# Please Explain Mad Max to Me **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 10, 2005, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077 "2005-12-10T23:47:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2005, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/1 "2005-12-10T23:47:53Z")
Okay, I’ve seen Mad Max. I’ve seen Beyond Thunderdome. Haven’t seen the Road Warrior, but that’s because it wasn’t available for rental on DVD last time I thought about it. So can someone please explain to me what the heck is going on? Would it make more sense if I watched the Road Warrior or what? I mean, I get that he’s a hero in a post-nuclear wasteland but what the heck is actually going on? And how does he get from being a cop to fighting Tina Turner? ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2005, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/2 "2005-12-10T23:51:21Z")
He’s a cop named Max in a post-apocolyptic world. The bad guys do terrible things to him and his family and he gets very, very mad. Bloodshed ensues. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/3 "2005-12-11T00:17:01Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > Would it make more sense if I watched the Road Warrior or what? Yes. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/4 "2005-12-11T00:52:48Z")
They’re running out of gas, so to compensate they drive _really fast_. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/5 "2005-12-11T01:16:24Z")
Max was the Australian equivalent of a State Trooper, patrolling vast stretches of highway far from the nearest police station. In a way he’s like the US Marshals or Texas Rangers in an old western movie, only with a car instead of a horse. All three movies revolve around cars (_vehicles_ in Aussie) and how they influence life in post-apocalyptic times. Briefly, mobility makes it possbile to live a nomadic plunderer/conquerer lifestyle. The three movies cover three post-apocalyptic periods: in the first (Mad Max), civilization is dying. In the second (Road Warrior) life has reverted to total savagery, and the third (Thunder Dome), a barbaric civilization is being slowly rebuilt. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/6 "2005-12-11T01:20:09Z")
It’s been a while since I saw the flicks, but I got the feeling that the nuclear war happened after Mad Max, before Road Warrior. Civilization was already dying in Mad Max, though. ---
**Author:** ![lonesome\_loser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@lonesome\_loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lonesome_loser)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/7 "2005-12-11T01:29:58Z")
Mad Max is just a revenge movie. You hurt me and mine and I get you. Road Warrior is the best of the three. ---
**Author:** ![brownie55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@brownie55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownie55)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/8 "2005-12-11T01:37:04Z")
> [@lonesome loser](#): > > Mad Max is just a revenge movie. You hurt me and mine and I get you. > > Road Warrior is the best of the three. Yeah, but the hurt he puts on them makes it an art movie. Road Warrior is just a standard action flick. Mad Max is a subtle and nuanced look at the psyche of a tortured cop. The accents rule, too. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/9 "2005-12-11T01:45:28Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > All three movies revolve around cars (_vehicles_ in Aussie) No, we call them cars too. Vehicle is a broader term including pretty much anything on wheels. ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/10 "2005-12-11T01:59:34Z")
> [@brownie55](#): > > Yeah, but the hurt he puts on them makes it an art movie. > > Road Warrior is just a standard action flick. Mad Max is a subtle and nuanced look at the psyche of a tortured cop. The accents rule, too. Didn’t they originally dub the American release of Mad Max with an American accent? As I remember it, it was pretty atrocious. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/11 "2005-12-11T02:01:43Z")
Mad Max hardcore fans routinely debate if Thunderdome and Road Warrior are separate timelines. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/12 "2005-12-11T02:16:52Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > It’s been a while since I saw the flicks, but I got the feeling that the nuclear war happened after Mad Max, before Road Warrior. Civilization was already dying in Mad Max, though. Yes. That’s what is explained in the introduction to _Road Warrior_. _Mad Max_ is a Charles Bronson revenge flick. Max Rockatansky is a good cop, a young hotshot with nerves of steel. Outlaw Bikers murder Max’s partner, wife & sprog. He goes a little crazy, steals the police department’s fastest car, a souped up Ford Falcon XB with a giant blower sticking out of the hood and hunts the bikers down. Of all 3 films, the one that stands best on its own is _Road Warrior_. It opens with a spoken introduction over stock war footage, oil wells pumping, the famous drive through the travel trailer from the first film and stock shots of nuclear explosions. Max is driving through the desert in the same car and the same leathers, all of which are aged and distressed to show he’s been living rough on the road for a long time. It’s basically _Shane_, with Max as the gunslinger with no name coming to the aid of a group of pioneers and defeating the Bad Guys (who make the outlaw bikers from the first film look like boy scouts) for his own reasons. Possibly the destruction of his sweet car and his Aussie Cattle Dog. There’s even a kid too. _Beyond Thunderdome_ was apparently written by a committee. it is much more of a hollywood film than the first 2 and suffers from it. ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/13 "2005-12-11T03:11:43Z")
One of my [early threads](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=31895) here. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/14 "2005-12-11T05:30:39Z")
Virginia Hey plays one of the pioneers. She’s the fox who played Miss Fitzhenry, the former high school teacher who gets hit on by one of her students (Bugsy Brown, who tries the “haven’t we met before” bit on her without realizing exactly _why_ she seems so familiar) in an Aussie-imported Oil of Olay commercial. Later on, she painted herself blue for a role on _Farscape_. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/15 "2005-12-11T06:38:40Z")
> [@BMax](#): > > … Max Rockatansky … NO! Maybe if he was from freakin’ New Freakin’ Jersey! ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/16 "2005-12-11T07:02:27Z")
Part of it for me was it was Australian, and prior to that, I’d never seen anything Australian. If I had, it sucked. Pretty much the way almost everything from other countries sucked. The exception being say, Monty Python or Benny Hill. But pretty much everything else from overseas sucked. Hard. Mad Max was pretty awesome, in those days. Ultraviolence. Pop culture was going through a punk-post-punk transition, and Mad Max/Road Warrior were right on queue. And Mel Gibson was really, really hot. Beyond the Thunderdome. Meh. That was all MTV music video Duran Duran commercialized bullshit. As far as I’m concerned, it never happened. ---
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/17 "2005-12-11T10:19:01Z")
> [@gatopescado](#): > > NO! > > Maybe if he was from freakin’ New Freakin’ Jersey! But that was his name. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/18 "2005-12-11T12:05:39Z")
> [@BMax](#): > > Of all 3 films, the one that stands best on its own is _Road Warrior_. It opens with a spoken introduction over stock war footage, oil wells pumping, the famous drive through the travel trailer from the first film and stock shots of nuclear explosions. Max is driving through the desert in the same car and the same leathers, all of which are aged and distressed to show he’s been living rough on the road for a long time. It’s basically _Shane_, with Max as the gunslinger with no name coming to the aid of a group of pioneers and defeating the Bad Guys (who make the outlaw bikers from the first film look like boy scouts) for his own reasons. Possibly the destruction of his sweet car and his Aussie Cattle Dog. There’s even a kid too. > > _Beyond Thunderdome_ was apparently written by a committee. it is much more of a hollywood film than the first 2 and suffers from it. Well, Thunderdome did give us ‘Two men enter. One man leave.’ so that’s worth something. As for Road Warrior I don’t think you can summarize is without noting that it’s basic premise builds on the concept of the man for whom there is nothing finding that there **is** something for which to live. At the beginning Max is emotionally dead. He’s still in shock from the events of Mad Max (exacerbated by the offscreen war and collapse) and eventually finds that he can still find something worth contributing towards in the world. He has a place in the world and personal connections to make. It’s a worthy tale. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/19 "2005-12-11T14:18:32Z")
^^^Max just barely barely learns this lesson in RW (he drives the truck for fairly selfish reasons, but along the way saves the Feral Kid, etc.). For all its faults, he really does get most of his humanity back in MMBT. Which is why I think a 4th film would be pointless. Years ago, Gibson said he would do one, but he was of the opinion Max should die in it. I have no idea what the aborted “Fury Road” would have been about. Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077/20 "2005-12-11T14:47:51Z")
It’s a metaphor. In The Road Warrior, Max, with his guns and gas guzzling car, is called apon to rescue a bunch of oil-rich conservatives who cling to the old world and are under seige by an army of homosexuals led by an intellectual. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-mad-max-to-me/335077.md?page=2)