Great review, Stu. I’m surprised you saw RW after FR. I remember seeing part of RW on TV as a kid and being like “WTF IS THIS?” And seeking out the movie as soon as I could. But yeah the original MM is kinda slow, especially compared to the sequels. I think it does a great job of capturing a society right on the brink of collapse, as opposed to most movies that are all about the post-apocalypse. Have you seen Beyond Thunderdome?
Some of the smaller moments of RW that I love:
WARNING: spoilers below
Max being all about making deals, with the Gyro Captain to take him to the oil, with Papagallo to get them the rig, etc. It’s what keeps him truly neutral for most of the movie. I love Papagallo’s line, “He fulfilled a contract. He’s an honorable man.” He delivered it with both admiration for a noble deed he doesn’t see much any more and annoyance that he isn’t getting what he wants out of Max. It’s a terrifically delivered line.
Even at the end when he volunteers to drive the rig it’s not out of the goodness of his heart. Max knows it’s his best chance of getting out of there alive. And the set up at the beginning of three cars going one direction to distract the marauders while one car goes in another to try to get away is the same plan at the end with the oil. And all that “hero worship” they heap on Max while asking him to drive the rig. Nobody bothers to tell him he’s the decoy. They’re using him just like he’s using them to get out alive.
Max being all about making deals, with the Gyro Captain to take him to the oil, with Papagallo to get them the rig, etc. It’s what keeps him truly neutral for most of the movie. I love Papagallo’s line, “He fulfilled a contract. He’s an honorable man.” He delivered it with both admiration for a noble deed he doesn’t see much any more and annoyance that he isn’t getting what he wants out of Max. It’s a terrifically delivered line.
Even at the end when he volunteers to drive the rig it’s not out of the goodness of his heart. Max knows it’s his best chance of getting out of there alive. And the set up at the beginning of three cars going one direction to distract the marauders while one car goes in another to try to get away is the same plan at the end with the oil. And all that “hero worship” they heap on Max while asking him to drive the rig. Nobody bothers to tell him he’s the decoy. They’re using him just like he’s using them to get out alive.
Thanks Des! And sorry for the late reply, but I got busy with Christmas stuff. Anyway, the only
Mad Max movie I saw as a teen was the original, and it didn't do much for me, and I never heard much about
The Road Warrior (in fact, I think I was more aware of
Thunderdome, if for nothing else but the gag MST3K made about it in the ep where they riffed
Laserblast), so I just never got around to it, and I only went back and checked it out after
Fury Road blew up so big online (although I didn't regret watching TRW at all when I did). And yes, I watched
Thunderdome four years ago, shortly after I had already watched/rewatched the rest of the series, and it's the weakest of the series so far, but still not a complete waste of time anyway.
At any rate, what strikes me the most about the
Mad Max series on the whole is the consistent exploration and evolution of Max as a character from movie to movie, even in the lesser entries; I mean, even though the original suffered a bit from a lack of action, it still did a great job of showing Max's fall from grace as a normal man due to the tragedies he suffers from, setting up
The Road Warrior perfectly to have him be an anti-social survivalist loner, who just barely starts to learn how to live with other people again, before
Thunderdome shows him as being fully "rehabilitated", although it drops the ball a bit by never really having a truly impressive moment of redemption for him. That's why I really appreciate the way
Fury Road reset his character essentially back to where he was at the start of
Warrior (and then some), basically being even more anti-social than ever before, like more of a rabid, grunting animal than a man, so that when he finally gives Furiosa his name (and his live-saving blood), it hits really hard, because it's such a stark contrast to where he was at the start of that entry; now
that's how you arc a character!