The future of revamped Mad Max movies.

[Turbofurball]

It is now a fantasy franchise that has more in common with the average comic-book movie than it does with the films it stemmed from.

As opposed to all the characters, environments, and vehicles in previous MM movies which weren't cartoonish at all? Really?

FR moved the goalposts, it explained why there was this tiny area where things weren't in short supply but then brought in other factors to consider (the use of people as a resource, religious zealotism, greed of the powerful, etc) ... who really wants to see every film tackling the same theme over and over?

Also, there's plenty of world away from The Citadel, Gas Town, and the Bullet Farm where people are only just surviving - we got to see them in FR - so what would be stopping future films from exploring that side of the world again?

In my opinion, the ability to create new and interesting stories from the world of Mad Max is the only way that further films will be made at all. The Road Warrior has been made already, it's time to move on.

[Trundlefish]

... who really wants to see every film tackling the same theme over and over?

In my opinion, the ability to create new and interesting stories from the world of Mad Max is the only way that further films will be made at all. The Road Warrior has been made already, it's time to move on.

Well said and I'm of the same thinking. Too much of repeating the same scenario time after time will only dilute what makes the Mad Max stories interesting.

[MWFV8]

But Fury Road is just a big repeat of The Road Warrior, with less story, the protagonist completely lost, and a comic book universe painted over the top of it all.

Nothing new is being explored. Nothing new is being said.

Everything that's been shoehorned into the world has blatantly been done simply to justify what they wanted to do with the plot. They wanted gunplay so they created the bullet farm. They wanted dozens of vehicles so they created Gas Town. They wanted more half naked women so they dreamt up the five-wives.

Anyone can take the early Mad Max movies and ad-lib new versions. We saw that with bad rip-offs and it's one of the more painful things to watch with the fandom. It's easy to go bigger, it's harder to go smaller.

What holds it all together and makes it entertaining is all down to the crew who built the vehicles and the stunt team.

[madmadmax]

Bravo.

This is the crux of what I've been complaining about for the past few years.

Fury Road is a lot of fun, with great costumes, amazing cars, and well executed stunts, but it isn't built on anything that resounds and distances itself from reality. It is now a fantasy franchise that has more in common with the average comic-book movie than it does with the films it stemmed from.

There's no undoing this either. The crowds want more mania and more ad-libbing to go along with their head-canon. They don't see it, but there are just as blindly devoted as the War Boys they love to quote.

See, I took it a bit differently. I see it as how culture has evolved to a strange place long after the events of the apocalyptic event. It stands to reason that the further society gets from the apocalyptic event, more strange and alien it will appear to the "civilized" pre-apocalyptic period. In that context, Fury Road made perfect sense to me...

[Turbofurball]

But Fury Road is just a big repeat of The Road Warrior, with less story, the protagonist completely lost, and a comic book universe painted over the top of it all.

It might be possible to argue that Fury Road is the mirror of Road Warrior, because rather than escaping and fooling the baddies the heroes manage to fight, win, and return home (and Max progresses as a character rather than finishing the same as he started out), but it's pretty hard to argue that it's the same as far as I can see.

If you write the plot as a sequence of events, there isn't as much going on in FR. There's a vastly greater amount of character development though, which is nice as MM2's characters didn't seem to change a huge amount (apart from the Gyro Captain).

The protagonist isn't lost, she was one of the driving forces behind the film's long-term success and brought in many new fans.

As for "comic book universe", there are so many comic-book style moments in MM2 that it's hard to see what isn't. So much humour, action based on unrealistic events (the Pink car explodes on contact with fire, Max survives the big BoB crash, 'shoot the tyres', etc etc), and lots of cool one-liners.

[RobThom]

And that's what worries me because it opens up a window of opportunity to turn Mad Max into a generic post apocalyptic franchise.
The lines and reasons used to be clear, but now since it's all a fantasy campfire myth....

He definitely seemed to stray even farther into "comicbook" logic with FR.
MM2 was comicbook-ish compared to MM1, but not in an obtrusive way.
In FR the monster truck and how do vuvalini's have bullets and ace shots secluded out it the sticks
started to get a little obtrusive and strain my suspension of disbelief.
It didn't make any sense, but its cool in you dont over think it and just accept it like a comicbook.

But like comicbooks, some of the stuff was really beautifully thought out.
He put effort into the culture of the warboys and giving the separate tribes distinct characters.

But when you put a lot of thought into some things, it raises your expectations,
and makes things that you half axxed stand out jarringly.
It seemed like he came up with a bunch of good imagery,
but didn't put enough effort into justifying it all and gluing it together as well as it deserved.

But you might say thats a modern mentality.
A lot of the most successful movies these days are 85% flash,
and 15% anything else including any justification for any of it.
In FR's case the flash was beautiful real world props and stunts instead of millions of dollars of stupid jj abrams CGI.

But thats why jj abrams runs hollywood,
because shallow flash is all it takes for a lot of people these days.

[levcore]

Is that the same JJ Abrams who campaigned heavily to use as many practical fx as possible in Force Awakens? I think JJ is actually quite sparing with CG in his movies.

Also Fury Road had CG in almost every shot with constant background replacement and environmental work and rig removal.