# 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:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/41 "2016-01-27T04:37:35Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Although in a way, it is kind of neat how Fury Road does appear to be set in a sort of nonsensical “not too distant future” from the late 70s/early 80s. It’s the future of Reaganomics run amok combined with the eschatology of the Nietzsche. Now I’m having flashbacks of high school. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![rainy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@rainy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rainy)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/42 "2016-01-27T16:08:17Z")
So Max is basically saying the whole planet is wasteland. Because if they ride for 160 days, and make 160 miles per day, at 20 MPH, that’s 25,600 miles in range.\*\*\* The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,900 miles. Or Max is full of crap / bad at math. \*\*\* Nevermind how they would carry…with them…on motorcycles…the 320 gallons of gas for EACH BIKE for the trip. Gas weighing over a ton, and needing 64 five gallon cans to transport it. I still loved this movie though. My personal theory is that there is a deleted scene where one of the old women says; “There’s nearly 10,000 gallons of gas in the truck. We could take the bikes and ride for 160 days with that much fuel if we leave the truck here.” Max “How would we transport that much gas?” OW “On the truck.” Max “The one you just said we’d leave here?” OW “That’s it exactly.” Max “Oy! The water out here is bad. Back to the citadel, then!” ---
**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:** [January 27, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/43 "2016-01-27T16:23:01Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It made sense in that it was the only plan they had. The other alternative was to drive out into the endless salt flats and wander around until they ran out of supplies. Given that it probably takes 3-4 days to drive the length of Australia, I have to assume that the oceans receded somehow and it was now connected with Asia. Of course, none of them really knew what they were doing so it was more likely that they’d take off northwest towards Canada and die somewhere in the middle of the Pacific ocean. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Right, and where those women somehow survived for years despite the wetlands having become a poisonous swamp. I was under the impression that they were the few survivors of a previously much larger tribe. Everyone else had died off over the years but it’s not as though they had anywhere else to go where they wouldn’t be killed by road warriors in spiky VW Bugs. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/44 "2016-01-27T16:29:01Z")
> [@guestchaz](#): > > I didn’t know till just now what the chronology of the books was, but everything I’ve read online about this says that Fury Road is “connected but the timeline is loose” which sounds like a weaselish way of saying what you said and additionally from a different source the opinion the movie was quite possibly a sequel to the game (not sure what that means exactly) Max’s world has “moved on.” It is a well established fact that in such worlds time and distance become fluid. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/45 "2016-01-27T17:16:28Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Of course, none of them really knew what they were doing so it was more likely that they’d take off northwest towards Canada and die somewhere in the middle of the Pacific ocean. > > I was under the impression that they were the few survivors of a previously much larger tribe. Everyone else had died off over the years but it’s not as though they had anywhere else to go where they wouldn’t be killed by road warriors in spiky VW Bugs. Yet they were setting traps, not laying low. And I still don’t know where they are getting water on a daily basis. ---
**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:** [January 27, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/46 "2016-01-27T17:54:34Z")
They were setting traps because it was their turf even if it was terrible turf. In the Mad Max video game, everyone seems to collect water via condensation stills (basically funneling dew into cans) so I assume they got enough water from something like that to live on but not enough for agriculture or anything else. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/47 "2016-01-27T18:30:39Z")
Ahhh. Would have been nice to see this shown even if very briefly. Especially since the desperate masses gathered around to catch the water that briefly deluged them suggested otherwise. ---
**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:** [January 27, 2016, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/48 "2016-01-27T18:32:20Z")
Well, if you were living off of a couple mouthfuls of dew water a day, you’d probably come out for Waterpalooza as well 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/49 "2016-01-27T19:24:40Z")
I love the movie, but the water distribution scenes bug me. All the people holding up their containers, trying to catch the falling water - um, hello, you guys are standing ankle-deep in water! Scoop it up and let the silt settle, yeesh. (Can possibly be fanwanked away by some ‘sour earth’ rationalization.) ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/50 "2016-01-27T19:47:12Z")
> [@rainy](#): > > So Max is basically saying the whole planet is wasteland. > > Because if they ride for 160 days, and make 160 miles per day, at 20 MPH, that’s 25,600 miles in range.\*\*\* The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,900 miles. > > Or Max is full of crap / bad at math. > > \*\*\* Nevermind how they would carry…with them…on motorcycles…the 320 gallons of gas for EACH BIKE for the trip. Gas weighing over a ton, and needing 64 five gallon cans to transport it. I finally figured out the problem of both why it would take 160 days and how they’d carry the gas. First day, they take enough gas for 400 miles. They drive 100 miles, leave half the gas, then drive back and get more. Next day they do the same thing, but this time they can get a little farther because they left a store of gas 100 miles out. Leave some more gas 200 miles out, then drive back and refill. Each time out they get a little farther, and each time they leave little stores of gas at checkpoints. Eventually they can make it to wherever they’re going, but it takes a hell of a long time because of all the back and forth trips. Come on, it makes perfect sense! ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/51 "2016-01-27T20:25:28Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Come on, it makes perfect sense! Brilliant! 😃 But, seriously, guys: Nothing about the bike ride across the salt flats makes any gosh-darned, mother-flapping sense. That’s pretty obvious. And I have to admit: That was the one moment where I though, yeah, OK, someone has been buying the unreliable narrator too many drinks. But you sort of have to roll with it. Logistically, it’s all nonsense, but it’s like trying to calculate how big Xerxes’ marching column would have been if his army really had three million soldiers, or whatever. It would probably stretch all the way from Greece back to Persia. And anyway, Xerxes having an army that big is just pants-on-head preposterous to begin with. It doesn’t really matter: You just need to know that it was a big-ass army. Or, in the case of _Mad Max_, some big-ass salt flats. Or, it’s like interrupting Homer while he’s reciting the Odyssey, to point out that the islands he’s describing don’t actually match the geography of the Aegean Sea, and even with stops along the way, surely it wouldn’t take \*that \*long to make it back to Ithaca. Shut up, and listen to the story. And someone buy Homer another drink. Same with the collecting water from dew thing. Sure they \*could \*have shown that, or something like it, but it’s not really the point. Again, that’s just interrupting the drunken unreliable narrator. “They must have had \*some \*water, surely?” “Look, punk, it’s the \*wasteland! \* They have _no damned water!_ OK? Now, where was I…” And, yeah, I’ll go pretty far out on a limb to defend this movie, even though I usually tell, for instance, your average stupid super hero movie to get lost. Because other movies tend to be stupid in a stupid way. This one, when it gets stupid, is stupid in a smart way. Or at least that’s my working theory at the moment. ---
**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:** [January 27, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/52 "2016-01-27T20:46:29Z")
I figured that they had enough supplies as in _food_ to last 160 days and were going to take the bikes pretty much until the gas ran out. Not so much that they’d ride the bikes for 160 days but maybe for 10-20 days before abandoning them but still being a lot further along than they would have been otherwise. But I’ll also admit that much of the story is nonsensical even if it is very entertaining. ---
**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:** [January 27, 2016, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/53 "2016-01-27T21:02:23Z")
I give a lot of the “that doesn’t make sense” stuff in Fury Road a pass since I like to think of the story as more of a legend or folklore being retold. Some details are sketchy, some wrong, some exaggerated or even made up. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/54 "2016-01-27T21:15:02Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > 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). Wouldn’t it be ironic if those salt flats just stretched over the horizon, and on the other side there was a city that was still on the grid? Maybe someone from over there shows up at some point. “What are you screwing around in this desert for? We still have cable TV and supermarkets on the other side of the flats. Those satellites you mentioned? Yeah, they’re still running. Who told you to turn back when you wanted to cross? That Max guy? What did you listen to him for? He’s a nutcase.” ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/55 "2016-01-27T23:47:42Z")
I love that! Kind of like in \*LOST \*when they reveal the “Others” are baking cookies and having book clubs. ---
**Author:** ![Dajn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@Dajn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dajn)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/56 "2016-01-28T02:04:39Z")
“You know hope is a mistake. If you can’t fix what’s broken you will go insane”. Tom hardy is god. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687/57 "2016-01-28T23:26:43Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > " … Who told you to turn back when you wanted to cross? That Max guy? What did you listen to him for? He’s a nutcase." “Crap. We thought they called him ‘Mad’ Max because he always seems pissed off about something. Seems kind of obvious in retrospect.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-max-fury-road-question/737687.md?page=2)