Nor am I, maybe someone else can help but I think it was based on an old TV commercial ‘series’. Or some other culturally-relevant thing.
Personally it looked, to me, like a homage to Thelma & Louise but I might have the wrong end of the stick.
That’s a shame.
But yeah, just watched it today: very good stuff. Some of the dream animation (the “parade”) reminded me of Spirited Away (I wonder if that’s just sort of Japanese cultural collective consciousness or what), although I wouldn’t consider the film to be on the transcendent level of Miyazaki’s chef-d’œuvre. I give it a very solid 8/10, right in the ballpark of other mind-benders like the original Matrix, 12 Monkeys, and Mulholland Drive. It ranks eighth of the 58 animated films I have ranked (see where all 58 stack up here).
Thanks for the recommendation!
Sorry I’m very late to this explanation.
The original story the movie is based on was written by a man named Barry Crump. He was a rough rural character, much like Sam Neill was playing in the movie.
Crumpy, as he was known, did a series of ads for Toyota Hilux trucks, or utes*, alongside actor Lloyd Scott, where he drove Scotty around in a wild fashion, crashing through the bush, down rivers, and through the mud. Not an exaggeration, either, it’s a fun way to drive around the countryside, as I’m sure anyone from a rural part of any country will tell you.
Those ads, including an opposite one where Scotty drove Crumpy through the city streets in a similarly wild fashion, were huge hits and part of NZ pop culture for several years, and beyond.
So the references are:
[ul]
[li]Barry Crump is the author of Wild Pork and Watercress, the book Hunt For The Wilderpeople is based on.[/li][li]Crumpy and Lloyd Scott made a series of ads for Toyota Hilux.[/li][li]The Toyota ute in the movie is named “Crumpy”.[/li][li]The chase sequence uses almost exact angles and lines of dialogue from those ads.[/li][li]The hapless tourist in the middle of the road that just misses being hit by the ute is played by Lloyd Scott.[/li][/ul]
*Short for Utility
Glad you enjoyed it. It’s a great movie and I know he had more left in him before he died.
All this talk of unique animated films, have you seen "Anomalisa?
No, I agree with you as well. I saw it in the theater (IMAX screen) and thought it was well done and looked great, but I’d seen it all before. I’m guessing that everyone who heaps high praise on it has never seen the original trilogy.
I find it very difficult to call a film the “Best of…” if it’s either a reboot or a remake.
I prefer the film to be something that I’ve never seen before and that sticks with me long after I’ve left the theater.
(bolding mine)
What a ridiculous, dismissive and patronizing thing to say.
Why? I spoke to an art class last year, (my friend who I saw the film with teaches it), and about 15 of the 20 students (20-24 years old) saw “Fury Road” and only one of the 15 had seen any of the original films (he saw “The Road Warrior”).
So I make a comment based on an actual verification and I’m being ridiculous, dismissive and patronizing?
Oh well…
Hmmm, I’m going to have to agree with Richard John Marcej if he, in fact, spoke to 20 art students. I mean, one art class must surely be a representative sample of everyone who saw and enjoyed the film.
Well done with the strenuous sampling there, Richard John Marcej!
Jesus, have I committed some sort of sin for daring to say something negative about Mad Max Fury Road? Hell, I liked the damn film, but pointed out the fact that it was a remake/reboot. It had been done before. And it just so happened that a group of people that I spoke to, had never seen or were aware that there were THREE films similarly done a few decades ago.
Did I say that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who feel that it’s the best film of all time didn’t know that it was a reboot/remake.
No Of course not. But many people that I’ve actually spoke with, not jut typed with on a message board, weren’t aware.
My god, give it a rest.
I’ve seen all the Road Warrior movies as far as I know (there weren’t any between “Thunderdome” and the recent one, were there?). And I consider this latest outing to be pretty wildly overrated, although certainly not a bad movie.
But I do think Richard John Marcej went too far out on a limb in saying “I’m guessing that everyone who heaps high praise on it has never seen the original trilogy.” If he had said “many people” instead of “everyone”, OTOH, I might defend his position to some extent. However, a nearly unanimous chorus of movie critics went nuts over the film, and I think it’s likely that most of them have seen the original films.
I did. And as with both of us and Mad Max, I was somewhat underwhelmed. I mean, I actually *liked *the movie if you remove its pedigree and my expectations, no question. But the three earlier films written by Charlie Kaufman (and directed by others) got rankings from me of 30, 73, and 77, while the one that he wrote *and *directed (before also doing so with Anomalisa) is my #4 all time film. So although my #544 ranking for *Anomalisa *is still soild (right in the neighborhood of quality films like My Own Private Idaho and Ugetsu), it was nevertheless a disappointment given what I had come to expect. (Paprika, for comparison, is my #344.)
Yes, you did. Or do you have some alternate definition of “everyone” that does not mean “everyone”?
I read a review, thought it sounded interesting, and then looked up the trailer. shudder Waaaaaaay to far into the Uncanny Valley for my taste.
Mad Max was the first movie in the trilogy. Road Warrior was a sequel.
And Mad Max was the weakest of the series. They found the right aesthetic with Road Warrior.
This statement is… Mediocre.
I’ve seen the original 3, 2 & 3 in the theater, and I’m back on page 1 of this thread saying MMFR is the best movie of the past 3 years.
Fury Road hit every note perfectly. It intended to be the most over-the-top absurd car chase film ever made and it succeeded.
Right, I saw MM, Road Warrior, and Thunderdome back in the day. (So weird that there is one entry in the series before nuclear Armageddon.)
I’m trying to picture this in my mind. You talked to a room full of undergrads, right? Most of whom, maybe all of whom, were born years after the last Mad Max movie was released? One of them had seen this old movie anyway? And from that sample of teenagers and early 20-somethingers, you concluded that “everyone who heaps high praise on it has never seen the original trilogy”?
Just making sure I understand :).
For myself, in my forties, I’ve only seen one of the original trilogy (and the ending of another in the original), so yeah, my praise for the new one doesn’t come with super-expert background knowledge. The new one had a very different aesthetic from the bits I saw of the old one, substituting acrobats for machismo in a lot of scenes, plus also complete ridiculousness. If the originals had been half this funny, I would’ve seen the whole trilogy.
My teenage daughter, who incidentally is at a university for art, has seen the original MM movies and says Fury Road is her favorite movie, ever.
So not only not everyone, but not even every art student.