Mad Max - Fury Road

[Andrew_J]

[JOE SOAP]

Mad Max: Fury Road - San Diego Comic-Con Press Conference with George Miller & Doug Mitchell

[blackmocco]

Saw an advance screening/work-in-progress of this last week. As a die-hard MM fan, the weight of expectation felt like I was fending off a heart attack while I stood in line. Hard to digest what I ended up seeing. Can't post spoilers thanks to an NDA, sorry. It's an insane movie. Seriously. Probably one of the most unique big budget movies I've ever seen. It's closer in tone and style to Thunderdome than MM2, I think, but it's pretty removed from the original trilogy. MUCH bigger, for one thing. Reminded me of Damnation Alley in places, particularly with the War Rig. It's much more aimed in a sci-fi direction than the previous ones. It's packed full of ideas, sometimes overwhelmingly so. The car chases and stuntwork are absolutely breathtaking. A great reminder that CG can't convince you of some things. Nothing like the weight of real cars getting shredded and mashed. The movie looks beautiful. Cast are great although Hardy's unpredictable. He won't be for everyone.

[JOE SOAP]

It's closer in tone and style to Thunderdome than MM2, I think, but it's pretty removed from the original trilogy. MUCH bigger, for one thing.

For me, that's a good thing, as a souped-up re-tread of The Road Warrior is a bit pointless and I believe Thunderdome, in spite of not quite reaching its ambition and pulling all its threads together, is still very well written: an expansion of the first two films' ideas and Max's multi-morphing myth- from Road Warrior to Raggedy Man and Sky Pilot.

Fury Road tantalises with the prospect of Brendan McCarthy car-cult weirdness and Charlize Theron's Mean-Machine arm. As far as I know, if there's to be a sequel -possibly not considering the expense of Fury Road- Theron's character, Furiosa, is to be the main protagonist.

[blackmocco]

I actually ended up watching Thunderdome this morning. It gets no love compared to RW but I've always had a great soft spot for it and it held up pretty well.

It's hard to know how much of Brendan's actual designs are in there from when Mel was going to do this back in the early 00's but visually, it all looked to me like it's been touched by his hands. Very exciting.

It was a work-in-progress so still quite a few f/x shots to tie down but it's nearly there. Still a few little kinks to iron out, I would say, but they've got til next May so not too worried.

[JOE SOAP]

Brendan has second story credit so he's there in more ways than one.


How long was the cut?

[blackmocco]

Think someone said 109 minutes...? I guess they tested it a few months ago and it was a bit longer. It doesn't outstay the welcome which suits me. The world could do with a few less three-hour boring-as-shite 'epics'.

[JOE SOAP]

Thanks.


Arse-marathons spare no thought for the bladders of this world.

[Heath C Ackley]

A must -see for me. Great to hear of Mr McCarthy' s involvement. 2 was my fave film in my younger days. I remember first seeing the trailer before watching Blade Runner and found myself awe-struck by the sheer reckless pace of it all. From what I've seen, Fury Road action scenes seem to be as kinetic as the first two.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Is this a reboot or a sequel to Thunderdome?

[Heath C Ackley]

Reboot I think. Unless there's some way that Tom Hardy' s character picks up the mantle of Max.

[Frank]

Is this a reboot or a sequel to Thunderdome?

As discussed further upthread, there's no real chronology to the various films. They're all just films with Max as the lead character.

[JOE SOAP]

Is this a reboot or a sequel to Thunderdome?

It was originally a sequel 10 years ago when Mel Gibson was cast but Dr. George Miller -apparently- considers it a reboot:


Is this a reboot or a direct sequel to the Mad Max trilogy?

It is a reboot. At the April 30th, 2014 test screening in Burbank, CA. Director George Miller told attendees that the reason for a reboot was that too much time had passed between the last Mad Max film to do a sequel or a film set between, along with doing such would mean a plague of continuity issues and creativity restrictions. George also commented that he didn't want to do a "remake" as he had no intention on retelling a story already told. A reboot allowed him to bring the universe and wasteland 30 years up to date while keeping Max as the moviegoers remember him, a man with nothing to lose after the loss of his family.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190/faq?ref_=tt_faq_1#.2.1.3


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMy4TNnevfc

[blackmocco]

Is this a reboot or a sequel to Thunderdome?

Seemed like a reboot. It doesn't really make sense in the context of what we've seen before. Although, I can see how it could have followed on from Thunderdome had Mel been in here...

[IndigoPrime]

My take on Mad Max is the timeline's a bit messed up because of budgetary constrains for the first film. But it's not that tricky to get the events into an order that makes a decent degree of sense. The severity of decay seems quite heavy, notably in the third film, but then Threads rather wonderfully showcased how rapidly things can go to shit if counties start flinging around the big stuff.