Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

While the storm we saw in the trailer made a lot of people whine about CGI, it turned out to be too fucking awesome for anyone to care. However they achieved the effects and stunts - CGI, compositing, wires, gimbals, whatever - it all looked real and fucking amazing. As someone else noted I think they had a brief sped-up shot just as a cheeky homage to the old stuff.

Sure, there's no fucking way they could have made this movie 1970 style even with stuntmen paid in beer and wombats with no safety codes, but ffs some of the stuff we thought looked fake was actually filmed live because we're so used to the fake way (cgi, scale models, animatronics, whatever)

I did mutter a cheeky "and he's okay!" when Max unburied himself from that pile of sand he plowed into with bone-liquifing force there, heh.

But like the article mentions, a lot of why it turned out so great was he just filmed so much shit that they had a ton to work with during editing.

I hope the blu-ray has shittons of behind the scenes of the stunts and fabrication porn. The making of the movie has to be as interesting as the movie itself (and a large part of why everyone has such boners for it) The clip of the motorcycle stunt from that youtube video was tits. Also, Theron's stunt double posted a picture from that scene on her twitter - from inside the cab of the truck, motorcycle in the air, flames from the grenade and all. (link.. uh.. you'll have to google, she posted a ton)

Did I not call it when I buried my reservations and said that this movie was going to be porn?

I'm wondering if Hardy's voice kept changing because his few lines were recorded months apart and not mostly dubbed in post. In the opening monologue he was definitely echoing Gibson with the help of studio magic, but the rest sounded almost schizophrenic. I guess it fits? Max never really acted crazy or haunted in the other sequels - they even outright call him The Man With No Name in Thunderdome because he's clearly supposed to fit the mold of the spaghetti western anti-hero. Here though they wanted to show that he was nuts - just less nuts than the world around him, because he's a loner who refuses to fit in with the various batshit crazy societies he encounters.

Whatever, the main character of the series has always been the setting. Mad Max a sidekick in his own film? He's ALWAYS been the sidekick.

DickTrickle_sl said:

That might affect their belief in CGI inferiority or the infallibility of real stuff and people are more apt to double down on a belief than revisit it.

That said, I really disliked the ending shot with the guitar and wheel. I don't care how it was filmed. It seemed like such a ridiculous just-for-3D thing and even if it was meant as a joke or an FU to 3D itself, it still took me out of the film for a moment, which is a shitty thing to do right near the end.

Click to expand...

Yeah this screamed as a tongue-in-cheek "the studio forced us to do 3D shit to get funding" fuck you to me. But the goddamn guitar was one of the stars of the movie so fuck it, it worked. Leave out the steering wheel and people probably would have stood up and cheered for that shit.

Remember the goddamn clocktower in Spiderman 2.2? Now there is some egregiously obnoxious in your face 3D.

Hoss_sl said:

So lemme get this straight. Some of you are getting all pissy cause some shot or another was CGI (I don't think the guitar was the only one mentioned so far). Then you find out it wasn't CGI and now you're OK with it? I mean, if you can't actually tell the fucking difference between a real shot and a CGI shot, then why do you care?

Click to expand...

For the record, I didn't care one way or another. I assumed it was cg and thought it was cool to find out it was practical

Kreugen_sl said:

Random thing I'm still chuckling about was the injured guy who did the suicide dive. Was so wtf. Gotta get chromed up and pretty for Valhalla.

Click to expand...

My take on the chrome is that they're also getting high off it. So he was about to lose consciousness, huffed some paint, and got one last psychotic jolt.

....I might just be stating the obvious though

Gasoline, bullets and silver spray paint are apparently abundantly available in the Water Town/Gas Town/Bullet Town tri-cities area.

Kreugen_sl said:

Gasoline, bullets and silver spray paint are apparently abundantly available in the Water Town/Gas Town/Bullet Town tri-cities area.

Click to expand...

The only strange thing for me was the abundant ammo

Bullet Farm has a lead mine that they use to make their own ammo, hence the name "farm".

Runnen_sl said:

Bullet Farm has a lead mine that they use to make their own ammo, hence the name "farm".

Click to expand...

So....the apocalypse didn't affect that place at all

Whatever the case, the tri-city downtown wasteland area had a pretty sweet symbiotic setup going that kept the peace. All they had to do was protect trade routes and ration out their shit so no one gang could take out the others.

Obviously of the three the Citadel didn't need to leave any troops behind because it was pretty much unassailable. Could Furiosa have talked her way up that elevator without the hood ornament?

Kreugen_sl said:

Whatever the case, the tri-city downtown wasteland area had a pretty sweet symbiotic setup going that kept the peace. All they had to do was protect trade routes and ration out their shit so no one gang could take out the others.

Obviously of the three the Citadel didn't need to leave any troops behind because it was pretty much unassailable. Could Furiosa have talked her way up that elevator without the hood ornament?

Click to expand...

How I take the wasteland as the main focal point after the apocalypse is this- in MM1 we see a town, near an ocean, and a city close by- all is "normal" its just "outlaw" and dystopian- Max fights the good fight but is haunted by the thought of turning "mad" and being just as bad as those he fights- he just has a badge to say he is a good guy... he is thrown over the edge when they run over his wife and son... he offs everyone he can- and then drives off into the wasteland - BOOM Apocalypse - mostly centered around the need/fight over fuel according to RW and FR voiceovers. We know from the end shot of Thunderdome that we can assume all city's are destroyed- and that's where I see it as only the crazy ones that lived out in the wasteland and small border towns survived the apocalypse and have the skills to survive now that EVERYTHING is a wasteland.

Even in Thunderdome Max ups and disrupts humanity trying to piece things back together again... what was wrong with bartertown...all things considered? What I did find interesting was Max was all ready to settle down and live in the valley with all the kids... forget whatever miller said- I place Fury Road after RoadWarrior and before Thunderdome- Max in RW and FR is obviously not ready to "settle down" in any fashion. And also they are taking over the citadel but they will also have to fight to take over gas town and bullet farm- they did kill each of the leaders of each big town... and as for "unlimited bullets" only the leader of bullet town did, and he obviously used that to his advantage while everyone else it was a scares commodity and they used the crossbows al la roadwarrior.

ohkcrlho_sl said:

The only strange thing for me was the abundant ammo

Click to expand...

Firearms were invented in the 13th century. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to make gunpowder and melt down scrap metals to make guns and bullets.

Max only seemed ready to settle down because he has a soft spot for protecting kids and retards.

He feels safer on his own.

Fedor_sl said:

A graphic tale: the visual effects of Mad Max: Fury Road | fxguide

Click to expand...

You were gone too long. Great link.

Wow that movie was awesome. The war boys were by far my favorite part. Their antics in the early part of the film where you they're very clearly demonstrating the fanaticism was the high mark. The focus in the end was on the more major characters, and I'd rather have still focused on the intent and expression of the war boys.

Yeah somewhere there is an amazing story about Immortan Joe rising to power, instituting his War Boys program, wrestling with physical ailments while he has no suitable heir to take over, a fierce war with Gastown and Bullet Farm. Think about a guy like Miller, who had all that shit on his plate, and he went "Nah fuck it Imma make a car chase movie." That's a man I can respect.

Kreugen_sl said:

Max only seemed ready to settle down because he has a soft spot for protecting kids and retards.

He feels safer on his own.

Click to expand...

On his own he has no one to let down but himself... so where those flashbacks of his son getting killed? or just of other people that he has "let down" as it flashed a few- one was a black dude- the kid and the woman could be said to be his wife and kid- although they where run down by motorcycles not a big dune buggy thing and they where together- not alone like his "imagoin crzy" flashbacks in Fury Road... I don't see why they would change it, other than an infant/toddler would be hard to have him do that- flash-to-hand up *spoiler* block... but I don't see that as a sole reason to recon anything.

Another thing I thought was just amusing was the shot at the end- the little midget "son" that was the dude with the telescope kinda looked like he was asleep at the end lol.

But a great movie, I loved it and will enjoy watching RW-TD-FR many many times- the first madmax is good for a review every now and then, but not really needed as part of the review cycle for me.