Mad Max- Fury Road

[The King in Black]

I think the continuity is supposed to be very loose, in the sense that these are all just a collection of various stories about the legendary Mad Max. This allows for a ) continuity errors to be over-looked b ) A very cool way to tell various stories and carry the franchise forward ( and no need for DotFP-like soft reboots to erase flops like thunderdome )

[HairBearHero]

Holy fuck.

Wow.

[HairBearHero]

And now to contribute:

I'd watched the film thinking Max was having visions of his daughter, like everybody else, so when I realised he'd had a son in the first movie, I just assumed I'd mistaken a little boy for a little girl.

Now I'm just confused. Max being a different Max is a stupid idea so I'd rather assume it's setting up a prequel featuring "Glory the Child" (that's her name apparently). But that seems weird even so.

King In Black's got it - Miller has said that it's a mythology rather than a strict continuity - each group has their stories of a legendary warrior who came from nowhere, saved them and then departed, never to return until he's most needed. King Arthur in the Outback, if you will. Pretty cool idea.

[King Zee]

And now to contribute:

King In Black's got it - Miller has said that it's a mythology rather than a strict continuity - each group has their stories of a legendary warrior who came from nowhere, saved them and then departed, never to return until he's most needed. King Arthur in the Outback, if you will. Pretty cool idea.

Yeah, I'd say a similar series would be the 'Man with No Name' trilogy ( A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).)--- Clint Eastwood is playing a similar character across those movies -down to the way he dresses. But its damn difficult to arrange them as an actual chronology.

[HairBearHero]

Hardy and Theron have been getting a lot of love, but I thought Hoult was absolutely fantastic as well. Truly batshit, very funny at times and

always a sympathetic character despite nominally being a bad guy for the first half of the film. Found myself rooting for him even if it meant the War Rig stopped.

[Theda Baratheon]

Nux just showed how Immortan Joe abused men as well as women. When the Wives didn't want to kill any of the war boys when they didn't have to showed their compassion and understanding that the war boys are treated as things by Joe as well.

[john]

And now to contribute:

King In Black's got it - Miller has said that it's a mythology rather than a strict continuity - each group has their stories of a legendary warrior who came from nowhere, saved them and then departed, never to return until he's most needed. King Arthur in the Outback, if you will. Pretty cool idea.

That is a pretty cool idea but i'm not sure it works here though. If he's just a legendary warrior who comes when needed why should we care about any character motivations like dead little girls? Plus he describes who he is in a voiceover at the beginning of the movie.

He might be a crazy person who thinks he's Max Rockatansky but I just find that a bit odd. The way it works best for me is a continuous story about one guy that just has some bits missing, or happening offscreen, or in a prequel.

[Theda Baratheon]

I dunno works better for me if he IS sort of a mythical figure tbh

[Talleyrand]

Yeah I'm not really fussed either way but I quite like the idea of him being mythical

[MerenthaClone]

That is a pretty cool idea but i'm not sure it works here though. If he's just a legendary warrior who comes when needed why should we care about any character motivations like dead little girls? Plus he describes who he is in a voiceover at the beginning of the movie.

He might be a crazy person who thinks he's Max Rockatansky but I just find that a bit odd. The way it works best for me is a continuous story about one guy that just has some bits missing, or happening offscreen, or in a prequel.

King Arthur has motivations, though. You're reading the analogy wrong. He's not King Arthur Reborn being dropped into their story, its that the First Historian (or whoever that quote is from at the end of the movie) is writing up stories of Max. We're seeing an adaptation of the story, which is why Max is broadly similar in characterization, which is why Max always has an Interceptor at the start of the movie, always leaves, and has weird age-related stuff. I mean, in the first movie, civilization existed but was crumbling. Now, in maybe 20 years of aging, civilization has totally collapsed and had time to form a huge cult-of-personality around a mutant who probably grew up after the implied nukes (which haven't been implied to have happened in MM1). Yeah, what?

Put another way: how many stories of King Arthur (or whatever) have you heard? And how many times did you go "hey, this is bullshit, Arthur was a 6th century Briton last book I read, how come its like 1300 and all French Romance period now?" or "wait, why does he have a magic sword from the lake and from a stone" since Excalibur also kind of changes a lot. There are a ton of stories about Arthur and all of them vary greatly. There are a ton of wasteland stories about Max and all of them vary depending on who is telling it. That's what we're watching. The characters won't necessarily know about "Max" as a mythical figure any more than some Briton fighting along with Artur is going to know that later, there will be stories about his knights finding the holy grail and warring in France. But that Briton's still going to tell stories about Arthur to his contemporaries. Its not one continuity, its a patchwork of stories.

[MerenthaClone]

e: double.

[Fez]

I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of Max as being a King Arthur/Robin Hood sort of figure. But citing the discrepancies of the first movie isn't the best evidence, since if you ignore it as "early installment weirdness" the other three movies do fit into a single timeline fairly easily. The first movie isn't even necessarily post-apocalyptic, maybe its a somewhat run-down future, but its really just a small town in the middle of nowhere trying to deal with a gang.

[john]

But I'm saying that this movie doesn't fit the archetype you guys are describing, the one where it's a tale without need for setting or context, written up by the first historian of a new age or whatever.

Firstly, Max has a voiceover at the beginning, telling how the world died and he used to be a cop. In the wandering knight archetype it should be somebody else telling it. They don't know the origins of this mysterious hero, just some legends about his early life. The guy in this story knows exactly who he is and nobody else ever heard of him.

Then he's haunted by a vision of a little girl but nobody other than the viewer knows about that either. It's not part of a mythos, more like a personal conflict that you'd expect to be resolved somehow at some point.

For me, it's more like they're trying to have the best of both worlds, bring in the mythical thing but still keep a concrete story going.

[Veltigar]

Here is a mash-up of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's theme song and images of Mad Max (spoilers for Fury Road obviously) It's weird how well they mix.

But I'm saying that this movie doesn't fit the archetype you guys are describing, the one where it's a tale without need for setting or context, written up by the first historian of a new age or whatever.

Firstly, Max has a voiceover at the beginning, telling how the world died and he used to be a cop. In the wandering knight archetype it should be somebody else telling it. They don't know the origins of this mysterious hero, just some legends about his early life. The guy in this story knows exactly who he is and nobody else ever heard of him.

Then he's haunted by a vision of a little girl but nobody other than the viewer knows about that either. It's not part of a mythos, more like a personal conflict that you'd expect to be resolved somehow at some point.

For me, it's more like they're trying to have the best of both worlds, bring in the mythical thing but still keep a concrete story going.

Have you ever seen 2004's King Arthur? Part of that movie is narrated by Lancelot, even though I for one am pretty sure that he's just as "real" as the mythological King Arthur. With Mad Max something similar happens, namely the basic stories are out there in the world post-apocalyps and it are these stories that are adapted into films. The movies themselves aren't the myths, they are adaptations of them, which allow for things like flashbacks and voice-over.

Yeah, I'd say a similar series would be the 'Man with No Name' trilogy ( A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).)--- Clint Eastwood is playing a similar character across those movies -down to the way he dresses. But its damn difficult to arrange them as an actual chronology.

I thought consensus was that ordering these films chronologically just means that you have to reverse the release order? Fistful is the final chapter, while tGtBatU is the first.

IIRC it's no

unnecessary killing - the wives don't object when Furiosa or Max need to crash a pursuit vehicle or shoot a Warboy who's shooting at them. In fact IIRC one or two of them do some shooting themselves.

This is quite important, as I don't think it's necessarily about a general prohibition against killing per se: the issue is that the Warboys are basically victims of Joe too. We see that they're recruited as children and basically brainwashed. I think this is why the wives don't want them killed if it can be avoided.

:agree:

[Veltigar]

The New York Times has this great segment on their Youtube channel called 'Anatomy of a Scene' (if you haven't heard of it, definitely check a couple of them out). The basic concept is they show a scene from the movie and have the director narrate on top of it about how he conceived, formed and shot the scene in question. The AoaS of Mad Max: Fury Road is really interesting.

[Talleyrand]

Holy shit the guitar is actually real and functional

You control the flames with the whammy bar

[The Mance]

The movies themselves aren't the myths, they are adaptations of them, which allow for things like flashbacks and voice-over.

Yeah, its not that Max is a mythological figure, its just that the stories we are getting are presentations of, basically, oral histories. Like what you'd expect if some biographer took down notes from your great-grandparents stories about that one time they had a brief encounter with Bill the Kid back in the 1800s. Max and Billy are both "real", but the details are fuzzy after years of 2nd and 3rd hand retellings, unreliable narrators, colorful embellishments, and whatever else you'd expect from stories told around a campfire for generations.

The New York Times has this great segment on their Youtube channel called 'Anatomy of a Scene' (if you haven't heard of it, definitely check a couple of them out). The basic concept is they show a scene from the movie and have the director narrate on top of it about how he conceived, formed and shot the scene in question. The AoaS of Mad Max: Fury Road is really interesting.

I loved the choreography in that scene. I'm sure its the type of thing the MRAs will rage over (No way some chick kicks Max's ass!!) but you could tell there was a lot of thought that went into the balance of advantages and handicaps between each character as well as the circumstantial/environmental factors. Real, believable tension throughout.

[Theda Baratheon]

As an Ancient History student I find the idea of treating him as a mythical figure and how oral stories are a little different every time to be such an inspired way to approach this. I think it's awesome.

[john]

Have you ever seen 2004's King Arthur? Part of that movie is narrated by Lancelot, even though I for one am pretty sure that he's just as "real" as the mythological King Arthur. With Mad Max something similar happens, namely the basic stories are out there in the world post-apocalyps and it are these stories that are adapted into films. The movies themselves aren't the myths, they are adaptations of them, which allow for things like flashbacks and voice-over.

I would say that movie does the opposite of what you claim Fury Road does, it tries to set mythical charcters in a genuine historical setting, not "real" characters in a mythical landscape. Or is that not what you're saying?

Anyway, I don't see any hints about that from this actual movie, it's not even playing with the idea like King Arthur is. The idea about Max as a legendary figure only comes from Road Warrior and some musings from the director.

[Guy Kilmore]

I would say that movie does the opposite of what you claim Fury Road does, it tries to set mythical charcters in a genuine historical setting, not "real" characters in a mythical landscape. Or is that not what you're saying?

Anyway, I don't see any hints about that from this actual movie, it's not even playing with the idea like King Arthur is. The idea about Max as a legendary figure only comes from Road Warrior and some musings from the director.

Wasn't he a prophesied hero in Thunderdome? I also know it comes up in Mad Max, where the Bald Police Guy wants to make him a hero, a symbol. When Max goes back to his job after tragedy, that is where he becomes....well that hero in a perverse kind of way.