Fury Road supposedly takes place roughly 45 years after the collapse of civilization. That leads to a few possibilities: 1) Max ages very well, 2) Max is “some sort of corporeal undead Ronin” as suggested by dzeiger, 3) Max’s backstory has changed and in this timeline he was never a cop with a family, or 4) look over there! Shiny!
I waver between #3 and #4.
ETA: Actually, he says he was a cop in the opening monologue. So #4 it is for me.
Heh definitely #4 for me. 
The timeline is never going to make any sense, isn’t really supposed to.
The timeline really doesn’t work. In the first Mad Max movie the world is in chaos, but hasn’t fallen yet - in the second and third, everything is post-apocalyptic and has been for some time. In Fury Road, only Max and the old women remember the time of Civilization, and everyone else has only been told about it.
Maybe Max is immortal. Poor bastard.
On an entirely different note, I loved the way that Hardy portrayed Max as being genuinely insane. Not just “Woo hoo! I’m so CRAAAYZZZYYYY!!!” but as being legitimately psychologically damaged by his experiences. A figure to pity as much as to cheer for.
One of the three settlements Joe rules is a refinery. The guy with the missing nose and the gross feet runs it. As for the fully functioning rock concert mounted on the back of a speeding truck, my understanding is that what we see on the screen is exactly what they built and raced out in Namibia.
I thought the first three offered a fairly sensible timeline, only this one makes no sense.
Is Fury Road even set explicitly in Australia?
It looks exactly as I picture Australia - only less beer and cane toads.
This thread is no longer shiny or chrome.
Sorry it is my nature 
Mediocre.
Oddly enough, this one wasn’t filmed there. It was filmed in Namibia.
(and for those who want more descriptions on links, someone posted pictures of Mad Max-inspired LEgo builds, including a Doof Wagon. Though the double-Ghostbusters hearse was pretty cool as well)
We have all seen the flamethrowing ukulele, yes?
(and for those who want more descriptions on links, it’s a flamethrowing ukulele.)
Is it wrong of me to think that maybe at the end Max was going back to get what’s left of his car? They left an awfully long debris field across the desert, he might be able to put it back together with all the spare parts out there.
It not only isn’t wrong, it’s brilliant. I hope Dr. Miller is reading along and taking notes for the next movie.
ETA: By the way, I never got the sense that Immortan Joe ruled anything other than his little water empire. It seemed to me that Gas and Bullets were their own city-states and that the 3 had an alliance because they were mutually interdependent to a great degree. I’m not sure where some of y’all got the idea that Joe ruled all 3 places.
If he doesn’t have some sort of power over them, why were they participating in the war party to track down the wives? They don’t give a shit if Joe gets his kid back.
Fury Road 2: Mad Max Rebuilds a Car
And so began the journey north to find my V8 Interceptor, to find the parts in the desert. Among them I found a new steering wheel - the part that blew off the War Rig…the Skull. And just as Furiosa had planned, we traveled far beyond the reach of the Buzzards. The parts, the precious parts, were hidden in the sand.
It seemed like the leaders of the Gas and Bullet farms were joining the chase not entirely of their own free will. One of them commented about all this effort for a family squabble. If Joe didn’t hold some power over them, I don’t think they would have participated.
Joe calling in his favours, or the others wanting to put Joe under an obligation?
Even if he can’t out-and-out order these other leaders to help him, he can make it worth their while, or they may want to oblige him. It wasn’t clear whether Joe was a leader issuing orders, or a first-among-equals in an alliance requesting favours.
People will die in three days without water, and that’s what Joe has control of. You can live your whole life without gasoline and bullets.
I think he has the most necessary of the resources, so they other two have to listen when he squawks.
True, but there is a whole lotta room between being first among nominally equal chiefs, and ruling them as a god-king like he rules his own folks.
In the movie, I sorta got the impression that the rulers of the other two towns were chiefs in alliance with Joe, not total subordinates. True that Joe was the most important and he had the most weight, but all three acted in concert.
For example, where Joe’s own folks literally worshipped him as a god, the leaders of the other two towns did not: hence the wearied aside “all this over a family squabble”, which could not have come from a true Joe-worshipper.
True.