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What is it about this film that makes it the everyman's "guy movie"? Admittedly I liked it years ago but after having recently watched it I'm at a loss at how it still remains on most top 20 guy flick lists. Sure i like the post apocalyptic alure, but it's hard to overlook a future where the power is in the oil, but they aren't doing anything productive with it except filling up their gas tanks and driving around.

Observations:
1. Bandanas are all the rage in the future
2. While there is no electricity, there is some invention that has provided all women with the ability crimp hair!
3. 7 year old chaka-wannabe feral kids can catch a flying boomarang with razor edges and you can't!
4. Bad guys like to wear sadomasochistic attire including a leather thong
5. While women are readily available, they are often discarded. Who needs a woman when you have a boy toy riding on the back of your bike?

Am i missing something? ;-)



Post Edited (05-22-05 22:16)

Cool! Another opportunity to talk about Mad Max movies (heh...heh).

 Road Warrior is one of my favorite movies, really I don't know why. I guess because you ride around in a kick ass car, doing nothing, just to stop to get food and oil and most of the time to get those items, you have to kick someones ass. Ahh the freedom.


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You can’t give it, you can't buy it, and you just don't get it!-Aeon Flux

rich andrini wrote:

> you ride around in a kick ass car, doing
> nothing, just to stop to get food and oil and most of the time
> to get those items, you have to kick someones ass.

That's it.  The car and the fighting.   What's not to love?

There's pretty explosions, too!  We like seeing things go 'BOOM'!

Oh, the horror...the horror...This being my most favorite movie of all time, I feel the need to say something worthwhile to defend it. Unfortunately, I can't come up with too much except to point some things out:
1) Car chases- way cool car chases and stunts.
2) Loner hero- he's ruthless when he needs to be yet deep down, he still has a human side.
3) Bad guys- these bad guys give you many reasons to hate them so when they get it, you can really appreciate the ways that they die.
4) Dog- "Dog" is the coolest dog you're ever going to see. Let's see Lassie keep someone in line with a shotgun the way Dog does.
5) Car chases- did I mention the car chases?
6) Violence- Who doesn't love the scenes where Max gets to clean up the wasteland a little bit? The final chase sequence contains some real ultra-cool scenes. The guy standing on top of the cab that gets a load of buckshot between the legs or the guy in the red car who's head explodes all over the inside of the windshield when Max blasts him...tell me those aren't cool.

I also beg to differ with your idea about electricity. The compound clearly has a generator and they have electricity. OK, would they bother to crimp their hair? I doubt it so point taken.
The feral kid has a steel mesh glove to catch the boomerang. Who doesn't want one of these?
As far as the clothing and partner choices of some of the bad guys...well, there happen to be gay people in the world now so why couldn't there be a gay bad guy in the wasteland? Honestly, I don't know why that was thrown in there but it just added to the overall oddness of the movie for the time that it came out.

Anyway, did I mention the way cool car chases?

And I just wanted to add to what Odinn7 said by saying that it has way cool car chases. (:

You have to understand, when people are living out in the middle of a wasteland and the women look like they just spent four hours in hair and makeup, you will never, ever hear a guy complain about that.  

And when you have a dune buggy run straight into the front end of a semi truck, and you get a hellacious crunch! smash! crap goes flying everywhere!  Hey, it don't get better than that.  And the guy who's dune buggy got pushed off the side of the road, doing about 60, but there was a big ditch there and he (minus his dune buggy) just sailed through the air, free as a bird, and then thump! into the opposite bank of the ditch...pure beauty.  And there's something really special about somebody doing 60, cranking open the nitrous oxide bottle, and smoking the tires.  I mean, he was already doing 60!  

The only thing better was listening to the supercharger wind out on the black interceptor in the big chase scene at the end of Mad Max.

"The only thing better was listening to the supercharger wind out on the black interceptor in the big chase scene at the end of Mad Max."

....drool....

One of the best reasons to see Road Warrior is to see Virginia Hey (blue lady from Farscape), at least the part before the bad guys riddle her with arrows.

That was Zhaan?  Holly crap.  Never would have guessed that in a million years.

I'll echo what the other guys have said, just wanted to add that there's lotsa cool car chases.

Hmm, it's good, but long-time fans like me eventually plump for the first outing of near-future madness. The low budget is more apparent, there are crude patches and a rather muddled narrative in compasisson to MM2, but the action scenes are what its about and few before or since have been filmed as well. My only real gripe with Road Warrior is the final chase scene. The truck, petrol tanker, passengers and bolted-on bits mean that the whole ensemble has a top speed of only 60mph, meaning that the 'chasing' pack of machines has to virtually queue behind it. Additionally, the marauders only attack in ones and twos and usually from one side only ....if they'd done a combined attack and say surrounded the vehicle it would have been all over. But really, these are my only quibbles. Some critics complain about the lack of plot or characterisation- but much more detail would have really slowed it down. Its's a real director's film.

Me like watch cars go BOOM!!!

THE ROAD WARRIOR speaks the international language of the male: BOOM BOOM, BANG BANG, POW POW, and VROOM VROOM. This makes it easily understandable to all.

Ok now i'm getting a mental picture of all you kids crashing your toy cars together and making noises like "Pichhhhhhh! Vroooom...brrrrrrrrcchhkkkk!" and then when Road Warrior came out it was basically the same thing only people die and there's lots of grunting. I noticed there's little dialogue in this movie, opposed to the typical "chick flick", yeah someone dies in our films but dammit we gotta cry about it

Dialogue gets in the way of the important parts of movies. (:

Susan wrote:

> Ok now i'm getting a mental picture of all you kids crashing
> your toy cars together and making noises like "Pichhhhhhh!
> Vroooom...brrrrrrrrcchhkkkk!" and then when Road Warrior came
> out it was basically the same thing only people die and there's
> lots of grunting. I noticed there's little dialogue in this
> movie, opposed to the typical "chick flick", yeah someone dies
> in our films but dammit we gotta cry about it
>


Ahhh, now you understand. Don't forget also, I believe I neglected to mention it, there's real cool car chases too.

Yeah.  Car chases.   Hee.  Hee.  Hee.

And then there's the coolest part... Heh!  Heh!

When that guy... hehe... tries to catch that, you know, RAZOR boomerang...?   hehe..  and he, like, loses all his FINGERS?

Heh heh.... heh heh.

That was, like, REALLY cool.  Hee hee.  Heh.  Heh.

And don't forget the sawed off double barreled shot gun! Or the black leather! Yeahh.

...And the way cool car chases too!

Yeah, in Road Warrior, when someone dies, we get to say "cool".
Plus, there are car chases.
And we make other noises with our toy cars, like "errrrrrrrrr" and "skreeeeeeetch"

And then there's the part where he eats the dog food!

That reminds us all so fondly of us making our *little sisters* eat dog food, and that's another part of the movie we love.

Don't even get me started on the sequals.  Despite Tina Turner and the movie as a whole being somewhat wacky, Thunderdome was one of my favourite violent movies when I was a kid.

That cage fight was great.

There's something about people going nuts in a post-apocalyptic landscape which really makes you feel all fuzzy and warm inside.  That's one of the only reasons why I still think that Waterworld is crap, but underrated.  Post apocalyptic violence is always so much fun.

That and post-apocalyptic car violence.   Hehe, fun...

I think when it comes down to it Road Warrior really isnt a bad movie. It's deffinately a testosterone flinging movie, but not as low brow as other typical guy movies like Commando or Bloodsport. I think that might be one reason it's remained popular for so many years. There's a mildly sophisticated redemtion story behind it along with science fiction and fantasy. If anything Road Warrior was  original.

Post-apocalyptic Dukes of Hazzard anyone? ;-)

And a great exploitation flick too: all the 'things-we-take-for granted' symbolism put in out of context (beside the obvious ones: the gyro captain eulogizing/reminiscing about treasured meterial posessions abundant before the apocalypse). To be fair, Thunderdome used these familiar/unfamiliar reference methods to good effect as well.

What first struck me about the film was the abundance of old bangers.......where do all the worlds' cars go when there's little fuel and even fewer people to run them? Before Mad Max 2 I was used to 'clean' Blade Runner-like depictions of the future. Here, Miller presents a strange fusion of the primative and the new...guns are rare and prized, crossbows are widely used (as well as strange compressed air weapons), and this is one of the clearest (if not the most factual) representations of a world coming to grips with the aftermath of a nuclear conflict..definately a product of the eighties.

I liked for a lot of the reasons mentioned (including Virginia Hey), plus it also seemed like a clever updating or variation on westerns. The loner hero (with loyal dog and trusty "steed"), the isolated outpost filled with people who need him but don't trust him, the wild band of marauding savages, the comic relief who's more talk than action. It's a siege picture in the vein of "Rio Bravo" or even "Hombre". I mean you even have the noble hero making a sacrifice or taking on a burden he doesn't have to for the good of what passes for civilization and decency, the modern twist being that his mission is just a distraction to draw the Humugous' gang away.

Plus I thought it was clever that since guns are preciuos and valuable in their world they are rarely used until the end (ammo being in short supply or defective), and often ineffective or of limited use when they finally are, the shotgun taking so long to reload for example. Sending the feral kid for the shells on the hood during the chase being a favorite scene of mine. You know what's going to happen but the tension builds every time I watch it.

Kennedy and Miller had also likened the story to a western for the reasons you mentioned Yaddo. Nice pick up.

My only problem with this otherwise inspirational movie is that they didn't have more scenes with that "Samurai" character...

There are chick flicks, and there are guy flicks. If most guys don't understand chick flicks, then most chicks don't get guy flicks. And this is the ultimate guy flick.

Besides the chase scenes, which have been mentioned numerous times, here are the reasons I like it.

(1) Some of the most fully sketched out characterizations I have ever seen in a film. Each character is distinctive. Which is somewhat amazing, considering how small are some of the parts, and how little dialogue there is in the film.

(2) The cool names for the characters. How cool is "The Feral Kid?"

(3) The twisty ending.

As a side note, the toy boy in the film was originally suppose to be a girl, until the part was changed. And the bonde Amazon who rides shotgun on the truck, that was suppose to be a man, until that part was changed to a woman.

There was also talk of doing a 4th Mad Max film, which I would have seen, but I guess they never could get everything together to do it.

They turned Max into a p***y in the 3rd film, what would be the sense of continuing on to a 4th? That movie just shouldn't have ever happened. On its own it may not have been too bad, but to make it as a continuation of the other two? A railroad chase scene, the gyro captain that isn't, oasis kids in the desert, no cars, Tina Turner, 80's video look-alike...it was just a kick in the groin to me.

I agree, the third Mad Max is a travesty. Too much sterilised for my taste. Trying to answer Susan's query, I'd say than on one hand this film is the ultimate male fantasy. To live in a wild world, without moral restraints of any kind, but voluntarily staying in the good side of the road. Helping good people, kicking bad guys asses, but not because it is the right thing to do, but because of our own free will. Being badass, uncivilised, but still doing the right things so we can't be criticised or feel guilty afterwards.

See how male-centered and spartan the iconography is: western landscapes, arms, vehicles... everything seems to involve one or more of these elements. In our ultimate fantasies /as seen earlier in this topic) we still play like childs, driving fast, kicking arse, making things go boom. Mad Max II, like the "Mafia" or "GTA" videogames, allows us to indulge in all that, simply by taking the POV of Max.

And on the other hand, The Road Warrior is one of the best, if not the best, action movie ever directed. Everything is just plain perfect, to the above-mentioned western touches or spartan yet effective characterisation to the wonderfully staged action bits. Miller is able to do all this flawlessly, plus allowing the story to have some deeper sense (Max's attempt of redemption) he manages to avoid it bering silly. Notice also how he avoids mistakes such as being campy by creating a genuinely terrifying portrayal of a world gone berserk. Add to all this a great pacing and minimal dialog and you'll have males around the world hipnotised.

>>Trying to answer Susan's query, I'd say than on one hand this film is the ultimate male fantasy. <<

Vs Debbie does Dallas? ;-)

Susan wrote:

> >>Trying to answer Susan's query, I'd say than on one hand this
> film is the ultimate male fantasy. <<
>
> Vs Debbie does Dallas? ;-)


Debbie is a one-night stand, where ROAD WARRIOR is an alternate reality. There is room for Debbie in the aftermath. (:

I dunno.
"Debbie Does the Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland" just doesn't have that certain something...

How about Debbie does the Amazon?

How about debbie discovers H.G. wells time machine....

Actually, back in the '80s, it seemed like post apocalyptic movies with a ton of gratuitous T&A was a whole genre in itself (as if there weren't already enough reasons why the '80s were the best decade of all time).  You had Rollerblade, Rollerblade Warriors, and the Returt of the Rollerblade 7 (or something like that).  Crash and Burn, Hell Comes to Frogtown (little light on the nudity), Hybrid, Creepozoids, Cherry 2000, Star Slammer, and many more.  Almost every one was chock full of everything that makes a movie so bad it's good.  We should make a complete list, because those were some of my favorite movies.  

C'mon guys!  It's a moral imperative.

Battle Queen 2020 (penthouse pet..hello?), Tank Girl, Warriors of the Apocalypse, These movies were funny because i remember the video cover always had a guy with muslces and a gun and some vixen wearing next to nothing

Logans run had alot of orgies even tho it wasn't about muscles and battles - 70's future movies were more of a social commentary. I'm really blanking out on if

Alot of 80s movies in the "I've seen the future and it sucks" genre. Endgame, cyborg, world gone wild, 2020 texas gladiators....I also remember a rutger hauer one where they survived by playing some brutal game. I guess in the future there's nothing better to do than invent bloodsports for fun

I only ever saw "Phoenix the Warrior" on basic cable, edited. Was there nudity in the full film? Since most of the cast was female it seemed like a likely candidate.

"Hardware" was supposed to be pretty rough. There's the "Empire of Ash" series that I mention sometimes, but I've only seen the second one, no idea if they had nudity. The annoying talking robot/bomb dropping remote control plane made the film hard to sit through.

The Rutger Hauer film was "The Blood of Heroes".

Does anyone else remember an Italian post-apocalypse action quest film possibly called "Rage"? A small para-military unit was sent into the usual wasteland filled with killer mutants to find a mythic magic item that could restore civilization, whcih turned out to be a rather large Bible with lots of gaudy gold trim and shiny baubles. The main character was a total Rambo rip-off, complete with headband.

I'm fairly certain there was nudity in "Equalizer 2000" since the heroine's twin, uh, "talents" were more interesting than her acting.