Specific movies
His fixation on trying to make things right in each subsequent story, the lack of continuity, and the general oddness each continued story takes is simply his mind creating, recreating, and retconning itself to better cope with his lose of sanity. It even explains why he doesn't age as he still imagines himself as the Max from the days when he lost his family.
"Where" Max is in reality is up for conjecture. He could still be on the road dying and this delusion was created by his blood drained brain. He could be on the farm as an old man, only barely conscious of the world around him. He could be in a hospital (medical or mental). None of that matters tho as the end result is the same. All the movies past the first (and even the game as it is tied through lore directly as a sequel to events in Fury Road, but taking place a full generation later which further explains the continuity errors) are just events made up in Max's mind.
Fury Road is set between Mad Max and The Road Warrior, but how long has passed since the first movie? Furiosa says she's was taken captive by Immortan Joe almost 20 years ago, when she was 12 (and I'll note that her actress, Charlize Theron, is 40)—but at that time, she was a member of the Many Mothers Tribe, which implies that she grew up with a tribal identity. That makes it very likely that 25-30 years have passed since the Collapse.
The oldest of the Many Mothers remembers television and electric lights, like Max does, but none of the others do. Immortan Joe looks like a fairly old guy—and Hugh Keays-Byrne who plays Joe is 68—and was an army colonel before the Collapse. Max is played by Tom Hardy (who is 38) and looks like he might be in his 30s at most, despite them being theoretical contemporaries.
Road Warrior happens some time after this, but that's almost irrelevant. Beyond Thunderdome's script notes that 15 years have passed since the events of Road Warrior, which is much more interesting. By that time, Max has a little bit of grey in his hair, but he's still young-looking (Mel Gibson was 33 at the time of filming). Tina Turner is Aunty Entity, the ruler of Bartertown, and she notes she was a "nobody" before the collapse; Tina Turner was 50 at the time of filming.
So by the time of the final chronological film, Max Rockatansky is, by this math, somewhere in his *60s* but looks like a man of 30 or so. Depending on how much or little time is actually between Mad Max and Fury Road, and between Fury Road and Road Warrior, Max could reasonably be anywhere from his late 40s to his mid 70s, but looks like a man of 33 (with some hard living).
My theory: Max is immortal. He strongly fits into the "man with no name" or "cursed wanderer" literary and film archetypes, and one of the genre conventions for such characters is that they're condemned to walk the earth forever (or at least until they're forgiven by god or forgive themselves). Like Cain, Longinus, Clint Eastwood's Drifter, or Roland of Gilead, Max Rockatansky is kept alive by his guilt—in his case, the guilt from watching his wife and son die right in front of him. It's not until Max forgives himself and is redeemed as a human being at the end of Beyond Thunderdome that he can stop wandering and become mortal again.
- This would also explain why he's questioning his sanity at the beginning of "MM:FR"; he's staying the same age in spite of everyone around him aging at a normal rate.
- Word of God says that Fury Road doesn't actually take place in the same timeline as The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome at all, and possibly not even the same timeline as Mad Max itself.
- Actually it's that there is no timeline. They're all just "Legends of the man called Mad Max" and so trying to establish "continuities" misses the point. They're all the same Max in the same way it's always the same Robin Hood.
- But we do, however, see him messing around with Goose's bike which causes the crash (though what he did to make the brakes lock up at speed is never explained).
- He loosened the rear axle, and it caused the wheel to lock up, probably when the bearings jammed.
- He also tossed that wheel through the truck's windscreen, causing Goose to crash.
Think about it. He wants to bring heroes back to Austrailia. What better way to do it than be the Villain.
- Plus, Fifi was a pretty big guy, as was Humungus.
- Yet their cars are all modern vehicles and transistors are widely used, whereas Fallout has wide use of vacuum tubes because the transistor wasn't invented until just before the war, and all cars look like either generic postwar era vehicles or the Ford Nucleon concept car.
- Unless America was somehow technologically backwards in the Fallout-verse? Combined with the '50s cultural stasis, maybe there was technological stasis too, and the US was enough of an industrial powerhouse to be resistant to competition from better foreign tech?
- Wouldn't work. Fallout had A.I.s, Computers, Robots, Both big and small, laser weapons, plenty of ammo. So did China. China had energy guns themselves, and fully working stealth suits. Australia had to have had something.
- Unless America was somehow technologically backwards in the Fallout-verse? Combined with the '50s cultural stasis, maybe there was technological stasis too, and the US was enough of an industrial powerhouse to be resistant to competition from better foreign tech?
- Alternatively, Mad Max is set in the Wasteland universe.
- Max is seen trying to salvage fuel from a crashed buggy in the opening scene. Plus, Toadie checks the Pursuit Special's fuel tanks when it crashes, telling Wez that they're full. They've probably got some kind of storage for it, just a limited supply.
- That said, water is a plot point in Fury Road. It's likely that both are equally important.
- Gasoline isnt the most immediate concern in Fury Road, they're right next to Gas Town which has its own refinery. Hell, its not even really about water, its about PEOPLE being used as commodities. The Citadel, Gas Town and the Bullet Farm have a trade system set up, meaning they have the most direct needs taken care of.
- With the possible exception of Fury Road, which is the only sequel to have Max narrate.
- It's possible that that's the part of the epic poem that is told from the hero's perspective.
- It may be part of a legend that did atually happen: notice how all the films except for the original one have a similar basic premise: Mad Max stumbles upon a grab for power between two factions, then helps one of them to escape the other without actually gaining much for all his troubles. So, we might be hearing the same story told three times by different sources that have been diverging over time as their respective oral traditions carry them further away from each other. Kind of how you may see certain similitudes and differences between an ancient mythological story that is told by two or more different primary sources.
- The events leading up to Fury Road support this theory, as they are told in two different formats; The video game and the prequel comic. Both depict some of the same general events, such as Max winning a V-8 engine in Gastown, rescuing Glory from the Buzzards, the subsequent deaths of both Hope and Glory, and Max re-aquiring the rebuilt Pursuit Special. However, there are major differences in the plots of both, such as the nature of the tournament where Max wins the V-8, the presence of the Magnum Opus, Scabrous Scrotus, Dog, and Chumbucket in the game, and how Max actually gets the Interceptor back and who from. In the end, both lead into the start of Fury Road in a way that either or neither could be canon.
- This might also explain why his characterisation in Beyond Thunderdome feels different to the rest of the series, especially after the titular Thunderdome fight. The film itself is a Dolled-Up Installment with Max not even being part of the original premise with George Miller deciding to have the protagonist be Max after some deliberation; It's entirely possible that this happened in universe among storytellers, too.
Toecutter somehow survived the horrific crash from the first movie but still suffered major damage, which is why he needs the mask as a breathing aid. Surviving something that should have killed him (and could still kill him without the appropriate equipment) is how he gained the nickname "Immortan" and him renaming himself to Joe could be an attempt to gain anonymity so Max wouldn't immediately go after him again. It's no coincidence that they're played by the same actor.
- Seemingly Jossed. Immortan Joe is dead by the end of Fury Road and the film makes no reference to Toecutter. Furthermore, Joe doesn't seem to recognize Max.
- Definitely Jossed by the promotional materials. Immortan Joe is, in fact, a former army Colonel named Joe Moore.
- Plus, Max's crazyness would pass down to Sprog's genes.
- Adding some weight to this theory is Furiosa's backstory. It's been at least 20 years ("Seven thousand days, and the ones I don't remember.") since the War Boys kidnapped her from the Many Mothers, and by that time the Mothers had already evolved their own distinct traditions of greeting and mourning. That means it's probably at least 25 years, and probably a lot longer, since civilization broke down.
- Alternatively, he could be the grown up wild kid from the second movie, as he does seem a bit madder than Mel Gibson's Max.
- Then where did he get the Pursuit Special? It was supposed to be the very last one. Also, he mentions in his opening narration that he was a cop.
- Max's origin comic explicitly shows him acquiring parts after the events of Beyond Thunderdome to rebuild it, with him winning a V-8 engine in Gastown. However, it does depict Max as resembling Mel Gibson in flashbacks to the original trilogy and as Tom Hardy in the present day.
- Also, he is wearing a knee brace, just like old Max. And suffering from hallucinations that directly reference the experiences that Gibson's Max had.
- It may all be explained if a) Sprog was injured in his knee when he and his mother were run over by Toecutter's gang; b) Sprog souped up another Pursuit Special as he grew up (possibly with help from Fifi); c) Sprog hallucinations are inherited insanity from his dad; and d) Sprog grew up to be a cop in Bartertown.
- Combining with other theories, Max is a Perpetual, though not the Emperor, as he's clearly no Psyker.
- And who will be the person leading from this remnant of civilization to restore the world? Fifi Macaffee, Max's commanding officer from the MFP, finally doing what he said he wanted to do: give the world back it's heroes.
After "Jack" gets rid of Tyler Durden via shooting himself in the face, Riggs along with the rest of the Club, scattered away. He changed his name to Max Rockatansky to hide from any possible government prosecution due to his involvement in the Club, joined the police in Australia and got married. But Durden's plan was already on its way as we can see in the final scene in Fight Club. So the collapse was slowly spreading until it reached Australia some 5 or 6 years after the action in Fight Club takes place, which is about the time the first Mad Max film ought to be set in.
The social unravelling destroys Max's family life. He's aware that he contributed to it from his club days, which helps to further screw him up mentally and emotionally. That's why civilization's collapse affects Max in a way that puzzles even the other survivors in the Mad Max sequels. It also explains why he is such a loner because he's denying himself human company as self-punishment for helping to create a Crapsack World.
The Feral Kid in Mad Max 2 is not telling the story straight because he was born after the collapse happened, so he's embellishing his tale through hazy memories. He can only understand the collapse in terms of oil because what he remembers is that when the Feral Kid was a child, Max appeared in the middle of a struggle to control an oil drill and refinery. The much older members of the escaping party never bothered to explain the story straight or they passed away a long time before the Kid narrates the story, so he's correctly narrating only what he saw with his own eyes but not the fall of the old order; besides, Fight Club's role in ending civilization would be murky at best even to well informed people in the escaping party due to the Club's underground nature. Of course oil is scarce because it's more difficult to get with all the technology and infrastructure destroyed by World War III. However, war didn't break out because the oil was drying up, but rather because of the financial panic caused after the Fight Club carried out Tyler Durden's plan.
The Lethal Weapon adventures of Martin Riggs and friends are recurring hallucinations Max is having about himself in his former identity if Fight Club´s actions had failed or if he never even joined (flashes of these delusions appear in Fury Road). Riggs is conveniently also a policeman. His suicidal tendencies are Max's sense of guilt over his role in helping to bring down civilization and Jessie and Sprog's ultimate deaths. Jessie is even projected into Riggs´ deceased wife. Riggs´ enhanced personal life and sense of belonging in the last two Lethal Weapon sequels are simply Max's Wish-Fulfillment.
Scrooloose paints his body the same way as the warboys, and while a member of the Lost Tribe, he is clearly set apart from them in some way. My guess is he accompanied Joe's raiding party, but was left behind when Auntie drove them back. He found his way to the Lost Tribe, which we know is based not excessively far from Bartertown, and his fighting skills ingratiated him to an extent, though the rest of the Tribe still doesn't trust him when Max arrives. Still, he evidently finds the idea of Tomorrowmorrowland more appealing than Valhalla, plus he might feel that Immortan Joe has abandoned him but he still has a chance with Captain Walker.