Finally got to see Furiosa! (spoilers)

[Turbofurball]

Well, I finally managed to lay my hand on a copy in English and I have to say that I completely understand what some people have said on here - it's a good movie, not a masterpiece.

I loved the introduction with bikes across the dunes and a desperate chase of both parties improvising solutions to keep going, the idea that petrol tanks and wheels would be made into something transferable makes sense, and that Furiosa's character flaw* of not being able to leave people behind has it's basis in not being able to leave her mother to die alone. *flaw in this case as being against the MM world's need for ruthless self-preservation and detachment from one's humanity.

The crane in the storm scene, war rig construction montage, and stowaway sequences were great.

The cars and bikes were fantastic, plausible, and as a spotter of obscure vehicles some of the choices tickled me (a Valiant as a hero's car seems highly apt).

I liked that the cast was diverse in all sorts of ways.

I liked that thematically the end called back to MM1's idea of revenge in a completely unhinged manner, and that it leads directly to the start of Fury Road.
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The quantity of CGI felt unwarranted, and it seemed mostly used under the guise of making it "bigger and badder" than Fury Road, which it didn't need to be. Dementus' biker gang didn't need to look like 3000 bikes from a distance, the Bullet Farm didn't need to have vast depths below it, not every action scene needed such a huge number of moving parts all at the same time. That's what spoiled it for me, it didn't have to try and be bigger in order to be better, and I wonder if had they filmed in another location could they have made it with less CGI ... to quote one youtuber, there are moments where it looks more like Spy Kids than Mad Max.

It felt like it missed a Furiosa training montage - trite as that might be it would have been a lot of fun, and there's a reason they're used as shorthand for skills development in so many films.
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I'll rewatch it in a month or so, and I hope to catch more details than I did last time, but over all I feel like less would have been more and the amount of love and effort that went into it sadly isn't reflected in the final product.

EDIT: I think THIS is the best analysis of the overall themes of the film on youtube, and it's very pleasantly upbeat about it

[AquaCola]

the amount of love and effort that went into it sadly isn't reflected in the final product.

This reflects my opinion too. The Stowaway sequence being a prime example. The War Rig is insane looking, a mobile fortress that's being assaulted by a horde of imaginative attackers unique to the setting. All the warboys are animated and involved, more so than in Fury Road. It's a high octane adrenaline pumping sequence full of stunts and blink and you'll miss it moments. So much love and attention went into it. But it just doesn't have the weight that the Road Warrior Tanker chase or Buzzard attack had.

I think it comes down to the scene being too busy all the time, too much obvious CGI and editing. In the behind the scenes you can see it and many other scenes had the potential to be just a intense as Fury Road. The groundwork is all there but somewhere along the way it gets lost.

I feel the film needed another 6 months to really refine the CGI and come up with a stronger edit of the film. Regardless many incredible parts and I really enjoyed watching it on blu-ray this week.

[Turbofurball]

Thinking more about the stowaway sequence, I wonder if the reason it doesn't feel as solid is because at that point the only character we really feel we know is Furiosa. Other named characters have had a line or two of dialogue, but no moment that really let you know who they are. The Buzzards only get a single line, but it's enough to outline their relationship with the citadel's forces and their motivation, whereas the Octoboss is obscured - we don't know who his vendetta is against, or if this attack is a final act of desperation or a regular event.

It's reasonable to have it be an introduction to why Praetorian Jack is the boss of the rig (calm under pressure, won't stop for anything), but we know nothing of his co-pilot or any of the war boys (none of whom get named and we don't see anything from their personal point of view, they're just cannon fodder) ... that could have easily been woven into the rig building montage - that they were building the team to run it as much as they were making a machine for war, all the while the Octoboss is descending into madness.

[Stamper]

I think rather than Jack, a Mind-F was needed by involving Max in his place.
Totally rewrite the backstory of Fury Road.
Also, agree, the CGI is bad in nearly every shot, it really shows on UHD or Blu-ray.

[Turbofurball]

Not sure I agree on that, I think having a separate yet similar character makes sense so that in FR Furiosa sees something familiar in Max and thus can work well with him when her back is to the wall, and when he refuses to come with the Vuvalini into the salt flats she feels let down. It also fleshes out that not everyone in the Citadel buys into the cult in a more subtle manner than FR could portray.

What I do think would have been a good (yet small) change would have been if Jack had been a fatherly figure to her instead of a lukewarm love interest. It would make sense given how deeply she held the loss of her mother, and have meant that during her time on the war rig she was being mentored in a more natural way ... and would have made better thematic symmetry when he dies. There would also be an interesting contrast against Immortan Joe wanting to be the patriarch of the Citadel, while secretly Jack could have been a caring fatherly figure to anyone who didn´t buy into the cult ... though I guess at that point the story would have twisted into something else.