Mad Max Fury Road

We wait. So this is something we have not done very frequently on this show, which is a episode of something we'd already talked about. I did, in fact cover this movie when it originally came out, all the way back in twenty fifteen, which was all of oh, less than a year into doing this. So that was a fun long time ago, sir. Yeah, I went and listened to it today.

I'm not advising anyone else go and listen to it. Do you still agree with yourself? Yeah? But I was focusing on everything but what I was talking about homes because, like you would, if you went and listened to things you recorded a long time ago, you're probably not listening to it. You're not listening to it for the content.

I was listening to it and solely getting not frustrated by But it was a very sobering but also very I don't know, it felt good to realize I've come a very long fucking way, a long and furious road. Yeah, the long and furious road of audio quality being a thing that wasn't a thing I think anybody thought was a problem, but boy to say it wasn't a problem as being fucking generous or diplomatic the audio quality was so bad. I wouldn't have listened into my own show in twenty fourteen. Twenty fifteen was a different story. But man, I'm glad that we've got nice equipment now and that, you know, we can sit and revisit this movie because there's finally a sequel sort of maybe we haven't seen it yet, so we don't know if it's technically any art after what we've seen already.

There might it's it's for sure a prequel. There may be. I mean, look, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort of Charlie's Theron framing device that's used in the movie, right exactly. I mean, look, her her voice is in the trailer, so I wouldn't be surprised. But like I kind of alluded to, I did listen to me and Matt Capagnya and my friend Candice talk about this movie in twenty fifteen, and yeah, I liked it then.

So I agree in terms of agreeing with myself, yes, but I would also say this is kind of a I would be surprised if I watched this movie again and was like, man, this movie fucking sucks, Like this is not one of those movies. I mean, if anything, I think this movie specifically has probably well we'll get to what we get to it, but I think it's aged. It's aged amazingly for a whole host of reasons. But if you've clicked on this episode, you know on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host, Christashu, and I'm joined by my good friend all the way from Dark Destinations to night Mister Walters, Midnight Viewing, and a whole host of other things that can be found over weirding Way Media, your friend of mine, father alone, witness me, Jesus Christ, we're about to because yeah, if you don't know what we're talking about, we're finishing up our little bonus series we're doing right before Furiosa comes out.

When we talk about that with our friend Mike White, as a crossover between his show and my show, we're talking about twenty fifteen's thirty year later film sequel to Mad Max Thunder Beyond Thunderdome, Mad Max Fury Road. My name is Max, the Road Warriors, searching for righteous cause, reijoy my treasures for me. We're not going back Komadas. What do you suppose he's gonna do call them Mad Max fury Roan fifteenth, once again written and directed by George Miller, with some other names on the writing credit Brendan McCarthy and Nick Lethoris. It stars Tom Hardy as Mad Max, but more importantly, its stars shar Lee's then as Imperiator Furiosa.

Nicholas Holt is there as Nucks, and you got a whole bunch of other people. Hughes key Burns plays a Morton Joe Nathan Jones one of my favorite almost was a wrestler but didn't really have the Riz brother as Rick dis Erectus. There's a lot of people Riley Keoh is in this movie, which I completely forgot. Z Yeah, Zoe. Yeah.

A lot of people who are like not bigger deals now, but oh yeah, bigger deal I mean again, Like that's what's weird about this twenty fifteen. It's like Tom Hardy a big deal, yes and sort of but not really like it's it's again like I feel like Tom Hardy's visit constantly on an upward trajectory, same with Charlie's the Ron So. But yeah, to your point, there are some people who are very much now I mean Catwoman and fucking Batman. So but yeah, it's a well, there's a lot going on in the movie, and we'll probably I don't think we're gonna really there's not to say there's not a plot in the movie, but I don't think we're gonna be spoiling the movie. And as much as we hope you've seen this movie already if you expect to go see the next one, but father Malone, I'm gonna kick it to you first, since this was kind of you pushing me along this road.

We're finally here back at the one that I had seen, so I want to know what your thoughts are on Fury Road. I love it. I I saw this movie. I was actually on tour at time, so I saw this at a theater in Spokane, washing No Tacoma, and I've as we've discussed in the previous episodes, I was one of the I had been a fan of the Mad Max serious the entire time time, you know, since those movies were being released Road Warrior, Mad Max, and I had been following the progress of the on again, off again Mad Max movie, Mad Max TV series, Mad Max video games, Mad Max whatever they were coming up with. I was interested and I wanted to see it, so to hear that it was actually happening was pretty thrilling.

And then to hear that they had cast Tom Hardy as Mad Max pretty much thrilled me. Sure, at least they're on. I didn't. I didn't have an opinion one or another, but I was excited that she was in it because it was kind of class in the joint up. You know.

I was wowed by the film, you know, for all the reasons. It's so goddamned wowable, But at the same time I was in the minority. I don't feel this way anymore. I've embraced the movie for exactly what it is. But I felt, as a Mad Max fan kind of let down because I felt it was a retread of The Road Warrior.

It was. It was the Road Warrior if you took the final act of The Road Warrior and made an entire movie about it. And that's fine, and I fucking love doing that, but knowing that we could have gone in any direction, I kind of was a little, you know, disappointed at the time. I don't feel that way at all now now I watched the movie and realize the genius of it, and the film has an innate not only ability, but kind of a dare for the audience because it is so packed with information which it does not bother to give you at all. It doesn't explain to any of it, none of it, and it really only takes a breath for a couple of moments here and there, and they're not that long.

They're all breaths between we have to start sprinting again. Yeah, And the fact that Miller assumed the audience was smart enough and now savvy enough. Certainly since nineteen seventy nine, we've all become more visually attuned. We can now take in information in a greater supply than I think we could back in seventy nine or eighty two or eighty seven, you know, I mean, we're just being trained for that. So the fact that he recognized that and just went ahead and did it, And the fact that there is even though you're not getting concrete answers, you're given enough answers and you can fill in everything because everything's already there.

So it's not my favorite Mad Max movie, but it's pretty close now. I don't know. I don't really have favorites among the films so I just see them as equal volumes. And this one I liked in particular because if we're going to take Max back to his more solitary warrior self, then we needed a younger guy, and we needed someone who you believe was actually doing it. I believe Tom Hardy is that guy in the same way I believe Mel Gibson was that guy for the eighties.

Right. Oh, totally, totally. I actually have an interesting question for you before we go any further, and it kind of sprung to mind because you mentioned this, and because again this is one of those things that I remember from the Entertainment Weekly that I had in the nineties that this was in their development. Hell, I mean, this was part of it. Mad Max four had been talked about since Mad Max three came out.

If you could have cast someone in the nineties, late nineties, early two thousands as Mad Max to replace Mel Gibson, who would you have cast. I'm very curious because you kind of alluded to the thing that's important about Mad Max, which is the kind of story folk tale esque nature of it. So it kind of doesn't matter who plays Mad Max. It never really has. And I think Tom Hardy proves that.

But to your point, if they had ever gotten something off the ground in the nineties, who would you have wanted them to cast? How how far into the nineties are we I have someone in mind, but I think they were active only by the end of the nineties. That's why I'm saying the late nineties, early two thousands. Realistically, a movie like this would have taken a long time to make. I mean, it took a long time to make either way, but say it took half as long for this movie to get made, so fifteen years after Mad Max three, So that's I think probably within the press about that time, I would say, Michael Shannon, Yeah, buck boy, that would have been fucking wild.

Geez Louise, because you know he can do it. You know, you know he's that intense and if you see him in something like Groundhog Day, you know there's a softy in there, right. I think he could play both halves of Max and Tom Hardy, I should say, too, as tough as Tom Hardy, as whatever. That's the thing I like about him because you see the vulnerability in there, and you see the wheels turning in him weighing whether or not this is good for him. Right, which was always something that was important clearly for the Mel Gibson character.

Again, I'm not speaking with experience. I'm more just speaking as having seen it recently. Like again, I haven't sat watch those movies over and over again like I know you have and so many other people who've spent too much the last forty to fifty years with these movies. And again, it is crazy to me that in twenty twenty four we are getting another Mad Max movie, but it's not a Mad Max movie. And that's the craziest thing.

And that, for me is the thing that I actually find to be the biggest success about Fury Road is it's it shows you Mad Max and then goes yeah, but he's like not fucking important any And I have never seen a franchise successfully do it other than this one, to the point where now we're we're getting a movie that, by all accounts, the early reviews coming back are that it's fucking amazing. Not that I'm surprised, not that I think people are being hyperbolic either, given how long it took for this movie to be made, and how good this movie is, and how specific and idiosyncratic a director and au Tour like George Miller is to the point where someone like Hideo Kajima, who is also an auteur in his own right but in a different medium, goes this man essentially writes like the Bible for me in terms of the things that I care about, and like, that's how he feels about George Miller and the things that he makes.

So when you have someone else who's that iconoclastic saying that about you, I can only imagine how hard it must have been for him to go, I have this other character now that I can do so much with, and let's see if it works. And when the people resonated with it the way that they did, now it doesn't matter if this is Mad Max at all. And frankly, this movie makes such a wild case for in a lot of ways, these movies were never about Mad Max to begin with, which I think, I mean again, like, it's about a folk tale, and that's and and what does that mean for the people? Right? So it's to be a I mean again.

If you take the second movie at face value, it's being framed by a old man who is telling this story about when he was a child. And it may be truthful, it may be exaggerated. It probably is exaggerated, because most good stories are. There's a nugget of truth there. But also again, it's a folklore.

It's a tale that I'm assuming these people, I mean, you see it in Beyond Thunderdome. They rally around it. It keeps them going. It's the hope, and they talk about the hope in this movie. And that's the thing I mean, I think to your point, like, I can see why this isn't your favorite mad Max movie for plenty of reasons.

Again, you've spent a lot more time in a room alone with mad Max than I have. This is my favorite Mad Max movie. And I think that this is a perfect movie, genuinely perfect up and down the board. There's there's nothing wrong with it. There are things that I maybe a couple of things I would change, but in terms of the way it's presented, what it is, what it's trying to do, and how successful it is at doing something that no other franchise has really ever successfully done with its main character, it is a perfect movie, genuine I can understand you're saying that, and I agree with it in a lot of ways.

I think it is. I think it is a great fucking movie, and I like that it's the one mad Max film. Well, no, they're all pretty much at you. You don't have to know anything about the previous movies. That's what's so good about him.

But what I find amusing about this one in particular is that Max seems to have less to do in this movie than in the previous movies, and yet I feel like we Max gets more screen time and more dialogue and more actual action that we're privy to. Ordinarily, Max comes up with a plan and just does it right. This is the first time where we're privy to the meeting where he gives them, he lays out the plant. I think the scene where he describes that we need to go back to the citadel is more than he has spoken in all three previous or four previous movies. Uh but uh oh.

I did want to say something about because we'd speake we had spoken about in the previous episodes about the earlier movies, about how the first film doesn't have a narrator, right, that that seems to be the only historical document of the actual character of Max rockettantsk right before the war, as all of this has been presented, Yes, that's the only factual historical documents to quote Galaxy Quest. So in the sequel, that's narrated by the Pharal Kid, the third film, Beyond Thunderdom, that's narrated by whom there is some voice over there. I think it's one of the kids or something telling tales like I think they used to kid. They used the kids telling the stories as the sort of narrator for that one.

That that's who's telling that tale, those children, And I had wished that Max got to narrate his own and forgetting completely that that's what happens here. This movie opens with Max doing the voiceover. So now this is Max telling us his story. So this makes it even weirder. Rights, it's story within story.

And another thing, I listened to a very extensive interview with George Miller today and he said in it that these films are not chronological. Interesting. Again, when I watched this movie, I didn't think that it was up until up until we did this, I genuinely thought that up until I watched Mad Max one, two and three, I thought that this was a prequel because, again, just going off the fact that Tom Hardy clearly looks younger than mel Gibson did in three, not two, not one, but three. Then George Miller just confused everything further by saying, Okay, it's not chronological, like you know, these stories might have taken place then or that, and he likes what we like about it, this sort of folk tale quality of it.

But then he says, for something like the Citadel, for that organization with the with the war Boys, for that whole thing to culminate would take about forty five years. But Max was twenty something twenty two when the world fell down, which would make him sixty seven in this ep in this story, which actually makes sense if you went with mel Gibson, then it could be chronological, right because and to and to your earlier point, like him realizing that he had another character that he could like continue the story with. I think that was the plan all along, because it was going to be old man Max, and at the end, evidently it was supposed to end with Max settling down. And that's the thing I kind of assumed.

And again I again, I man, I'll tell you, I misremembered how much Tom Hardy is in this movie. I again, I had really only seen this once, maybe twice, up up until rewatching it now, and I really, I mean, I think even when we were talking about it last three episodes, I was like, Oh, he's not in it a whole lot. He's in it a lot more than I remember. He has a lot more autonomy in it. I mean, he doesn't have a lot of autonomy, but he has more than I remember.

He has more dialogue than I remember. And I think to your point, I mean this in a lot of ways, like it it feels like the last Mad Max movie because the framing device should have been you know, and then I finally settled down afterwards, like it kind of makes sense if he was the one telling the story, which, like you said, he is clearly the one telling the story. It's just not framed the way I think either one of us would have done it if we were making this, to make it a little bit more like what he'd already done, because he'd already set that tone. And I look, I wouldn't be surprised if that's how the next movie is framed, because it kin just seems like that will be what it is. Uh, It's I said this before and beyond thunder Dub and say it again here like The real bonus of this movie being delayed as long as it is is that they got to replace Mel Gibson in the lead role here, as confusing as the chronology has become.

Uh he's the one I want out there doing it now, Paul Hardy. You made Tom Hardy absolutely totally, totally and uh yeah, I watched it again twice. I watched that black and chrome version. Oh sure, sure, yeah, so it's it's is it is it black and white or has it just been desaturated? It's been to same?

Okay, I mean it's kind it's it's variations of black and white, you know what. It's ultimately a waste of time. I watched it as sort of a curiosity up until the dust Storm, and then I was like, oh, fuck this, and I put on the regular movie because then it's just a waves of gray. And he gives me, I want to see all of the gorgeous special effects work going on there, like, you know, much more immediate when it's in color. And you know what, a lot of this movie is monochrome anyway, so it doesn't even need the desaturation.

All the stuff at night, which is just gorgeous. It's all day for night stuff. But when they do nighttime interior stuff, they bathe everyone in blue except for like there'll always be somebody with a candle who is illuminated beautifully, like surrounded by all the blue people or the two warriors is illuminated red at night. Yeah, man, I see seeing those flames not color. It's it's it's what why what are you doing it?

It's a gimmick because people said it would look good that way, and I mean, like I I forgot that that was the thing. I didn't go and do what you did. And now I'm not going to because you know, Godzilla Minus won, a movie that I know you're not the biggest fan of. They did that with with it as well, and I know I am. Yeah, yeah, that makes more sense.

Just it's still wouldn't it still wuldn't solve the jerky walk that Godzilla is doing throughout it like a fucking animatronic that escaped from a chuck e cheese. I still haven't seen it, and now and now it's like, oh do I even want to watch it? Because if Godzilla is laughable? Uh oh, and you know what he's look the first act is fucking awesome, like truly and maybe the first the first appearance of Godzilla as a real threat now to Tokyo. Like that sequence is great.

All the action is really good. It's just the boring character stuff in between. It's all mellow dry anyway, Well, what are we doing here? I'm just making it there's well I was gonna say, speaking of character melodrama, this movie doesn't give itself enough time to do that. This movie is you you mentioned it.

I think that's the thing about this movie that I appreciate every time I watch it, because I watched it three times for this this movie challenges you to find a time to go to the fucking bathroom if you're watching it in the theaters, like it's it is genuinely a movie that it does not stop except for like I think two scenes three, the nighttime scenes and when they meet those like the women, the like older women clan later in the movie. That's it, really And I guess the beginning the beginning is sort of slow, sort of like is it though? It sort of just begins with the chase. It continues with the chase. We get two seconds of everyone's setting up and then off we go.

It's really really fast, you know, credits are fast. I don't know, like the movie revs itself up. It's which is like fucking insanity. George Miller nails. He nails the tone of the movie with the warn Brother's logo cranking itself up, and I think that alone, it's like he's just going for it.

Yeah. Another challenge about going to the bathroom is ordinarily you wait through an action scene and then go, Okay, well they're just going to talk for the next five minutes. But the talking is so infrequent and it's just so important that you have to continue to wait wait for the bathroom. Yeah, yeah, it's I don't again, I don't remember seeing this in theaters, and I don't remember the theater going experience for this movie because it was so long. You at this point, but I couldn't help but think that watching it this time was like I have to pause it, obviously, But how would you pause this if you were seeing it in a theater because it just never ends, no, and rightfully so, and it's all compelling to That's the other thing.

It's not like just action for no reason or without purpose. Everything in this movie is well crafted and well thought out. What a surprise it's a George Miller move. Yeah, the continued reappropriation of older items and the selectivity of them. You'll notice that there are no all the cars are from the golden age of automotive, the hard shell vehicles, because anything computerized is dead, you know, and because they fucking look cool.

I mean, that's really what it was. I mean, that's what it is. You know, a hot rod with dudes standing on the back or the front of it looks cool. Like it's than a dude standing on a Mazda Miata like that doesn't look cool. But dudes on a hot rod or like muscle cars that have huge like monster truck wheels, that's cool.

That is very cool. Hot runs that have been used as cabs for big rig trucks, like laid on top of it, like shell at the front, shell at the back, Like, oh my god, it's so amazing. So I want to mention something that you kind of already alluded to, which is Tom Hardy is. I think he's really good as mad Max, But I also think that I mean again, and you know, we've kind of alluded to the fact that the movie is so NonStop, and it does introduce you to a lot of characters. I think pretty much everybody in this movie is great.

I will say though, this is one of those movies that, for the most part, you have to go and find out the names of the characters after the fact because they I mean, similarly to Mad Max, I can't I almost all of them. The third one is the only one where it's like they're saying the names of people a lot. And the second one, I mean, we have a character named the Faral kid. Uh you know so, I mean this this series is kind of always should put that name at the beginning, that the paral kick like in Beyond Thunderdome. The only the only reason they know we know all of those characters names is he puts it all up front in the opening credits.

It's right, this guy is pig Killer, this person is in Fury Road. There's no time for that. We only need to know Furiosa and Max and Max. But the other thing is, I think, yeah, and you kind of alluded to it when we were talking at the beginning, the character of a Morton Joe for as. I mean, he's in the movie a lot, but it's not like we're getting, you know, scenes checking in with him.

Constantly. He makes such a massive impact for and again he's he's not I mean, this is not like a young guy at this point. I mean, this is you know, he's an older gentleman playing the main villain in a legacy sequel to a franchise that has cast him once already as the main villain in the first movie. He like swapped rolls here with Max. Like Max is all talkative all of a sudden, and Martin Joe says about six things, and I think it's kind of perfect, whereas toe Cutter was pretty yondem verboth.

Speaking of toe Cutter, I noticed this today or last night when I was rewatching it. All of the war boys, they all want to be witnessed, right right, witness me, They keep chanting. You go back and watch the original Mad Max. When the night Rider is blazing around, he just keeps screaming, see me, toe Cutter, Do you see me? Is it's intentional, right, must be?

I mean, look, toe Cutter dies at the end of Mad Max. We get a flash of that in this movie. I noticed, in one of one of the many ghostly flashes get we get the close up of toe Cutter's eyes. So that's something I do want to talk about because it is you alluded to it in the last episode that we did, and now we can talk about it on this episode. What do you think of those ghost apparitions visions that Max is seemingly having that other people can't see.

I mean, these are visions of again, not characters we've seen before. Maybe I don't know, or they're in reinterpretations of them, but I have some thoughts. I'm curious what your thoughts are because you're smirking, so I know you must have some. Oh, I've been thinking about this a lot. Initially, on the very first time I saw the movie, the first time it, ghosts popped up screaming you should have saved us Max.

I was completely thrown because this is the first time we've been given anything like this. It's bordering on the supernatural, you know, Yeah, And it really is bordering on the supernatural, Like I had no idea how much, because there's almost a premonition late in the movie from one of the ghosts. So initially I was thrown because it didn't feel of the p of a piece with the previous films. But at the same time, it like confirmed for me that Max is that haunted. I always assumed he was, but it would be easy to think that he's the guy who shuts down all emotion after each of each of his adventures and then just moves on to the next.

And I'm glad to know for sure that everyone he couldn't say is another thing driving him forward. I think they were great. I loved not knowing any of the people that in particular, one of the ghosts, one of the ghostly voices, anyway, is the thing that finally turns him around in this movie, because, like we said, it's almost a reset at the beginning of the film where this is now back to road Warrior Max, and so we can only assume something horrible happened in between to get him there so and obviously it did because he's haunted by it. But when he's given the chance to continue on with the mothers and Furiosa and says he's going to go his own way, it's the voice of a child saying something papa.

So it's a boy calling him papa, which that makes things even messier now because he had an infant that was killed. Right What child was calling him papa obviously an important one because it's the one that turns him around and says, oh, I know, I got to help them get back there and have a life, because where they're going right now is just death. So to answer your question, I love the ghosts in it. Honestly, I think it's interesting. I didn't again when you were talking about on the last episode, I didn't remember any of it because again, and not that it's not important, but you've kind of already alluded to it, and if you've seen this movie, you know there's so mu's going on.

That movie doesn't give you a moment to even focus on them anyways, there's going to be something else that throws at you more or less immediately. I find it interesting because I think it plays into the folklorish aspect of this, which is again like, like you've said, we know some of these stories, but clearly we don't know all of them, and the ones that we do know are are maybe are the successes that he has had but we have never And again also maybe those the stories that we're told are told again more successfully than they did happen anyways, So maybe they some of these people are some of the people we've seen, we just don't again realize it. I think to your point, that thing with the child calling him Papa is again whatever story that is, Yeah, we have not seen that.

But the fact that they just kind of hint at it, show that it happens, and then move on is can I appreciate this kind of storytelling because it doesn't treat the audience like idiots. It assumes that the audience is actively engaged with the film and is paying attention and is not fucking around on their phones and them again like and fuck around on your phone all you like, but don't complain if you miss something in a movie. And in this movie, this movie doesn't. It doesn't have any you know, no pun intended, no t wheels on in this movie. It just goes.

And like you said, the dialogue is important because it's sparse at best. Yeah, he's accept he's expecting you to pick up so much of the culture and the customs of these people that every line of dialogue, it's all seems throwaway, and it all seems clipped and to the point as it should be. I mean, it is a chase movie, but always revealing every single time. And you know, again, when we talk about recasting your lead in your movie, and doing it successfully. Tom Hardy is not it was funny.

Is Tom Hardy's not even playing Mel Gibson's Mad Max. No, it's playing his own thing on top of everything else, which the fans seemed to resonate with, which is something that I think speaks to the people that are fans of these movies for the most part. I mean, I understand, I understand, though I do not agree with people disliking Beyond Thunder don't. I think it's interesting that while they were rejecting Beyond thunderdone, they are, you know, accepting of recasting the lead completely with a different, younger actor who then plays the character completely different than the original character that they fell in love with. Well, that's that they wanted the Road Warrior.

They wanted the Road Warrior, they wanted Mad Max Part three, and they got Beyond Thunderdumb here they got Mad Max Part three, So of course they're static. And I would say my one criticism of his Mad Max portrayal is you can tell he decided that he was going to be a bit feral, right right. Max is many things, but I every time he found himself in a trap of some kind, he would like a dog. Caught in a trap or or a wolf or something. He would grab hold of it and shake it furiously, as if that would do anything at all, Like he finds himself locked to nuts and he's just shaking the chain, right, Max is smarter than that.

I mean, I appreciate. It's a whole different take on the guy. And who knows, in if the chronology is as fuck, this could have happened who knows when. But uh, that's something I did not Like everything else I thought was great and an improvement on the character, it seems like. And look, we both probably have We both do have opinions on Tom Hardy obviously, and maybe they're the same, maybe they're different.

Tom Hardy for me one of those guys he just makes choices sometimes. And you know, I mean I have seen the interview, as I'm sure you have, where he talks about where the character of Bain came from and where that voice came from, and it was inspired by a real person, like a you know, like a gypsy boxer or something to that effect, like a bare knuckle boxer. And I think, again, this is like that, this is just a choice that he's making of his own foolish well, and I'm not saying it does. I kind of agree with you. It doesn't work because mad Max is not He's not ruled by those emotions.

It would seem outside of maybe the end of the first movie. Yeah, the thing is the choice that he made, this sort of animalistic take on every time he finds himself confined is actually wildly appropriate for this film. It's as frenetic as everything. So I could see why George Miller would go, yeah, that's right, okay, fast, fast, fast, like let's you find out there's a problem, you can't solve that problem and now we move on. It makes sense, except I love Max Rokatanski and he would kN act that way.

I don't care what the situation was, right, And again I think to your point, like, yeah, it's it's maybe not the choice that makes sense with the character as we've seen him, but it's the choice for this movie, right. This movie necessitates that. And it's equibble honestly, because like I said, it is in keeping with the rest of the flick. And to be fair, for like the first half of the movie, he does effectively have a muzzle on, so you know, I mean super weird man like like a third of the film at least he's Max has his nose smushed up and can't really talk. And it looks miserable.

That looks like a miserable thing to have to have on your face for any amount of time, especially, And that's the other thing, man. And I mean, I know, again preaching to the choir here, But you know, this is an amazing movie, obviously, But fuck, I'm not sure I would have wanted to make this movie Jesus Christ running, I mean everything about this yeah, And it looks miserable. Everything looks miserable. This is like, again, you have to look dusty and dirty every fucking day. I'm good, good.

I mean, it's like it's like the equivalent of being covered in buckets of blood constantly, Like you're sticky and wet. Here you're hot and dry and covered in sand like buck that. But it lends a unique look to the movie that one cannot replicate with CGI, which is what I love about this movie so much. As you can see their CGI. Some of the CGI ain't great, but it doesn't have to be great.

There's a couple shots of guys' bodies flying through the air that look a little video gamey, but again, at the same time, all of the practical effects are so amazing. I don't care, like I really don't care. Hey, this one shot where there's a vehicle called the Excavator. It has the buzz saw on the end of like a back hoe. When they destroy that thing, one of the war boys goes flying through the air and they show it from two separate angles, and I assumed it was CG but it's not.

That's a dummy that George Miller said after after Mad Max, when Toe Cutter, Oh no, after Road Warrior, when Virginia Hayes' character gets run over, which was clearly a mannequin or a dummy, he said he wouldn't be doing that anymore. But then he talked to the effects guys here and he said, could you make a war boy and wait it like he would, his actual weight right, like a human body, And then could you put an elastic in between the arms so they're drawn into the center, so they're not just flopping around. And I gotta tell you, man, that fucking body fooled me for I don't know how many times I watched the movie. I didn't realize it until he said it in the interview that I heard, that's wild. I wonder if I wonder if that's the one I'm thinking of.

There's a couple shots with flying through the air bodies. I may I don't know if it's that one there. It might be either way. That's insane. But I think to your I mean to again to just the amount of time spent on just that one thing.

George Miller, right, like, man, they they they don't make movies like they used to. Is something that you say sometimes, but with George Miller, nobody makes movies like George Miller other than George Miller. Well, you know what's funny is not only I admire him so much, not only has he figured out that audiences are you know, attuned enough to take in more visual information, but he also recognized that the technology was a real boon to them. In the interview I heard, he was describing how when you used to film an explosion, yep, you would have a camera magazine that could hold exactly ten minutes of film at the time, right, But you're shooting in slow mo, so you're shooting twice as fast, so you have half that amount of time now in order to get the camera up speed and then get everyone into place and get everyone out of the frame and then get the action going and then fire off an explosion.

It was a crap shoot every single time. Here He's like, we can just leave the camera on at all times, like those little things like little you wouldn't think would be a big deal, but you know, it's nineteen eighty three and you've got to get the truck from here to here, and it needs to explode here, and the camera is only going to pick up this much amount of time. You've got to plan everything to like what a headache. But at the same time, so everything, like his life has been made easier and he only complicates it with even more vehicles and now he has guys on poles swinging around and now there's a dew foarrior with a guitar. Like he just keeps over complicated everything, and God bless him because it's not me out in the fucking desert shooting this thing for six months.

But like he just continues to impress me on every level. He just he uses the ease with which technology allows, and he uses that to push himself harder. The man is in his eighties, I know, and that is not something that directors half his age care about. And that's I mean again for me. You know, I don't I don't need a director to make a movie every year.

But if you make a movie every five to ten years and it's something like this or what FURIOSI sounds like, it may be I'm okay with that. I'm okay with you having a filmography of like twenty five movies if every five two to five years you're making something that's well thought out, well intended, and that you actually put, like you said, foresighton thought into into everything, into the way a dummy flies off of a you know, exploding car, to the way the again, to the way the world works again. We've talked about this plenty of times, but he thinks out everything in these movies, every little thing, every little flourish in the environment. And maybe some people will look at me and say okay, but it reminds me a lot, and I think it owes a little bit of obviously appreciation to something like a Star Wars the original movies in terms of a futuristic world that looks lived in.

I think Jeorge Miller would even agree with you. I think every filmmaker who sort of came up after Star Wars, recognized that they needed to build a war if they were in any good as a filmmaker. They needed to make a world and make it lived in and real. And Miller does that just better than Well. I was going to say, there's one other name that I would mention, and it's one that I know you and I are both very fond of, which is also Alien has that same vibe and feel to it, which comes directly from Dan O'Bannon.

Right, that's another movie that allows the audience to take in like the wild environment and explain nothing at all, Like like I've had people who don't know that they're they're miners, Like that's they're hauling freight. It's a min it's a mining craft. Like they just think, like, oh, the people in space and they fight in right, and it's and it's and and you know, and god, you know, I rewatched Alien recently and it's like there's some forty five minutes where it's just set up for the movie. And again, if you know, some people would be like, oh, and it's so boring. It's like boring, Like the it pays dividends because the world feels real and lived in.

And by the way, Max wear's the muzzle for forty five of the two hour run time of the movie. I don't think five minutes he was going to do that. It's insane, right, And and he's like you see Tom Hardy, like he's actually strapped to that vehicle and they're like racing it through the desert. Like, I don't know, man, I guess. I mean, I say, like, I you know, I wouldn't want to fucking do it, but like when other opportunity is it going to arise to do something like this?

Right that it's true? I mean, come on, yeah, yeah, I'm joking. If George Miller hired me for anything, I would go do it. Yeah. But that's the thing I mean again to your point, like the idea of this guy is such an iconoclast as a director that I am going to see his movie because he directed it.

I mean, yes, I'm excited that it's a Mad Max Universe movie, but at this point I'll go see whatever he releases. For the most part, I haven't seen his last movie. I don't know why j awesome. Yeah, I've heard it's amazing. It fell through the cracks like a lot of movies during the last couple of years did that didn't come out in theaters, but I had heard it was great and it looked suitably.

Just like most George Miller things his own thing through and through, and he got to have characters sit in a room and talk to each other. It must have been so challenging for him. Yeah, sit still for five seconds, George, please, God, you know, I've been looking at these movies. Obviously, we've been looking at these movies, and I when I look back at them, I kept thinking that they were all about gasoline, but really only the Road Warriors about gasoline. The first film.

It is an issue, but they don't present it as one of the problems. You just figure it is there's only a certain amount of people on the roads with gas because it's pre war Road Warrior. Obviously it's about a fucking refinery and escaping with the fuel. But beyond Thunderdome, it is more about like what new civilization is and like bartering and you know, bringing it back. This movie is about water, mainly women's reproductive rights.

And yeah, like, well I'm just saying like as a resource, as the resource of it. Yeah, it's water. Yeah, yeah, this, I mean this, The gender politics in this one is like right out there. I mean, you know, it doesn't need comment almost, it's so fucking apparent. Yeah, I mean, well, one of the other resources is technically women of reading a heat.

I guess this is true. I mean, in the in the apocalypse, there's only so many, so many clean human beings left, right Yeah, and and Morton Joe wants all of them. Yeah, And there you go. It's all another facet of this film, all about the haves and the have nots, the sort of who who controls that power? Like the power here is water and that's what you can make green with.

And he dribbles it out to the to his to his followers, you know, just like you know, it's funny. I know, I just keep referencing the interview, but I found it. I found it very illuminating where he said, basically, writing a mad Max movie is looking at the world as it is now, finding the problem, then going into the past and finding a similar situation to see how people actually acted in that case, and then putting it in the future. Yeah. I could see that.

So he's saying, like, well, there were previous situations where there were citadels in you know, the ancient world, and they had to barter with these people that way. Okay, so that actually happened. That's the precedent. What did they do? Now, I'm going to write a movie about you know, this water problem and the women's reproductive rights and throw it all out there, all in a movie where people are in cars for ninety nine percent of the film chasing each other down and stabbing them and perforating them and crushing them underneath.

I mean, it goes without saying almost the action is so fucking insane in this movie. It's just it's in hard hitting. Like that's a thing, like you can give me a string of action he scenes, whatever. It can look beautiful. If I don't feel an emotion from it, then it's not really working, right.

And that's the other thing. Miller speaks through his action, and you know, it might just be a cool effect every now and again, but like, because we love these people so much and we're so goddamn invested in the world, like every one of those crashes, you feel it, and I actually I really appreciate that because there is and this is something that we've kind of talked about a little bit. With the rest of the movies, this is this movie has most gun play of any of the movies, which I think is really interesting because, like you just alluded to, anytime there are guns being used, like they it is very intentional with the way that they're used. And there's a scene where Tom Hardy and Charlie s Thron are fighting.

It's the first time they kind of are at odds with one another, and he gets her gun and and I don't know what George Miller is doing in this scene, but the when Tom Hardy shoots the gun, the camera like vibrates with the gun as it's being shot. And again, this has more gun play in it, but they make a point of like pointing it out is what it feels like, more so than the other movies have, because again it's a in and of itself, is a resource. You alluded to it in the last episode, and they talk about it here from the Bullet Farm. Yeah, so he's finally corrected, or not corrected, but given an opportunity for a gun play because in the previous movies, characters have had guns and they've used them, but you know, half the time they don't work, right, is old and this is the apocalypse folks.

Right, That's why I hate zombie stuff because zombie stuff is like, oh, it's all guns. It's like, but where's who's who's making the animal I and again, like a when a director goes and says, I have thought that out and here is the answer. I not only appreciate that, I respect that because that's a commitment. That's a commitment to the bit as it were, or a commitment to the gag as it were with the movie, like you've committed completely to what this is. And I appreciate that.

There was a season of the TV series Gotham where they did the run of No Man's Land from the comics where Gotham is basically cut off from the rest of the world, and they turned the Riddler into an ammunition fella. He had factories making bullets inside, and that's great because that's actual currency they can use in there, and they need those goddamn bullets. So yeah, you know, people are paying attention to that sort of thing, the the scarcity in a sort of dystopian situation that you would use it. But of that scene, the one you were talking about, I mean, look, the gunplay really comes into effect when they're trapped in that muddy wasteland that used to be the Green Place. When the blind brother of Immorton Joe, he's the choir, he's the he's the conductor of the choir of destruction, right, Like, that's when the most of the gunplay comes in.

But the scene you're describing, the sort of hand to hand fight between Furiosa and Max, that's my favorite scene in the movie. It's amazing. It's I know, you can watch any half dozen to a million Hong Kong films and see probably better choreographed action executed. But these characters, like I said that, I'm already invested in both of their stories going at it. The action is so good.

He uses every piece of physicality available. The chain becomes an issue, the car door becomes an issue, you know, trying to cut the chain off. And but in particular that moment where Nuts holds out the clip to the gun, Max slams it in and then fires three rounds around Shirley's say, the camera does do that and you feel it, right? Yeah, that moment is this fight is over right, It's like that's the it. Yeah, And that's the dynamic for the rest of the movie until they all sort of like get cool with each other.

And I like that they get to that point as well. I actually really, I mean, we kind of haven't really talked about it, but Charlie's the run and Tom Hardy's chemistry is great. They're not love interest, which I appreciate. And this is one of those movies that there is a minor romance that feels earned between Riley Keo and Nicholas Holt's character, but totally earned, totally earned. But we don't have our main characters in a relationship, which I appreciate.

It's more of just a mutual respect thing by the end of the movie, and I appreciate that because again, fucking conventions. I mean, you know again, the thing that's you know, looking back at when this came out, we were in Free Endgame of the MCU, right when every single fucking superhero had a female love interest, even when they didn't need them, even when they wouldn't even come back in later movies, like Rachel McAdams's character didn't come back in What Was It? She never showed up an Avengers Endgame or Infinity War, but then she came back for the second uh second one, Matt, Yeah, yeah, but Betting married, So we're like they're basically saying like, well, you won't be seeing her again. No, but they bring her back at the end.

She's one of the variant cop and then she gets and then she gets replaced by, of all people, Charlie's the run. My god. But what's funny is I always remember thinking so many of those MCU characters don't need love interest, and they always felt shoehorned in, and this movie just goes, Nope, we don't have any interest in that. And I respect that a lot because again, like that's just fucking the conventions that you expect with this kind of movie. Yeah, I don't think Max can't have a romantic interest.

I'm curious for the time he does. If we don't ever get it, I'm also fine with that too. But yeah, this again I mentioned in the last episode to Bey on Thunderdim episode because that to me felt like George Miller just taking left turns every time you're supposed to take a right or every time, and like that's that's a big one here, like him saying, like, you know, you know, a note came down from Warner Brothers, Like, could they have a scene these two beautiful humans, maybe just a little bit of romance, whatd have been believable. Yeah, I mean people in horrible situations fall into each other, you know. But it I mean I'm more talking to those two characters, like, I just don't see it.

I don't see her looking for anything from any that's my boy. Maybe it's not as much Max as it is Furiosa who And that's the thing I mean, honestly, that comes back to this. What the next thing we talk about is why the next thing that they're making is the or the next thing that's coming out is what it is is? Because she is the best part of this movie, without a doubt, in a movie that it has so many things that are amazing. It's not that I don't didn't like Charlie's the Ron before this movie, but she wasn't someone who I necessarily wouldn't she was in something I would appreciate her in it, But this was for me.

When I saw her in this was a big change, a moment of change for me as someone who would watch things that she was in. Yeah, this I don't know. I've been a fan of hers for a while. I mean, I think she can be funny, and she thinks she'd be very dramatic. But there's something about carrying carrying an action movie.

It's really difficult, and it's difficult to be the lead because you have to let everyone sort of out act you. But that's not the case here. She's the emotional center of this movie in addition to, you know, being the straight man. Yeah, I mean, this is this is her story beginning to end, really yeah, And this is her mission, her choice, her plan. Max just gets as usual, Max just gets swept up into it and just goes along with it because it's a good plan until it's no longer a good plan, and then it's his plan to help them.

And that's the other thing you kind of alluded to. I mean, and you mentioned it. You know, your favorite scene in the movie is when Furiosa and Max square off. They are equals in that scene, which which is again like kind of bucking the conventions at that time. I mean, twenty fifteen is free a lot of changes to the way action movies are going about doing things.

This is pre speaking of Charlie's theron Free Atomic Blonde, is this is this pre john Wick. I think it is, I mean again, like right, but again like I wasn't expecting to bring up john Wick because again, Atomic Blonde, I know, comes out after this, and that is a lesser action movie in terms of it being a Charlie's Theron showcase than this is. This is like, I think that this is one of her best performances period and it also cements a new female heroine that but again not saying it's hard to do, but it feels like we've seen all the best ones for the most part, I mean the big time ones, and she makes a case for being just as important as Ellen Ripley or so many other I mean, I mean again characters like that, but Ellen Ripley is obviously one of the big ones.

She makes a case for let's keep going with this, Let's keep getting female action stars. The problem isn't that people don't go see female led action movies. It's just that they keep making shitty female len action movies. Well, they just keep making shitty action movies. It doesn't matter, yeah in general, so you know, but like, let's stop giving the rock action leads and give some to the ladies.

He's got enough. He did it. Enough. Are you telling me that, Are you telling me that Skyscraper would have been better with someone other than the Rock? I don't believe you.

I don't think anything was going to save that movie, but it certainly is an example of shitty action movies. John Wick came out in twenty fourteen, while before this, one year before this, which is interesting because again I kind of remember it the other way because this, I guess john Wick is kind of the thing that opens up a new kind of action movie. I mean, and again, like it's been copped so many times now, but yeah, man, I mean again, like we don't get movies like we used to not get movies like john Wick very often. Then that is not the case anymore. Well, no, because then john Wick comes down.

There's a million imitators. We're kind of in a golden age of action now. But you know what's hard to imitate something like this. That's the funny thing. Have we gotten any imitators to this movie since this movie came out?

No, because it's impossible, you know, honestly, thinking back on it, like actual imitators of this movie other than some z grade you know, uh, what was that apocalypse? Not apocalypse? Was it called Apocalypse Doomsday. Doomsday, Yeah, that one like that one I could definitely point. I think I think the movie is like way more influential.

And you've mentioned this a few times in the The Realm of Video Game Oh yeah, totally. You know, you can't really look around at other cinema or movies and go yep, Mad Max Imitator, Mad Max Semittator. But if you can just go walk into a game stop and pretty much one whole wall is ripoffs of Mad Max. I mean again, Borderlands pretty much a Mad Max ripoff. Uh, something I do want to talk about because I had mentioned it to you and I was futzing around with it while watching on one of my watches of Fury wrote the the Mad Max video game?

Which game? Yeah, man, what a fucking underappreciated, underplayed game. Seriously. I went and looked like people have reappraised it recently in like the last couple of years, because again with the glut of open world games, I kind of feel like it came out people were just like, it's just another open world game. Not that I'm not saying I think that's what happened.

I went and looked, that's what everyone leading up to it was thinking it was going to be what a game that deserved better, a lot better. Oh well, you know, it's maybe a case of we've already done this. I mean, we hadn't done that though. No, of course not, because you can't do that without George Miller in there somewhere. But you know, the fallout people I'm sure said I'm in a wasteland right now.

I've been in a wasteland for many years. But the cars of it all, I think is what was interesting to me because for a game that Borderlands doesn't use cars the way the Mad Max game does, because that's part and parcel with Mad Max is the vehicular combat, which is well represented in the video game, which I think makes it worth playing alone because it's an open world Mad Max game with good vehicular combat. The hand to hand combat kind of sucks, but the vehicular combat actually pretty well done surprisingly well. Yeah, I'm not looking for hand to hand combat in a Mad Max video game. I want to drive the car.

Yeah, and it represents that. Well. They destroyed the car in this movie, Yeah, they did in every movie? Is he finding? Because see now that fucks with the chronology even further because it does that car keeps getting destroyed?

Man? Well, that's the thing. That's why I thought this was a prequel, because like he has Warrior. So okay, so let me ask you. If you were to try and put these chronologically, and this one isn't the last one, let's just concede this is not in it the right place chronologically, where does this go?

Then here's what I think. I think the Road Warrior and Fury Road, or the exact same story told from two different wasteland tribes. Oh a little bit of that telephone huh yeah, a little and then a little, and then the stories are that similar and the beats are that kind of close. The only thing missing is the pilot. Really, yeah, where's it?

And really to be there? Where is Bruce Spence in this movie? Right? Yeah? Man?

Actually two of the three? Come on, he should be three of the four. I now have two problems with the movie. Tom Hardy acts a little animalistic at times, and there's no Bruce Spence. That's a problem for me because I know Bruce Spence is still alive, and I don't care how old he is or infirm he is.

They could have had him in a wheelchair. He could have been one of the fucking the Brothers, the gas King or the Uh. Yeah, I don't know why they didn't. He's not there's not even a representative character, not even anything like him. Is he in Furiosa?

Uh? I don't know, Maxes. Now that the movie's been out, they I've heard it. Yeah, now they recast him, Yeah, and they recast him. Yeah, but I'm sure it's going to be a situation where he like drives through the frame, right, Yeah, my god, that was Max Like.

And that's the thing like, I don't I don't even And that's the thing like, And that was kind of where I wanted to bring this kind of as as we kind of bring it into the station of Furiosa. I'm curious, what do you want and expect out of Furiosa? Having sat and rewatched Fury Road, you know, for this, I don't want Fury Road Part two, right, agreed. I would like I would like it to take its time, how about that? And I know that sounds antithetical to Mad Max fans, but I want some breathing room in this movie.

If you're gonna now tell me a further story of Furiosa, I want to know a little bit more about her, and I want to know how she thinks. Yeah, that's what I want from the movie. Here's the thing. I know the action is going to be fucking bananas, so like, I'm not concerned about that at all. It's just that we've now had the remake of Road Warrior.

I don't need a remake a second time. And that's where I come in as well. Like you said, this really is the third act of Road Warrior, just like Loane up two hundred percent, like here you go. You get the whole movie and look like yourself, like I love it, it's great, but I don't need this again again. I mean I could stand for something different, or maybe you playing the same song but in a different key, and that's perfectly fine, just not the same song in the same key, which I'm sure there are plenty of people.

I just want another Mad Maximi like Fury Road, and it's like, please know, because it can't be as good. There's no way. Fury Road already exists. That's how this works. You can't and you will and you will not get a better movie than Fury Road because Fury Road already exists and it's pretty perfect as it is, so I just don't see it happening.

And the guy who plays Mad Max and Furiosa is just the guy who's his stud double in this movie. Yeah, there you go again. It's just going to be like car pulls into the frame and you go, holy shit, is that mad honey? If anything, what I assume is what I frankly assume is the framing device is like the best comparison is the way that they frame the Hobbit, where it's like the third movie ends right where Fellowship of the Rings starts. I bet Furiosa ends at the beginning of Fury Road.

Oh could be. It could be, I bet, because and then it makes sense why. It's just like Mad Max would be a cameo because it's like, oh, here he's here, he comes. This is they've kidnapped him, right, and there was a part where he's been kidnapped and taken to the Citadel. Well, I just like, like you said, I just don't want it to just be Let's hang a lantern on the fact that everybody loves Fiury Road.

Unlet's just do that again. And look, it seems to be everybody who's seen it has pretty positive things to say. And that it's not just a re tread, which is nice. And also I can't wait to see Anya Taylor Joy do her own thing with Firiosa as well. That's probably that.

And Chris Hemsworth, Hey, Chris Hemsworth playing a villain is exciting for me. And at the same time it does feel like, well, I mean, after Charlie Starn shows up in your movie, you've pretty much broken the movie star rule. You know, not that there was a rule, but you know you watched the earlier films and other than Mel Gibson and Tina Turner and Mel Gibson, I know, mainly as mad Max. So in that case it feels like I don't know who any of these people are. These are just the characters in the world.

So you know, obviously you need to have stars in your movie to get your movie made now, but it does that to me, takes a little bit of shine off the off of the V eight interceptor that is Chris hems No, not that it's Chris Hemsworth, that it's a star. The size is caums Worth playing, you know what I mean. Like if it had been Brad Pitt or somebody, I would have the same reaction like, oh, this is Mad Max and Brad Pitt is in it, you know, yeah, no, I actually I totally get it. It's the it's the Steven Spielberg's not allowed to direct James Bond thing. It's like, I don't want the star or director to overshine the franchise.

And Tina Turner was not really known for acting when she took on that part, you know, right, Oh cool, you know it was stunt casting, but it didn't feel out of place, right, And yeah, that's I mean, I hope that that Chris Hemsworth has a has a worthwhile role in the movie and doesn't do, like you said, kind of just Chris Hemsworth and Mad Max. What that means, I don't even know. I don't know what. I haven't seen a lot of things that he's in other than the Marvel stuff. So yeah, but that's enough, you know.

Well, I mean my point is like, well, that's what I'm saying. I don't know. I haven't gone and watched any of his other non Marvel stuff, which I'm sure he's been cast in other things, so he must have a setting other than thor So that's that's what I'm getting at to your point. It's like I don't want Thor obviously, but I haven't seen enough of his stuff to know that he I know he can do other stuff. I just haven't seen it.

I'm sure he'll be fine. All the early words seems to be that he's really good, and I don't doubt he will be because I like that guy just saying. And I guess the question is, was that the case with Tom Hardy at the point in twenty fifteen when he was cast as mad mag No. I think Tom Hardy's name wasn't household. I don't think.

I think if you were into movies, you knew him and you'd seen a bunch of his stuff by twenty fifteen, But like you know, he'd been around forever. Nobody knew he was, so it was Mad Max to put him. I think in everyone's head, everybody knew him as John Luke Picard's clone from Star Trek Nemesis. Nobody knew him from that. Oh fuck, I saw that movie in theaters.

Talk talk about a letdown. He's good, he's good, but that movie is a letdown, like just kind of yeah, it's it's no, it's no first contact. That's for sure. No, you can tell. It's much more by committee at that point, and probably in reaction to that previous film that fucking oof that time Insurrection with f Furray Abraham, My god, that was terrible.

Yeah, it's it, you know you mentioned it. It's crazy how long Tom Hardy has been around acting. But I think this is this is kind of like at the time, this was the biggest thing he was in. Oh yeah, sure, and then but you know, following it up with Venom, so you know that Venom, but Venom was six years later. God, yeah, Venom was uh was Venom?

Venom two came out in twenty twenty twenty twenty one. Yeah, so the two years before, so it's only like three four years. Yeah, well he was, but again he was also in the Revenant and doing Kirk and yeah, and then obviously, I mean he had been in the Dark Night at this point. But like again, like other other than the Voice, first off, you never got to see him, like you never saw what he looked like. I mean, this movie was that that was part of the joke when this movie came out, wasn't it The fact that like Tom Hardy's face is just like obscured and shit that he's in the big name stuff.

At least he's not completely obscured in this movie. But yeah, I guess it's a lot better. I'm glad they didn't decide to put Max into a mask and he affected that band voice, right, that was a different thing. And now, of course I'm gonna need to watch a video where somebody has done that, right God. And I you know what, I actually like Tom Hardy's Venom.

I think Venom is stupid enough and the second movie is actually kind of fun. Love that second movie. Yeah, I's directed by Andy Serkis and Woody Harrelson doesn't have that stupid wig from the first movie. Oh boy, I wish they I wish they had kept it. Honestly, I mean me too.

But it was boy. I know that they were trying to be like, oh, I everybody's ready for carnage. But uh yeah, maybe if that's cartage, you can keep him. Yeah, you have to look so comic accurate if it looked fucking ridiculous, It's like Ronald McDonald without the pancake make of Man, I'm looking forward to the next one. I love this movie.

You know, I don't need to exhort anyone to see it because you've all seen it. I'm just saying, go back. It works perfectly on its own. But but I can watch the first three movies and then rewatch this one. You did this, you saw the you saw a Fury Road with nothing, and now now you know who Max is?

What was your experience? You don't need to know mine? You know? I love Max beginning to end. Yeah, so that's actually I was I was hoping we would, you would kind of broach this question, and I think it's interesting.

I enjoyed all three of the movies subsequent the prior to this one, and then I enjoyed, obviously Fury Road immensely. I think I'm not gonna say you don't need to watch the first three. I think if there's anyone you need to watch, it's the first one. Right. Would you agree with that?

Just Mad Max? I one agree with that. Everyone. I said in a previous episode, I would recommend Road Warrior, just to keep them on the hook. But in terms of who Max is, you got to watch the first movie.

I think you can actually watch. You could watch Mad Max and then Fury Road and if you want to skip two and three, I mean, again, I'm not advocating that you do, but if you're short on time in your busy life, I think Fury Road checks enough boxes that two and three are checking as well. Fury Road just kind of in some of the ways. It does it in a more bombastic, over the top expense read that as expensive way, because like we've said, it's kind of the end of Road Warrior, and it kind of also has some of the resource politics of Thunderdome. So again, Fury Road is kind of the best of all of the worlds.

I liked two and three immensely. I think they're totally worth checking out if you have the time to do so. But I again, I also understand it's a big ask to watch not one, not two, but three movies and then watch another two hour movie, and then go watch another two and a half hour movie. So not everybody has all that time, which I do appreciate. But I think obviously, like you alluded to, everybody seen Fury Road at this point, and if you haven't, probably start with Fury Road.

Honestly, yeah, look, if you're gonna go see Furiosa after Fury Road, I would recommend not going to watch any Mad Max movies. Because this is not another Mad Max movie, You're not gonna need to know anything. But if you're gonna rewatch Fury Road on its own and want to know a little bit more about Max, then go back and watch Mad Max because what you just said is the absolute truth. Fury Road is the perfect synthesis of Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome. Right, Yeah it has again, Yeah, it has everything that those movies both have, but this in a lot of ways, it's just a little bit more refined.

But that's only because it's the second time or third time that he's doing it. Yeah. I enjoyed. I enjoyed this kind of rewatch of this movie and a first time watch of the first three immensely. And I'm I'm really excited for you and I and Mike White to talk about Furiosa because it's not that I I hadn't had any intention of watching it, but I'm more excited to watch it now for sure.

Hell yeah. Also, go read the comics. They're pretty good. Are they dark Horse? I don't know, I don't know the company actually interesting.

I would be surprised. I guess this feels like a dark Horse thing. Right, like, yeah, I can't see it being with one of the majors, not even Vertigo. No, And yeah, like you kind of advocate for some extended media, I would also say you can go pick up the game on Steam for like ten bucks. Check it out.

It's kind of fun. It's different, and in a world where we get open world games that suck, it's an open world game that's kind of weird and different. And you know, it has vehicular combat, which isn't necessarily something that's being done all the time, and or well when it is done. So yeah, I love the world of Mad Max. Like you alluded to, I was inundated with it long before I even saw Fury Road, with something like Borderlands, which I loved immensely and played a lot with my friends in college, which oh not just a debt of gratitude, but some money to this because it feels like again, like it feels like it's just same universe, different planet and in a lot of ways, like again, it's you know, desert, desert planet, but with colors.

Yeah, and that's the thing about this, it's all about the vehicles ultimately are really the star of the show. But somehow George Miller makes you care about the people inside the cars, which is not an easy thing to do, because not anything to do four fucking times, right, yeah, one time, let alone four times totally. So so on that note, until we talk about Furiosa here in just a couple of days, botherm alone. Where can people find you and the things that you work on? Go over to weirdingwaymedia dot com.

Check out midnight viewing one or the other of the midnight viewings. We have horror anthology podcast and the anthologies attack podcasts. So if you're horror centric, check it. Check it out one week. And if you want to hear crazy anthology like Batman the animated series, check us out on the alternate week.

And you can also hear me on night Mister Walters a taxi podcast that's HP's podcast, also on weirding Way. As for me, like Father Malone just said, Weirdingway Media is where all the stuff that I work on can be found in plenty of things that I don't work on that are just as good, if not better. And if you want to hear the only thing that I work on that is not on the main RSS feed or on Weirdingway, media that's on patreon dot com, slash culturecast or patreon dot com slash Projection booth, where you can listen to at the ten dollars level or higher ranking on Bond which if you like Mad Maxie, you like action movies, you probably want to hear people that like those kinds of movies talking about James Bond, which you should.

And Flather Malone's going to be joining us for the first Roger Moore movie, so so fucking stoke. Can I just tell you? I can keep telling you a it's an inflection point in the James Bond franchise. And to your point, I am also very excited because I think it's going to be a fun discussion And if you want to hear it, like I said, Patreon dot com, slash culturecast or projection booth, like rate and review this show on iTunes please, That is where it is found for the most part by so many people, and that is where more people can find it if you like and rate and review the show. Father Milone, thank you for kind of again.

I will thank you again for pushing me to engage with Mad Max in a more than just fury roadway. So yeah, and hey, we did it. We're done. It happened, and we got done before Furiosa came out, so you know, under the wire, right under the wire. So yeah, until that episode, we'll catch you on the next one.