# Mad Max Fury Road question **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 16, 2015, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687 "2015-11-16T12:57:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/1 "2015-11-16T12:57:26Z")
Much of the interior of Australia is desert or very dry right now. It might be made even worse after a nuclear war. What I cant get is why don’t they live on the coasts where already the best land is? Also, why not build boats and try for some of the other islands like New Zealand? ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/2 "2015-11-16T13:19:08Z")
New Zealand has orcs, cave trolls, and Nazgûl. Not really an improvement. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/3 "2015-11-16T13:43:47Z")
The first MM film was made/set in Melbourne, which is where I live. My assumption is that Melbourne got nuked, along with Australia’s other major cities, which is why everyone lives in the desert now. There are, of course, plenty of temperate parts of Australia outside the major cities, pretty much the whole eastern third of the continent is green, and there are plenty of green bits elsewhere also. The real reason is because they wanted to set post apocalyptic hotrod movies in the desert. It doesn’t make actual sense because it’s an action movie, you just have to go with it and enjoy the ride. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/4 "2015-11-16T13:47:12Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Also, why not build boats and try for some of the other islands like New Zealand? [Tasmania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmania) is a heck of a lot closer than NZ, and is also cool, damp, and green. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/5 "2015-11-16T14:02:04Z")
Australia is about as large as the United States. Even if some people did make it to the coast, there is room for Fury Road to be about the people who stayed behind, preferring the certainty of the Citadel and its water pumps to the possibility of unnuked yet habitable territory elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/6 "2015-11-16T14:15:25Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Much of the interior of Australia is desert or very dry right now. It might be made even worse after a nuclear war. > > What I cant get is why don’t they live on the coasts where already the best land is? Also, why not build boats and try for some of the other islands like New Zealand? I believe that in the world of Mad Max there is no coast because the seas are actually gone. In the film when they talk about loading up the bikes and driving across the salt flats for 160 days, those salt flats are actually where the ocean was. I haven’t read the comics or played the computer game but apparently thats the backstory, there are pictures of the Sydney opera house in the middle of a desert. Whether the numbers make sense or the seas disappearing makes sense or not, thats the world imagined for the films, so, they can’t just sail to New Zealand. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/7 "2015-11-16T14:19:32Z")
I was under the impression that “the salt” was an extremely receded Pacific Ocean. How that happens, I don’t know (I’m pretty sure that’s impossible, at least in any manner that would preserve human habitability, but the internal logic of the movies is not necessarily consistent). The women say they had enough supplies to ride across the desert for 160 days, and Max was certain they’d still end up in the middle of nowhere. You can _walk_ across the USA in 6 months! Now, who knows what Max really knows (or doesn’t). ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/8 "2015-11-16T15:28:06Z")
It’s not even all that clear that “Fury Road” takes place in Australia. It wasn’t filmed there, there is no reference to it taking place there, not everyone has an Australian accent, and it seems to exist in a universe somewhat different from the other Mad Max films. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/9 "2015-11-16T15:43:35Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > I was under the impression that “the salt” was an extremely receded Pacific Ocean. How that happens, I don’t know (I’m pretty sure that’s impossible, at least in any manner that would preserve human habitability, but the internal logic of the movies is not necessarily consistent). The women say they had enough supplies to ride across the desert for 160 days, and Max was certain they’d still end up in the middle of nowhere. You can _walk_ across the USA in 6 months! > > Now, who knows what Max really knows (or doesn’t). That was my impression as well. Or that there wasn’t any “best land” left anywhere and that the only advantage to being on the coast would be that you have a nice view of the ocean. Or if there is, this isn’t a story about the people who live there. It’s a story about the people who live in what became a wasteland. I feel I should point out that a major plot element of Mad Max 2, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Mad Max: Fury Road is a group of people attempting to find a better place to live. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/10 "2015-11-16T15:47:29Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It’s not even all that clear that “Fury Road” takes place in Australia. It wasn’t filmed there, there is no reference to it taking place there, not everyone has an Australian accent, and it seems to exist in a universe somewhat different from the other Mad Max films. It’s not even all that clear the Fury Road takes place on Earth. The first three films had very different tones, but they had clear ties back to 20th century civilization. Even if it was just the remnants of highways and road signs. My only major beef with Fury Road was that this seems to be a world where every trace of 20th century civilization was wiped clean from the Earth (except for the vehicles). ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/11 "2015-11-16T16:06:04Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s not even all that clear the Fury Road takes place on Earth. The first three films had very different tones, but they had clear ties back to 20th century civilization. Even if it was just the remnants of highways and road signs. My only major beef with Fury Road was that this seems to be a world where every trace of 20th century civilization was wiped clean from the Earth (except for the vehicles). I disagree - most of the culture of the Citadel and (from what we can tell from the leaders) the Bullet Farm and Gas Town is heavily based on fetishizing specific remnants of the world that was. The psuedo-military decorations, the personalized armors and vehicle decorations, even the scarification all have references to our current world. I can’t find an image on a cursory search, but one of the polecats even has a creepy-ass baby doll on his helmet. The culture is extremely heavily vehicle-based, but not exclusively so. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/12 "2015-11-16T16:23:44Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s not even all that clear the Fury Road takes place on Earth. The first three films had very different tones, but they had clear ties back to 20th century civilization. Even if it was just the remnants of highways and road signs. My only major beef with Fury Road was that this seems to be a world where every trace of 20th century civilization was wiped clean from the Earth (except for the vehicles). What about the old women, talking about satellites and how everybody had shows, about seeds and how things used to be? What about all the fetishes worn by Immortan Joe and Rictus, the bullet farmer and his brothers "Hessler and Koch? There were also plenty of references to the “world” falling, who killed the world and all that, I think it was made perfectly clear that this was earth after everything went to hell. ---
**Author:** ![Bonaventure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@Bonaventure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonaventure)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/13 "2015-11-16T16:30:44Z")
Don’t forget the awesome guitar set-up. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/14 "2015-11-16T16:57:23Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It’s not even all that clear that “Fury Road” takes place in Australia. It wasn’t filmed there, there is no reference to it taking place there, not everyone has an Australian accent, and it seems to exist in a universe somewhat different from the other Mad Max films. Plus IIRC, all the vehicles except for Max’s car are left-hand drive. So a somewhat fanwanky explanation is that the first three movies take place in Australia, but Max has since journeyed out across the dry ocean basins to somewhere else where they once drove on the left. Of course, I like the theory that the Mad Max movies are some sort of oral tradition, with the first film being a only-slightly-exaggerated account of something that actually happened just before the apocalypse, but all the subsequent ones being conjured by storytellers around post-apocalyptic campfires inventing new situations for the popular Mad Max figure to get involved in. Hence the lack of any particular plot consistency between the films and their increasing zaniness. So perhaps with _Fury Road_ that particular bit of folklore has crossed the ocean and the storyteller is from somewhere else. Or maybe it was just cheaper to shoot in Namibia. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/15 "2015-11-16T18:39:12Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > I believe that in the world of Mad Max there is no coast because the seas are actually gone. In the film when they talk about loading up the bikes and driving across the salt flats for 160 days, those salt flats are actually where the ocean was. I haven’t read the comics or played the computer game but apparently thats the backstory, there are pictures of the Sydney opera house in the middle of a desert. In the game, it’s very obvious that the oceans are gone. Well, for one thing Max actually says “all the water is gone” but, beyond that, people live in the hulking ruins of cargo ships beached near where the coastline would have been. Beyond that is just endless expanses of salt flat where the ocean had gone away and left nothing. The franchise never really says where all the water went – nuclear war, global warming, whatever – which works just as well since you don’t pick apart why nuclear war wouldn’t do that. You just accept for the Mad Max story that all the water is gone because it is. In the game, people set out water collectors to harvest enough dew to survive. In the film, I assume the water comes from some deep underground water table unaffected by whatever boiled away the oceans. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/16 "2015-11-16T20:20:04Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > Or maybe it was just cheaper to shoot in Namibia. IIRC, the weather in Australia wasn’t cooperating and made everything too green. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/17 "2015-11-16T20:23:54Z")
At least in Thunderdome Max admitted he used to be a cop and they used an old record player which translated … what was it French? Also up till Fury Road I’d say the vehicles at least were plausible. Vehicles used normal parts and fittings. Now that flame thrower guitar vehicle though was just crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/18 "2015-11-16T21:06:35Z")
Just a note…the nukes didn’t drop until between Road Warrior and Thunderdome. Mad Max is set at the beginning of a cultural collapse due to gas shortages. Road Warrior is the culmination of that and a conventional war (also caused by - and exacerbating - the gas shortages). Beyond Thunderdome brings with it the first mention of nuclear weapons (presumably a failed Hail Mary by the major powers in the war), and the results thereof (irradiated water, specifically). ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/19 "2015-11-17T02:51:15Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > At least in Thunderdome Max admitted he used to be a cop and they used an old record player which translated … what was it French? > > Also up till Fury Road I’d say the vehicles at least were plausible. Vehicles used normal parts and fittings. > > Now that flame thrower guitar vehicle though was just crazy. All those vehicles were real, not CGI. The Doof-wagon (for that was its name) was built on the base of a military missile launcher truck. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/20 "2015-11-17T03:02:21Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > At least in Thunderdome Max admitted he used to be a cop and they used an old record player which translated … what was it French? > > Also up till Fury Road I’d say the vehicles at least were plausible. Vehicles used normal parts and fittings. > > Now that flame thrower guitar vehicle though was just crazy. He said he was a cop in Fury Road. Third line in the film. “My name is Max. My world is fire and blood. Once, I was a cop.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687.md?page=2)