Amph Mad Max Franchise (Now: Furiosa)

I know I might get some flack for this, but I would love for Furiosa's story to continue after Fury Road. I guess the assumption is that she may just live out with the brides and everyone at the Citadel, but I would like to think she'd have some sort of incentive for leaving at some point. She's doesn't seem the type who'd settle down.

 

I think she stays and makes the Citadel the new Green Place, Max is the more nomadic one and literally walks off, her motivation is finding a place of peace

 

Yeah, I'm also inclined to think that Furiosa would settle. Now, who she'd appoint to take over the Bullet Farm and Gastown in order to keep commerce going, that's a question that's been rattling around a bit in my head after learning more about that political infrastructure of the Wasteland in this film...

 

On the one hand, I do think the natural arc of her story, after trying to return home for some 30 years, is to stay at home. I don't know what the point would be in compelling her to leave again. If anything, it would remind me of Kenobi's straining to move its narrative off Tatooine when everything up to that point suggested that's exactly where it should take place in its entirety.

That said, there are two important caveats. A story based in her homeland (for instance, defending it) could be doable. The other, larger point is that it seems this franchise has successfully done a handoff of protagonists. That's not very common, so I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Rather than mentioning Max any longer, I would just try to generate other interesting Furiosa stories.

 

In all likelihood they might just follow up her stories in other mediums; like comics or even a novel. I guess it's better than nothing.

 

Saw FURIOSA this weekend. Liked it, a lot. Not quite at FURY ROAD or ROAD WARRIOR levels, but a lot (interestingly, my wife liked FURIOSA slightly better than FURY ROAD - she enjoyed ROAD a lot but found its breakneck pace a bit much!).

If I get into anything TOO spoilerish I will use the SPOILER tag....

I found myself thinking, again, about how expectations color our movie-watching experience. That is, I did expect something tonally like FURY ROAD, and FURIOSA is a slower movie that takes its time (in parts). I am not suggesting it was boring, or that it drags, simply that it had a different pace and structure from its predecessor. I loved the world-building and backstories, I thought Praetorian Jack was awesome (and loved his mentoring relationship with Furiosa), the action set-pieces were fantastic, the look of the movie is wonderful, the epic/mythic quality was great... yeah, I liked it a lot.

I thought Dementus was very entertaining although here again - expectations. So many people were raving about the portrayal that it may have biased me... I thought he was good but not "great". There was a lot there I liked - I especially liked the idea that he was very good at attracting followers, and good at tactics and strategy, but either not very good at / not all that interested in actually ruling. That was an interesting spin. That being said, I never quite got a fix on him, and I think the way the movie cuts away from him at times (understandably) so that when we come back to him things have changed, off-screen, didn't always help define his arc. Again - enjoyed Dementus a lot overall, and he had some amazing individual scenes.

So, overall - a lot of fun, well worth seeing on the big screen. And yeah, I think I said this above, as unlikely as it is, I'd (mostly) love to see Miller take one more crack at a Max-centered movie, and yes, could we please spend some time with him IN the V-8 Interceptor? Not likely but ....

And on that note...

Spoiler

There are times a character is given such a good send-off that I have mixed feelings about a "revisit". For example, for me, even with my awareness of THUNDERDOME following ROAD WARRIOR, and even with FURY ROAD, Max couldn't possibly get a better send-off than the end of ROAD WARRIOR. That voice over, the mythic quality, the idea of the passage of a lot of time, that shot of Max, battered but unbowed, being left behind on the road...wow. In my head canon, that will always be his send-off, even though a happier ending, with him settling down and finding peace, would arguably be..er...nicer? I also like that "the end" there isn't "the end"...there is the clear implication of his story continuing (much like the end of FURY ROAD), and he isn't killed off (putting aside the passage of time thing). That couple of minutes, and the opening of WARRIOR as well, are among my favorite few moments in movies, period.

I can certainly see, and would welcome, more with Furiosa, perhaps defending the Citadel, but if her story ends here, she also had a great arc.

Someone mentioned, above, that the Mad Max universe has a lot of shades of gray, and in that context, they threw in Furiosa's people, and it got me to thinking how much movies influence our reactions by how different perspectives are shown. The "trap" scene in FURY ROAD always left me with questions. How would the women have reacted to someone stopping to genuinely "try to help"? Granted, from what we have seen, that might be 1% of the Wasteland's residents (too harsh?), but still...

 

I thought the trap scene in Fury Road was only to give everyone a new favorite meme/gif to share every time they don't approve of a post.

Spoiler

 

Glad they took the live action route.

 

Sadly I don’t think The Wasteland will ever get made, at this point. We will get it as a book, if we’re lucky. Supposedly the script was written in prose form, so it probably wouldn’t be too hard to turn it into a book anyways.

 

There's lots of really cool concept art done by Mahiro Maeda for the the anime version of Furiosa online, with a lot of stylistic overlap between these pieces and what we ultimately ended up getting on screen:







The Octoboss and his gang and their vehicles also had an incredibly heavy anime influence, in my opinion. Really cool stuff.

 

I like the "Dementus is an evil version of Max" angle, and some people are interpreting him to be Mel Gibson specifically.

 

Miller has experience in animation could do Wasteland as that. And if Tom Hardy is just doing voice-over he might actually show up on time

 

Also, a fun little bit of worldbuilding that I don't think I've seen mentioned:

Spoiler

I love that, after the big Octoboss attack, when the War Pup is killed and unable to push the bommyknocker button at the rear of the War Rig, the next time we see the bommyknocker used (which, in the film, is a few years down the line) the controls for it have been moved up to the front of the War Rig where Jack and Furiosa sit. Neat little detail where you can see how over time, improvements are being made to the Rig in order to allow for better functionality and make it reliant on less individual moving pieces/people in order to operate.

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https://twitter.com/THR/status/1796119479857942777

Despite the clickbaity headline here, there doesn't seem to be an official cancelation from the studio just yet. The article seems to be more so speculation based on Furiosa underperforming during its opening weekend. Here's hoping that Furiosa has some real legs in order to shift this. Word of mouth for the film has been very strong.

 

Furiosa Surprisingly Confirms 1 Underrated Mad Max Story As Canon 9 Years Later

I've never actually played the MM video game before; never really cared for it. But if there was ever any hope for a follow up to it (featuring Furiosa as the lead), I'd absolutely put it on my radar.

 

The game comes from a weird string of events. During Fury Road's pre-production, George Miller was very directly working with Cory Barlog (of the God of War games) on a Mad Max game to tie in with the then upcoming film, which was using all of the Fury Road/Furiosa/Wasteland resources as key reference points to build out from and expand upon (remember, at that point Furiosa was going to be made as an anime and released more or less alongside Fury Road, a la The Animatrix alongside The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions). At some point during the game's development, the project was yanked from Miller and Barlog by Warner Bros and was given to Avalanche Studios, along with all of Miller's notes. So the game that we got ended up coming without any actual involvement from George Miller, but from a studio that had access to his writing, which is why so many details from Furiosa and The Wasteland pop up in there - Scrotus, Chumbucket, the story with Max and the young mother, etc. Miller has essentially dismissed/written off the game at this point (the only ancillary media that's really part of Miller's "canon" [as loose/flexible as Mad Max canon is, given its mythological structure] is the four issue comic run that came out in 2015, as he was directly involved in the making of those comics) and doesn't see it as part of his world, despite the way the game ended up leeching off of his own material.

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Also, here are a couple Furiosa storyboards from Mark Sexton and a couple pieces of stray concept art from the film. Gonna spoiler tag these, for obvious reasons. It's such a shame that we aren't getting some sort of art/making of book for this movie.

Spoiler

https://x.com/Mark_H_Sexton/status/1795208321030361528
https://x.com/Mark_H_Sexton/status/1795235612360130626

https://x.com/madmaxbible/status/1795366941030592520
https://x.com/madmaxbible/status/1795564357880836551

 

Spoiler

That one where they were torturing the mother didn't actually make it into the movie, right? I thought it was only implied that she was being tortured to death before cutting to the next scene and the aftermath.

 

Spoiler

Furoisa's mom was definitely tortured to death, she said as much later on

 

I meant that was it actually shown on screen or was it just suggested?

 

Those specific shots in the storyboard are in the film, the storyboard says it "gets darker" and it fades out

 

Yep, what's seen in those storyboards is seen in the reflection in Furiosa's eye in the film.

 

Ok maybe I didn't remember that altogether.