32 Comments

Superb discussion - the 1979 ‘Mad Max’ really opened up the global market for Australian New Wave cinema. Australia had been producing fantastic films such as ‘Wake In Fright’ (1972) and ‘Picnic at Hanging Rick’ (1975) but ‘Mad Max’ was the big one. ‘Wake in Fright’ is a particularly disturbing depiction of Outback Australia. Many thanks sir 🙏

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22MIns, the stunt man died, his widow asked for the scene to be put in. It's a reminder for all of us that ride motorcycles that coming off can be fatal.

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Apr 8, 2023Liked by Morgoth

The big difference between the first 3 and Fury Road to me was the CGI. The stunts in the first 3 were spectacular and looked real. Fury Road while still spectacular, looked a bit too fake for me in parts. Another example of tech making things easier, but not necessarily better.

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Mar 29, 2023Liked by Morgoth

Hail the asschaps! 😄 Great stream and impressions 😂 Lots of laughs.

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Fun discussion.

George Miller is a strange cat, sometimes it feels like his worldbuilding is inconsistent and forget about continuity but there is a core there that keeps me from dismissing him as purely an action director. (or an animal movie director. Yes, I'm including Cher and Jack Nicholson in that description)

I think George Miller really excels at making fantasy and maybe his films need to viewed through the lens of fantasy or even fairy tale rather than realism.

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I was obsessed with Mad Max 2 in my teens and watched it easily over 100 times. I read the script which was available online and learned from it that Papagallo was an oil executive before the collapse. There were a few other tidbits in the script too I think, I'd recommend it. Rewatched the first one recently and found it incredibly bleak, more so than I remember. I've grown to like the third one much more, but really struggled to watch Fury Road even once. Great to hear you guys talk about this! These are films I hope I can watch with my son when he's a few years older, if we all live long enough.

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The scenes in Thunderdome where Max wakes up in the oasis and is introduced to the kids are wonderful. You are right about the ending, I wish they had just flown over the vista of the wrecked city and then decided to go back to their oasis. Bruce Spence plays a different character in parts 2 and 3, in Thunderdome he's called Jebediah the Pilot, it's like when Sergio Leone cast the same actors as different characters in his dollars trilogy. The actor who was the old lady's son from the first Mad Max also played the 'broken victim' tied to Hummungus' vehicle in Mad Max 2. The continuation in the first 3 films is fine, Fury Road just threw it all out of the window.

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There's some interesting behind the scenes clips from MM2 on youtube, nice given that the DVD releases of it always seemed to be bereft of extras. There's a good video out there about the real life story of Max's dog which is worth a watch.

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