"Mad Max".. the original...a surprisingly affecting, emotionally harrowing film, rich with pathos and genuine tragedy.

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/images/19/mad_max.jpg http://ruthlessreviews.com/pics4/madmax3.jpg http://www.snurcher.com/people_pics/keays-byrne.1.jpg

Watching it on the AMC channel right now. Now, I've always loved this movie. Saw The Road Warrior first upon its release (not knowing it had a predecessor until years later). While The Road Warrior was simply everything a teenage boy could want in a single action movie, the first film is a surpsingly well-written, amazing, emotionally harrowing film. I shit ye not. I hadn't seen it in a few years, but watching it now....c'mon! When the riders kill his wife and child? Oh my god! I'm weeping.

Who's with me? Let's hear it for Mad Max. It's so good it almost makes me forgive Mel Gibson for being a crazed Christian zealot.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:39 (twenty years ago)

How could you not know about mad max until YEARS after seeing the road warrior? i find this hard to believe.

scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:42 (twenty years ago)

shenanigans!

j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:44 (twenty years ago)

Well, I was a kid. I mean, it wasn't decades after. It was probably like two or three years.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:44 (twenty years ago)

was beyond thunderdome the last, er, "good" mel movie? that came out in friggin' 1985! (i was never a lethal weapon fan.)

scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:46 (twenty years ago)

Gibson's permutation into religious zealot put the latest Mad Max film on hold. it was scheduled to begin filming in 2003(last i heard), but Mel decided that he wanted to go to the Middle East to make a movie instead, and you know how that story goes.

George Miller was on board and ready to go, too.

i finally saw Mad Max 2/Road Warrior all the way thru for the first time like 2 weeks ago. they really DID cop a lot of stuff from that film for the Fallout games...

kingfish, Friday, 1 April 2005 01:46 (twenty years ago)

the Fallout games?

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:47 (twenty years ago)

i was a kid too when i saw road warrior in the theatre, but i had seen the badly dubbed mad max on teevee. i saw galipoli in the theatre too. i was mel-crazy or something.

scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:47 (twenty years ago)

chicken run was the last good mel gibson movie.

j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:48 (twenty years ago)

Oh good lord, the last scene of Gallipoli can make one's head explode.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:48 (twenty years ago)

Mad Max is sooooooo good.

hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:48 (twenty years ago)

The thing is this: it's not just another dumb action movie. Sure, it's an action movie -- an amazing one -- but it's got a great, reasonably well written plot (a scarcity in this day and age). The Road Warrior was great, if a little on the thin and kinda dumb side. ..Beyond Thunderdome was pretty crap (though I quite like the first half of the film -- before Max meets up with the tribe of kids).

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:51 (twenty years ago)

george miller's next movie is about a musically talented penguin. he is really only good for mad max movies though. unless you are a big babe:pig in the city fan.

scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:51 (twenty years ago)

it's really more of a thriller than an action movie.

hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:52 (twenty years ago)

babe: pig in the city is a GREAT movie!

j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:52 (twenty years ago)

yeah, i think most people will agree that mad max is an amazing movie. an amazing no/low-budget movie too.

scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:53 (twenty years ago)

yeah, i liked the pig in the city too. not as much as road warrior though.

scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:53 (twenty years ago)

i love the year of living dangerously too. mel lost me with mrs.soffel.

scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:54 (twenty years ago)

more like mrs. awful!

o yeah! (papa la bas), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:58 (twenty years ago)

hahaha! you realize that is my favorite kind of joke ever.

scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 1 April 2005 02:00 (twenty years ago)

Haha. One of my favourite films.

I know that the only place here to get a powder blue bonds tshirt (MFP uniform) is Dimmeys. Fancy-dress movie character parties, y'see.

http://www.madmaxmovies.com is definitely worth a look.

Sasha (sgh), Friday, 1 April 2005 02:01 (twenty years ago)

both babe movies are great!

miller is a brilliant director. "lorenzo's oil" is one of my favoritest movies.

"max max" is indeed great. i wouldn't call it "rich with pathos" though, not by a long shot.

Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 1 April 2005 02:01 (twenty years ago)

i wouldn't call it "rich with pathos" though, not by a long shot.

Well, I was exaggerating to inspire participation in this thread, actually. A ploy that worked.

Until very recently, a good friend of mine insisted the MFP stood for "Mother Fucking Police!"

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 02:03 (twenty years ago)

i too fear that mel gibson's asshattery will mean that this film will be sort of underrecognized in certain quarters for some time to come.

Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 1 April 2005 02:06 (twenty years ago)

I always think of Hunters & Collectors' "Talking to a Stranger" video clip and the first Mad Max as v similar in concept and execution.

Trayce (trayce), Friday, 1 April 2005 02:14 (twenty years ago)

I always think of Hunters & Collectors' "Talking to a Stranger" video clip and the first Mad Max as v similar in concept and execution.

Oh such a classic. I find "Talking to a Stranger" closer to Peter Weir's The Last Wave, though.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 02:19 (twenty years ago)

i love these movies. i have to admit that gibson really has a ton of charisma on screen.

i think i prefer The Road Warrior because it's just so relentless.

ryan (ryan), Friday, 1 April 2005 02:30 (twenty years ago)

i think i prefer The Road Warrior because it's just so relentless.

Well, there are more mohawks and buttless leather chaps in The Road Warrior. To me, that always makes for a better film.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 02:35 (twenty years ago)

Alex, the games I'm talking about are these:

http://www.catlink.info/prodimages/FALLOUT1AND2.jpg

great games. i've talked about them a lot in the video game threads. you can get sidekick dogs to help you out, too.

kingfish van pickles (Kingfish), Friday, 1 April 2005 05:11 (twenty years ago)

Cool. I'll look for those. Who'm I kidding? I don't get to play video games anymore (my PlayStation has whole civilizations buried in the layers of dust that cover it).

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 05:25 (twenty years ago)

they're pc games, and you can quite easily find them. i.e. you should pKurAcZhAasAe them lKeAgaZlAlAy...

kingfish van pickles (Kingfish), Friday, 1 April 2005 05:28 (twenty years ago)

after you beat Fallout 2, you can continue wandering around the landscape. if you stop in the town of New Reno, some of the NPCs sing "We Don't Need Another Hero" to you...

also, all the armor/costumes in the game are based on the "one sholderpad"/"gladiator" look, as seen here in this bit of concept art from the aborted Fallout 3.

kingfish van pickles (Kingfish), Friday, 1 April 2005 05:34 (twenty years ago)

another screenshot from Fallout 2.. note the particular customization of the car.

kingfish van pickles (Kingfish), Friday, 1 April 2005 05:40 (twenty years ago)

A look adopted heartily by....

http://www.rocknworld.com/y&t/2003/mc/shout.jpg

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 05:42 (twenty years ago)

yeah, funny how George Miller & gang never grabbed on to the magic of rubbing alcohol and open flame...

kingfish van pickles (Kingfish), Friday, 1 April 2005 05:44 (twenty years ago)

L1zzie G4ng G4ng seems to have known that magic.

The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Friday, 1 April 2005 05:46 (twenty years ago)

ihttp://img49.exs.cx/img49/2027/bronzepig0uq.jpg

kingfish van pickles (Kingfish), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:05 (twenty years ago)

hahaha sexyDancer OUCH! HAHAHA OUCH! jeez.

hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:06 (twenty years ago)

i read in philip adams' column in last weekend's oz that mad max was dubbed from australian into american accents to make it more palateable to the US market! is that true?

gem (trisk), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:10 (twenty years ago)

OUCH yes! yes it is true! OUCH!

hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:11 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, featuring Casey Casem's voice (or an incredibly facsimile of same). The effect rendered the film virtually unwatchable, as there was no emotive inflection in the voice at all.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:12 (twenty years ago)

yup. the first two films were. the DVD releases put the original dialogue tracks back in, tho.

heh. i've also heard that during its original theatrical run, the UK version of Star Wars had dubbing such to reverse the accents: the heroes were british, while the Imperials all had american accents.

xpost

kingfish van pickles (Kingfish), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:13 (twenty years ago)

My dad rented Mad Max and the Road Warrior for me when I must have been 8 or 9 and they blew my mind. Before that I was so into the whole slick '80s neon futuristic vision of the world but these movies turned me all cyberpunk. I think Mad Max probably affected me in the same way that Star Wars affected the people who were a few years older.

walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:14 (twenty years ago)

that's a shame, i hoped it was just adams doing his usual grumpy harping. so you can watch it in the original australian accents now, or not?

gem (trisk), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:19 (twenty years ago)

you know, i never realized until just now that the guy who plays Wez in MM2/RW is ALSO the same guy who leads the "mutant bikers" in "Weird Science".

there's just something great about the guy playign both the original role and the one which completely cops from it.

Vernon Wells is his name.

xpost

yeah, you can. the warrior chick from then 2nd one is even hotter now with the accent.

he was also in the last Looney Tunes movie. figure that one out.

kingfish van pickles (Kingfish), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:22 (twenty years ago)

oops. those sentences are backwards. oh well.

kingfish van pickles (Kingfish), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:25 (twenty years ago)

so you can watch it in the original australian accents now, or not?

yeah, it's all been restored.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:28 (twenty years ago)

(on the left)

kingfish van pickles (Kingfish), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:29 (twenty years ago)

ok is the first mad max the one where he and his wife and baby go to their retreat in the country and that gang tracks him there and kills her? cause they showed that one on TV awhile go and said it was road warrior.

()ops (()()ps), Friday, 1 April 2005 06:51 (twenty years ago)

sizeist

difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 12 December 2014 05:55 (ten years ago)

At 1:47 you can see it's not just a guitarist, it's two figures, possibly struggling, maybe one on the other's back Or maybe an attached cut-out figure. Post-apocalyptic barbarians like their flair.

http://madmaxmovies.com/archives/web-pages/mugino-saeki-mugs-mad-max-page/max3/thund12.jpg

Also, tbf, some of the most orange stuff in that trailer is set in the middle of that CGI atomic dust storm.

Josh in Chicago, Friday, 12 December 2014 14:21 (ten years ago)

can I point out that this trailer is awesome bcz it doesn't have a single stupid loud Inceptiony BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARP foghorn sound. NOT ONE. :D

and for that I am v happy

Every single movie should be soundtracked with loud Inceptiony BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARP foghorn sounds, especially romcoms (where it should also replace the dialogue).

the farakhan of gg (DJP), Friday, 12 December 2014 14:27 (ten years ago)

VG so otm, the blast of opera instead of the post-dubstep bs we get these days was pretty refreshing

goole, Friday, 12 December 2014 15:52 (ten years ago)

that is oratorio, not opera</pedanticdick>

the farakhan of gg (DJP), Friday, 12 December 2014 15:58 (ten years ago)

ha i figured that would happen

goole, Friday, 12 December 2014 16:02 (ten years ago)

At 1:47 you can see it's not just a guitarist, it's two figures, possibly struggling, maybe one on the other's back Or maybe an attached cut-out figure. Post-apocalyptic barbarians like their flair.

At 1.47 you can see it's a FUCKING TWIN-NECK that shoots flames from the headstock.

めんどくさかった (Matt #2), Friday, 12 December 2014 17:08 (ten years ago)

As well it should be.

Josh in Chicago, Friday, 12 December 2014 17:50 (ten years ago)

three months pass...

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEJnMQG9ev8

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 31 March 2015 18:15 (ten years ago)

I mean, the full guitar moment alone.

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 31 March 2015 18:22 (ten years ago)

Hopefully the movie's better than the trailer, which suggests two hrs of Charlize Theron driving young girls away from being brutalized, only to have them picked off one by one. I like the look of the landscape and people, but if that's the plot? Meh.

the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Tuesday, 31 March 2015 18:56 (ten years ago)

... have you never seen a Mad Max movie before

DJP, Tuesday, 31 March 2015 19:17 (ten years ago)

lol

mh, Tuesday, 31 March 2015 19:23 (ten years ago)

...

difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 31 March 2015 23:46 (ten years ago)

This looks a little more Julie Taymor than I'd like, but I'm still definitely going. If nothing else, Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played Toecutter in the first Mad Max movie and was one of the scariest villains ever, is in it...and I'm pretty sure he's playing that guy with the horrifying teeth/respirator mask.

the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Tuesday, 31 March 2015 23:58 (ten years ago)

yep that's Hugh alright :D

i dunno what the fuck kind of julie taymor movies you've been seeing tho

difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 1 April 2015 02:20 (ten years ago)

saw the last trailer before Inherent Vice last week, the first time not on a youtube embed here, and everyone who thinks it wasn't outrageously T&O graded should make an appointment with yr optometrists

oochie wally (clean version) (sic), Wednesday, 1 April 2015 05:36 (ten years ago)

do u want a mad max movie or not whoooooooo cares about stupid t&o

difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 1 April 2015 05:52 (ten years ago)

The T&O Cutter

Don A Henley And Get Over It (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 1 April 2015 05:54 (ten years ago)

looking great but they really need to overdub Tom Hardy's voice with a traditional Australian-American accent

never heard of this Mark Knobfler bloke (King Boy Pato), Wednesday, 1 April 2015 08:28 (ten years ago)

Nice to see Brendan McCarthy getting a screenplay credit

sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 1 April 2015 08:37 (ten years ago)

is... is that a garden trowel tom hardy has strapped to his face in the youtube preview up there?

this looks fucking insane in the best possible way. george miller's mad max aesthetic has so been shamelessly strip-mined for visuals in comics, videogames and other movies, it'll be interesting to see how much new madness he manages to come up with.

bizarro gazzara, Wednesday, 1 April 2015 08:40 (ten years ago)

do u want a mad max movie or not whoooooooo cares about stupid t&o

I don't especially want one with so much cgi in it :-/

oochie wally (clean version) (sic), Wednesday, 1 April 2015 13:35 (ten years ago)

george miller:

Well, we made a big, big point to go old-school with “Fury Road.” There are moments of green screen mainly for some landscape, but this is not a green screen movie. We crashed a lot of cars; every stunt was done, if not by the cast then by some very fine stunt men; and it was shot on a real location. I’ve had enough experience with CG to know that you can’t really get some of that immersive material authentic in a way. Cumulatively, it’s appreciated by an audience. It feels more real.

bizarro gazzara, Wednesday, 1 April 2015 13:37 (ten years ago)

sic, are you sure you saw a Mad Max trailer :-D

Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 1 April 2015 14:51 (ten years ago)

Saw Babe: Pig In The City recently & it was so amazing that I'm semi-tempted to see this

rock (Jack White, Coldplay) (imago), Wednesday, 1 April 2015 14:55 (ten years ago)

there's filigrees of explosions and flame coming off the real cars and such that are CGItacular. maybe these will feel better in the actual film if he holds shots instead of cutting frenetically like the trailer.

Pig In The City is easily Miller's second-best film, after Mad Max 2.

oochie wally (clean version) (sic), Thursday, 2 April 2015 05:15 (ten years ago)

is the movie here yet

is it
huh

is it

difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 2 April 2015 05:58 (ten years ago)

Looks a lot more like the better parts of MM2 than Beyond Thunderdome which I think was playing to more of a mainstream audience.

Looking forward to seeing it, since MM2 was one of my favourite films for years.

I assume that the budget is exponentially larger than 2 which had to reuse cars from The Cars that Ate Paris from what I recall. & maybe that helped the aesthetic. THink I've heard that there was some spill over into the way punk looked afterwards, definitely into the way Gary Numan did for a while.

Stevolende, Thursday, 2 April 2015 12:48 (ten years ago)

a 2 hr t&o julie taymor chase movie of charlize theron driving young girls away from being brutalized

goole, Thursday, 2 April 2015 16:32 (ten years ago)

like, how are you not buying tickets already

bunch of damn whiners around here

goole, Thursday, 2 April 2015 16:33 (ten years ago)

still no idea why this movie doesn't get a separate thread

the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 2 April 2015 16:33 (ten years ago)

Mad max one is just some dudes out for a drive iirc, didn't get around to the rest however in re stevo's point I always think of the mad max future when I watch Neil young live in Berlin video, I dunno if that's just what those dudes look like tho

Finn McCoolit (wins), Thursday, 2 April 2015 16:51 (ten years ago)

three weeks pass...

love how each movie (save maybe 2) is its own masterful genre exercise and can exist comfortably as a discrete accomplishment w/o the others

1. death wish man vs. goons type thing
2. weird genre fusion (not a dis. easy masterpiece)
3. camp
4. bombastic modern epic

i have slight worries that 4 will hit zack snyder levels of "cool and extreme" - the garden trowel seems just unnecessary - but i trust george miller

fennel cartwright, Wednesday, 29 April 2015 19:00 (ten years ago)

preview/ads for this hurt my eyes

Οὖτις, Wednesday, 29 April 2015 19:06 (ten years ago)

I don't think George Miller is anywhere near Zack Snyder's GRAVE IMPORTANCE GRAY MOVIE shtick

ultimate american sock (mh), Wednesday, 29 April 2015 19:14 (ten years ago)

i was thinking more his COOL AWESOME EPIC 300 shtick

fennel cartwright, Wednesday, 29 April 2015 19:26 (ten years ago)

300 was really gray! and everything so important

does anyone ever have any fun in Snyder's movies?

ultimate american sock (mh), Wednesday, 29 April 2015 19:28 (ten years ago)

you mean aside from all the gymnastic manlove just offscreen?

the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 April 2015 19:33 (ten years ago)

even the sex is pretty joyless, iirc! in watchmen it happens but is just depressing

ultimate american sock (mh), Wednesday, 29 April 2015 19:34 (ten years ago)

the only joy is found in violence

ultimate american sock (mh), Wednesday, 29 April 2015 19:34 (ten years ago)

the road warrior (mad max 2) is such a profoundly visceral movie. the one time i saw it on the big screen i felt like i had been put through the ringer, in a good way. i hope miller still has those chops, because once upon a time he was basically unbeatable as an action director. (the chase sequence in "babe: pig in the city" is a triumph too.)

he quipped with heat (amateurist), Thursday, 30 April 2015 04:58 (ten years ago)

In a perfect world Zack Snyder would be the first geisha masked leather freak to be strapped to the front of a car and driven into a mesa cliff face at high speed. Afterwards this could be replicated using practical effects in the new mad max movie.

Also yeah this needs its own thread, morbs otm.

a strawman stuffed with their collection of 12 cds (jjjusten), Thursday, 30 April 2015 05:59 (ten years ago)

can I make the new thread?

difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 30 April 2015 06:08 (ten years ago)

done: Mad Max: Fury Road - Lions and Tigers and Tom Hardy and Teal and Orange Oh My

difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 30 April 2015 06:14 (ten years ago)

Saw Mad Max again on Saturday night at a local art house. Some of the bits are so clunky and underwritten, like they knew where they wanted to go by weren't exactly sure how to get there.

I do wish there weren't as many undercranked shots as there are, but what are you going to do.

Doktor Van Peebles (kingfish), Thursday, 30 April 2015 06:59 (ten years ago)

the road warrior (mad max 2) is such a profoundly visceral movie. the one time i saw it on the big screen i felt like i had been put through the ringer, in a good way.

OTM. Went to an IMAX screening of MM2 a couple of months ago, and afterwards myself and my companions felt as if we'd been physically pummelled for 90 minutes. The diagetic sound - the roar of the cars - is extremely important to the overall effect.

As the Not Quite Hollywood documentary showed, disregarding 'health and safety' when it came to shooting stuntwork on Australian exploitation movies gave things like the first two Mad Max movies a visceral edge that I can't see Miller being able to get away with these days, on a $150m franchise movie.

sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Thursday, 30 April 2015 07:49 (ten years ago)

The original is getting a deluxe blu-ray reissue in a couple of weeks...including a new interview with Gibson. Can't wait to hear about how the bikers were a metaphor for Jews taking over Australian society from within, or something.

the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Thursday, 30 April 2015 12:22 (ten years ago)

In a perfect world Zack Snyder would be the first geisha masked leather freak to be strapped to the front of a car and driven into a mesa cliff face at high speed. Afterwards this could be replicated using practical effects in the new mad max movie.

Thank you for this image.

ultimate american sock (mh), Thursday, 30 April 2015 13:48 (ten years ago)

As the Not Quite Hollywood documentary showed, disregarding 'health and safety' when it came to shooting stuntwork on Australian exploitation movies gave things like the first two Mad Max movies a visceral edge that I can't see Miller being able to get away with these days, on a $150m franchise movie.

Felt awful when I saw that doc. The notion that someone could've potentially died on the set...I'd still watch Mad Max when shown on TV but it has changed how I view the film.

xyzzzz__, Friday, 1 May 2015 09:10 (ten years ago)


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.