Was Joe's body torn apart out of hatred... or for relics, having finally ascended? Or maybe it was just sheer desperation for food.
Joe's level of attachment to his wives and the nature of that attachment is seen very differently by different viewers. Of particular note is his response to the death of Angharad and her baby; entries on this very page cannot agree as to whether he feels and expressed genuine grief over her loss, and that of their child or is instead completely disinterested outside of the lost material investment. The fact that his face is covered by a mask leaves his emotions open to a great deal of interpretation.
Does Joe truly believe in the neo-Viking cult he leads, or did he simply make it up and play the part? Is he a case of Believing Their Own Lies? If he is pretending, then is he doing it out of a lust for power, or because he believes himself to be a necessary evil?
Did Furiosa help the Wives escape the Citadel out of compassion, or did she do so to exact revenge against Immortan Joe?
Or was it a twofer?
Were the Vuvalini really the peaceful society the remnants claim it to be, or does the old womens' eagerness to kill and reaction to the Dag's joke about thinking they'd be above all that suggest a warlike culture like every other faction in the outback?
The Buzzards. While their overall appearance (and the Schrödinger's Canon tie-in comics) cause them to have a pretty bad vibe, in the film itself, the only people they're seen attacking are those from the citadel (and a heavily armed convoy at that), possibly implying some sort of feud between the factions as opposed to simple banditry. Given the Buzzards implied status as The Remnant from Russia, and Joe's veteran status, either one of them could be the initial aggressor against the other out of lingering hostility from the war.
Furiosa looks briefly uncomfortable right after Morsov's Heroic Sacrifice. Is she merely concerned about the success of her escape plan, or does she feel guilty for getting so many of her Obliviously Evil escorts killed?
The grenade-tipped spears used by the War Boys are similar to spar torpedos, which are also bombs on sticks that were used by boats as a means to attack other boats and ships. They also resemble a weapon used by Japanese forces during WWII called a "lunge mine" or "anti-tank spear". They're basically Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a HEAT warhead on the end of a long bamboo pole. The soldier was expected to lie in the foliage next to the road, waiting for an enemy tank to roll by, at which point he'd jab the hull with his spear, blowing up both the tank and the soldier — essentially, exactly the way that Morsov uses them. Similar devices were also used by many armies since World War I to clear barbed-wire and minefields, they were known as Bangalore Torpedoes. Unlike the lunge mine, these were not a suicide weapon; the intent was that a soldier could push them into the obstacle from behind cover, or even throw them javelin-style, then withdraw to a safe distance and set them off using an attached detonator wire, without needing to expose himself to enemy fire to place the charge directly. (Which is in some ways the exact opposite of how the War Boys use them.)
Yes, drummers were very important in the history of warfare to keep up charges and transmit information where words get easily garbled or drowned out by battle. However, having them on monster trucks, backed by a mute jumpsuited electric-guitar player whose guitar spews flames, is purely Rule of Cool.
Anvilicious: The movie is not subtle about its feminist message. The bad guys represent the forces of fossil fuels (Gastown), guns (The Bullet Farm) and war (the Citadel). They are all men. Every woman is a good guy. Even the title character is a Supporting Protagonist to a strong, independent woman who ultimately takes power from a patriarchal regime. An early Armor-Piercing Question is "Who killed the world?", with the implication that it's the men in power who are responsible for the Crapsack World of the setting.
Award Snub: Charlize Theron missing out on even a nomination for Best Actress at the Golden Globes and at the Academy; Nicholas Hoult not being nominated as Best Supporting Actor; Junkie XL not getting a Best Score nomination; and, of course, the film not winning any "big" rewards like Best Director and Best Picture. On the plus side, this trope is also inverted, as the movie won 6 Oscars, more than any other film that year, even though the awards were purely technical.
Awesome Music: Junkie XL's exhilarating score plays a huge role in fleshing out the action of the movie and amplifying the madness even further. Bonus points for the diegetic music played by the Doof Warrior on his double-necked flamethrower guitar.
The film's audience is torn asunder by factions divided by their reading of the film's stance on gender politics. On one side you have a crowd hailing it as a Feminist Fantasy, another in the middle calling it "not-misogynist" but not outright feminist, and a very vocal faction on the other end claiming it's outright misandrist.
Whether it is as good as the original trilogy. There are many people who think Fury Road was just an overblown cartoonish flick while others consider it the best movie in the series. The competition is especially tight between Fury Road and Road Warrior.
Max as the Supporting Protagonist. This is either a bold and clever choice to give focus to a new character, or an upstaging of the established hero which hurts the movie. Others claim this isn't especially different from his roles in Road Warrior and Thunderdome.
Complete Monster: Immortan Joe is an elderly, sickly, brutal tyrant who has forged a kingdom in the Wasteland. In the prequel comic, it is revealed Joe was a marauder who murdered others for their supplies, enslaving the women and killing the men and children. Upon founding his kingdom, Joe selects people to join it, but forces the women to become breeding slaves so their milk may be harvested, and the men to run along treadmills to power the turbines. Joe indoctrinates the strong young men into the War Boys: drug-addicted cultist fanatics who long to die in his cause. The most beautiful women are kept as Joe's personal sex slaves and forced to bear his children; after three failed attempts at bearing a healthy boy, they find themselves exiled to certain death in the desert wastes. When several of his wives escape, Joe spares no resource to hunt them down and return them, though he is willing to kill one rather than allow her to be rescued, showing that he views them solely as his property.
The War Boyz: berserk, half-naked suicidal warriors painted white who suck up gasoline in their mouths and spit it into the intake of their junkyard-tanks to overclock the engines, wielding grenade-tipped spears. And they kick ass. They're Warhammer 40,000 Orks, only lacking green skin and not havingquiteas much dakka.
Nux himself, too, in spite of his Butt-Monkey tendencies early in the movie. Of all the War Boys, he gets closest to the War Rig, with a man strapped to the front of his car, and manages to drive through a giant lightning sandstorm where everyone else was sucked up into a tornado or set on fire. Remember how he managed to wrestle that wheel from Slit on the basis that he was the driver? Yeah, Nux deserves to be driver for the shit he manages to pull through the movie. Did we mention he's terminally ill?
Coma the Doof Warrior. Rides atop a massive rolling amplifier, shredding out mean riffs on a double necked guitar/flamethrower like a beefed-up cavalier. Necessary? No. Awesome? HELL YEAH!
Designated Hero: The Vuvalini, portrayed as the most heroic faction, prey on travelers and, from what little we see of them, seem to have an insular culture and a high distrust of men. Part of this can be chalked up to the necessities of survival in a harsh environment, the overall patriarchal domination of this world (see: Anvilicious trope) leading to its destruction. It's certainly possible that absent that pressure, they'll rule the Citadel in a more egalitarian manner than Joe's regime, but it's left up to audience interpretation.
The Doof Warrior. Battle rages around him, cars blow sky high, adrenaline-pumped warriors fight to the death on his stage and what does he do? He keeps on a-shreddin' his kick-ass flamethrower-guitar, that's what he does!
That one polecat assassin known only as "Black Mask". He is totally silent, wears a creepy baby doll head on the back of his mask, and shows unusual toughness and deadliness for a mook. He manages to shoot Max with an arrow which only fails to pierce his skull due to a lucky hallucination that made him raise his hand; when Furiosa stabs him and he gets thrown off the rig by the Vuvalini, he clings to the vehicle, climbs back and near fatally stabs Furiosa with the blade she drove into his shoulder.
Despite dying about halfway through the movie, Badass Pacifist Angharad is the best-remembered of the fan-favorite Five Wives for many fans. Some people consider her to have one of the best performances, if not the best, in a movie full of great performances.
Ace, the Old Soldier of the War Boys who defends Furiosa's convoy against the Buzzards before realizing she's trying to escape Joe. Despite only appearing during that sequence, Ace is better-liked than some members of Joe's faction who last the entire film, and he has a decent amount of fan art.
The Dag is one of the less important of the Five Wives, but many fans consider her to be the best of the bunch due to her colorful quirkiness and moving interactions with the Keeper of the Seeds.
The Bullet Farmer, the Large HamTrigger-Happy gunman who is initially irritated at Joe for dragging him into the chase in the first place, but later eats up all the scenery he can find when he goes blind and discharges every bullet and rocket at his disposal while playing Dies Irae. Understandably, he has quite a bit of entertainment value and fan art out there.
He's only around for a few minutes, but the Rock Rider Chief has a lot of fans for his Badass Biker appearance and driving skills, as well as how he's less Ax-Crazy than the other gang leaders. Plenty of people find him Unintentionally Sympathetic in his fight against Furiosa.
The Max in this film is actually the Feral Kid from The Road Warrior as an adult having taken his hero's name, neatly explaining the actor change and the long gap between films. There are a quite a few actors and directors who support this theory, notably including Quentin Tarantino.
Alternatively, a popular fan theory is that Max is immortal.
Given that he's played by the same actor as Toecutter from the first movie, some fans believe that Immortan Joe is Toecutter, having survived his apparent horrific death after being run over by a truck. It would certainly explain where Joe's horrible injuries came from...
Even Better Sequel: Bucking the trend of sequels/reboots/remakes/revivals that get flak for being lesser films (or simply for their nature), Fury Road is widely agreed to be one of the most successful series revivals in recent memory, and better than the last film Beyond Thunderdome. It's currently sitting at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, the same as The Road Warrior which was the previously uncontested best of the series. For comparison, that's two percentage points higher than Schindler's List. It's also the highest-grossing entry of the series by far (even adjusting for inflation). In addition, it's the first in the series to receive any Oscar attention, let alone a nomination for Best Picture. Matter of fact, only weeks after its release, people were already calling it one of the greatest action movies ever made.
Call Fury Road a knockoff of Borderlands and you'll be met with a number of Mad Max fans who will inform you just how wrong you are as far as which property inspired which.
There's also a distinct Japanese variation; older anime fans and manga-ka will correct younger fans who believe Fury Road was inspired by Fist of the North Star — truth being the exact same thing as the Borderlands example, that the latter was very much inspired by the former's predecessors.
Fans of Fury Road and Avengers: Age of Ultron have been incredibly bitter toward one another with the films being released only a couple weeks apart, with the common arguments being over which had better action and story overall.
Pitch Perfect 2 was released on the same day and received a higher box office total during their opening weekend. Fans of Fury Road have a lot to say about that.
At least on social media websites such as Tumblr or YouTube, there is some competition between fans of Fury Road and Tomorrowland and as to whether or not the idea of a hopeful future is a better message, or whether apocalyptic fiction like Mad Max is better.
Though some reviewers have pointed out that the core message is the same; having great dreams aren't enough — you have to go out and make them reality.
Max: Hope is a mistake. If you can't fix what is broken, you'll go insane.
Nix: In every moment, there is the possibility of a better future, but you people won't believe it! And because you won't believe it, you won't do what is necessary to make it a reality. So you dwell on this terrible future and you resign yourselves to it. And for one reason; because that future doesn't ask anything of you, today.
In a similar vein, both movies make the claim that though bad things have a source — Immortan Joe, the Monitor — and removing that source will improve the world, the real reason bad things happen is because most people are too apathetic to resist it.
Nux: We're not to blame! Angharad:Then who killed the world?
Nix: You gave up. That's not the Monitor's fault. That's yours.
Fandom-Specific Plot: Nux and/or Angharad surviving is a common fanfic divergence point for fans of the film.
One started up with feminist The Force Awakens fans when Rey, and the film in general, was attacked by the same groups that objected to Furiosa.
Fury Road fans have become quite amicable with fans of Blade Runner 2049, thanks to both of them being long-delayed sequels to iconic '80s sci-fi franchises that haven't had a movie in over 30 years. Neither film was expected to live up to the legacy established by their predecessors, but upon release, were greeted with overwhelmingly positive reviews by critics and fans alike, and even picked up some Academy Awards in the process.
All of the Wives, but it's probably safe to say that no one should be deriding Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as just another talentless model-turned actor (for her previous role in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, replacing Megan Fox as the main character's girlfriend) after this movie. She expertly portrays Angharad's intelligence, compassion, and bravery as the charismatic natural leader of the Wives and leaves quite an impression despite the fact that she dies only halfway through the movie.
To a lesser extent, no one's going to be calling Nicholas Hoult just another bland pretty face actor anymore (say it with us, guys: "OH WHAT A DAY! WHAT A LOVELY DAY!")
Nux's death in the War Rig's destruction is never entirely confirmed, and some claim that the Rig's hardiness might leave him with a slim chance of survival. Unlikely, but given the series consists of disconnected tales and rumours with variable timelines, it's possible he could appear again.
Likewise, while the Doof Warrior's guitar gets flung forward, we never actually see him getting crushed, and it's not impossible that he may have been alive under there.
There are those who think that Ace and some of the Polecats could have survived being thrown to the desert floor during the chase sequences.
There have been a lot of comparisons to Judge Dredd, especially with Brendan McCarthy co-authoring the script. Mark Sexton, who did the art on the tie in comics, would later do the art for a Judge Dredd story. Bonus points for the inclusion of a Dredd poster in Max's backstory comic.
Tom Hardy battles a massive man reliant on some breathing apparatus and figures out that he should take it apart first — basically reversing the situation when Tom Hardy was in The Dark Knight Rises. The very last scene is a massive platform lifting the Deuteragonist out of view, just like the final shot of The Dark Knight Rises.
The Dag and Cheedo are in nearly constant contact with each other all through the movie, frequently holding hands; it's never clear whether they're meant to be a couple or if the Dag is more like a protective big sister to Cheedo.
Nux and Slit. Their introductory scene has them naked from the chest up (well, the usual for a War Boy) butting their heads and grunting at each other. Then there's Slit's rage at Nux "traitoring" Immortan Joe.
Hype Backlash: With the overwhelming praise the movie got, this was bound to happen. For some people it's just an okay action movie without much going on in terms of story and character.
Jerkass Woobie: The War Boys, our toxically destructive villains. At first glance you might dismiss them as nothing more than deplorable savages. However, it's soon made clear they're yet another group of Joe's victims, all being indoctrinated to blindly follow him whilst pumped up on drugs and lies. Not to mention, most — if not all — of them are terminally ill, and made to believe it's their calling to beat out their diseases by going out in a blaze of glory.
Immortan Joe is an absolutely disgusting Complete Monster, which makes him fit this trope perfectly and makes his Karmic Death all the more satisfying.
The People Eater is a fat, slovenly, cowardly and thoroughly disgusting creep who wears a very off-putting suit with cut-out nipple rings, is extremely unpleasant to look at and might very well be a cannibal given his gout and the hideous growths on his legs. He was creepy before, but callously running downValkyrie while she protects one of her fallen sisters and laughing while he did so had audiences everywhere baying for his blood. When Max used him as a Bulletproof Human Shield and blew up his truck a few minutes later, the cheers were deafening. It's enhanced by his one redeeming quality as the Only Sane Man on the villain's side, who thinks Immortan is wasting his time and should have just let them go and keep the status quo.note He's proven right. Had Immortan Joe just let them go, either they're forced to go on an endless trek into the nothingness or come back to the Citadel. Either way, they lose.
Magnificent Bitch: Imperator Furiosa, once a ruthless raider and Imperator in service of the monstrous Immortan Joe, risks everything to escape his service and steals his prized wives to hurt her former master and tormentor. Betraying and killing her own War Boys to flee Joe's convoy, Furiosa eludes him with the help of Max to return to her old clan, the Vuvalini and their Green Place. Upon learning the Green Place no longer exists, she and Max opt to instead double back and take Immortan Joe's undefended citadel with Furiosa herself outwitting and killing the tyrant before presenting his corpse to claim control over the Citadel.
The "Feminist Mad Max" meme. Kind of like "Good Guy Greg", but focused on Max respectfully helping Furiosa.
"WITNESS!!!" note (when a War Boy is about to go out in suicide attack and his comrades answer to him) Several people have been responding to Nux's Heroic Sacrifice with variations of "I will witness you!" and "I have witnessed you!"
Spraying Color Spray to be all Shiny and Chrome when you enter Valhalla. The word "Chrome" being used to mean anything good or cool is also on the rise.
It's become popular to state on online message boards that the movie is actually a non-fiction documentary depicting a normal day in Australia.note Going along with Australia's Memetic BadassDeath World reputation online.
Thanks to Immortan Joe, declarations of "MEDIOCRE!" have become popular among fans of the film, especially when used against the movie's detractors.
Captioning extremely silly MacGyvered vehicles with "Gonna die historic on the Fury Road."
"Uh, Uh... that's bait.◊" note A .gif of Max's reaction to an Obvious Trap has taken on a life of its own in message board circles, usually used as a way to point out Flame Bait or obvious trolling
From the director ofBabeandHappy Feetnote It's become fairly popular to note the irony of the fact that a blisteringly popular, explosively successful, R-Rated violent action extravaganza was directed by a 70-year old man who hasn't made a film rated higher than PG since The Witches of Eastwick in 1987.
"He was scanning the horizon!": used as a reaction to people getting overexcited at their crush/idol/etc. looking at them. Especially popular with the "Senpai noticed me!" meme.
Misaimed Fandom: The War Boys have garnered this. The movie doesn't hide that their culture is completely toxic and self-destructive, but they've become a Fountain of Memes regardless.
Capable, at least when she's being compassionate toward Nux. Her Brainy Specs goggles help as well.
The Dag for some, due to her hamminess and her emotional conversation with the Keeper of the Seeds about the hope the seeds represent and The Dag's mixed feelings about motherhood.
Moral Event Horizon: The People Eater has one during the Final Battlewhen he runs over Valkyrie while chuckling to himself. He even appears to be getting off on it.
Most Wonderful Sound: The War Rig's horn. It just sounds so powerful, like a cross between the roar of some giant animal and an electric guitar riff. Going along with the above, if you imagine the sort of horn an Ork WAAAGH! would put on a Wartrukk, that's it.
Narm Charm: The entire film runs on it, as the insanely messed-up over the top setting and characters would be ridiculous if it weren't so terrifying and badass. Case in point: The Bullet Farmer chasing the War Rig. An old man dressed entirely in bandoliers (including a judge's wig), riding on a sports car with tank treads, firing an absurd amount of shots at nothing and screaming at the top of his lungs while epic classical music plays. It's so over-the-top that it blows past Narm and circles back into pure awesomeness again.
Morsov, a War Boy who gets shot in the head with a crossbow before chroming himself and dive-bombing the Buzzards who shot him. His death is given such ceremony from those around, and it serves as a microcosm of the awesomely crazy mindset the War Boys live and die by. In their words: "WITNESS HIM!"
The scarecrow-like... things... on stilts in the middle of the bog. Their extremely bizarre and distinctive appearance combined with the lack of an explanation for their presence just makes them creepier.
The creepy polecat mook, nicknamed "Baby Doll" because of the creepy baby's head on the back of his mask, who appears for about five minutes, survives being thrown off the rig, shoots Max with a crossbow and mortally wounds Furiosa.
Though he appears more than once, the Bullet Farmer only gets prominently focused on in one scene during which Max kills him offscreen, but given that the scene in question features him screaming atthe top ofhis lungs and dual-wielding machine guns aboard a tank-sports car hybrid vehicle (with operamusic playing) it's hard to say he doesn't make an impression.
Out of the Ghetto: Is becoming one for action films. Being commercially successful and wildly acclaimed critically, and winning 6 Oscars. It currently sits at a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which, for those who are keeping score, is the same percentage point approval as Schindler's List.
Periphery Demographic: A lot of women love the movie for its high concentration of Action Girls and focus on them as independent characters in their own right.
On the other side of the coin, with a Badass Normal living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with some steampunk aesthetics, a tyrannical ruler as the Big Bad (albeit much, MUCH more mature and competent), undertones of genocide and slavery and a kickass woman in the lead trying to overthrow the villain, this is quite possibly the closest to a film adaptation of Now and Then, Here and There, except with 99% of the tragic moments replaced with Feminist Fantasy-powered sheer badassery.
A recursive one, since Gorkamorka is essentially "The Road Warrior: the Tabletop Game", but if you imagine the War Boys as Warhammer 40,000's Orks (which is not exactly hard) then this becomes the best Gorkamorka adaptation ever made. Even moreso if you read the Digganobz expansion, where pale humans with an affinity for technology really, really want to be orks and act accordingly.
It might also be a better adaptation of Tank Girl than its own movie was. Hell, this chart◊ shows the comparison!
It also feels very 2000 AD, especially compared to any time Judge Dredd ventures into the Cursed Earth. Having Brendan McCarthy, a routine contributor to the comic, as a co-writer of the script and a Shout-Out to Dredd appear in the tie-in comics has probably helped this more than a fair amount.
A man rescuing women and girls who were imprisoned as breeding slaves by a hypermasculine war cult in an apocalyptic wasteland? The manga Fist of the North Star featured a similar plotline during the Golan Organization story arc decades before.
Driving pedal-to-the-metal through a ginormous lightning-sandstorm forms perhaps the most evocative part of Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley. Although the novel has a good claim on influencing about every action-packed post-apo movie ever since, Fury Road feels a lot truer to the source material than its own (supposed) adaptation, and the storm scene is definitely the best adaptation of that fragment that cinema has to offer.
Immortan Joe's back is covered with sores. Several War Boys, such as Nux, are stricken with cancer and have tumors visibly bulging out of their skin.
Furiosa shoots a random mook at one point with an explosive crossbow bolt, which blows a hole in his chest and exposes his bloody ribcage. Yeesh.
Immortan Joe's extremely gruesome death where he loses his face.
The "worn out" breeders being milked, and the milk being consumed on camera immediately after we see where it just came from.
Max washing his face, covered in someone else's blood, in the aforementioned milk.
During the climax, Max is attacked by a couple of Joe's thugs, one of whom has a chainsaw. Max defends himself by blocking the chainsaw with a nearby human shield. Ouch.
The People Eater has a massively swollen foot, implied to be the result of elephantiasis.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: The Rock Riders might be ruthless bandits but that's just par for the course in this setting and there's nothing to indicate that they didn't deal in good faith with Furiosa before she brought the wrath of Immortan Joe on their heads.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The Vuvalini are introduced via a pretty ruthless Honey Trap, are immediately suspicious of the first men they meet, imply that a Child by Rape would be less "ugly" if it were a girl and one of them states that she's killed every person she's ever met in the wasteland.
The French version calls the War Rig "Porte-Guerre" (technically War-Carrier, but Warbringer is just as accurate) and translates "blood bag" as "globulard" (globule meaning "blood cell"), which sounds like a vague insult that meshes with the atmosphere. It also translates the term "guzzolene" designating the fuel as "gaspi" (shorthand for "gaspillage", meaning "waste"), bringing in mind a public service campaign from the 1979 oil crisis (coincidentally the year the first Mad Max was released) urging people to save fuel by declaring "la chasse au gaspi" (waste-hunt).
The Polish version (otherwise MEDIOCRE) provides a nice one with Machina Wojenna (The War Machine), which in Polish has less vehicular connotations and might actually mean "The Thing That Keeps the War Going".
which are also bombs on sticks that were used by boats as a means to attack other boats and ships. They also resemble a weapon used by Japanese forces during WWII called a "lunge mine" or "anti-tank spear". They're basically Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a HEAT warhead
