He also plays the baddie in Blood of Heroes (aka Salute of the Jugger), although he's not so much post-apocalypse wasteland scum in that than he is post-apocalypse evil rich bastard - he's got acting range. 😁
Hugh Keays-Byrne. Also in the Aussie biker classic Stone, and played a cop in The Man From Hong Kong. There's an expie of The Toecutter in Fist of The North Star called Jackal, whose every tactic seems to involve dynamite and babies, throwing dynamite, throwing babies, throwing dynamite at babies, or some combination of babies with dynamite.
This is what made Max mad. I think it's a more gradual collapse, economic or something, rather than an event, but if the Mad Max movies are anything to go by we are not far away from living in Road Warrior style times. The movies don't all progress in a lineal way, ones a prequel.
@@RKnights If you want another movie that is also, as rodent said "cusp-apocalyptic" I strongly suggest the 1978 George Romero Dawn of the Dead. It's low budget, and very 70s, but its a lot of fun also.
Mad Max's Interceptor is an Australian 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe. The yellow cars are mostly sedan versions. The coupe was basically Australia Ford's version of the Mustang.
Except the blower was hollow. Can't have a blower turning off or on. Doesnt work that way. Roots blower are always boosting . Can't turn them off . His car would need dual induction systems .1. No blower induction system apart from number 2. Blower which pulls from the blower We know it was a electric driven blower pulley Still to this damn day, people thinking you can turn a roots / wipple blower off and on. It's a sealed 1 way induction through the blower. It's always spinning aka on
A lot of the bikers in the movie were actual bikers hired to play themselves and brought their own bikes, paid in beer, mostly. Miller was an ER doctor for a while and used his paycheck to pay for the movie and brought his experiences from real car accidents to the movie. The actor who played Toecutter, Hugh Keys-Burne, also played Immortan Joe in Fury Road. He died in 2020. :(
In the original release of this movie all the voices were dubbed over. I still can't get used to Fifi's voice here since the first 400+ times watching the move he had a much much deeper and rougher voice. And they did dub over all the Aussie accents. Goose's accent is so strange to me.
If you like realistic stunts gone wrong, you should see "Tora Tora, Tora". There is a scene where an airplane on a runway blows up. It's spinning propeller, detaches from the plane and flies across the runway - where a stuntman has to dive out of its way by the skin of his teeth. I work in Hollywood and I met that stuntman. I asked him: "How did someone not almost get killed in that scene?" He told me: "Someone almost did get killed in that scene, and it was me! The stunt went wrong!"
I think this type of setting is under utilized, where civilization is still clinging on by its fingernails but hasn't fully collapsed yet. I'd kinda like to see a movie in this era get the Fury Road treatment.
Yesterday at a stop light I saw a black van with a psychedelic mural (in progress) painted across about 2/3 of the side of the van. I assume it was somebody's "van-life" home or project. I loved the murals on the vans in the '70s. I really love Max's little red car!
Mel Gibson was born in New York. His dad moved their family to Australia to keep his sons from being drafted to fight in Vietnam. Mel Gibson was on an Australian TV show and got the attention of Miller. He almost lost the role because he got into a bar fight the night before his audition. Mad Max takes place about the same time as the Apocalyse in the rest of the world as society broke down. Miller has explained that he had to retcon the time frame for future movies, saying that Mad Max was a Wasteland legend, a hero of stories told around the campfire being shared generation after generation.
I saw The Road Warrior, the second film of the franchise, in the mid '80s on my university campus. That was enough to prompt me to see this "origin story" for Max. I love how the world-building develops from this point forward, a world on the brink of apocalypse and road gangs pushing it over the edge.
Fury Road takes place muuuch later, after complete societal breakdown. Same goes for the other sequels. This was a low-budget B movie made to get George Miller into the industry. It just happened to rock so much that he suddenly had incentive to make more, and with each one he went further into the dystopian madness.
@@RKnights The second movie, Road Warrior (aka Mad Max 2: Road Warrior) had a much bigger budget and world wide distribution. It also got a lot of play on late night network television movie nights. It is the second movie that really established the post-apocalyptic, dead world, car wars genre. The first movie is an ur-example ie a work in a genre that is not established yet and thus is missing elements that will later define the genre.
there is a Film called "Not Quite Hollywood" that covers some the films that where made in 'Australia 70's exploitation' then again it has many clips from old movies that could be spoilers?
The first time i watched this was on a laser disc. They came out about the same time as vcr tapes did. They were like dvd's the size of a record album. The first half was on one side then you flipped it over for the second half. Like an album if it was scratched it skipped so they had to go back to the drawing board. Took awhile before they came up with dvd's.
There is no other Mad Max movie! Road Warrior is the one! It hits on every cylinder!! Story, action, execution, editing, it’s perfection! I saw RW before seeing the first n found the first tame by comparison.
Mad Max movies are supposedly in chronological order. The first movie was on a shoe string budget, some of the extras were paid in beer, the of it like the first evil dead movie
I always took this movie to take place a few years after the 3rd world war. All the major cities are gone around the world but a few pockets of smaller communities in less affected countries like Australia are still trying to keep going. At the end of this movie we see Max heading into the wastelands which is the area of Australia that was most affected by the war.
After you finish the Mad Max series, you should add "Zardoz" to your list. It's the same kind of post-apocalyptic settings starring Sean Connery. It's...different than the other movies. It might be a fun one for the rest of the crew as well. LOL
The third movie has a great soundtrack with Tina Turner too. The sad part is the big mentally challenged guy. Returns in part III. You don't know it's him until the near end of the movie.
We think the Main Force Patrol became the Gayboy Berserkers by the time of the second film. There were some guys in MFP cars and MFP uniforms in the Lord Humungous' combined forces, along with the Smegma Crazies and the Mohawk Riders. So, yeah, looks like the MFP became just another faction.
Probably the best description of the setting for this movie is... 'on the edge of dystopia' This is the 'last breath' of humanity leading up to the final (world) nuclear war. The bikers.. to a one, have various and serious mental ailments.
Mel is really an American by birth. He was born in the US then their family moved to Australia soon after. He has an aussie accent because he grew up there, not Australian though.
Awe yes Soylent Green is a must for futuristic 70's flicks, followed by another with legend actor Charlton Heston, is Omega Man. If you've seen "I am Legend" with Will(slappy)Smith, you'll like the original. Other Charlton rabbit hole movies with epic issues, The 10 Commandments, and Ben Herr. Some other classic early 70's what if's.......Silent Running was my fav as a young tweenster.
Great movie, but the world building hasn’t been fully fleshed out yet, partly due to budget, partly the newness of the concept, but within the world it’s explained as we are much earlier into the descent into dystopianism. There are still vestiges of civilization.
Mad Max is a great flick. Mad Max 2, "The Road Warrior," is the biggest...and BEST...of the original films! Do yourself a favor and be sure to check that one out!
Honestly, I preferred this movie over the second and third movies. This one was more grounded and felt real. Mad Max 2 and 3 were more "cartoony" and the dystopian society in depicted in them was already a cliché even before those movies came out. Having said that, I absolutely loved Fury Road. I haven't seen Furiosa yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
Welcome to one of the most fascinatingly disjointed franchises ever made. Really helps to not think too hard trying to connect the different films. Because they don't really connect.
You could almost say all 3 sequels are soft reboots. I think the accepted theory is that the Max character is talked about as a post-modern legend and the differences between the films is reflected in who is telling the stories.
Close it was some kind of falcon. Like Hawks and Eagles, raptors but the eye area gives away falcons. Falcons are more often trained for hunting of the three so likely easier to get. Mel Gibson and Paul Hogan two great icons out of the outback down under. Think this movie was done in a manner that you got some bikers and drivers together and added a camera for a movie. Little in line of effects other than some stunts. You literally could film something like this in a week with less of a budget than most TV shows. Imagine if the crew and actors all signed up for even a fraction of a percent. It follows a lot of WWIII films and books with Europe, North America and China wiped out. The few countries that might last after are almost all 3rd world minus perhaps the Aussies due to being remote.
No mad max film can ever live up to this one because of Mel Gibson's character having a unique story that opens this saga. Road Warrior is the best, Thunderdome is a vital sequel. A good B film like this one is 'Driving Force'
The Pursuit Special, also referred to as the Last of the V8 Interceptors, is the iconic black GT Falcon muscle car featuring a distinctive supercharger driven by the title character Mad Max. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pursuit_Special
@@RKnights you must. It basically created the model for a post-apocalyptic movie. Very different from this movie, which is basically a hero origin story
You got it Ray, at this point where we pick up Max, Goose & the other officers of the MFP society is in decline. These guys are barely holding on. There's enough of a civil government where the attorney gets the kid off on a technicality... which is an insult to Goose (& the rest). The prototype car Max gets is a Ford Falcon GT & so dang cool, especially as a kid who loves cars! Time to watch the next one; "The Road Warrior". 😎👍 (Oh, one other point ..you see at the beginning the other officers are in "Pursuit"...Max is an "Interceptor", cue to his driving skills)
Quite the series. One just mustn't think TOO much about the "historical" continuity - the first movie seems to take place around - probably shortly before - society and nature decided to go bye bye in Australia, but the following movies seem much further away from it. It feels like there's at least one or two generations between each one, if I had to take a guess, judging from the mess everything is in getting deeper and deeper. The director/author came up with an explanation that ... actually isn't all that bad: We're not witnessing the actual "Mad Max" in real life (perhaps with the exception of the first movie), but tales the folks in the badland tell of him. Long after he lived and long after written history went down the crapper. Like Vikings told each other stories of heroes like Beowulf, the Greek of Heracles (which the Romans stole and turned into Herkules) and so forth. Mad Max - in that far away future - is the stuff of legends. So, of course, everything is even grander and more fantastic than it probably was - half of it might be made up in the first place (INSIDE the world of the movies) and people only know war rigs and cars from stories...
Fury Road has really nothing to do with the Mel Gibson movies, besides being dystopian. It's a whole nother universe. I have to say these films had a distinct Australian 'look' about them that I always like. Aussie exploitation cinema in the 70s and 80s just has a unique feel period.
Yeah, the world has just suffered some kind of disaster in this movie (as evidenced by that restricted zone that they enter into in the end), but there are still some vestiges of civilized society left. Everyone seems pretty insane, though, like their brains have been exposed to radiation or something. Even the cops are almost as crazy as the criminals! I do agree with you on one thing, though. That wife was pretty stupid to separate from her husband (with her child) in a dangerous world like that.
Dude this story was like pre-dystopian times everything after this went to crap . Mel Gibson's break out international role to super stardom afterwards . Mad Max II The Road Warrior is next and the best one of the bunch IMHO !
Yes, the beginning of the end. Exactly right. There is an energy crisis and an economic depression that defunds police departments. The world only gets worse, though partly for other reasons.
