Mad Max: Paradoxes of a Dystopian Universe (Topic)

Despite the fact that the world of Mad Max is very implausible and all consists of continuous paradoxes and contradictions, each episode found its viewer and the franchise can be considered successful. This is especially true of the 4th picture, in which Mel Gibson was replaced by Tom Hardy, the infamous Bay, from The Dark Knight: Rebirth, now the bearer of Venom, and in the future - Sam Fisher, the main character from "Splinter Sell". With a budget of one and a half hundred million dollars, the painting grossed almost four hundred, which gave rise to figures from Warner Bros. to think about a sequel.

Let's discuss all the parts of the Mad Max franchise in order, putting them in the correct chronological order. First, we will dwell on the plot of these far from children's films, and then we will analyze what is wrong with this universe in the case of each picture. Thus, we will try to trace how the world itself has changed in this cinema over time. And let's start, as usual, with the already distant 1979, when the first part of the franchise was released.

Mad Max / Mad Max (1979)

The action in the film takes place in the near future (as far as we can assume, 3-5 years ahead of the date of the movie's release, no more). And the main character in it is Max Rokatansky, who serves in one of the "interceptor" squads, a special unit of the Victoria State Police that monitors traffic order.

Local towns are terrorized by a gang of rockers led by a notorious thug named The Ripper. Frostbitten motorcycle lovers will either steal a car in the police, or rob a store, or rape a gaping couple. Moreover, according to the bloody bottom of the guy at the beginning of the film, it is clear that they do not disdain either men or women.

In the fight against thugs, Max shows himself as the best specialist in "catching" them. But over time, he begins to feel that with such a job, he himself is gradually starting to go crazy and decides to take a break, going on vacation with his wife and daughter.

The gang gets to them here too. They kill their daughter and wife, after which Max's roof finally goes down. He walks to the police box, gets into a new V-8 interceptor (Ford Falcon XB GT351 Limited Edition) and goes on a biker hunt. Well, all of them, in his Melgibson style, are severely punished.

As can be seen from his entire filmography, Mel Gibson generally adores the genre of vengeful films. That "Apocalypse", that the same "Reckoning", that the rest of his films all (well, or almost all) contain vengeful notes in their plot. That's right, the genre "thrillers" is intended for this, and Gibson is like a fish in water in it.

What's wrong with the universe of the first movie?

Although the first film of the Mad Max franchise was not filmed on one piece of space, the cut-down in the crowd very much dominates the mind during viewing. The impression is constantly created that there are no people left in the world except those who participate in the filming, and some clouds of general madness are gathering over the world itself, since not a single normal person (except, perhaps, a woman in years who helped his wife hide from her pursuers the main character) in this world and did not remain at all.

There were no impressive pursuits in the first movie, except for such a pursuit of the Night Rider, shown in the early stages of the plot. Rather, it's a revenge thriller. But each of the following pictures is a masterpiece in the part of "racing with pursuit".

Mad Max 2 / Mad Max 2; Road Warrior (1981)

The next picture is released in 1981. Judging by the title, the wars on the road in this part will continue, only they will occur after the kind of End of the World.

Apparently, the nuclear apocalypse happened literally a year or two after the events of the first part end, and therefore all the cars presented in subsequent parts cannot be later than 80-83 years of release. But in the paintings, in most cases, only frames and chassis from cars are used, so here the creators of subsequent paintings cannot be caught in inconsistencies.

Besides, the cars were not bad at all at that time. They ate more fuel, yes. But to say that the same Max interceptor was bad ... Language will not turn.

The plot in brief. In the second movie of the original Mad Max trilogy, the extras have become larger, and therefore the plot has become more interesting and lively. During this time Max became a real "survivalist". Fate leads him to a camp outside the walls, which is constantly being attacked by bandits.

The camp is well (as it seems to the director and screenwriter, but not to us) fortified and holds back attacks. And the motorized gang needs fuel, which is immediately pumped and distilled into fuel.

The camp residents dream of rushing from here to the best places. But without fuel in this world, you are nothing. Therefore, they need a truck, which Max promised them to drive in exchange for all the same fuel. No sooner said than done. Max drove the truck, fueled it, but on the way out, a chase followed him, as a result of which he flew off the track and tumbled a huge number of times, irrevocably ruining his super-eight-pot interceptor.

It is unclear why he did not explode when in this movie, and indeed in all the films of those years, where chases appear, cars explode from a minimal collision, as if filled with explosives. And then the fuel is filled to capacity, and the canisters are probably full ...

In short, Max is rescued in a self-made helicopter by the inventor (actor Bruce Spence), whom he met at the beginning of the film. Max now has no choice. He takes part in the final chase behind the wheel of a wagon. The campers get into their cars and the bus and break through the gang, blowing up their oil refinery behind them. The chase was filmed very spectacularly, but the world in which all this takes place is full of insanity and paradoxes, from which it becomes clear that the whole plot was invented only to lead to this ultimate pursuit.

It is interesting that here the storyteller is played by a completely feral kid, who has now grown up and found the gift of speech. In the film, despite the fact that he was already at least 7-8 years old, he did not know how to talk at all, but only growled like a wild animal. But he handled the boomerang very skillfully. It was with his submission (apparently) that Max was nicknamed "The Warrior of the Road", a name that will be sung in the future in legends.

Questions on the second part

Here the phantasmagoric universe is bursting at the seams from the abundance of contradictions. Here is a list of what catches the eye of any sane person, which screenwriter and director George Miller neither himself nor us:

• In such a post-apocalyptic world, people will fight for food and water, not gas.
• Gasoline has an expiration date, so they will fight for food on foot.
• With a lack of gasoline and diesel fuel, no one will burn fuel, driving just like that, and jumping from trampolines for fun. What is the point of dying for gasoline, which you spend on writing idiotic tricks?
• Also, everyone will drive mainly economical small cars. Here - the more cylinders - the cooler!
• In order to feed the population of the camp, you need food. Where was it taken in such a quantity, if everyone around is fat, well-fed and happy.
• People associated with oil and fuel oil cannot flaunt in white clothes, rather the opposite. And, which is typical, in the next parts, which took place at a later time after the atomic war, all are armed much better. Especially in the fourth movie.
• Where did all the normal weapons go? for several years it could not rot. One sniper rifle, and these freaks from the gang would not be so bragging.
• The most sought-after clothing here is, oddly enough, the plastic American football uniform shields, although when you look at it, they hinder rather than protect.
• It is not clear how the gang members survived, if all of them are idiots all over the place.
• 4 cans of solarium on his shoulder, even Schwartz, being in his best shape, would not have carried far. But shorty Mel Gibson carries them even swinging them from side to side. And the lean "helicopter pilot" would have broken his collarbone under their weight.

And such unanswered questions are a dime a dozen.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome / Mad Max 3: Under the Dome of Thunder (1985)

Here (15 years after the events in the previous film of the franchise) Mad Max confronts a character played not by someone, but by Tina Turner herself, a popular pop singer of those times, who played the role of Aunt Entity, desperately trying to gain a foothold as the head of the city Bartertown.

The director is already tired of asking: "Is there no shortage of water in this world?" Because of what, at the initial stage, he shows the merchant of this very water. But it is still not clear how and with what it is possible to feed such a crowd of people in principle. But there is a whole power plant of fat pigs to be fed and watered. And they eat more than a person twice. Otherwise, they get sick and die. But everyone is still sporting football shields like roosters in a pen in front of hens.

Here Max was framed by the same Aunt Entity. In exchange for helping eliminate the Master / Blaster, she promises him a reward. Instead, it throws it out in the middle of the desert, without water, food and weapons, but, oddly enough, on a normal well-fed horse.

That is, someone fed the horse all his life with grass, which, by the way, does not exist, or grain, which is not there either, and then he took it and threw it away!

In the desert, Max is found by a strange tribe, which are the descendants of survivors of a passenger plane crash. They called him the captain, who must take them all home from here.

What did they eat here, how did they survive for 20 years? It is not clear. But in the universe of Mad Max there is no way without paradoxes, otherwise the whole plot, simply, will fall apart. Therefore, it is better to just watch and not blather.

But because he was called that, he did not actually become a captain. And when it turns out that Max is not at all the captain of some of the kids (and here, basically, only kids live), they can't stand their nerves, and they leave in search of a habitable house, which they know about from a kind of filmstrip. Max goes after him and in the culmination part he will have two in one at once: settle scores with Aunt Entity who threw him, and save the kids. This time the truck has a railway drive, and therefore they will have to dump on the rails. But this does not make the pursuit less spectacular.

Everything ends well, the Master and the children are saved, and Max is again left alone with himself. The main questions remain the same as in the second part. But they are mixed with an additional one: "Who told Miller that pigs are a superb source of methane?"

Even if it is real to get methane out of shit (this procedure is not disclosed here), then it (shit) to provide Bartertown with electricity necessary so much that pigs will need a hundred times more, and then provided that they will shit without stopping around the clock right into the funnel of the shit generator, or whatever they call it.

Mad Max: Fury Road / Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

But the chronology of events in this interesting universe did not end with Gibson's trilogy. In 2014, a new actor, Tom Hardy, took over the role of Max, and everything started all over again. His jacket remained almost the same, but its owner developed a stern habit of eating raw lizards alive. Although for a universe where no one has ever particularly strived to live by the rules of normal people, this is really news ?.

The action in the picture is developing rapidly, since more than half of it is a continuous pursuit. Miller realized that in post-apocalyptic dieselpunks it's not the plot that rules, but the races, and therefore the races here will be heaped.

The new story behind the plot can be summed up in a nutshell. Max, the hero of the previous trilogy, many years after what happened in the 3rd film, was captured by the next bandits from the Immortal Joe tribe, who seriously believe that having died with honor for this very Immortal Joe, they will go to Valhala in order to meet with the departed friends and in their a circle by the fire will taste a chiburger with them. They do not know what Valgala is, nor what a chiburger is. But it is clear that these are lofty things, and therefore it is worth giving your life for them.

The one-armed traitor Furios (of all actresses no one would have played her better than Charlize Theron) steals a truck, freeing and taking with him five purebred wives of the Immortal Johnny. They make their way to the Green Lands. They are followed by a chase, in which the crew of the car takes part, Max is tied to the front "okolodok" (it is difficult to call it a bumper).

According to the rules of the "crew commander" genre, the buggy must be stripped to the waist and dressed in an iron mask, like the half-brother of Louis XIV. And then, most likely, the chase would not have worked. Or the car would not start ... Or it would have stalled on the road ... Or, just look, "Soul", as the scumbags called it, with its bad temper would have taken and ate something on the road without permission ...

It is still not clear where these people get their fuel, or, as they call it at this stage of civilization's regression, benzac. And if this gasoline is self-made, then their piston ones would have gone to hell long ago. And there are no service stations and workstations where you could bore pots or repair crankshafts, pistons, etc. What do they use instead of gaskets for the same head? So we don't know. But the main thing is that they know. And the fact that there is neither time nor desire to reveal such small details in a plot ... It is understandable. You cannot open them, because this is another paradox that cannot be explained in principle.

But during the race, Max manages to free himself, after which he joins Furiosa's team.

As it turned out, "Green Lands" rotted long ago and turned into a radioactive swamp. Therefore, Furiosa's team decides to break back to the Citadel (as the camp of the Immortal Joe's tribe was called) and seize the supremacy over the city while Joe wanders in search of them.

How much they succeed - see for yourself. Filmed in a big way. There is no plot, except for The Road of Fury itself, as such. But he is not needed here. The chase itself is interesting. And she did not disappoint expectations. As well as the peculiar death of Immortal Joe (sorry for the pun).

Conclusion

This is where the Mad Max series ends. But ...

It is known that Tom Hardy has already given his consent to the shooting in the 5th part of the franchise. Initially, it was announced that the next one will be called "Mad Max: Furiosa". But later the script was redrawn and the picture became known as "Mad Max: Wasteland".

Whether this is due to the fact that Charlize Theron, the performer of the role of Furiosa in the previous movie of the saga, refused to shoot in the sequel, the story is silent about this.

The sonorous "Furiosa" was replaced by the everyday and topical "Wasteland", but this does not change the fact that soon a new film from this series will definitely be released on the big screens. Although it's too early to discuss the release date.

Let's look forward to it. Until then, all the best to you, and more cool movies!

The Topic of Article: Mad Max: Paradoxes of a Dystopian Universe.
Author: Jake Pinkman