Mad Max Fury Road

[Heid the Ba]

An excellent film with just enough vehicles, chases and 'splosions. There are two odd things though (ignoring physics, medicine, human physiology, sunscreen and fuel consumption, obviously) firstly why Charlize Theron uses her generic inoffensive US accent rather than her natural Saffer one, and timescale as Max is still driving the V8 and looks the same age while several generations have passed in some areas. Oh, and Thunderdome didn't happen.

Splendid film though.

[Arneb]

Since when did we let reality keep us from enjoying a few really juicy 'splosions?

[Lianachan]

I've been underwhelmed by the trailers I've seen, but have noticed it's been getting good reviews. Adding your recommendation into the mix, I may see it after all.

[Heid the Ba]

The bikes.

The cars.

I haven't seen the trailers, but you know what you are getting and it easily passes the Bechdel Test, which seems to annoy some people.

[Heid the Ba]

Since when did we let reality keep us from enjoying a few really juicy 'splosions?

Never!

[Enzo]

I like 'splosions and all, but the whole Mad Max thing I don't quite get. I mean it is a post-apocalyptical setting where apparently everything has broken down into anarchy. OK, so where do they get all the fuel for their vehicles? And the tanks of welding gases to build them? and the ammunition for their weapons, and the water they need? And the food they must eat sometime? And who keeps the electricity running for power tools?

[Heid the Ba]

They do sort of answer some of these questions, there are a cluster of settlements one of which has an aquifer water supply and produces food, another an oil refinery and one called something like "Bullet-town". Vehicles are pre-1980 so have no electronics etc., but they do have rubber tyres . . . But yes, it doesn't make much sense.

[Lianachan]

Some Mad Max related bat-shittery.

[Heid the Ba]

Oh titting arse, that is some high powered nonsense. It is possible to argue (though this writer doesn't) that this isn't really a Mad Max film and it should be called "Imperator Furiosa, Fury Road" but oh for fuck's sake. Piss off back to the 1930s.

No doubt ReturnofKings heartily approves of this policy.

Edit to add: I went back and started reading some of the comments, oh dearie me . . .

[Lianachan]

I hadn't even noticed the comments. Top notch bat-shittery, right there.

[Мастер]

They do sort of answer some of these questions, there are a cluster of settlements one of which has an aquifer water supply and produces food, another an oil refinery and one called something like "Bullet-town". Vehicles are pre-1980 so have no electronics etc., but they do have rubber tyres . . . But yes, it doesn't make much sense.

I think it was "Barter Town", wasn't it?

The first Mad Max film was pretty low budget, so they didn't actually create a real apocalyptic event and see how well people were able to cope with it. By the time it got to the Tina Turner/Hollywood phase, maybe they could have down that. And maybe that has something to do with the dramatic decline of the level of civilisation from the first to the third films; in the first, Australia just looked a bit eastern European. By the third, it was looking pretty neolithic, albeit with dwellers who had some left-over toys from a more advanced civilisation. I don't think the nature of the apocalyptic event was really mentioned until the third film, when one of the Barter-town dwellers tries to sell Mad Max some radioactive water, suggesting that perhaps that the Australian nuclear weapons arsenal had been used.

Even in the first film, the Toecutter's gang robbed a petrol lorry, suggesting perhaps that fuel was in scarce supply. (But, then again, in the US, people steal copper pipe, and I'm not sure that there's any severe copper shortage; they just want to make some money reselling it.) In the second film, the little colony out in the Outback was somehow manufacturing fuel, which the Lord Humungus's gang was determined to steal (and quite willing to kill for, although they might have been willing to kill just for the entertainment value). Bruce Spence would leave his gyrocopter parked on the side of the roadway, so curious by-passers would stop, and be bitten by his poisonous snake. He would then steal the fuel from their cars (or maybe the cars themselves). However, Max was a little too fast for his snake.

So fuel for sure seemed to be very much on the minds of the inhabitants of the Mad Max universe.

[Heid the Ba]

They do sort of answer some of these questions, there are a cluster of settlements one of which has an aquifer water supply and produces food, another an oil refinery and one called something like "Bullet-town". Vehicles are pre-1980 so have no electronics etc., but they do have rubber tyres . . . But yes, it doesn't make much sense.

I think it was "Barter Town", wasn't it?

That was in Thunderdome, this is a different place and seems to be where the weapons come from.

There is a reference to "The Water Wars" and some of it looks post-nuclear but it isn't clear why it has all turned to shite.

Edit: the places are called "Gas Town" and "Bullet Farm".

[Мастер]

That was in Thunderdome, this is a different place and seems to be where the weapons come from.

Ah, OK. Which film was this referenced in? Maybe the second? In the first, things just seemed rather run down and wild-westish.

[Heid the Ba]

This:

"They do sort of answer some of these questions, there are a cluster of settlements one of which has an aquifer water supply and produces food, another an oil refinery and one called something like "Bullet-town". Vehicles are pre-1980 so have no electronics etc., but they do have rubber tyres . . . But yes, it doesn't make much sense."

refers to the new film, Fury Road, which seems to start about where The Road Warrior ended, as far as Max and the V8 are concerned, elsewhere in the wasteland decades or generations have passed.

[Lianachan]

The Mad Max series never really created a, for want of a better word, convincing enough post-apoc world for me. I loved the first film, liked the second, but could not abide Beyond Thunderthighs. This, of course, doesn't really sit well with my love of films like Stake Land, although in my defense I also love A Boy and His Dog and The Road.

[Heid the Ba]

I haven't seen Thunderdome, or any of the others.

[Lianachan]

I haven't seen Thunderdome, or any of the others.

A Boy and His Dog is extremely weird - highly recommended!

[Lianachan]

Of course, the most unsettling post-apoc film of all time has to be Threads.

[Enzo]

Oh well, my sister and brother in law are convinced I don't like ANY movie. Well, other than My Cousin Vinnie.