History Film / MadMax

%%* AfterTheEnd: ''Road Warrior'', ''Beyond Thunderdome'', and ''Fury Road''; the original is JustBeforeTheEnd.

* WastelandWarlord: The villains of the latter three movies are all people who've taken to craving out a piece of territory of themselves in the post-apocalyptic world. How much do they symbol this trope? Lord Humungus and Immortan Joe currently respectively supply he trope picture and quote.

* So perhaps the message is in between or HumansAreFlawed.

* InfantImmortality: Played straight only in ''The Road Warrior'' - every other film, including the LighterAndSofter ''Beyond Thunderdome'', has a child or infant die.

* AfterTheEnd: ''Road Warrior'', ''Beyond Thunderdome'', and ''Fury Road''; The original is JustBeforeTheEnd.

%%* WalkTheEarth: Max's fate.

''Mad Max'' is a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] film franchise created by Creator/GeorgeMiller in 1979. It is one of the biggest works of the UsefulNotes/AustralianNewWave and arguably the continent's most famous commodity since kangaroos.

The series is also notable for [[NegativeContinuity playing somewhat fast-and-loose with continuity]]: while certain aspects of the story remain consistent across the franchise, the details tend to fluctuate between entries, sometimes outright contradicting one another.[[invoked]] WordOfGod holds that this is intentional; the franchise is not meant to be a linear series of events so much as a collection of folkloric legends about Max's exploits.

Another video game called ''VideoGame/{{Mad Max|2015}}'' by the developers of the ''VideoGame/JustCause'' games was released on September 1, 2015 for [[UsefulNotes/{{MicrosoftWindows}} Windows]], UsefulNotes/XboxOne, and UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, with a [[UsefulNotes/{{Unix}} Linux]] port made on October 20th, 2016. It was originally announced as a tie-in game to ''Fury Road'', though the final product leaves it somewhat ambiguous as to whether the game is a canonical prequel.

* NegativeContinuity: Downplayed, as there are a few consistent elements across all the films (Max is/was a cop, oil wars led to nuclear wars led to the apocalypse, some props like Max's jacket and the Pursuit Special, Max's injuries carry over between the films) and the first three films had a mostly logical and coherent timeline, but after ''Fury Road'', continuity was thrown out the window. George Miller has said he doesn't think of the Mad Max movies as a single story, but rather as a series of legends about a mythological figure named Max; and much like real myths and legends, there's often contradiction and inconsistency.
** A key example is Max's iconic Pursuit Special, which is constantly associated with him in the popular imagination but which is [[spoiler:destroyed in '''both''' ''The Road Warrior'' and ''Fury Road'']].

* ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'': The fourth entry, released in 2015 after spending thiry years in DevelopmentHell. Starring Creator/TomHardy as Max, it is by far the most action-packed entry in the series.

The series stars "Mad" Max Rockatansky, a former police officer who lost his family and his mind in the chaos that came JustBeforeTheEnd. Clad in the [[IconicOutfit tattered remains of his patrol uniform]], he roams the post-nuclear deserts of Australia in his customized [[CoolCar V8 Interceptor]], fighting to survive while [[KnightInSourArmor reluctantly lending aid]] to people in need. Along his journeys he is menaced by deranged outlaws, despotic warlords, and other unsavory sorts who seek to raid and pillage the homes of the wasteland's helpless inhabitants.

''Mad Max'' is a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] film franchise created by Creator/GeorgeMiller in 1979. It is one of the biggest works of the UsefulNotes/AustralianNewWave and arguably the content's most famous commodity since kangaroos.

* ''Film/MadMax1'': The 1979 original starring Creator/MelGibson as Max, who played him for the next two films. Made with practically no money, the film was surprisingly successful in Australia and around the world, earning it the world record for "most profitable film ever made"; a record that stood for decades.

''Mad Max'' is a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] film franchise created by Creator/GeorgeMiller in 1979. It is one of the biggest works of the UsefulNotes/AustralianNewWave and arguably the most famous thing to come out of Australia since kangaroos.

''Mad Max'' is a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] film franchise created by Creator/GeorgeMiller in 1979. It is one of the most famous series to come out of the UsefulNotes/AustralianNewWave and arguably the most famous thing to come out of Australia since kangaroos.

The series stars "Mad" Max Rockatansky, a former police officer who lost his family and his mind in the chaos that came JustBeforeTheEnd. Clad in the [[IconicOutfit tattered remains of his patrol uniform]], he roams the post-nuclear deserts of Australia in his customized [[CoolCar V8 Interceptor]], fighting to survive while [[KnightInSourArmor reluctantly lending aid]] to people in need. Along his journeys he is menaced by deranged outlaws, despotic warlords, and other unsavory sorts who seek to raid and pillage the wasteland.

* ''Film/MadMax1'': The 1979 original starring Creator/MelGibson as Max, who played him for the next two films. Made with practically no money, the film was surprisingly successful in Australia and around the world, earning it a world record as the most profitable film ever made.

* ''Film/MadMax1'': The 1979 original starring Creator/MelGibson as Max, who played him for the next two films. Made with practically no money and released in 1979, the film was surprisingly successful in Australia and around the world, earning it a world record as the most profitable film ever made.

The series stars "Mad" Max Rockatansky, a former police officer who lost his family and his mind in the chaos that came JustBeforeTheEnd. Clad in the [[IconicOutfit tattered remains of his patrol uniform]], he roams the post-nuclear deserts of Australia in his customized [[CoolCar V8 Interceptor]], fighting to survive while [[KnightInSourArmor reluctantly lending aid]] to people in need. Along his journeys he is menaced by deranged outlaws, warlords, and other unsavory sorts who seek to raid and pillage the wasteland.

''Mad Max'' is a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] film franchise created by Creator/GeorgeMiller in 1979. It is one of the most famous film franchises to come out of the UsefulNotes/AustralianNewWave and arguably the most famous thing to come out of Australia since kangaroos.

''Mad Max'' is a series of films that constitute the most famous things to come out of UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} since kangaroos and the most incomprehensible accents east of Scotland. Created by Creator/GeorgeMiller, the original series stars Creator/MelGibson in his Australian accent as the title character "Mad" Max Rockatansky. It is one of the most famous film franchises to come out of the UsefulNotes/AustralianNewWave.

The first film, ''Film/MadMax1'', is set [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture "A Few Years From Now"]] at a time where [[TerminallyDependentSociety scarcity of oil]] is [[JustBeforeTheEnd beginning to cause the collapse of civilization]] -- law and order is barely holding on within the towns while the highways are controlled by the outlaw gangs. Max Rockatansky is a Main Force Patrol cop, held in high regard by his boss and peers, with a happy home with his wife and young son -- until run-ins with the motorcycle gang led by the villainous charismatic [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Toecutter]] cause his life to fall apart. Max famously goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge at the film's climax, but by the end he has lost everything. Made with practically [[NoBudget no money]] and released in 1979, the film was surprisingly successful in Australia and around the world to the point where it was in ''The Guinness Book of World Records'' for decades as the most profitable film ever made. However, it was barely noticed in America, where it was only given limited release and all the characters' voices had been dubbed with American accents [[ExecutiveMeddling because distributors thought]] the audience [[ViewersAreMorons wouldn't understand what they were saying]].

The second film, ''Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior'' (originally released as ''Mad Max 2'', retitled ''The Road Warrior'' in America), follows Max into the [[AfterTheEnd anarchic Wasteland that used to be Australia]], where a few years later he is now WalkingTheEarth with his PostApocalypticDog in his CoolCar. He runs into a small ragtag group of survivors occupying an isolated oil refinery, who are surrounded and terrorized by a vicious gang of biker bandits led by the mysterious masked Lord Humungus. After at first resisting their pleas for him to help them, Max ends up assisting them in their plan for escape to the north, exorcising some of his own personal demons. Released in 1981, the film is almost unanimously regarded as better than the first -- in America, where it was renamed so that people wouldn't realize it was a sequel, it was a surprise hit. ''Mad Max 2'', a.k.a. ''The Road Warrior'', is the film that made Mad Max (and Mel Gibson) famous worldwide.

The third film, ''Film/MadMaxBeyondThunderdome'', is the first one to be set unambiguously AfterTheEnd in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Max gets stuck in the midst of a power struggle in a MerchantCity, and ends up as a messiah to a tribe of children. Released in 1985, this film was an American co-production and a DolledUpInstallment: the original idea centered around a man encountering a post-apocalyptic society of wild children, before George Miller decided to have Mad Max be that man.

The fourth film, ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'', was released in 2015 after thirty years in DevelopmentHell, and is set an ambiguous amount of time after ''Beyond Thunderdome''. Now something closer to "society" has crawled from the ruins of the old world: there are landed tribes, and alliances, and tyrants at the helm once more. Creator/TomHardy takes over the role of Max, who teams up with the elite Imperator Furiosa, played by Creator/CharlizeTheron. She's on a mission to help a group of women fleeing across the Wasteland from the Immortan Joe, the tyrannical warlord leader of the massive human colony known as "the Citadel." Production was delayed by higher-than-normal amounts of rainfall around [[UsefulNotes/AustralianStatesAndTerritories Broken Hill]] that made the area too green, so filming moved to Namibia. George Miller and ''Fury Road'' co-writer Brendan [=McCarthy=] already have sequels written, the first of which is titled ''Mad Max: The Wasteland''.

A video game called ''Mad Max'' developed and published by Mindscape was released in 1990 for the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem. Minscape also developed a sequel based on ''Beyond Thunderdome'' but the lost rights so specific references to ''Mad Max'' were removed and the title was changed to ''Outlander''.

Another video game called ''VideoGame/{{Mad Max|2015}}'' by the developers of the ''VideoGame/JustCause'' games was released on September 1, 2015 for [[UsefulNotes/{{MicrosoftWindows}} Windows]], UsefulNotes/XboxOne, and UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, with a [[UsefulNotes/{{Unix}} Linux]] port made on October 20th, 2016. It was originally announced as a tie-in game to ''Fury Road'', then was said to be an alt-universe standalone game, but was ultimately revealed to be something of a hybrid between the two. The plot is that Max was attacked by Scabrous Scrotus, one of Immortan Joe's sons, and has his beloved V8 Interceptor stolen for parts and he ends up working with Chumbucket, a deformed mechanic/blackfinger. Chumbucket sees Max as an Angel sent by the god Combustion to help him complete his car, the Magnum Opus. Max simply sees Chumbucket as a means of getting a replacement vehicle so that he can finally reach an area of the Wasteland called the Plains of Silence and find peace in a world gone mad.

The various works have their own pages: '''''Film/MadMax1'', ''Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior'', ''Film/MadMaxBeyondThunderdome'', ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'', and the 2015 ''VideoGame/MadMax2015'' game. Put tropes applying to them there.'''

->''"My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos. Ruined dreams. This wasted land. But most of all, I remember the Road Warrior. The man we called 'Max'."''
-->-- '''The Narrator''' (OpeningMonologue), ''[[Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior Mad Max 2]]''

* TheSilentBob: Max, to varying degrees. In ''The Road Warrior,'' he only has sixteen lines. In ''Fury Road,'' it's more plot-relevant, as he's been isolated for so long that he's almost literally forgotten how to speak.

* AfterTheEnd: ''Beyond Thunderdome'' and ''Fury Road''; The original is JustBeforeTheEnd while ''Mad Max 2'' is set during the end after society has generally collapsed but before an all-out nuclear war.

* NegativeContinuity: Downplayed, as there are a few consistent elements across all the films (Max is/was a cop, oil wars led to nuclear wars led to the apocalypse, some props like Max's jacket and the Pursuit Special), but in general the series doesn't concern itself greatly with continuity. Very much an intentional trope, as George Miller has said he doesn't think of the Mad Max movies as a single story, but rather as a series of legends about a mythological figure named Max; and much like real myths and legends, there's often contradiction and inconsistency.