Mad Max: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''In the roar of an engine, he lost everything. And became a shell of a man, a burnt-out, desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again...''|'''The Narrator''', '''''Mad Max 2''''', [[Opening Monologue]]}}
A series of films that constitute the most famous things to come out of [[Australia (
The first film, ''Mad Max'', was made with practically no money and released in 1979. Although it was surprisingly successful in Australia it was barely noticed in America - in fact, in the original American release all the characters' voices were dubbed with American accents because distributors [[Viewers are Morons|thought the audience wouldn't understand what they were saying]]. In the first film, Max Rockatansky is a cop with the Main Force Patrol in a town that is barely clinging to civilization, with a wife and young son -- until he loses everything, and then goes on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] in the film's climax.
The second film, ''Mad Max 2'', was released in 1981 and is almost unanimously regarded as better than the first -- it was a surprise hit in America, where, out of fears that no one would see it if they hadn't seen the original, it was retitled ''The Road Warrior''. The film is set in a post-apocalyptic Outback, a few years after the original film, wherein Mad Max is now [[Walking the Earth|wandering]] the wastelands in his [[Cool Car]] until he runs into a small ragtag group of survivors who are being threatened by a vicious gang of bandits. After at first resisting their pleas for him to help them, he ends up assisting them in their plan for escape to the north, exorcising some of his own personal demons.
The third film, ''Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome'', is a [[Dolled-Up Installment]]: the original idea was of a man in a post-apocalyptic world who came across a group of wild children who were survivors of a plane crash, and series creator George Miller proposed "how about that man is Mad Max?" Unlike the first two films, ''Beyond Thunderdome'' was an American co-production rather than a fully Australian film.
A fourth film -- a prequel, set in the time when society was just starting to collapse, called ''Mad Max: Fury Road'' -- was in [[Development Hell]] for years
A 3D anime adaptation was also under development.
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{{tropelist}}
* [[AB Negative]]: ''Fury Road''. The villain's attempts to use Max as an O- "blood bag" for transfusions.
* [[After the End]]: ''Mad Max 2'' and ''Beyond Thunderdome''
* [[All Bikers Are Hells Angels]]: And so are all car drivers, except for Max.
* [[All Hail the Great God Mickey]]: Kids treat records and radios as magical in Mad Max 3.
* [[And Man Grew Proud]]: backstory for the second film.
* [[Anti-Hero]]: Max begins on the more brutal end of the scale, but slides toward the idealistic side in subsequent films.
* [[Anti-Villain]]: Aunty Entity. Power-hungry bitch, yes, but she's genuinely trying to restore a little civilization, and is forced to be ruthless to maintain order in a [[Crapsack World]].
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* [[Chain of People]]: The children trying to rescue one of their own from quicksand in ''Beyond Thunderdome''. {{spoiler|It doesn't work.}}
* [[Chainsaw Good]]: Subverted during the ''Thunderdome'' scene. Max manages to grab a chainsaw from the [[Wall of Weapons]] and proceeds to use it against Blaster. Unfortunately, [[Reality Ensues|it runs out of fuel pretty quickly]].
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]:
** Pappagallo inspecting the egg timer.
** The dog whistle
** Johnny's lighter.
* [[The Chew Toy]]: Ironbar
* [[The Commandments]]:
** In ''Beyond Thunderdome''. "Two men enter, one man leaves."
** "Bust a deal, face the wheel."
* [[Cool Car]]: Max's Pursuit Special, "last of the V8 Interceptors."
* [[Cool Pet]]: Dog, proving that blue heelers are fierce (the dingo blood probably doesn't hurt).
* [[Cozy Catastrophe]]: According to the second film's [[Opening Monologue]], [[World War III]] began shortly after the first film, only semi-nuclear, destroying only what was left of modern industrial infrastructure, and people using up resources that they can't replace - mostly by fighting over the resources. The third is solidly [[After the End]], 19 years in fact.
* [[Crapsack World]]: All
* [[Depraved Bisexual]]:
** The bikers in the first movie have distinctly homoerotic overtones, but still find time to rape women.
** Some of the gang in the second, if not completely homosexual.
* [[Duel to the Death]]: Thunderdome
* [[Desert Punk]]: The [[Trope Codifier]].
* [[Despair Event Horizon]]:
** Max himself after the deaths of his wife and son. It takes him up until towards the end of ''Mad Max 2'' to regain some of his humanity.
** It's heavily implied that, similar to Max, Humungus was a victim of this and chose to be bad; witness his "We have all lost someone we love" speech and the picture of himself and his wife (or, possibly his parents) that he keeps with his gun. Humungus was originally going to be Goose from the first film, having gone over to the dark side.
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* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: ''Beyond Thunderdome''. One of the girls who left the oasis is ''pregnant'', indicating that those kids are behaving like, well, sexually active teenagers.
* [[Genre Popularizer]]: For the [[Scavenger World]] genre.
* [[Genre Shift]]: The first movie portrays Australia as a crime-ridden, crapsack world, and Max is a [[Cowboy Cop]]. The second film is post-apocalyptic, and Max is more like a traveling ronin or gunslinger.
* [[Gilligan Cut]]: Max sees one of the children scampering after them in the desert and states, "He holds his own." Cut to Max carrying him on his back in the blazing sun.
* [[Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have!]]: Tina Turner (age 46 at the time) as Auntie Entity. Not many women in their 40's would dare to wear a one-piece chainmail ensemble.
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* [[Hollywood Police Driving Academy]]: All members of the Main Force Patrol in the first movie appear to have graduated from the Australian branch.
* [[Hot Amazon]]: The Warrior Woman.
* [[Hulk Speak]]: Master, who must speak this way around Blaster so he'll understand what's going on.
* [[Humiliation Conga]]: Implied that Master did this on a regular basis with Auntie Entity.
{{quote|'''The Master:''' Who run Bartertown?
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{{quote|'''Max:''' So what's the plan?
'''Pig Killer:''' ''(laughing)'' Plan? There ain't no ''plan''! }}
* [[Ineffectual Loner]]: Despite his best efforts to keep to himself, Max always winds up allying with/helping out/getting saved by the victimized good guys.
* [[Infant Immortality]]: Averted twice - Once in the original, then again in ''Beyond Thunderdome''.
* [[Land Down Under]]
* [[Large Ham]]: Tina Turner as Auntie Entity in ''Beyond Thunderdome''.
* [[Leather Man]]:
** Wez, ''Mad Max 2'''s [[The Dragon|Dragon]]
** Fifi [[Mac Afee]], Max's police chief in the first film.
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* [[Messianic Archetype]]: Mad Max is seen by the children in ''Beyond Thunderdome'' as the [[Second Coming]] of Captain Walker, complete with a Max-as-Walker picture of him spread out in [[Crucified Hero Shot|crucified form]] carrying the children away upon himself.
* [[Motivation on a Stick]]: In ''Beyond Thunderdome'', the hero is sent into "exile" hooded and tied up on a donkey with a small jar of water hanging in front of its head.
* [[New Old West]]: All of the films have structures similar to Westerns, with motorcycle gangs and post-apocalyptic marauders taking the place of Western banditos.
* [[Nostalgic Narrator]]: In ''Mad Max 2'', the narrator is revealed to be {{spoiler|the Feral Kid}}.
* [[Notable Original Music]]: "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" from ''Beyond Thunderdome'', preformed by Tina Turner, made #2 in the U.S.
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* [[Only a Flesh Wound]]: Averted, and '''how'''! Max get shot in the leg in first film, rendering him into limping for rest of the series.
* [[Peek-a-Boo Corpse]]: Subverted in the second film, as Max doesn't even blink when the crashed semi's long-dead driver falls out of the cab.
* [[Post-Peak Oil]]: It is the cause of the collapse of society by the time of the
* [[Post
* [[Product Placement]]
* [[The Promised Land]]: In ''Mad Max 2'', the villagers are trying to locate their own promised land. The kids in ''Beyond Thunderdome'' believe that Max is Captain Walker, who will rescue them and take them to Tomorrow-morrow Land, which also counts.
* [[Psychopathic Manchild]]: Blaster.
* [[Railing Kill]]: The first shot Max fires during the climax of ''The Road Warrior'' takes out the driver of one car, which takes out another vehicle.
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* [[Scavenger World]]: [[Trope Codifier]].
* [[Shout-Out]]: Max being referred to as "The Man With No Name" in ''Beyond Thunderdome''.
* [[Solid Gold Poop]]: Bartertown in ''Beyond Thunderdome'' is fueled by methane, a byproduct of fecal decomposition. This choice of fuels was clearly made just for the arguments that could result.
* [[Sword Over Head]]: Inverted at the end of ''Beyond Thunderdome''.
* [[There Are No Rules]]: Thunderdome, except "Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves."
▲* [[The Thunderdome]]: the [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Trailers Always Spoil]]: In video releases, the packaging revealed that {{spoiler|Max's family are killed}} in the first film, and {{spoiler|the fuel was in the bus, not the tanker}} in the second film.)
* [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]]: The first movie starts with the words "A Few Years From Now..."
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* [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?]]: All MFP officers carry a S&W .357 Model 28 revolver at all times. This could have been very useful to Max when he dropped his shotgun while facing the bike gang.
** Given the lack of funding that the MFP appears to have (Fifi has to cajole an investor to give him money for a new car for the force), [[Fridge Brilliance|it's possible that Max's pistol wasn't even loaded]].
* [[
* [[Would Hit a Girl]]: Max delivers a knockout punch to a teenage girl in ''Beyond Thunderdome''. He hesitates beforehand, but goes ahead and decks her.
* [[Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe]]: "Methane cometh from pig shit."
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[[Category:Films of the 1980s]]
[[Category:Films of the 1970s]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Film]]
[[Category:Multiple Works Need Separate Pages]]
[[Category:Cult Classic]]
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