Mad Max 1

[asterroc]

Watching Mad Max 1 - this’s at least my second time, though it’s been so long I really don’t remember anything, except that I reread the Wikipedia page recently. It’s so interesting seeing the difference in pacing. The movie is a lot of driving, some racing, but not much of gun fights on moving vehicles with blowtorches.


Also, assuming that the four really are sequential in time (as opposed to a reboot), it’s neat seeing the history of how things change, the worldbuilding. In MM1, we’re in the near future (of 1979), with just a little bit of anarchy going on in this small part of Australia. I’ll be rewatching MM2 and MM3 soon to see how that progresses.

“Look any longer out on that road and I’m one of them. A terminal crazy. Only a bronze badge to say I’m one of the good guys.”

There’s definitely a theme here of the fine line between law and order, and chaos and anarchy. For Rockatansky in MM1 that line is his wife, Jessie, and son, Sprog. (Like Sprog is a totally normal thing to name a child. And that his is name not a nickname, as Jessie calls him the nickname of "Sproggy" at one point.) Watching this theme in the first movie is interesting, considering where it goes in the subsequent films - that Max is mad, but he's still not a bad person. Throughout the rest of the series, order and chaos are clearly a separate axis from good and evil, though here the two axes are not quite orthogonal, in that chaos and evil are closely aligned, and good and law. The world of this movie is still clearly one of more order than chaos, but perhaps Max's own tip into chaos is the final straw that brings the rest of the world into chaos with him in the subsequent films.

And yeah, I forgot until I reread the Wikipedia page that this movie is all about the fridging of Rockatansky’s wife. Unlike most fridging stories though, it's not just one short event near the start that then shapes the rest of the movie, instead it's a long drawn out affair where somewhere along there you realize what's going to happen, and then you're just sitting on your hands and trying not to shriek for the rest of the movie.

The genre of this film defies me. Wikipedia claims it's dystopian, but the feel is more action/horror.

Bechdel Test: Fail
While there are two named women, Jessie and May, who do talk to each other, it's about Rockatansky and Sprog.

Mako Mori Test: Fail
Jessie's story is about dying while trying (and failing) to protect Sprog. I wouldn't call that a character arc, but even if I did it was about a boy. But even if Sprog were replaced by Sprogette, everything bad that happens to Jessie is direct result of Rockatansky's actions in the line of duty, and everything good that happens to her is about her supporting him in his career.

Final verdict: Eh. It's okay. I'm kinda used to watching the pacing of older stuff due to a stint where T$ and I tried to watch all of Star Trek TOS (we've just got a few episodes left, but they're supposedly pretty bad), but for many modern viewers the pacing will be gruelingly slow. It doesn't stand particularly well on its own, it's really not post-apocalyptic sci-fi like the others, so the only good reason to watch it is to see where everything else came from.

See also my MM4 review.

Originally posted on Dreamwidth. comments there. Comment here or there.

Comments

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Some interesting things that a friend of mine mentioned connecting 1 to 4, and showing how mad he is, but also how everything is passing out of the reality of 1 and into the legend of 4:

In 1, his baby son dies. In 4, he's haunted by an elementary-school-aged girl. He no longer remembers his own origin story or keeps it consistent. Or, it's the storyteller's prerogative to change the details around.

Max is played by different actors in 1 and 4, but Immortan Joe is played by the same actor as one of the main villains who dies in 1. He's fighting the same battles over and over, without seeing or understanding what's going on around him. Or, different stories and storytellers reuse the same or similar mythic figures to tell different stories.

Also, I saw the movie years ago, so I can't remember enough details to say how accurate this is, but one of my friends says that actually all indications are that Jessie actually survives the movie, but it's easier for Max to go mad, run away and abandon her, and live a hypermasculine life on the road than come back and nurse Jessie back to health, be a good and caring husband to her, and regain some of his humanity.

[q10.livejournal.com]

so, when i watched it, it sounded like Jessie was still alive when last we saw her in the first film, but in bad shape. and Max doesn't wait around to find out her fate. he goes straight into revenge mode.

she's then established as having died in the prologue to Road Warrior.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I went back to the hospital scene last night just to be sure. They definitely say she's brain dead, and they definitely talk about lying to Max about her condition (perhaps because their son just died). There's also some other unclear talk about her organs where the music is too loud to really make it out, I'm not sure if they're saying that her organs have failed, or if they're talking about harvesting her organs for donation or for sale, but either way to me it says that she's essentially dead.

Jessie's also missing the entirety of her right arm and her left arm is fully bandaged and perhaps missing her hand. Based on Rockatansky's earlier reaction to Goose being burned, he probably falls into the "better dead than crippled" camp.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm really torn by the assumption of many online that the girl in MM4 is the same person as the boy Sprog from MM1. On the one hand yeah it does fit the Max-the-legend idea, on the other it supports what some people are saying about MM4 being a reboot, and on the third hand it also supports his insanity.

I'm writing a fic right now where I use that inconsistency as more evidence of Max's madness. Also, Max meets the Winter Soldier in the desert, where Max is hallucinating and Bucky is dissociating, and Max brings Bucky home to the Citadel and Furiosa and Steve. It's inspired by the first MM4 fic I read, a crossover with the Avengers (or maybe just with Cap 2?), Fresh Eden.

See my reply to q10 for Jessie's condition at the end of the movie.

[q10.livejournal.com]

yeah, it fails both those tests, but grandma with a shotgun was still pretty cool...

i'm pretty well convinced that Fury Road is the best Mad Max thing so far: it has an edge over all or most previous entries in terms of technical qualities (ranging from visuals to pacing), use of social symbolism, representation of female characters, avoidance of the evil bisexual trope, and all sorts of other things.

the other films had their moments, and i respect them for the way they gave us a bunch of really iconic post-apocalyptic tropes and images, and for their willingness to be structurally and conceptually unorthodox and keep a real tragic edge, but seeing the latest installment, it's clear that Miller really benefited from more time to think it over and a hugeass budget.