George Miller AO (born 3 March 1945) is an Australian filmmaker and former medical doctor, best known for creating the Mad Max series.
Not to be confused with a certain other Aussie named George Miller. Or Scottish-Australian director George T. Miller, of The Man from Snowy River and The Neverending Story II fame.
Films with pages on the wiki:
- Mad Max series (writer/producer/director)
- The Chain Reaction (served as the film's associate producer and helped shoot the climactic car chase sequence)
- The Witches of Eastwick
- Lorenzo's Oil
- Babe series (writer/producer, adapted from a children's book)
- Babe (co-writer)
- Babe: Pig in the City (also director)
- Happy Feet series (writer/producer/director)
- Twilight Zone: The Movie (director of the "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" segment)
- Three Thousand Years of Longing
Tropes Associated With George Miller's Work
- Acclaimed Flop: Since 2015, although Miller's Live-Action movies (Mad Max: Fury Road, Three Thousand Years of Longing) flopped at the box office, still received acclaim from critics.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Seems to be the case for his Mad Max films.
- Decoy Protagonist: Most if not all of his films center on a protagonist who is more of the observer where as the movie is more about the world and the characters the protagonist comes across.
- He Also Did: Fans of the Mad Max series like to introduce them as "by the director of Babe and Happy Feet" to highlight to utter incompatibility in both franchises' tone. A few might throw in him being a doctor prior as well.
- Scenery Porn: All his films have very luscious and creative art direction but Mad Max: Fury Road is a stand out.
- Show, Don't Tell: Highly committed to this trope. His films, particularly The Road Warrior and Fury Road, have many long stretches where there is no spoken dialogue, and just let the audience soak in the situation and world through the visuals.
- Signature Style: Worldbuilding! George Miller is a master at crafting unique worlds. He really lets the atmosphere and the characters speak for themselves rather than the story. His worlds are full of detail, creativity, and personality that the main lead often tends to be the least interesting character in the movie. Protagonists are more of an observer rather than the central focus.
- Miller also masters the Show, Don't Tell trope as he often expresses world and character building with as little dialogue as possible.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism:
- The Mad Max films could be seen as more on the cynical end, but surprisingly Mad Max: Fury Road is actually more on the idealistic end of the scale by the end.
- While much darker and scarier than its predecessor, Babe: Pig in the City still lies more on the idealistic side.
- Happy Feet and Happy Feet Two are very idealistic.
- What Could Have Been: Had it not been for mainly the 2007-2008 Writer's Guild Strike and to a lesser extent, some other extenuating circumstances note , he would've directed the cinematic debut of Justice League of America. The planned film, Justice League: Mortal, would've been vastly different from Justice League, featuring a line-up closer to the original comic book lineup (Cyborg would've been absent, instead having founding members Green Lanternnote and Martian Manhunter in his place), and would've used Talia Al Ghul and Maxwell Lord as the main villains.
- Worldbuilding: A specialty of his, the worlds he creates are almost as much characters as the actual characters themselves. He often tries to do this with as little dialogue about the world as possible.
