Road Warrior

[Susan]

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

[Menard]

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

[odinn7]

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.

[Zapranoth]

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.

[daveblackeye15]

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

[odinn7]

...And the way cool car chases too!

[raj]

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"

[Zapranoth]

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.

[dean]

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...

[Master Blaster]

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.

[Susan]

Post-apocalyptic Dukes of Hazzard anyone? ;-)

[Chris]

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.

[Yaddo 42]

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.

[odinn7]

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

[BloodyCider]

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