What kind of man was Max inbetween MM2 and Thunderdome?

[Uncle Entity]

That's my big question.

At the end of the chase scene in MM2, we have a Max more willing to help human kind, and more apt to bond with people.

I'm wondering if he kept his stance as lonely "Road Warrior" in the following years, or he turned into the nomad adventureer/mercenary we see at the beginning of MMBT very soon.

Also, we know that his final "conversion" into a traditional hero ONLY occured in MMBT, but do you think Max saved many people in the timespan between MM2 and MMBT? That's a wild guess. Surely, he as mercenary killed many people anyway.

[MrEModels]

I like the idea of him becoming a mercenary, being a Boba Fett type for some jobs, back to a driver for others.
And i like the notion presented in the comics that he's taking all the jobs on to source and purchase parts for another Interceptor he's assembling in a hidden cave somewhere.
And, when we see him at the start of the 3rd one, he's on the way to Bartertown to trade for more pieces

[Uncle Entity]

I like the idea of him becoming a mercenary, being a Boba Fett type for some jobs, back to a driver for others.
And i like the notion presented in the comics that he's taking all the jobs on to source and purchase parts for another Interceptor he's assembling in a hidden cave somewhere.
And, when we see him at the start of the 3rd one, he's on the way to Bartertown to trade for more pieces

Nice reply.
The Boba/Mando type was what I had on my mind at the time I wrote the thread.
It's obvious that he was a mercenary at the beginning of MMBT, and not just a nomad living on its own. The Collector addressed him as a "Warrior" to Aunty Entity, suggesting that Max was recognizable as a mercenary fighter/bodyguard.

[Stamper]

Well he would be recognisable as a warrior, he had like twenty guns on him when they asked him to leave his weapons at the door.

[Uncle Entity]

Well he would be recognisable as a warrior, he had like twenty guns on him when they asked him to leave his weapons at the door.

Haha yes.

[Uncle Entity]

Well he would be recognisable as a warrior, he had like twenty guns on him when they asked him to leave his weapons at the door.

I guess that, in the Original Trilogy Wasteland, the term "Warrior" designates three roles rolled into one: bounty hunter; mercenary and bodyguard.

[DetritusMaximus]

i don't think he was a good-guy traveling mercenary type. A survivor and someone to not mess with, yes, but he only did stuff because he was backed into a corner with no choice. Every single movie shows that. He wanted to quit the MFP and get away from the circus, but the deaths of Sprog and Jessie pulled him back in. When he was done..he left everything. He left the refinery people to their own devices in RW. Driving the rig was his only way out and he knew it. Afterwards, he left. When he did take a job to get his camel train back, killing Master Blaster, his conscience took over when he realized what was going on. And he was content to stay in Crack In The World until the kids left. He didn't know they were stuck in the sand, he knew if they went to Bartertown, Bartertown would come there. Then, to get back, he had to go to Bartertown. His intent was not to fight Bartertown but to get in/get out and sneak away. After bringing down Bartertown...he left. He was ready to leave the wives in FR, but he had no choice but to fight their battle just to save himself. And he left.
Again and again it's pretty obvious he just wants to be left alone. But somebody is always forcing him to reluctantly get involved.

And at the end of each movie he leaves to be alone. That's not someone traveling around as a gun/driver for hire.

I never bought the idea of him getting involved in much road battle between the movies. Scavenging and avoidance would be the name of the game. Risk was to great, get even a minor injury, you'll probably die. The car was too straight, just stripped down for survival in RW to have seen much, if anything, for the time interval between MM and RW. After RW, who knows. He left with the Lone Wolf. Much could have happened there. Especially if that was when the war happened. Sydney of course, would have emptied after the bombs, but no indication of what happened to Melbourne/Perth/etc. So an influx of refugees into the countryside/wasteland would have created friction and conflict. This was a much longer time interval, so a lot could have happened.
At the start of BT, He seems actually kind of calm and settled with an RV and a pet monkey, so until his camel train got hijacked.

As for the game, the idea of him doing this stuff to piece back together another Interceptor comes across as pandering to fanboys desire to relive the first two movies.

[Uncle Entity]

i don't think he was a good-guy traveling mercenary type. A survivor and someone to not mess with, yes, but he only did stuff because he was backed into a corner with no choice. Every single movie shows that. He wanted to quit the MFP and get away from the circus, but the deaths of Sprog and Jessie pulled him back in. When he was done..he left everything. He left the refinery people to their own devices in RW. Driving the rig was his only way out and he knew it. Afterwards, he left. When he did take a job to get his camel train back, killing Master Blaster, his conscience took over when he realized what was going on. And he was content to stay in Crack In The World until the kids left. He didn't know they were stuck in the sand, he knew if they went to Bartertown, Bartertown would come there. Then, to get back, he had to go to Bartertown. His intent was not to fight Bartertown but to get in/get out and sneak away. After bringing down Bartertown...he left. He was ready to leave the wives in FR, but he had no choice but to fight their battle just to save himself. And he left.
Again and again it's pretty obvious he just wants to be left alone. But somebody is always forcing him to reluctantly get involved.

And at the end of each movie he leaves to be alone. That's not someone traveling around as a gun/driver for hire.

I never bought the idea of him getting involved in much road battle between the movies. Scavenging and avoidance would be the name of the game. Risk was to great, get even a minor injury, you'll probably die. The car was too straight, just stripped down for survival in RW to have seen much, if anything, for the time interval between MM and RW. After RW, who knows. He left with the Lone Wolf. Much could have happened there. Especially if that was when the war happened. Sydney of course, would have emptied after the bombs, but no indication of what happened to Melbourne/Perth/etc. So an influx of refugees into the countryside/wasteland would have created friction and conflict. This was a much longer time interval, so a lot could have happened.
At the start of BT, He seems actually kind of calm and settled with an RV and a pet monkey, so until his camel train got hijacked.

As for the game, the idea of him doing this stuff to piece back together another Interceptor comes across as pandering to fanboys desire to relive the first two movies.

Terrific post, I loved every line of it. You're right, you got such a great insight.

I never bought the idea of him getting involved in much road battle between the movies. Scavenging and avoidance would be the name of the game. Risk was to great, get even a minor injury, you'll probably die. The car was too straight, just stripped down for survival in RW to have seen much, if anything, for the time interval between MM and RW. After RW, who knows. He left with the Lone Wolf. Much could have happened there. Especially if that was when the war happened. Sydney of course, would have emptied after the bombs, but no indication of what happened to Melbourne/Perth/etc. So an influx of refugees into the countryside/wasteland would have created friction and conflict. This was a much longer time interval, so a lot could have happened.

The war happened before RW. Miller kinda confirmed that on many occasions.
I just think that, over time, he became more "open" towards other survivors, but not too much. Scavenging and avoidance sounds like the most plausible program for him.
On some MMBT interviews, Miller defined the Post-RW Max as a "prince", in the way he knew how to "rule" upon his own destiny and control what was going on around him in the Wasteland. That seems to me legit and appropriate, in line with what we see at the very beginning of MMBT, when he approaches Bartertown for the very first time.
Granted, there was some little action (and fighting) in the 14 year-long timespan between RW and MMBT, but not on the "trilogy level" which we see on the 3 movies.

[DetritusMaximus]

Thank you. I have had a lot of time to ponder the little details and see what background I put together for my favorite movies/stories. I do like films that don't lay out every little detail. it let's me, the viewer, add my perspective. From reading your posts over the years, I suspect you know what I mean?

Yeah, now see, I always had the idea that the war (and the bombs) were prior to MM, but Australia didn't get hit, just the unexplained 'Prohibited' area and the skull and bones warning sign at the end of MM (what does that imply? radiation?). A long time ago, in an article about MM and RW, it was mentioned that 'On the Beach' was a partial inspiration for MM. That little bit of information set the tone for my perspective on MM/RW. In On The Beach, the war was between East and West in the northern hemisphere and it was nuclear. Australia was not hit. But, everyone in Australia knew the northern hemisphere was dead and radiation was slowly being spread thru out the world by the air currents. It was just a matter of time before it got to them. So the characters in that story were slowly going mad waiting for the certain death to get to them. In MM, this always made sense to me as to why Australia was in the condition it was in and why so many people, good or bad, were borderline psychotic.

We never had the novels so we had to figure things out from little details or hints in the movie and that gave us a very different take on the setting. It made more sense to me. But then it was said the bombs happened while Max was in the wasteland or just after RW. Which kind of makes sense in that Humungus' gang was still feeding on travelers coming thru and that implied there was still some civilization and industry to keep providing fresh victims in a lawless wasteland. And then the bombs fell.

So for me, the chronology that includes other movies either mentioned as inspiration or were inspired by MM (but not the novels/comic books/game):

On The Beach (the start of it all)

Cars That Ate Paris (it has what could be considered the origins of the car gangs, but no mention of anything post apocalyptic)

Dead End Drive In (specifically meant to fit in prior to or concurrent to MM and has the progression of the Car Boy gangs and the idea of salvage being more important at the scene of a car crash than the people in the cars)

MM

RW

BT

FR

[Taipan]

Regarding wars that caused the apocalypse in the world of Mad Max, there were 2.

The first one was a conventional war between Saudi Arabia and Iran which was based on a real conflict (Iranian revolution) in 1979. Terry Hayes simply expanded on that idea and created an alternate course of events where Saudi Arabia and Iran actually went to war and destroyed the global fuel supply. So that war precedes all of the Mad Max movies and it's what caused chaos in the Northern hemisphere with possible limited nuclear exchange up there. So it's kind of like "On The Beach" from Australia's point of view. Australians were hit economically, not physically yet, but they saw what was coming and that total chaos will reach them eventually. So the first film takes place just a few years after that war and Australian fabric of society is just about to collapse.

MM2 is 3 years later and it STILL doesn't take place after a nuclear war. It's just an extension of that chaos. Here's a quote from George Miller from Omni Screen Flights written by Danny Peary, (1984) page 281

"Danny Peary:
Mad Max and The Road Warrior seem to be set in a postnuclear age. But why does no one, including the Narrator, mention the Bomb?

George Miller:
I think that the two films fall into the category of postapocalyptic storytelling - but they are NOT POST-NUCLEAR. When we discussed the kinds of events that might have led to this primitive world we depict, including the global war that the Narrator alludes to, the nuclear question was avoided entirely. that's because I firmly believe that a nuclear winter would at best leave a world of insects and grass. Even if we were to include human beings, they'd all have to be suffering enormous problems from radiation; perhaps they'd all be mutants. If we had wanted to accurately depict a postnuclear future, we'd have made entirely different films".

So that settles that.

When the nukes hit Australia then? It's very difficult to tell but logically, right after Mad Max 2. The severe effects of a nuclear winter last for at least a decade and things start to clear up after that, so taking this into account:

I don't think Max was doing a whole lot Road Warrioring in that time. The world was just too messed up to be going around and wasting resources for at least a decade. I guess that's enough time to take on a project like building a new Interceptor. And also it looks like this is why we just skipped 15 years ahead straight to Thunderdome, looking at Max shivering in a cave trying to cobble together a car just doesn't look very eventful.