At the end of Beyond Thunderdome, “Mad Max” stays behind so the lost children can escape.
But in The Road Warrior he could have gone north with the settlers, but it seems like he chooses to stay behind.
Why does he stay behind? Did I miss something?
Think Moses or Ethan Edwards. That’s my take on it.
Dude!! I decided to brush up on Thunderdome, and look! A new MM film:
My WAG is that he stays to police the badlands. A force for good in a world gone bad.
In the first Mad Max movie (IIRC) he was a police officer and went off the deep end after his wife and son are killed by a biker gang. After torturing and killing the bad guys he wanders off into the sunset ready to take on all forces of evil.
That’s paraphrasing, mostly what I remember of the first movie is bad sound levels and lots of yelling.
It fits into the lonely male drifter trope/idea that we have about him.
He’s just not that into them.
Seriously, he is a wanderer. No ties. No shirts, either, come to think of it. The Road is his home.
I would’ve thought of getting some medical attention before loping off again, but it makes a wicked cool visual for the ending as it is.
As mentioned above, a viewing of Mad Max would help one get a handle on the Road Warrior’s mental state. It’s the earlier movie in the series, but I don’t think it was USA available until after RW made money here.
Once he loses his wife and child in the first movie, Max no longer makes long-term attachments to others.
Glad Mel isn’t playing Max in the new one.
I’m not. If Mel was playing Max againthen he could be out saving the world from the evil jew biker gangs who only want to rape our women and steal our gas.
He has serious commitment and trust issues. But, then again, a lot of folks are always trying to kill him.
Actually, it’s for the same reason that the hero “rides off into the sunset.” It’s a Hollywood trope.
It had a limited 1980 release in the USA. Think midnight movie.
Didn’t we have a very very long thread debating whether or not Max knew he was the decoy? He might not have had a choice in the matter.
He’s a loner Dottie, a rebel.
Same thing happens in Thunderdome. He leaves so that the plane can take off.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Was that the badly re-dubbed version? I vaguely remember that, but I’m not sure of when I saw it. I think I myself didn’t see it til after RW.
Renting the Aussie language version a few years ago was a lot better for me.
FIFI !!!
This.
I was going to say Max wasn’t with the other settlers at the end of The Road Warrior, but somehow he must have got the Feral Kid back to the second convoy.
It might have been cool to see an aging Mad Max played by Mel. Plus he’s actually mad now!
I’m not sure I agree, a fourth Mad Max film showing what happened to the title character in the later years of his life could be excellent if done well, but of course that’s a very big ‘if’…
And as for the OP’s question, I just assumed its because Max is very much a loner…I do imagine though that if he survived long enough he’d settle down as leader of his own colony, maybe even help to start getting things back on track civilisation-wise (assuming there’s enough resources out there in the Mad Max story-world to make such a thing possible)
Do you have a link to that thread? I thought it was pretty obvious he didn’t know he was the decoy, but as always I’m willing to be corrected.
Whether he had a choice in the decoy strategy is another thing all together, but he did have a chance to join the group at the end. The Feral Kid got taken to the rest of the group by Gyro Captain. Max could have hitched a ride.
I would like to point out one particular nerdy avaition thing. When it comes to “one extra passenger” in small craft avaition, “one more passenger” can often be “not a bit harder to fly” but it is instead the difference between “flying poorly and not flying at ALL”.
That goes double for gyrocopter type craft which may be most ineffiecient of flying craft there is ( though they do have other advantages).
Tom Hardy is a good choice, I think.
I’d like to read that one too.
ETA: I found this but only one page long: