endless supply of gas

One of the perks of living next to Gastown and trading them all their hydro you'd think...

MisterAnarchy · 02-07-2015 2:17pm

bucketybuck wrote: »

And yet your criticisms apply just as much to Mad Max 2 as they do to Fury Road, considering Mad Max 2 was a film which also had a truck that couldn't be stopped by such a huge armada of powerful and fast vehicles and weapons. Vehicles in pristine condition,that seemed to have an endless supply of gas despite people seemingly having no food.

How long did the truck scene last in Mad Max 2 ?
20 minutes perhaps.

The whole idea of them chasing the truck was because they thought it was full of gas, as supplies of petroleum had been nearly exhausted in the future.
They also did stop the truck and their vehicles were nowhere near as good as in the new movie.

The new film was like they tried to make that truck scene into a whole film .

Looper007 · 02-07-2015 2:27pm

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Got around to watching this recently and it was a huge disappointment.

I was expecting a good solid film with all the excellent reviews but what I watched was a mess.

Firstly there was too much action and whilst it was well shot and the cgi was good it was overkill .
The pacing was dreadful ,the film was just a 2 hour chase scene .

These modern blockbusters have almost no suspense as the action scenes are too long and unrealistic.
It was completely implausible that the
truck couldn't be stopped by such a huge armada of powerful and fast vehicles and weapons.
Vehicles in pristine condition,that seemed to have an endless supply of gas despite people seemingly having no food.

There wasnt enough of an actual plot ,or character development,and the film was too long .

Mad Max 2 was a much better film.

Did you really see the film?

too much action? that's what Mad Max films are all about
Cgi? They barely used any in this film
the pacing dreadful? It was one of the best edited films I've see this year and the pace was one of the best for any action film I ever seen.

No plot or character development and yet you like Mad Max 2 :rolleyes:
Plus Mad Max 2 was one long chase in places too.

Looper007 · 02-07-2015 2:30pm

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

How long did the truck scene last in Mad Max 2 ?
20 minutes perhaps.

The whole idea of them chasing the truck was because they thought it was full of gas, as supplies of petroleum had been nearly exhausted in the future.
They also did stop the truck and their vehicles were nowhere near as good as in the new movie.

The new film was like they tried to make that truck scene into a whole film .

That's what the plot of the film was that Furiosa wanted to get the five brides out hidden and away to a better life away from Joe. What did you expect for her to just walk out with them.

MisterAnarchy · 02-07-2015 2:47pm

Looper007 wrote: »

Did you really see the film?

too much action? that's what Mad Max films are all about
Cgi? They barely used any in this film
the pacing dreadful? It was one of the best edited films I've see this year and the pace was one of the best for any action film I ever seen.

No plot or character development and yet you like Mad Max 2 :rolleyes:
Plus Mad Max 2 was one long chase in places too.

Road Warrior had alot more plot and character development.
Road Warrior tells the story of a small outpost of generally well-intentioned apocalypse survivors guarding their gas pump in the middle of the desert. Max stumbles upon these people as they’re being harried by a group of bandits.

Prior to encountering this conflict, we’re introduced to Max, to his dog (named “Dog”) and to the Gyro Captain. The latter we come into contact with in a funny, failed ambush. It’s a fairly quiet moment between two people, and a dog, that precedes the more high-octane chase and fight scenes later in the film.

Later Max watches as members of the outpost are chased down, killed, and raped by the bandits. The action takes place far off, and the audience sees only what Max sees. It feels very personal.

The entire film is personal in this way. Intimate. Even the big action sequences are carried out with some sense of intimacy. The deaths of the good guys are jarring and sudden, but we feel a little pang each time someone meets their maker.

Not so in Fury Road.

The film opens to big action from the get-go, and doesn’t really stop until the halfway point. Max figures in very little in these opening sequences, only really entering the fray after the first—and most dramatic—chase.

Mel Gibson's Max was a better character.
He spoke more,had more character,humour.
Hardy’s Max is practically mute,he is certainly crazier but there should have been a bit more fleshing out of Max beyond flashbacks.
Max should have been given more to connect him with audiences. It wouldn’t take much. The moment at the

end with the blood transfusion was a small step toward giving the character more depth, but it came at the very end.

Fury Road’s felt a little too perfectly contrived as well.

Max and the group drive out to where some old ladies have built a decent, if hard, life for themselves. They gather them up and take them back to the Citadel, and almost all of them are killed in the process.

In Road Warrior, many of the Outpost’s survivors also die. Their leader. Warrior Woman. Almost every single one. But it was their escape, and Max was simply aiding them in it. Here we have a secondary,

grey-haired group take all the bullets so that the young, pretty women can survive.

Fury Road looked great ,and the stunts were excellent as were the costumes but the writing was poor ,and it was too repetitive .
It was just one big long truck chase .

Mickeroo · 02-07-2015 2:47pm

Other criticisms aside, I really can't fathom the "no plot or character development" arguments, the fact both were there in spades was one of the best things about the film for me.

bucketybuck · 02-07-2015 2:53pm

Mickeroo wrote: »

Other criticisms aside, I really can't fathom the "no plot or character development" arguments, the fact both were there in spades was one of the best things about the film for me.

You can't even respond to people making that criticism, because they're basically saying that they didn't pick up on anything in the film. So where do you even start?

BuilderPlumber · 02-07-2015 3:05pm

Looper007 wrote: »

Did you really see the film?

too much action? that's what Mad Max films are all about
Cgi? They barely used any in this film
the pacing dreadful? It was one of the best edited films I've see this year and the pace was one of the best for any action film I ever seen.

No plot or character development and yet you like Mad Max 2 :rolleyes:
Plus Mad Max 2 was one long chase in places too.

Mad Max 2 is to the Mad Max films what From Russia With Love is to the James Bond films. It defined what the films were to be about and each other film in the series is to be compared to it. Mad Max 2 is indeed excellent and the best film of its kind in its time. But there is also a tendency to underrate the other Mad Max films too. The first one is the link between what we see in the rest of the films and the last days of the world as we know it. We see the troubled days prior to an inevitable world war caused by an oil crisis and dispute. We are in the middle of a major economic recession much worse than the recent one or the great depression. Law and order is on the verge of losing out to crime. This is the world that Nidge and Fran (of Love/Hate) or Walt White (of Breaking Bad) would thrive in.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is also underrated and the emphasis here was not on evil marauders taking over but new societies creating new law and order and new religion. The ancient-Rome style Thunderdome settled disputes violently and the wheel enforced brutal justice in Bartertown. Contrasted with this was the gentle religious beliefs of a saviour by the children and young adults stranded in the desert. BOTH had one thing in common: a belief in society and BOTH considered Max as having a role in it.

Mad Max Fury Road is a great film and is most like Mad Max 2. Like many modern films, it gets criticised often for being modern. In other words, people don't believe in modern films being as good as older ones. But this is every bit as good as the first 3 Mad Max films and has new ideas to add. Like the need for healthy women to give birth, healthy men to give blood, and the depiction of a very clear rich/poor divide.

Just like Casino Royale, Skyfall and the Nolan Dark Knight Batman films, Mad Max 4 shows that there are classic action films made in recent times. Sure, they will not suit everyone but all these are classics of our times.

Fysh · 02-07-2015 3:25pm

Not picking up on the way Max actually has to get past his demons (all the visions he keeps having of people who he's failed to save in the past) to help Furiosa and the crew, or the bond between Furiosa and the Brides, or how Nux goes from being a brainwashed War Boy to helping Furiosa, doesn't mean there's no character development in the film, just that it was missed by that viewer.

Ditto the worldbuilding that was carefully alluded to through dialogue.

I mean, if that had been my experience of Fury Road I'd have thought it weak too. But you can't fault a film for not having something that's there - at best you can fault it for not focusing enough on those things, but IMO this would've killed the film's pace.

Sudden Valley · 02-07-2015 3:34pm

One of best thing about this film was the lack of dialogue. It allows the audience to discover and understand the world in their own time. It was hard to get into Jurassic World after watching MM since that had loads of boring conversations about and jokes. When people are dying i dont want a load of jokes ( a few are ok).

ThisRegard · 02-07-2015 3:35pm

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Vehicles in pristine condition

I'd hate to see what the hell you're driving so.

MisterAnarchy · 02-07-2015 4:28pm

Looper007 wrote: »

No plot or character development and yet you like Mad Max 2 :rolleyes:
Plus Mad Max 2 was one long chase in places too.

Not picking up on the way Max actually has to get past his demons (all the visions he keeps having of people who he's failed to save in the past) to help Furiosa and the crew, or the bond between Furiosa and the Brides, or how Nux goes from being a brainwashed War Boy to helping Furiosa, doesn't mean there's no character development in the film, just that it was missed by that viewer.

Ditto the worldbuilding that was carefully alluded to through dialogue.

I didnt say No plot or character development
I said

There wasnt enough of an actual plot ,or character development,and the film was too long .

It just didnt do it for me ,too much style over substance I'm afraid.

Brian? · 02-07-2015 4:37pm

Fysh wrote: »

Not picking up on the way Max actually has to get past his demons (all the visions he keeps having of people who he's failed to save in the past) to help Furiosa and the crew, or the bond between Furiosa and the Brides, or how Nux goes from being a brainwashed War Boy to helping Furiosa, doesn't mean there's no character development in the film, just that it was missed by that viewer.

Ditto the worldbuilding that was carefully alluded to through dialogue.

I mean, if that had been my experience of Fury Road I'd have thought it weak too. But you can't fault a film for not having something that's there - at best you can fault it for not focusing enough on those things, but IMO this would've killed the film's pace.

That's a very low bar for character development. What about the cartoon bad guys? They could have done with being more than 1D.

I found the entire plot to be far too predictable too.

This film was a prime example of over use of action.

thegreengoblin · 02-07-2015 6:07pm

Looks like its run has ended today, from a quick check of the cinema websites. Anyone know for sure? I'll be raging if it is as I meant to watch it again but kept putting it off

Looper007 · 02-07-2015 6:17pm

Brian? wrote: »

That's a very low bar for character development. What about the cartoon bad guys? They could have done with being more than 1D.

I found the entire plot to be far too predictable too.

This film was a prime example of over use of action.

Over Use of Action??? it's a action blockbuster, what are you expecting a discussion on the weather. This film was anything but predictable and the characters don't need tons and tons of backstory that bog down the action, they did enough that got you invested in them. Furoisa and Nux are two of the most interesting characters of the year and Joe one of the most memorable Villains.

Mad Max: Fury Road

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