See you on the road, skag!

April 18, 2012 10:46 AM

10 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Mad Max

Mad Max vs Motörhead
Adrian Bennett, Ultimate Mad Max Fan
Adrian Bennett opens his new museum
Mad Max: The Reunion

posted by fearfulsymmetry (81 comments total)

I'm surprised the last one didn't get a mention on the Mythbuster JATO car episode.
posted by Artw at 10:52 AM on April 18, 2012

Thing #11: Mad Max, when released on video in North America (I don't think it was released theatrically here), was redubbed by American voice actors. It is odd to watch Mel Gibson speak and some anonymous other actor's voice come out of his mouth. Also, everywhere the original Australian dialogue had the word "mate" the actors in the redub said "man," which lends the whole thing a very Mod Squad feel.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:54 AM on April 18, 2012 [6 favorites]

Bah. Was checking Youtube for the Moviedrome intro to Mad Max (pretty sure Alx Cox did one) and got nothing. All these mid 90s late night TV memories, gone, like tears in the rain...
posted by Artw at 10:55 AM on April 18, 2012 [3 favorites]

The first time I watched Mad Max it occurred to me that it was the only film I'd seen that took place in the midst of a gradual societal collapse.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:55 AM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

Fact #2 blows my mind. Not because the stunt man had a broken leg, but because he was in STUNT ROCK.
posted by Dr-Baa at 10:56 AM on April 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

If you're interested in this sort of thing, you owe it to yourself to see Not Quite Hollywood, a doco on Ozploitation cinema.
posted by zamboni at 10:59 AM on April 18, 2012 [8 favorites]

This list made me realize that I've apparently never seen Mad Max? I guess I've just seen Beyond Thunderdome enough times I assumed I'd seen the other two.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:04 AM on April 18, 2012

The Road Warrior kicked Beyond Thunderdome's ass.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:13 AM on April 18, 2012 [16 favorites]

Sure the stunts and car chases in Mad Max's arguably superior sequel The Road Warrior

Wait, what? Mad Max is the better film, mostly because its low-budget aesthetic makes it more realistic. As a kid (well, a 10 or 11-year-old) it was the only movie to ever give me nightmares.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:13 AM on April 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

10) Mel Gibson Busted Face Got Him the Role

Seeing something behind the bruises, one of the casting agents spotted the battered Gibson and told him to come back in three weeks because they needed "freaks." Three weeks later, a healed-up Gibson returned and charmed the pants of the filmmakers with his pretty-boy ruggedness.


So by "got him the role" they mean "almost prevented him from getting the role"?
posted by DU at 11:25 AM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

Not that Beyond Thunderdome wasn't good, but the Road Warrior had the "gritty, we are in hell, fighting for scraps" vibe. Plus, the final truck chase. Seriously, that was goddamn art you were fed, so savor it.

BT was prettier, more commercial, which made sense as some civilization was returning and the fighting for scraps gave way to political games. It had elements of hope of beauty, personified by the children who were born from the earlier age and some managed to avoid the brutality of what came after.

But Road Warrior? It was gloriously beautiful with its starving, bloodied, half crazed body. It would have cut you just for the meat, sold your clothes for fuel and then stored your bones for stew and not lost a bit of sleep over it.

Hot damn, I know what I'll be re-watching soon!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:27 AM on April 18, 2012 [11 favorites]

I have to go with The Road Warrior as well, mainly because the first time I saw it was on a big screen and it was amazing. I still stop on it every time if it's even close to the point where the aide-de-camp mohawk guy (the only movie villain to actually give me the chills) goes flying.
posted by yerfatma at 11:31 AM on April 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

Emil Minty - "The Feral Kid" - now runs a jewelry store.
posted by Trurl at 11:32 AM on April 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

The Road Warrior kicked Beyond ThunderdomeANY MOVIE EVAR's ass.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:32 AM on April 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

It's occurred to me lately that Mad Max and The Road Warrior (but sure as hell not Thunderdome, because it's crap) are a big, big part of the Australian Pride thing I've worked up in myself. It's been kind of a bummer learning what a horrible shit Mel Gibson is, though.

At least George Miller went on to give us Babe: Pig in the City, which is at least as fucked-up and dystopic as The Road Warrior.
posted by COBRA! at 11:35 AM on April 18, 2012 [12 favorites]

Max handcuffs Johnny's ankle to the overturned car, which is rapidly leaking gasoline. He rigs a lighter near the leak and throws Johnny a hacksaw - giving him the "option" to saw through his own ankle or the cuffs, which he'll certainly never accomplish before he goes ka-boom. Sound familiar? Saw series creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell (Australians themselves) have credited this mean little finale as the inspiration behind the Saw franchise.

I assume this is also Alan Moore's inspiration for an identical scene in Watchmen, no?
posted by Rangeboy at 11:50 AM on April 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

(ears perk up)

(runs to get bullhorn, door slams open as I sprint outside, climbs ladder up to top of guard tower, bullhorn is turned on and I shout through it:)

"OH COME ON GUYS, CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET BEYOND THUNDERDOME?"
posted by JHarris at 11:51 AM on April 18, 2012 [10 favorites]

Road Warrior?

Best Horrifying/Hilarious Use of a Boomerang scene EVAR...
posted by Chrischris at 11:53 AM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

huh, great timing. I was just clicking around about wasteland weekend, which is a mad max-inspired post-apocalyptic festival in the socal desert. costumes required!

Babe: Pig in the City ... is at least as fucked-up and dystopic as The Road Warrior.

I totally agree with this.
posted by changeling at 11:54 AM on April 18, 2012

Seriously, the could have dropped Aliens and/or Predators into the Road Warrior world and humanity would have just rolled with it.

"Acid for blood eh? Round up a few of the fuckers and lob'em at the wall to the refinery. Not the queen though, her head would make a kicking hood ornament"
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:54 AM on April 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

In case anyone was wondering, the Bad Guy's name, Toecutter is derived from the slang
toecutter: noun1. a criminal thug who intimidates and brutalises people for a crime boss. 2. a particularly ruthless person, especially in politics.
Source: snopes messageboard

Apparently it's Australian slang according to various websites, but there's no official source to back that up that I can find right now.
posted by Zack_Replica at 11:56 AM on April 18, 2012

I really prefer to think of The Road Warrior as a standalone movie. What is it about sequels that sometimes makes them better than the original?
posted by dbiedny at 11:58 AM on April 18, 2012

So by "got him the role" they mean "almost prevented him from getting the role"?.

You read this bit, right?

21-year-old Mel Gibson only went to the audition to support one of his friends, Steve Bisley

posted by zamboni at 12:00 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

Was 1982 the best ever year for fantasy and sci-fi movies?
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:02 PM on April 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

Apparently it's Australian slang according to various websites, but there's no official source to back that up that I can find right now.

You can see it in use by searching : the official Australian parliamentary record. They're mostly in reference to Senator Reg "Toecutter" Withers, known as such due to "his alleged approach to enforcing party loyalty and his role in the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis."
posted by zamboni at 12:14 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

Good find zamboni. I'm at work, and can't really dig too deep into websites given the limited amount of time during breaks. "Anything I say. What a wonderful philosophy you have. Take him away."
posted by Zack_Replica at 12:22 PM on April 18, 2012

Subsequent revelations about Gibson's rabid antisemitism have ruined this film for me.
posted by caddis at 12:25 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

In college, I was discussing film with a friend's roommate at a noisy party. She mentioned that her favorite film was Mad Max (or, that's what I heard). I said that I could see how one might prefer it over Road Warrior. She looked at me strangely, said that that was a very odd comparison and that she'd never seen Road Warrior. It turned out that she had told me her favorite film was Madame X.
posted by zombiedance at 12:27 PM on April 18, 2012 [8 favorites]

It turned out that she had told me her favorite film was Madame X.

Holy crap, Lana Turner, Ricardo Montalban, Burgess Meredith? That movie must have some redeeming value.
posted by e1c at 12:35 PM on April 18, 2012

Thing #11: Mad Max, when released on video in North America (I don't think it was released theatrically here),

Yes, it was. It definitely played the lower quality, grindhouse-y theaters, but there were television ads and everything. Blew my little 11-year-old mind.

And then The Road Warrior was initially released without any kind of indication that it was a sequel, but word-of-mouth that it was moved pretty fast.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:35 PM on April 18, 2012

What is it about sequels that sometimes makes them better than the original?

Jaws 2 is worse than Jaws because the director didn't understand what made the original a good movie. A sequel can be better than the original only if the sequel builds on the worldmaking and character development done in the original, adding a new layer to what was already there. (see Alien-Aliens)

When a sequel is really good, it informs the way you look at the original. Wrath of Khan forces me to look differently at those old TOS episodes where Kirk fights the godlike entity of the week, making me see a hint of weakness in his refusing to ever accept defeat.

In extreme cases sequels distort my memories of the original. So help me, Darth Vader makes his first entrance in Star Wars with the Imperial March playing in the background. False, but I can't remember it otherwise.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:37 PM on April 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

... Mad Max depicted a desolate world with long stretches of highways interrupted only by derelict signs of civilization.

So, Australia, then.
posted by zjacreman at 1:02 PM on April 18, 2012 [15 favorites]

In college, I was discussing film with a friend's roommate at a noisy party. She mentioned that her favorite film was Mad Max (or, that's what I heard). I said that I could see how one might prefer it over Road Warrior. She looked at me strangely, said that that was a very odd comparison and that she'd never seen Road Warrior. It turned out that she had told me her favorite film was Madame X.

The most important part of this story was, after such an original method of flirting, did you get to smooch her at the end of the night?
posted by KokuRyu at 1:03 PM on April 18, 2012

None of the Mad Max movies have ANYTHING on Warrior of the Lost World
posted by MysticMCJ at 1:09 PM on April 18, 2012 [5 favorites]

I would just like to say that in the UK there was no such film as "The Road Warrior". It was, and is, "Mad Max II". And it was about 1000% better than "Mad Max", which was incredibly slow and tedious for much of its length, as I recall. MMII, especially seen on a big screen, is the ultimate teeth-clenched, vein-distended, knuckle-whitened adrenalin orgy.

To all who disagree, I say only this: I am gravely disappointed. Again you have made me unleash my dogs of war.
posted by Decani at 1:10 PM on April 18, 2012 [6 favorites]

And come on, you gotta have some love for Bruce Spence as the Gyro Captain. The movie wouldn't have been anywhere as good without him.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 1:15 PM on April 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

If I ever work in a place with a wacky choose-your-own-job-title atmosphere, you'd better believe I'll name myself Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah.
posted by COBRA! at 1:18 PM on April 18, 2012 [5 favorites]

Bruce Spence as the Gyro Captain. The movie wouldn't have been anywhere as good without him.

Indeed. And somehow, finding that he was also the "Voice of Sauron" in Jackson's LOTR makes so much sense.

tall skinny blond guy who knows how to fly. I identified with him so much...
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:22 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

Re: toecutter slang, I do believe William Gibson also mentions it in Idoru: Rez's bodyguard, Blackwell is a 'Stand-Over Man', and then: ‘Toe-cutter’ is a related term. When they tell him what he needs to know, he kills them.
posted by urschrei at 1:41 PM on April 18, 2012

None of the Mad Max movies have ANYTHING on Warrior of the Lost World

MEGAWEAPON!

But god was that talking computer bike annoying. From the first moment we see it talk in that high-pitched voice, displaying the words on its crappy Atari 8-bit screen as it says them: "BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BOPALULA," we know we're in for some special pain. And poor Donald Pleasance was in it too, in the first of two MST3K movie appearances. Seemed like the poor guy couldn't catch a break at that time in his career, he was constantly being cast as urbane genius masterminds in low-budget movies. Typecasting is a terrible thing.
posted by JHarris at 1:42 PM on April 18, 2012

Good lord. Tim Burns acting was a little too good:

You think I look silly, don't ya? Ha, ha! Don't bring this on me, man!
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 2:15 PM on April 18, 2012

oop. Tim Burns' acting...
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 2:19 PM on April 18, 2012

Jaws 2 is worse than Jaws because...

... it stretches the willing suspension of belief to think that the same thing (shark attack) could happen to someone that doesn't do anything expected to seek it out.

The Road Warrior works in this regard because, yes, in a world collapsing around him, it's "likely" that our hero would run into more trouble, and particularly trouble related to a dwindling resource (gasoline) that figures so importantly to the plot (cars and motorcycles used to traverse a massive Outback).

Jaws 2 is Sheriff Brody. Fighting a shark. Again. In the same city where the first shark attack was an unexpected bolt out of the blue. Uh-huh. OK.

If you think about it, this quality divides the good franchises from the bad.

* James Bond goes on another mission. Well, he is a secret agent. That's his job.
* The Transformers find yet another reason their interstellar war threatens America. You'd figure that after the first one, Optimus Prime would just kinda lay his cards on the table and there'd be no "new" developments nobody's ever heard of.
* Spider-Man faces a new villain. He's a superhero from a serialized work. That's his job. Got it.
* John McClain just happens to be around when the terrorists strike again? Is this guy the unluckiest schmuck in the world, or what? Dude, put the taboo idol back in the fucking cave before Marcia, Jan and Cindy get killed.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:47 PM on April 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

It's been a while (more than a decade) since I've seen either Mad Max or The Road Warrior. I saw Beyond Thunderdome once when it was released in the US.

I agree The Road Warrior is a more entertaining film than Mad Max, but when watching The Road Warrior again as a 25-(or-so)-year-old I recall being sorely disappointed (I'd first seen the film as a 16-year-old). The narrative sort of ambled its obvious way to a giant car chase (which I loved as a late teenager), the scenes with The Humungus [sic] gesticulating on the plain seemed so embarrassingly stupid, and the Feral Kid narrator and bad-oral-hygiene Gyro Captain looked a lot more one-dimensional that I'd remembered.

I did like this 10-item list, though.
posted by mistersquid at 2:48 PM on April 18, 2012

And, yeah, Beyond Thunderdome doesn't even rank.
posted by mistersquid at 2:50 PM on April 18, 2012

> It would have cut you just for the meat, sold your clothes for fuel and then stored
> your bones for stew and not lost a bit of sleep over it.

It would eat your dog's food and throw it the empty can.
posted by jfuller at 3:37 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

To all who disagree, I say only this: I am gravely disappointed. Again you have made me unleash my dogs of war.

I'll talk to this Humungus. He's a reasonable man.
posted by Trurl at 3:37 PM on April 18, 2012 [6 favorites]

Way to take me back to the 80's in a heartbeat. I was a teenage girl in a small Australian town. (Now I'm a middle-aged woman in that same, but now slightly larger, Australian town.)

After a steady diet of Molly Ringwald flicks, Mad Max was a revelation. This was more realistic to me than the Brat Pack output in the 80's with their school cafeterias, Saturday detention and no school uniforms. Those desolate roads, the train station, the buildings, the bikers in need of a bath, the feisty old girl who had a gun and wasn't afraid to use it... it was all so familiar to me because where I lived was exactly the same.

And I desperately wanted my own Interceptor. I got to sit in a replica years later and it was like my dreams came true at once. I could picture myself flying down the Castlereagh Highway (although it was called the Sydney road back then), dressed in black leather, just oozing coolness.

Absolutely spectacular post, fearfulsymmetry. Thank you. (And there goes my Thursday, while I watch Mad Max for the millionth time, and try to track down a copy of Stone. And Tim.)

PS: Oh, Mel... what happened? Why did you turn into such a fruit loop?
posted by malibustacey9999 at 3:43 PM on April 18, 2012 [5 favorites]

Australian movies are always so full of crims and crooks and baddies and derros. Why can't we make more nice movies?
posted by tumid dahlia at 3:56 PM on April 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

Someday I'll have to do a Razorback post...
posted by Artw at 4:29 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

(Oh Artw, I gotta say that if you haven't seen Malcolm, the nice movie I mention above, you'd be doing yourself a great favour to track it down...it's quite lovely and charming and clever and funny.)
posted by tumid dahlia at 4:32 PM on April 18, 2012

Mad Max is a great film, gritty and grimy but Mad Max II is a work of art, a classic that turn the car chase into sublime poetry. The Gyro Captain one dimensional? I think not... he flies his gyrocopter, lusts after 80s headband woman and has a snake, in fact he has 'a recipe for snake' the puts him at Russian novelist levels of character depth compared to the average secondary character in an action film nowadays. Mad Max 3, we shall mention it not... And The Road Warrior (as opposed to the rabid jew hating nutjob he'd grow into)... He lives now, only in my memories.

and try to track down a copy of Stone.

An Aussie friend of mine sent me a box set of Ozploitation that included Stone... that film is crazy good. Or just crazy. Also included was Razorback which, despite a couple of limitation (the giant pig... yes a giant pig) looks somewhat unrealistic and it's definitely in the '80s as fuck' category, sees to be ageing bizarrely well.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:35 PM on April 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

> Someday I'll have to do a Razorback post...

Ah, Razorback. My old friend...
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:36 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

Is it the one with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra soundtrack? Yeah, it's great. But entirely without crimmos? Hmm...
posted by Artw at 4:37 PM on April 18, 2012

Interesting that the Mad Max thread has got me thinking "I should track down a copy of Malcolm"...

(I'd posit 'Death In Brunswick' as another nice Australian film, though I think I may be proving tumid dahlia's point)
posted by pompomtom at 4:48 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

After a steady diet of Molly Ringwald flicks, Mad Max was a revelation...

Did this diet include Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone? (I preferred the other Forbidden Zone myself, but hey).
posted by ovvl at 5:09 PM on April 18, 2012

(yeah, there's italics in there somewhere...)

The entire Mad Max Trilogy works in its own way. Like many people, I liked Road Warrior more than the others, but Thunderdome has its own charm when you get past the baroque goofiness, with that haunting conclusion when they fly over the ruined city of the past...
posted by ovvl at 5:18 PM on April 18, 2012

Malcolm happened to be on FTA about two weeks ago. Just goes to show, you should perhaps look at a TV guide once in a while...

Tumid dahlia, isn't the best crooked cops movie The Interview?

Which, by the way, contradicts earlier interpretations of the Australian slang meaning of toecutter. I had always understood it to refer to, confirmed by The Interview, a member of the Police Ethical Standards (internal corruption) unit.
posted by wilful at 5:20 PM on April 18, 2012

How is it that I have never seen, nor even heard of, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone??? That will be corrected ASAP. Consider it added to my list of must-see flicks, ovvl. Thanks.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 5:23 PM on April 18, 2012

Surely the best ozploitation film was The Cars That Ate Paris. Also including Bruce Spence of course.
posted by wilful at 5:25 PM on April 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

you should perhaps look at a TV guide once in a while

That doesn't stand up to cost/benefit analysis at all.

How is it that I have never seen, nor even heard of, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone

I just caught that a couple of weeks back. It is brilliant.
posted by pompomtom at 5:30 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

The entire Mad Max Trilogy

We just haven't seen Fury Road and Furiosa yet.

Certified Mel-Gibson-free, so no real danger that Rockatansky will launch into a random diatribe about how the Jews controlled the antipope to issue Vatican II. Tom Hardy instead.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:36 PM on April 18, 2012

I come here not damn Beyond Thunderdome, but to praise it-- to an extent. It opened up the cinematic world of the first movies a little bit more and the Bartertown/Thunderdome sequence is GREAT. All you have to do is start chanting "Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves" and everyone immediately knows what movie you're talking about. Hell, Burning Man stages an homage to Thunderdome EVERY year.

The major problem with Thunderdome is that the final chase sequence is a big let-down, due largely to it being essentially the same final chase sequence from RW except with a train. When it comes to action movie series, you have to keep raising the stakes in each sequel. Thunderdome drops the ball in its last reel. But the first 2/3 of Thunderdome? I'll watch it everytime its on.
posted by KingEdRa at 6:01 PM on April 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh man, I thought they only dubbed 'crocodile Dundee'. And now you're telling me they dubbed mad max? Because I was just gathering steam to go and see it next week at the sci fi film thing at Seattle cinerama (PDF). I thought they'd planned it to show the Australian films on Anzac day (tho the tenor of the films and the national day are a little strange as bedfellows). I don't suppose anyone knows if it will be the Australian version? Garn.

Malcolm is a lovely film, i agree. Oh, and my knowledge of toecutter being used is in everyday work is more in line with zamboni's reference.
posted by pymsical at 6:08 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

After a steady diet of Molly Ringwald flicks, Mad Max was a revelation. ... How is it that I have never seen, nor even heard of, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone??? That will be corrected ASAP.

I so totally want to go to Australia and hang out with malibustacey9999.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:47 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

Tumid dahlia, isn't the best crooked cops movie The Interview?

That's another good'un. Pretty much anything with Hugo Weaving in it is going to be good (except Captain America and Transformers, even though he was still great in those). He's also a veggo and an animal rights activistm and apparently an all-round good bloke, so totally one of my favourite countrymen.

(He's also in the upcoming Wachowski adaptation of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which is a fun little sci-fi novel. Though it would likely be a better book if it was by the proper David Mitchell.)
posted by tumid dahlia at 8:19 PM on April 18, 2012

I would have been about 10 when I saw Mad Max for the first time (on Beta no less) and ya, that was pretty well nightmares for months. The burn ward sence still squicks me out though the hacksaw scene has diminished in it's ability to induce terror.

Decani writes "I would just like to say that in the UK there was no such film as 'The Road Warrior'. It was, and is, 'Mad Max II'. And it was about 1000% better than 'Mad Max', which was incredibly slow and tedious for much of its length, as I recall. MMII, especially seen on a big screen, is the ultimate teeth-clenched, vein-distended, knuckle-whitened adrenalin orgy."

Slow and tedious is what made Mad Max great I think. Normalcy punctuated by terror.
posted by Mitheral at 8:28 PM on April 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'll also admit to a fondness for Thunderdome. Two men enter, indeed.
posted by Forktine at 10:51 PM on April 18, 2012

Somebody in Canberra drives around in a yellow MFP Pursuit. I squeal like a little girl whenever I see it.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:25 AM on April 19, 2012 [3 favorites]

Thing about Thunderdome that always annoys is that in II it's made clear that ammo for guns is now super super rare but then in Thunderdome guns are just shot off without a care in the world

I always get Malcolm confused with Patrick and have to remind myself with is which... which is no a very nice film at all (though great in its own way)

Some day I'll watch Bad Boy Buddy again... but not just yet

Oh and I'd recommend Long Weekend... though that's probably a little bit too arty to be a true Ozploitation
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:44 AM on April 19, 2012

Sorry that shoul be 'Bad Boy Bubby'... such was the horrific power of the flashbacks to that movie I got from from typing its name, it ramped my dyslexia into the red zone.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:48 AM on April 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

Did this diet include Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone? (I preferred the other Forbidden Zone myself, but hey).
posted by ovvl at 5:09 PM on April 18 [+] [!]

You really went there, didn't you?

That movie has a fantastic line: Peter Strauss, rescuing the Galactic Supermodels, (and he now schills for Miracle-Gro, I think) say, "Will you PLEASE stop screaming? I'm TRYING to rescue you!"

It was also that movie that made me realize every B-grade movie, if they couldn't afford a top-level actor, would hire Michael Ironside.

Yee-haw. Jester's dead.
posted by Thistledown at 5:13 AM on April 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

Just last week I was telling a guy who works for me about that hacksaw scene. *nods and looks to the horizon* Good times….
posted by wenestvedt at 7:31 AM on April 19, 2012

Thing about Thunderdome that always annoys is that in II it's made clear that ammo for guns is now super super rare but then in Thunderdome guns are just shot off without a care in the world

Scarcity is not the problem in Thunderdome that it was in RW because Bartertown solves (or is at least an attempt to solve) the problems posed to civilization by the first two movies, namely, what do about the collapse of the rule of law (Mad Max) and the onset of scarcity (Road Warrior).

Bartertown is an attempt of the two antagonistic forces from RW (Technologists vs Gangs) to create a new civilization by "working together" instead of fighting. The Rule of Law is reestablished by Auntt Entity's gang who are now the military/police protecting the technologists (Master Blaster) and providing for them so that there will be enough power available to encourage market trade to deal with the issue of Scarcity.

All are welcome to trade in Bartertown, provided you observe its laws (Check your weapons, don't break a deal, etc). Given those laws, its pretty easy to see how Aunty Entity and her gang could amass quite a stockpile of ammo through corruption (theft at the weapons check), forfeiture (assuming the possessions of those who died in Thunderdome or broke a deal) and trade (people opting to live in Bartertown permanently on Aunty's payroll "encouraged" to trade in their weapons for "protection").
posted by KingEdRa at 9:40 AM on April 19, 2012 [2 favorites]

providing for them so that there will be enough power available to encourage market trade to deal with the issue of Scarcity.

Don't forget that once you have a market economy, it allows for specialization of skills. For example, if someone can specialize in making a surplus of food, then someone else can deal with the issue of scarcity by literally extracting resources, processing them and making more goods (e.g. gunpowder is sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate, which is readily available just about everywhere on the planet).

You know. Exactly how "society" works. :-)
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:35 PM on April 19, 2012 [2 favorites]

Exactly. Thunderdome has a lot of things going on underneath the surface of the movie that make it intellectually interesting enough for me that I can overlook disappointing final action sequence. There's a society that's being built up, and suddenly the appearance and importance of children in the movies starts to male a sense. What started out as a revenge for the murder of one child winds UPS being about fighting for the future of all children.
posted by KingEdRa at 2:29 PM on April 19, 2012

Also, these beans on my plate are AMAZING.
posted by KingEdRa at 2:31 PM on April 19, 2012 [3 favorites]

Somebody in Canberra drives around in a yellow MFP Pursuit. I squeal like a little girl whenever I see it.

That is good, but the moment I began to fully dig Mad Max was the moment about three minutes in when Max's car pulls away from the camera and rather than PURSUIT, we see his reads INTERCEPTOR.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2012

A massive blower sticking out of your hood, even a just for show unit, is an awkward thing to live with as a daily driver.
posted by Mitheral at 6:54 PM on April 19, 2012

This is off-topic but anyway, speaking of Malcolm...

In high school, early 80s, we had a school excursion. We were put into a bus before dawn, drove for hours and hours to get to Sydney, over the Blue Mountains, with frequent stops for those suffering from travel sickness.

We arrived at a theatre and I regret that I can't remember where. Was it the Footbridge Theatre at Sydney Uni? I can't remember.

We were shuffled in, oh god this is going to be so BORING, sit down and eat your packed lunch and then you'll get to watch real actors do real drama in front of your very eyes, yeah, whatever... and then we saw King Lear. Colin Friels was the bad dude (Edgar or Edmund, I can never remember which) and Judy Davis was the good daughter (I can't remember, was it Cordelia, I'm not going to cheat by googling). And John Bell was King Lear.

Blew this country girl away. Turned me onto Shakespeare. Made me a lifelong fan of any performance by Friels or Davis. Made me understand that drama is a talent, and precious, and how lovely it is to be able to wallow in someone pretending to be someone they're not.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 4:33 AM on April 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

The terrible thing is, to this day whenever I see a police car behind me I invariably mutter "The Bronze, they keep you from being proud." Which really puts you in the wrong frame of mind if you're actually in the process of getting pulled over for speeding.
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:31 PM on April 20, 2012