Observations about Max in the original trilogy and FR

[Immortan Joecutter]

The culmination of Mad Max if you will and Max's true redemption.

Absolutely right, Fury Road is the culmination of Mad Max. I like this term.

btw: to this hour in a parallel wasteland universe Mels Max enjoys his well-earned retirement
in the Citadel with fresh water, plenty of sunshine and nothing to do but breed with Furiosa

[Taipan]

It absolutely is, the 'ultimate' mad max movie.

Which - now that you think about it - makes you wonder what the other 2 scripts are going to be like. Because I'm pretty certain that Miller drained the Mad Max formula with Fury Road, seriously doubt we're going to get another flat out chase movie. Furiosa most definitely isn't that (it spans over many years). The Wasteland is very bleak and deals with a lot of Max's trauma. It's really interesting to find out what the next Mad Max movies are going to be based on that.

[Uncle Entity]

Honestly I never really understood this strange obsession to classify Fury Road. I simply enjoy the film for what it is and what I see on the silverscreen.

The sheer quality of the movie speaks for itself. I don't use the word 'masterpiece' very often but here we have one.
With Fury Road George Miller managed to exceed my expectations on every possible level and he did it in a very progressive way.

Unlike other continued franchises nowadays, which are bathing in pure fan-service (LOOKING AT YOU: STAR WARS!!)
I think the use of all the nostalgia elements from the previous trilogy was simply perfect in Fury Road.
Call it what you want, I'm still happy as f#@% that we got this Madmaxsequelreimaginingreboot after 30 years!!!

Kudos to you! I agree.

[Uncle Entity]

Who cares that you've been part of this site since 2000, you only perceive those movies from a consumer standpoint and base all of your theories on that.

I don't claim to be the superstar of Mad Max fandom, but I am a huge fan to the extent of actually tracking down and talking to all those people and getting really awesome inside info and documents. That gave me a totally new perspective on this movie and I decided to talk about it which clearly made you very butthurt because it ruins your theories about what Fury Road is based on just watching that movie.

They exist FAR FAR FAR beyond the scripts, the unused ideas and Miller's original purposes. They exist from an objective standpoint.

You mean a subjective standpoint, which is how you perceive them. Objectively is what the creators of those movies had in mind. It's something that I was very interested in, I wanted to get into the heads of those people to find out and they told me, and now that I'm relaying this info - you don't want to listen to that. You ridicule me as some sort of a self-proclaimed super fan because I did all the legwork. All to clear up the things about those movies that people STILL speculate about.
So go ahead and have another go at me for that, but maybe also consider why you need to bump up your own 'timeline' threads while my vids on the same topics are actually backed with evidence and are approved by people who wrote those movies. But of course... they are wrong as well am I right?

I'm not angry at all. The movies speak for themselves, FAR beyond the ones who helped Miller to make them.
Miller is a genius. That's why he loves making people "guess" and "theorize" about his masterworks. It doesn't matter if you talked with the people who helped MILLER to bring life to his vision. At the very end of the day, the VISION is the eternal work. Miller knows that. He's the FIRST ONE to speculate about his own work. He is the one to say "the timeline doesn't work" or "maybe it's this, maybe it's that". He's a genius and he knows that his work goes far beyond himself or anyone involved.

Gibson was the one to claim that the "Max" in MMBT was a pussy. Was he right? NO. He was just an actor bringing life to the vision, and that vision goes beyond his personal opinion on the movie or Max. Period.

It doesn't matter who you talked to. That doesn't make you better than me or any other fan on this forum.

I'm not denying "Fury Road" was originally (ORIGINALLY) intended to be "Mad Max 4" featuring Mel Gibson's Mad Max being 60. But It changed. It changed a lot --- I'm not talking about the script, but the execution. Hardy changed it. Miller changed it. Everyone involved changed it. Brendan was involved in its conception far before 2003... and, above all, far before 2009.

By the way: without any promotion, my website made 72.000 hits. Plus, I'm sure Miller would like/appreciate my timelines - and mind you, I already created a Mad Max site previous to that which ammassed millions of visits. But it doesn't matter. I'm here because I love this saga to the nth degree, it's my Bible.

The culmination of Mad Max if you will and Max's true redemption.

Absolutely right, Fury Road is the culmination of Mad Max. I like this term.

btw: to this hour in a parallel wasteland universe Mels Max enjoys his well-earned retirement

"Fury Road" is the ultimate Mad Max movie and a cosmic masterpiece which trascends its genre.

I would say that, in the original Universe Wasteland, Max died in the desert alone but peacefully --- or maybe he reached "Home" (Post-Nuclear Sydney) and managed to meet Savannah Nix again.

[Mad Serge]

Uncle Entity, you haven't answered my question: why do you refuse to acknowledge the comics as canon?

By the way, if we follow your logic then we shouldn't take your timeline seriously either since "everything is open to interpretation".

[Taipan]

Uncle, my problem is that you completely discard the history of this movie.

And it's extremely important to understand it because then the decisions made on screen make perfect sense and we don't have to resort to crazy theories.
It's even more important because they actually didn't change a whole lot when they called it a reboot. To the point where glaring inconsistencies showed up and folks came out of the woodwork claiming that Max is the Feral Kid and other nonsense like that.

This movie isn't separate from anything, that's what's needs to be understood here. And to be perfectly clear I do not negate that this movie is now a reboot, reimagining or whatever Miller wants to call it. It's not a sequel anymore but it's as much a reboot as putting a Ford badge on a Buick and claiming it is now a Ford. And yeah it's has a 'new timeline' now where Tom Hardy is in all of the previous Mad Max movies, but really....
It is the same timeline as if Fury Road had been a sequel with Mel! Again they only replaced the main actor and pushed the events from the first movie into 2010's. So what about those comic books then, Uncle? According to you they're still not canon? Despite showing exactly what Fury Road is and was in relation to the original trilogy?

I really think you're overstating Miller's involvement in this movie too. Do you know what atrocities we would get if Miller had his way with WETA for example and Colin wasn't there to pull him away from their god awful designs?
Miller wouldn't have shot this movie if it wasn't for Greg van Borssum who constantly had to remind Miller what's going on set. Nobody talks about this. Especially after Miller had a heart attack on set. And those great ideas by Tom Hardy had to be digitally removed from the movie. I'm not taking anything away from Miller's genius but we need to be realistic. He's not the all-knowing omnipotent creature that always makes the right decisions. Notice how Mad Max movies changed direction after Kennedy's passing, Mad Max movies are missing that part of them and Miller's always been searching for a substitute because he couldn't competently handle Kennedy's part. That's why we got those strange cars in MMBT. And it would've been much worse if nobody stopped McCarthy from designing more 'tank cars'. Peter Pound saved the 'car part' of Mad Max movies along with Colin Gibson.

[Mad Serge]

And those great ideas by Tom Hardy had to be digitally removed from the movie.

Could you tell us more about it?

By the way, why didn't they cast an actor with the same age as Mel Gibson (an old road warrior) instead of Tom Hardy? Is it because Warner Brothers wanted a younger actor?

[seriz]

Miller himself said he wanted a young Max, younger than Mel in 2013... And he said something that buried many of my expectations/wet dreams, he didn't want to make his Mad Max version of Unforgiven...

[Taipan]

Mad Serge,
Sure. Tom Hardy came up with the idea for Max to keep wearing a broken ear phone in his ... well, ear. It was supposed to drawn out the voices in his head. If you look at early promotional material for Fury Road you'll notice the earpiece still in his ear. There were even scenes of Max looking frantically for the earpiece at one point and he had it up until the very end of the movie.
I mean, if we're talking about how batshit insane Max was in Fury Road - that's one of the examples.

However, that whole idea was removed from the movie during the editing. I believe it was Mark (Sexton) who told me that Margaret Sixel didn't like that idea so they digitally removed that earpiece from all shots of Max in the movie. And then it magically disappeared from posters etc, but you can still find it in some VFX breakdown videos, like this one:
https://youtu.be/vFsO--HqTeY?t=1m7s

Kinda funny to think about it that almost all shots of Max in the movie have a CGI ear haha.

And in hindsight, a lot of people thought that it was Hardy's communication device with Miller during filming because it was so loud but that's not it. That earpiece was broken with wires hanging out and was part of the narrative.

[Taipan]

As for why Miller wanted a young Max,

It's exactly what seriz said.
Plus after the 1st delay Miller went onto Happy Feet and he knew that by the time he'd return to Fury Road there would be no point in trying to keep it as a sequel because everyone had moved on. A sequel to a film, 20 years after? No way would people care about that movie as much as they did when they tweaked the same story and called it a reboot. Also think about it - had the franchise succeeded they'd have a new Max ready for more adventures instead of closing the Mad Max saga with Mel once and for all. It's a double edged sword, I personally would love to see Fury Road with Mel even if it meant ending the Mad Max franchise. But on the other hand now we're going to get (hopefully) The Wasteland and/or Furiosa movie.
Overall I think it indeed was a financial decision and they acted in the best interest of the franchise to keep it going, especially in the form of a 'mythical campfire story' as Miller portrays those movies. Even Fury Road, which is actually told from the perspective of "The History Man" far in the future according to the first promotional tidbits.