The dog may have died in the movie but in real life it was saved. They got it from a shelter just before it was scheduled to be put down and at the end of filming a crew member took it home 😇
Though they wanted a rough looking mutt, he turned out to be almost impossible to train to attack. When he "fights" with the gyro pilot he's actually looking for his toy. They had the actor get the dog excited, then quickly hide it in a pocket. The dog would run forward a start rooting around to find it. The actor would scream like he was being attacked and they added "fierce doggy" sounds in editing.
I would recommend checking out the many Road Warrior documentaries, as most lovingly describe the pupper's life: about his rescue from a shelter, how he's the first dog to ever receive a vasectomy (shelter regulations required him to be neutered but Miller wanted him to appear un-snipped, so his vasectomy was a compromise) and some interesting details about who he wanted to bite and how they edited around his tendencies. And he lived a long life with a camera operator after production.
They chose him because he brought them a rock or stick or something. Also, at first, he would act up because the noise from the vehicles hurt his ears, so they had to improvise some "dog earplugs" with pieces of cotton. This is also in the making of stuff, or the director's commentary.
I saw this in the theater when it first came out. With these visuals on a big screen, the sounds and music coming through big speakers, and the audience reactions in the big moments, this was peak action adventure. And no computer tricks. People were actually hurt making this movie.
Unusual for an action film, this was shot in sequence and George Miller edited this movie with the sound off, so he could just focus on the images. Mel Gibson only has sixteen lines of dialogue in the entire film, and two of them are "I only came for the gasoline." Originally Humungus was originally supposed to be Max's partner Jim Goose. The idea was decided against this, but left a few hints, such as horrible burns behind Humungus' goalie mask, his raiders' use of police vehicles, and his own use of a similar weapon to the MFP's standard sidearm. Two stunt performers were injured filming of the climatic highway battle. George Miller who trained as an ER doctor (before turning to filming making), examined the injured stunt performers.
Let me tell you something, that is one of the best and most brutal high speed chases in film history. Kudos to all the stuntmen and what they were able to achieve in 1981.👍👍
This is by far the best film. It was the 80s action film that set the bar for all future action flicks and characters. There was no CGI, and all the stunts were real.
My bad, I f**ked up. I said yes in the poll by accident about seeing it in theaters. First time I watched this was with my dad on videodisc. As soon as it was over, he looked at me and said, "You wanna watch it again?' Hells yeah...I miss my dad
"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. To understand who he was we have to go back to the other time, when the world was powered by the black fuel and the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel - gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded - a whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the roads it was a white-line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice, and in this maelstrom of decay ordinary men were battered and smashed - men like Max, the warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything and became a shell of a man, a burnt-out desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again." --Opening Monologue, Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior
Disagree. I don't give a sh*t about production values if it has heart; First Mad Max all the way, although I love Road Warrior. The only two Max movies that matter as far as I'm concerned.
In most movies, the response would have been a four-letter word. I liked that they used that line instead. In fact, The Road Warrior was pretty clean when it came to the language that was used. Great movie.
Great reaction Jen! Just something i hope you and others find interesting. Mad Max 2 absolutely blew James Cameron's mind, he said it changed the way he thought about film-making, and he describes it as "the template for the modern action movie". Cameron loved Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior so much that he paid tribute to it at the very end of his biggest movie of all time. At the end of Mad Max 2 the Feral Boy's last words (about Max) were: "He lives now..only in my memory". In Titanic (written by Cameron) Old Rose's last words (about Jack) were "He exists now..only in my memory". I am an Australian and am particularly proud of this movie, and that it, through James Cameron and other film makers, changed the way movies were made in Hollywood and across the world.
The real legend of Max begins here. Back in the 80s this was top of the line action, stuff we’d never seen before! Max is easily one of the greatest fictional heroes ever.
Yes, this is THE mad max movie... a lot of people don't even realise there was a low budget original. This was the most expensive film ever made in Australia at the time. (the original was influenced by the 1973 fuel crisis, and this one the 1979 fuel crisis. Along with the cold war, there was a real feeling that the apocalypse was right round the corner.)
A lot of people in the US don't realize, because it was just called "The Road Warrior" there, since the first Mad Max didn't get a wide release in the states. Everywhere else in the world it was known as Mad Max 2.
@@mocthezuma In the UK it was known at time of release (1981, I was 9) as "Max Max 2 : The Road Warrior", so best of both worlds. This and The Evil Dead (until it was band, bloody Mary Whitehouse) were my fav VHS rentals, yes my local chemist which also had a VHS/BETA area allowed me to rent any 18 film at 10+, no ID required, and I looked young for my age (still do), them were the days.
People have probably mentioned this before but it helps especially moving forward from here, that you understand that any continuity issues that arise can be explained by these movies being campfire stories told by people in the post apocalyptic world about almost mythological heroes like Max but also the Gyro Captain.
@@NZBigfoot Zhaan is one of the most badass characters in Farscape. A promoter of peace and calm, who will f you up if it's necessary. Aside from Pilot, she was my favorite character.
That transition, from the intro narration in 4:3 format to screaming out from the Interceptor's Weiand compressor into Panavision widescreen... One of cinema's best openings.
That's the only part of the Mad Max series that just irks me. Superchargers are always engaged there is no button or switch that engages it they are directly connected to the crankshaft by a serpentine belt and can't be disengaged. I still love the movies but I do a cringe that throws off the tilt of the earth every time I see that supercharger engage with a switch. They at least didn't do that in Fury Road so that's something.
@@ronweber1402 I used to hear this all the time on the worksite here in Oz, and I got very bored of it. What if you just accept it as fiction, or, the bloke that made it got a piece from here and a piece from there and invented it. Put it this way, I was just talking to a mate this morning, and I touched on a pet hate of mine in American movies, for a laugh. Back to the construction site, it is the nail gun. How many times have you seen the old nail gun without the hose attached? It's not a Paslode! I instantly thought of one of the Lethal Weapon movies, funny that, and American Psycho... but he never shot it in that. There must be countless examples. Now that is far more incorrect and fictitious than the supercharger thing. Just saying.
@@earth2saka Oh for sure. My pet peeve is inertia, like how Iron Man can get flung into walls or buses at incredible speeds without turning into mush inside his suit, but since i enjoy movies that let's me see things i could never see in real life, i just roll with it.
I love this movie, and I too saw it as The Road Warrior before knowing it was a Mad Max sequel. Fun fact about the dog, he was a rescue who was taught to act on set, and was adopted by one of the crew after filming.
Hummungus was originally meant to be Max's partner who got burnt alive, but they sorta dropped elaborating on that. The cop cars tied into that idea...that the police became the predators of the wasteland. There's similar visual themes in the first Terminator movie, where the giant tracked machines in the post apocalypse scenes have police lights on them
Huh, I had never heard this before regarding Hummungus, great info. Although we would have seen more visible burn scars over his entire body if that was the case.
I saw this on the big screen *after* seeing it on cable TV. The Missouri theater in Columbia, MO. It's one of those huge, old-timey movie palaces with balconies and all. It's no longer a commercial movie theater, but in the 80s they would show cult classics at midnight, for just $2. I saw Road Warrior there, and it's where I saw Wizards, Heavy Metal, The Wall, and The Rocky Horror Picture show for the first time.
I like the theory that "Max" from Fury Road is actually the Feral Boy from this movie all grown up. Also the warrior woman with the giant blonde hair was Zhan in Farscape.
The Warrior Woman is played by actress Virginia Hey, as well as your mentions.. she was in The Living Daylights w/ 007 Timothy Dalton. Mad Max, James Bond, Outer Space... she certainly gets around.
Hmm, I guess that _kinda_ works, maybe (although i'd say the final narration strongly implies that he grew up in the community he eventually became leader of rather than roaming the Wasteland). ETA: And of course 'Fury Road' opens with him introducing himself as Max, a former cop and Road Warrior (so yeah, really, it doesn't work at all :)
Australian film composer Brian May did the first two Mad Max soundtracks. Guitarist Brian May from Queen is an entirely different person. To add to the confusion, he also did some film work. He composed the film score for Furia in 2000. Also, his band Queen did soundtracks for Flash Gordon and Highlander.
Stroke recovery update: I'm hobbling around on just one crutch now. Even before the stroke, I needed a cane because of all the muscle. tendon, nerve and joint damage to my right leg, so I'll probably be using this crutch for the rest of my life, but I'm going to get better at hobbling around on it. I'm still working on rehab and hope to improve my strength and coordination and to make my neuromotor response less sluggish.
This was marketed in the U.S. as the Road Warrior, because Mad Max wasn't that big a hit here in the states, so they worried that no one here would know what Mad Max 2 was.
It was a hit, though it was released on a limited basis here, but word got out: I was 14, and I knew about it, and there was no internet back then. Then again, all us kids already knew who Jackie Chan was, before he "officially" became famous here, too. Mad Max was produced with a budget of about A$400,000: Mel Gibson was paid a whopping $5000. The film grossed over $100 million worldwide, settting a Guinness world record for a low-budget film.
R.I.P. James William Ercolani... a.k.a. by the stage name of James Darren (1936-2024) Trekkies knew him as the Holographic Vegas-type Lounge singer Vic Fontaine.
I've watched a dozen reactions to this movie, but I think you are the first to really appreciate the score. It's quite epic, and helps drive the action forward.
Yes, Jen, the Road Warrior WAS mind-blowing in 1981, and still mind-blowing today. But oh I wish Fury Road didn't exist. People can't stop comparing the two. Road Warrior stands alone and should be judged by what it is.
I agree. Fury Road etc, is similar to a reboot of the Mad Max movies. Don't compare them directly. It just wont work. I do like the Easter eggs in the new ones. Also, my attitude, since George Miller has directed or associated with all the movies....it is HIS story and if wants to tweak it....let him. I just want to see one with Max as the world fell.
So glad she noticed the score. Brian May's work here is phenomenal. The music really helps to set the tone of melancholy and loss. When I find myself mindlessly humming a tune, more often than not, it's this soundtrack.
Obviously, the feral kid would have had to learn to talk eventually (to become leader of the group) and deliver his narration to this film. One of the most memorable characters of this film.
Guy Norris, the stuntman who played the bike rider who flipped end over end at 20:51 during the climactic chase scene was not supposed to somersault the way he did. During the stunt, his feet accidentally hit the top of the vehicle causing him to flip end over end, and he ended up breaking his left leg on the landing.
Rumor has it he insisted that the footage be used! Stunt actors are a funny breed: if the stunt went badly, they don't want the footage to see the light of day. Unless, of course, the 'Oopsie' turned out be truly epic.
That stuntman is Guy Norris. He broke the femur in his left leg, but his right leg was fine. George Miller, who used to be a doctor, tended to him immediately after the accident before he was sent to hospital. Guy Norris also worked as stunt coordinator on Fury Road and Furiosa.
I have heard it remarked that this is basically a futuristic Western, with the Humungous, Wez, etc as the Apaches beseiging the circled wagons of the settlers/prospectors/homesteaders and Max rides in as the laconic, lone gunslinger to help save the day. But as much as this riffs on the Cowboy genre, the number of post-apocalypse, dystopian straight-to-video rip-offs that this film spawned immediately after (Bronx Warriors, New Barbarians, etc) was unreal. Video rental shop shelves in the 80s were full of them ! But there was only One Mad Max 2... Pray he's still out there 😎
Nothing like browsing the shelves of video rental stores in the 80s! I remember another sub-genre of action movies displayed in those stores in that decade - the ninja movies. There used to be a whole row of ninja movies on the shelf. And they were awesomely violent - seeing someone's face impaled by a shuriken.
@mikemazza1988 - "this is basically a futuristic Western ,,, and Max rides in as the laconic, lone gunslinger” Agreed. And Max is arguably Australia’s version of Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti western “Man With No Name” character.
The shocking thing about this movie is the simple fact that it holds up SO WELL due to three things. 1) That opening narrative is still one of the BEST openings to a movie ever. Even if you haven't seen Mad Max 1, it explains not just the character of Max, but the wold setting itself, so well in such a short amount of time. 2) The PRACTICAL effects making every stunt and set-piece a work of art. (Including the fact that the explosion at the base was the largest EVER filmed (at that point) and I think still holds the record for Australian film to this day. 3) The SIMPLISTIC character types and dialog. You just can't beat storytelling where the characters ACTIONS are far more important than their words when interacting with each other AND the setting that they are in.
George Miller is a Doctor, and trained as a Surgeon, before going into film directing, Some of the injuries of the cast, Miller left his camera to treat wounds, In the final road chase, a man flies through the air, almost upright, when his vehicles crashed - the Director Doctor got to him, before the local emergency services could get out to the location (years before cell phones, and GPS)
I'll never forget being 10 and laying on my living room floor when I watch this when it premiered on NBC in '82 and taking about it with my buds the next day at School.
I forget whether the movie mentions this, but that flying machine is known as an autogyro, gyroplane, or gyrocopter. It's basically a small plane that uses a helicopter-like rotor instead of standard wings. A rotor is just a type of wing, after all, even on a helicopter. That's the difference between this and standard planes, and the difference between this and helicopters is that the rotor is unpowered and free to move as it will.
Yes, I saw it in a theatre. Many times. I showed it. :) I was 19, working several independent theatres. I've had the fun of seeing a lot of films we showed become well-regarded by my favorite reactors. The Road Warrior is a great one! Can't wait to see what you think.
The doggy was rescued from a shelter for the movie. It became best friends with Bruce Spence, the chopper pilot. After the movie the dog was adopted by one of the stunt crew and went on to live a long and happy life in the country!
I like the fan theory that Max from fury road is actually the kid all grown up and taken the name of his hero. Because Max has that music box (in fury road)...which in this movie he left with the kid.
YES! I was a teen then, but I also loved FURY ROAD, but there is not a single moment of CGI in MM2; The Road Warrior! I remember when I first saw it, I realized I had never relaxed back into my seat as I watched it, which is the literal definition of watching something on "the edge of your seat"!!! I also really like Tom Hardy, but this was the single role where Mel was as cool as Clint Eastwood in the Dollars westerns! There's just no comparison!
The Interceptor, last of the pursuit specials, blows up here but also appears in Fury Road (where it is also demolished) 😅 It's existance in Fury Road is part of 'Max as myth' lore, in that it doesn't matter who the hero of the moment is, they will be driving a beastly black car and be called Max in the stories about them.
When we saw this in the theater way back in the 80s... the movie screen curtain was pulled tight on the tiny black and white newsreel openning as if that was all we were going to see. Then, when the movie went wide screen, they pulled the curtain back to show it all. Was super cool to experience it that way.
Most of the events described in the opening happened between the two movies. The fall had already started in Mad Max, but society hadn’t fully collapsed at that point. In the second (and all the subsequent sequels), the fall has long since happened.
Actually all those "events" were added after the movie was shot by order from the studio. The Original idea was there were no big apocalyptic events like nuclear war, society just fell more and more apart until it got to this state. However, the studio made them put in the nuclear war and other stuff because they felt nobody would believe society could just collapse on its own like that. Sad part is today its not so far fetched.
@@qam2024 Aye. It really feels like we peaked two or three decades back and now? We've got harder and harder choices to make as individuals, threats seem more dominating and existential, thriving is beyond most; merely subsisting is now enough of a challenge. Yes, it really doesn't take very many seemingly 'unapocalyptic' factors to bring the apocalypse.
Few, if anyone, in the US had seen Mad Max when this came out. Yes, it was a sensation, and spawned a whole genre of post-apocalyptic film. I'm pretty sure it was also the inspiration for _Car_ _Wars_ a pretty popular table top game.
One of the narrative theories about the Mad Max franchise is that Max is a folk legend who becomes a lhero among the groups he helps and lives on in their stories
Its not really a theory, I think Millers basically said that himself... there all just retellings of a single event from a long time ago passed from tribe to tribe around the campfire. Max is the Maui, Beowulf, Gilgamesh of the apocalypse... hell he might not even have been real to begin with when you think about it, a made up story told in one place that then got popular and spread and eventually became legend, or maybe myth.
I convinced my Dad to take me to this film, as I was 13 years, and it was an R-Rated film. Dad agreed, he could be adventurous in movies, like admiring "Easy Rider" in 1969, (Dad had been in the Air Force, a Doctor, Conservative politics then - yet he liked Alfred Hitchcock films too). So, we went to the cinema, had a great adventure. Got Mad Max from video shop, Dad and I went to see Thunderdomw, and Fury Road at cinema too. Even my Mom, and Brother went to see "the Road Warrior with me, on second viewing. We took a family vacation to Australia in 1986, traveling around the nation by airplane over three weeks -brilliant! I got into Australian movies, and Rock Bands too (INXS, Midnight Oil, Men at Work, AC-DC, Crowded House) - When I showed a friend "The Road Warrior" for the first time, during our college, he stopped the film, and said "Your Dad took you to see this!" "I have a cool Dad"
This WAS a big deal back in 1981. Not so much on the big screen, but on VHS video rentals (which were new at the time and growing in popularity), it was a huge hit. Classic film!
Great reactions to Mad Max 2: Road Warrior, Jen. This is definitely the BEST Mad Max movie, however, my FAVOURITE Mad Max movie and the first Max movie I ever saw, is Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
The Road Warrior had a long second market run on The Movie Channel (an HBO competitor back in the '80s). As such, it was the first film I watched repeatedly and became obsessed with. My friends and I would watch it every sleepover and quote dialog from it. We were too young for the 'R' rating but that didn't stop us. Great times!
The guy who played the Gyro Captain is Bruce Spence, aka; Stretch. He has featured in the following mega trilogies:- The Lord of The Rings-Return of The King, Star Wars; Revenge of The Sith, The Matrix; Revolutions, and Pirates of The Caribbean; Dead Men Tell No Tales, plus Ace Ventura Pt.2, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of The Dawn Treader, among many others. He’s a Kiwi (slang for New Zealander) and attended the same High School I did (a decade or so earlier than me) in the West Auckland suburb of Henderson.
The helicopter you talk about is actually a Gyrocopter. This movie actually inspired my father to get one. He built one from a kit when I was a child in the late 80s and then a second one around 2010ish. They look like a helicopter but fly more like an airplane. The big rotor on top is not actually powered but simply spins by flying through the air. Acting like a wing. That’s why you see him spinning it by hand before he uses the propeller on the back to push him down the runway and make the top rotor spin fast enough to take off. They can’t go straight up and down like a helicopter. They are pretty rad and my dad is a badass. Just like this guy but with better teeth.
it's not a helicopter. It's an autogyro (yes, like James Bond uses in "You Only Live Twice"). It uses an UNPOWERED rotor in free autorotation to generate lift.
Yes unpowered only to stay upwards to be able to lift . But it needs a powered forward thruster to be able to travel forward. Pretty useless piece of machinery for practical use . Only useful in James Bond and Mad Max movies .
The war hadn't happened in the first movie. The opening was the in-between for continuity. I was watching this movie way before I should have. My dad had bought a Panasonic front loader VCR that would record. It was a huge deal at the time, and like 1200$ in 1982ish, and then a Panasonic vhs camcorder about 1990, and my parents went to rent movies every other day, and would record everything they rented for about 10 years. At the time you could buy super high quality VHS tapes, and run them at a higher speed, and fit 3 movies on 1 tape. The tape I played 1000s of times was labyrinth, road warrior, and the princess Bride, but with one specific scene from this movie edited around (the first escape/ grape scene). I built the interceptor as a model car, had the mad Max movie poster, and modified a model semi tanker with a Dremel and built the tanker to go with it. Had an obsession with mad Max looking cars, to the point I've modified many of my own vehicles in this style. One other thing, Fury road not being connected only bothered me for about the first 2 minutes, because the first time I saw it was on an IMAX screen in 3D. It's just not the same on a normal TV. Especially the crashes, ducking to try and avoid getting hit with debris
The part of the tanker truck chase where the motorcycle hits the wrecked buggie and the cycle passenger guy goes cartwheeling through the air, that was an actual on-set accident that happened to get filmed. George Miller liked it so much that he insisted on keeping it in the film. I remember hearing that the stuntman in question survived, but had a broken collarbone and other injuries. I hope that he got a huge paycheck for his trouble.
I would agree that this is the best movie of the original trilogy but I still love the first movie. It shows the last attempt of maintaining order in world that is collateral damage after a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. I like the newer movies but nothing will ever replace all of the practical affects of the originals. Way too much obvious CGI and yes people did get injured filming these. Great video, can't wait for Thunderdome!!
Jen, I always enjoy your reactions to such awesome classics of the 70s and 80s very very much! Thanks alot for watching these! So, of course Thunderdome is a MUST. 👍 You have a wonderful day!👋
There are no bad "Mad Max" Rockatansky movies, but this one's generally my favorite. 😁 Everyone knows Mel Gibson, but Michael Preston (Pappagallo) was all over TV in the '80s and '90s, Bruce Spence (Gyro Captain) has shown up in more movies than I can count over the last five decades, and everyone who watched "Farscape" knows and loves Virginia Hey (the "Warrior Woman") as Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan. As was pointed out, there's an evolution to the movies. The first was done on a shoestring. The second really found its footing. The third has a bigger budget, but it's a little more "Hollywood" and loses a bit of its edge... but not much. "Fury Road" took all that money and filmmaking experience and dialed it up to eleven. Haven't watched the most recent, though, so I can't speak on that one.
This is a fantastic sequel. Love that the kid was the narrator. Jen I hope you'll watch the 3rd. Still has a good movie rating of 79% Alsp the Legendary Tina Turner plays one of the main characters. She even wrote a cool theme song for the movie called "We Don't Need Another Hero" Check out the music video after the 3rd movie as it shows spoilers.
just dropping by to wish everyone a wonderful live chat premiere continuing the mad max craziness . And what a journey it's been so far , everything a movie needs for an outstanding Jen reaction 🐕💥🧨🪃🏹🚌🔥 great commentary and outro Jen awesome stuff 🔥 💙 🔥 💙
Nice of you to sing the praises of this movie's musical score, which was composed by the late Brian May (NOT the same Brian May who was Queen's lead guitarist).
One of my favorite behind-the-scenes moments in Mad Max 2 was the part of the making-of documentary talking about how they used the most sophisticated safety systems and protocols of the time, and the visual on-screen was a bunch of guys breaking down cardboard boxes and making a pile out of them. I laughed so hard at that. (I think this around the time they were talking about that unfortunate, but amazing stunt, where that guy accidently gets his foot snagged mid-flight, flips multiple times and, in real life, breaks most of the bones in his body - [edit: apparently just one of his femurs, ouch!])
That's played for laughs of course but stunt teams still use piles of cardboard boxes even today, they may not be "sophisticated" but they _are_ effective :).
I saw this movie in our small local movie theater in 1981 at the age of 11 or 12. It was such a thrilling experience! I didn't see the original Mad Max movie until it was released on home video years later.
No, this is not "the best one in the original trilogy". This is the best one, period. It started and inspired virtually all of the post-apocalypse scavenger movies, cartoons, music, fashion, games and books, to the point we consider it "standard" today.
The Ford Falcon XB V8 Interceptor is considered one our countries biggest and toughest cars. My neighbour has one. He pranged it into a tree in Canberra and it took him about 10 years to fix it. By that stage the petrol in the tank had totally evaporated so he got a 20 litre jerrycan and poured all 20 litres into it. It idled for 5 minutes before it ran out again and needed more petrol. 5'6" me sat in the driver seat and I couldn't even see over the dashboard, all I could see was the sky.
Yes, you are going to enjoy 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome', it's my favorite one of the trilogy. Back in the day, some friends (from South Africa) worked as motorcycle stunt riders in the first two movies, some of the stunt crew working on the first two got badly injured and one lost his life.
The influence this movie had on actions and apocalypse movies is crazy. Even in gaming, 7 Days to Die still has the gyrocopter and many other elements.
I just turned 55. I saw this in the theater at 12 years old and it was an 18+ movie, but it was my birthday when it came out, so my dad came home from a hard day at work, took me and my 2 friends all the way out to the Dolphin theater in Vancouver to see it and we were blown away. Dad fell asleep half way through and I had to wake him up in the end credits to take us home.
Mad Max was the vision. Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome were sequels demanded by the fans, basically. And Fury Road was demaned by the studio. But rather than "phone it in", they stepped up to the plate and knocked each one out of the park. Kudos to all who worked on these movies.
Mad Max introduced Gibson to North America. He gained stardom in the tragic war movie Gallipoli. This movie made him a superstar. It's the best of the bunch.
I don't remember the original "Mad Max" appearing in the cinema originally. I did see "The Road Warrior" in the cinema first, then "Mad Max" on something like HBO later. And it wasn't until "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" came out that I made the connection between them all. "The Road Warrior" had a radio campaign, and the ads were played 2-3 times an hour. The radio station I listened to at the time was run by automation on the weekend, and it failed while it played the ad for this movie. So the ad played continuously for 45 minutes until someone could go in to the studio and begin a live broadcast. I enjoyed "Thunderdome" the most out of the three. It had more of an impact on pop culture; its soundtrack had a couple of hit songs, and one of them won a Grammy. Its box office returns were modest compared to the first two, but they tripled the budget. Critics praised it more than they panned it. Tina Turner's career had been in the tank since her break with her husband Ike Turner in 1976. The movie helped to revive it, along with her Grammy-winning "Private Dancer" album.
My 17 year old cousin took me to see this in the theater, I was 12. The first rated R movie for me. To say it was mind blowing would be an understatement.
Anyone want to see Beyond Thunderdome?
Mad Max Playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PLQHhQlj8i5doURoxi3zdSj0Y7KWQP0MCg.html
I'm "Game" for it, as long as You are too...👍
Yes! The film has great characters and one part of the plot is slightly mentioned in the segment before the title credit in "Mad Max: Fury Road".
Oh Yes, absolutely!
Yes.
Absolutely YES! 😁🍿
This is THE apocalypse movie. Spawned 1000 imitations, from games, TV, anime you name it.
A Boy and His Dog(1975) was a huge influence in Fallout and other media as well.
@@barrystan3682You beat me to it
“After the Bomb” (TMNT) for the animals.
Car Wars for the gearheads.
@@barrystan3682
Worth a look and a review...
@@delwynklassen3644 Those are some deep cuts! There was Dark Future (and White Line Fever too), and Joe Dever's Freeway Warrior series.
"He lives now only in my memories." That line never fails to hit me hard. Mad Max: The Road Warrior is a masterpiece.
Yep, and that shot of him. That's enough to make this movie legendary, and I can understand why it was such a success in the US.
The narration was the cherry on top of an already-perfect cake.
A true chilling ending.
Yea he is telling us as an old man to the tribe's young and we are overhearing the tale.
The dog may have died in the movie but in real life it was saved. They got it from a shelter just before it was scheduled to be put down and at the end of filming a crew member took it home 😇
Hope the doggo lived a great happy life.
Though they wanted a rough looking mutt, he turned out to be almost impossible to train to attack.
When he "fights" with the gyro pilot he's actually looking for his toy. They had the actor get the dog excited, then quickly hide it in a pocket. The dog would run forward a start rooting around to find it. The actor would scream like he was being attacked and they added "fierce doggy" sounds in editing.
@@christopherconard2831sounds like he was a Good Dog
I would recommend checking out the many Road Warrior documentaries, as most lovingly describe the pupper's life: about his rescue from a shelter, how he's the first dog to ever receive a vasectomy (shelter regulations required him to be neutered but Miller wanted him to appear un-snipped, so his vasectomy was a compromise) and some interesting details about who he wanted to bite and how they edited around his tendencies. And he lived a long life with a camera operator after production.
They chose him because he brought them a rock or stick or something. Also, at first, he would act up because the noise from the vehicles hurt his ears, so they had to improvise some "dog earplugs" with pieces of cotton. This is also in the making of stuff, or the director's commentary.
If you can only watch one Mad Max movie, this is the one.
There's only one Max, Mel Gibson.
@@reesebn38 In this movie there are at least four. Dennis Williams, Guy Norris and the aptly named Max Aspin all double for Mel Gibson as Max.
@@reesebn38 🏆
Love this one endlessly, but Fury Road is worthy to share its place at the top of the heap.
The best Mad Max movie AND highly memeable thanks to The Humungus 😂
I saw this in the theater when it first came out. With these visuals on a big screen, the sounds and music coming through big speakers, and the audience reactions in the big moments, this was peak action adventure. And no computer tricks. People were actually hurt making this movie.
Unusual for an action film, this was shot in sequence and George Miller edited this movie with the sound off, so he could just focus on the images. Mel Gibson only has sixteen lines of dialogue in the entire film, and two of them are "I only came for the gasoline."
Originally Humungus was originally supposed to be Max's partner Jim Goose. The idea was decided against this, but left a few hints, such as horrible burns behind Humungus' goalie mask, his raiders' use of police vehicles, and his own use of a similar weapon to the MFP's standard sidearm.
Two stunt performers were injured filming of the climatic highway battle. George Miller who trained as an ER doctor (before turning to filming making), examined the injured stunt performers.
@@_Tim115 I thought he was Max's boss rosie gone wacko.
Let me tell you something, that is one of the best and most brutal high speed chases in film history. Kudos to all the stuntmen and what they were able to achieve in 1981.👍👍
Guy Norris did an amazing job in Mad Max 2. He was also the stunt coordinator for Fury Road and Furiosa.
This is THE mad max movie. Literally didn't even know the 1st one existed till years later.
Same here. I saw this and Beyond Thunderdome before knowing there even was a first one.
The first one didn't have a big showing outside of Australia.
This movie is to Mad Max what Empire Strikes Back is to Star Wars, pretty much laid down the ethos they're defined by
For us in the US Road Warrior came first then Mad Max.
Genuine question (not being snarky) but did it not say "Mad Max 2" on the version you saw ?
This is by far the best film. It was the 80s action film that set the bar for all future action flicks and characters. There was no CGI, and all the stunts were real.
"You'll have to find another ponytail to go with you." I nominate Jen. Riding an autogyro would be a great adventure for her.
Ponytail girl is so sweet and cute. A nice end for the gyro captain.
Ponytail Girl was played by the late Arkie Whiteley (1964-2001)
@@Metamorfeus R.I.P. I see that she died of adrenal cancer. That's so sad.
My bad, I f**ked up. I said yes in the poll by accident about seeing it in theaters. First time I watched this was with my dad on videodisc. As soon as it was over, he looked at me and said, "You wanna watch it again?' Hells yeah...I miss my dad
I saw it in theaters with my dad. I was about the same age as the Feral kid at the time. Gotta love Boomer dads and inappropriate movie choices.
@@clearsmashdrop5829 Right?
"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.
To understand who he was we have to go back to the other time, when the world was powered by the black fuel and the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel - gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded - a whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men.
On the roads it was a white-line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice, and in this maelstrom of decay ordinary men were battered and smashed - men like Max, the warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything and became a shell of a man, a burnt-out desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again."
--Opening Monologue, Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior
I can hear his voice.
The best Mad Max movie in the series, it was a huge step up from the first one. It’s crazier, more intense and the action sequences were awesome.
Yes, it's much better than Fury Road
............---------------********* The Road Warrior " IS THE BEST MAD MAX " by farr ***********-------------------..................
Disagree. I don't give a sh*t about production values if it has heart; First Mad Max all the way, although I love Road Warrior. The only two Max movies that matter as far as I'm concerned.
@@dr.juerdotitsgo5119 yes, just like there's only really two Star Wars films that matter 😁
Hands down.
"...That's dishonest.... Low ". my favorite quote I still use it today..
In most movies, the response would have been a four-letter word. I liked that they used that line instead. In fact, The Road Warrior was pretty clean when it came to the language that was used. Great movie.
My favorite line in the series is from Thunderdome.
Max: So what’s the plan?
Pig Killer: Plan? There ain’t no plan!
Great reaction Jen! Just something i hope you and others find interesting. Mad Max 2 absolutely blew James Cameron's mind, he said it changed the way he thought about film-making, and he describes it as "the template for the modern action movie". Cameron loved Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior so much that he paid tribute to it at the very end of his biggest movie of all time. At the end of Mad Max 2 the Feral Boy's last words (about Max) were: "He lives now..only in my memory". In Titanic (written by Cameron) Old Rose's last words (about Jack) were "He exists now..only in my memory". I am an Australian and am particularly proud of this movie, and that it, through James Cameron and other film makers, changed the way movies were made in Hollywood and across the world.
The real legend of Max begins here. Back in the 80s this was top of the line action, stuff we’d never seen before! Max is easily one of the greatest fictional heroes ever.
One of the reasons this movie is so good is the gritty, dirty environment and the way it's filmed-it's not all polished and clean like modern movies.
Yes, this is THE mad max movie... a lot of people don't even realise there was a low budget original.
This was the most expensive film ever made in Australia at the time.
(the original was influenced by the 1973 fuel crisis, and this one the 1979 fuel crisis. Along with the cold war, there was a real feeling that the apocalypse was right round the corner.)
A lot of people in the US don't realize, because it was just called "The Road Warrior" there, since the first Mad Max didn't get a wide release in the states. Everywhere else in the world it was known as Mad Max 2.
@@mocthezuma In the UK it was known at time of release (1981, I was 9) as "Max Max 2 : The Road Warrior", so best of both worlds. This and The Evil Dead (until it was band, bloody Mary Whitehouse) were my fav VHS rentals, yes my local chemist which also had a VHS/BETA area allowed me to rent any 18 film at 10+, no ID required, and I looked young for my age (still do), them were the days.
People have probably mentioned this before but it helps especially moving forward from here, that you understand that any continuity issues that arise can be explained by these movies being campfire stories told by people in the post apocalyptic world about almost mythological heroes like Max but also the Gyro Captain.
I remember overhearing fans at a sci-fi convention right after this was released, and they were so disappointed that the warrior woman died.
If you ever watched Farscape, the same actress plays the blue hippy alien in that
I was expecting her and Max to end together so her death was a surprise.
@@andyrooiam Zhaan is not a hippy...
@@NZBigfoot Zhaan is one of the most badass characters in Farscape. A promoter of peace and calm, who will f you up if it's necessary. Aside from Pilot, she was my favorite character.
That transition, from the intro narration in 4:3 format to screaming out from the Interceptor's Weiand compressor into Panavision widescreen... One of cinema's best openings.
That's the only part of the Mad Max series that just irks me. Superchargers are always engaged there is no button or switch that engages it they are directly connected to the crankshaft by a serpentine belt and can't be disengaged. I still love the movies but I do a cringe that throws off the tilt of the earth every time I see that supercharger engage with a switch. They at least didn't do that in Fury Road so that's something.
@@ronweber1402 I used to hear this all the time on the worksite here in Oz, and I got very bored of it. What if you just accept it as fiction, or, the bloke that made it got a piece from here and a piece from there and invented it.
Put it this way, I was just talking to a mate this morning, and I touched on a pet hate of mine in American movies, for a laugh. Back to the construction site, it is the nail gun. How many times have you seen the old nail gun without the hose attached? It's not a Paslode! I instantly thought of one of the Lethal Weapon movies, funny that, and American Psycho... but he never shot it in that. There must be countless examples. Now that is far more incorrect and fictitious than the supercharger thing. Just saying.
Suspension of disbelief is a foreign concept to WAY too many people.
@@earth2saka Oh for sure. My pet peeve is inertia, like how Iron Man can get flung into walls or buses at incredible speeds without turning into mush inside his suit, but since i enjoy movies that let's me see things i could never see in real life, i just roll with it.
If memory serves, the refinery explosion was the largest practical explosion in film history until Spectre.
It was so large that to get the permit the Australian government sent I believe army personnel to supervise.
I love this movie, and I too saw it as The Road Warrior before knowing it was a Mad Max sequel. Fun fact about the dog, he was a rescue who was taught to act on set, and was adopted by one of the crew after filming.
Yes. No Mad Max 2. Just, The Road Warrior.
Jen will be happy to hear that about the doggie. 👍😊
The scene with the dog holding the trigger on the guy and sees the rabbit is one of my favorite movie scenes of all time.
Hummungus was originally meant to be Max's partner who got burnt alive, but they sorta dropped elaborating on that. The cop cars tied into that idea...that the police became the predators of the wasteland. There's similar visual themes in the first Terminator movie, where the giant tracked machines in the post apocalypse scenes have police lights on them
Huh, I had never heard this before regarding Hummungus, great info. Although we would have seen more visible burn scars over his entire body if that was the case.
Goose gone wild??
I saw this on the big screen *after* seeing it on cable TV.
The Missouri theater in Columbia, MO. It's one of those huge, old-timey movie palaces with balconies and all. It's no longer a commercial movie theater, but in the 80s they would show cult classics at midnight, for just $2. I saw Road Warrior there, and it's where I saw Wizards, Heavy Metal, The Wall, and The Rocky Horror Picture show for the first time.
I like the theory that "Max" from Fury Road is actually the Feral Boy from this movie all grown up.
Also the warrior woman with the giant blonde hair was Zhan in Farscape.
The Warrior Woman is played by actress Virginia Hey, as well as your mentions.. she was in The Living Daylights w/ 007 Timothy Dalton. Mad Max, James Bond, Outer Space... she certainly gets around.
I like pretending Fury Road was never made
Hmm, I guess that _kinda_ works, maybe (although i'd say the final narration strongly implies that he grew up in the community he eventually became leader of rather than roaming the Wasteland). ETA: And of course 'Fury Road' opens with him introducing himself as Max, a former cop and Road Warrior (so yeah, really, it doesn't work at all :)
Which is impossible, why would the kid have flashbacks of Max' wife and kid?
Australian film composer Brian May did the first two Mad Max soundtracks. Guitarist Brian May from Queen is an entirely different person. To add to the confusion, he also did some film work. He composed the film score for Furia in 2000. Also, his band Queen did soundtracks for Flash Gordon and Highlander.
Your love for both the music and the dogs is wholesome AF and I'm here for it. lol
Since I was a kid, I've always really liked that assistant mechanic guy and his "OK!" 😂
I adore how much Jen loves the dogs in the movies she reacts to. I find it hard to trust anyone who doesn't like dogs.
Stroke recovery update: I'm hobbling around on just one crutch now. Even before the stroke, I needed a cane because of all the muscle. tendon, nerve and joint damage to my right leg, so I'll probably be using this crutch for the rest of my life, but I'm going to get better at hobbling around on it. I'm still working on rehab and hope to improve my strength and coordination and to make my neuromotor response less sluggish.
you're still in better shape than Max at the end of this film
Do I know you?
When the Gyro Captain fire-bombed the Humongous, he looked like he did the Spaceball salute. 😉
ALL HAIL SCROOB!😅
This was marketed in the U.S. as the Road Warrior, because Mad Max wasn't that big a hit here in the states, so they worried that no one here would know what Mad Max 2 was.
Smart move. People are less likely to go see a sequel if they haven't seen the first one.
It was a hit, though it was released on a limited basis here, but word got out: I was 14, and I knew about it, and there was no internet back then.
Then again, all us kids already knew who Jackie Chan was, before he "officially" became famous here, too.
Mad Max was produced with a budget of about A$400,000: Mel Gibson was paid a whopping $5000.
The film grossed over $100 million worldwide, settting a Guinness world record for a low-budget film.
R.I.P. James William Ercolani... a.k.a. by the stage name of James Darren (1936-2024) Trekkies knew him as the Holographic Vegas-type Lounge singer Vic Fontaine.
To me he will always be Tony from "The time tunnel" tv show, may he rest in peace.
Oh geez. I just saw the one with him and Nog for the first time last night. Rest in peace
I've watched a dozen reactions to this movie, but I think you are the first to really appreciate the score. It's quite epic, and helps drive the action forward.
Yes, Jen, the Road Warrior WAS mind-blowing in 1981, and still mind-blowing today. But oh I wish Fury Road didn't exist. People can't stop comparing the two. Road Warrior stands alone and should be judged by what it is.
I second that.
@@toastnjam7384 I concur.
agreed
Completely agree with you
I agree. Fury Road etc, is similar to a reboot of the Mad Max movies. Don't compare them directly. It just wont work. I do like the Easter eggs in the new ones. Also, my attitude, since George Miller has directed or associated with all the movies....it is HIS story and if wants to tweak it....let him. I just want to see one with Max as the world fell.
I will never tire of this movie and particularly the fantastic soundtrack! Pure orchestral excellence.
So glad she noticed the score.
Brian May's work here is phenomenal. The music really helps to set the tone of melancholy and loss.
When I find myself mindlessly humming a tune, more often than not, it's this soundtrack.
The warrior woman at the compound with the gas tanker is played by Virginia Hey, better known for playing Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan in “Farscape.”
Obviously, the feral kid would have had to learn to talk eventually (to become leader of the group) and deliver his narration to this film. One of the most memorable characters of this film.
Guy Norris, the stuntman who played the bike rider who flipped end over end at 20:51 during the climactic chase scene was not supposed to somersault the way he did. During the stunt, his feet accidentally hit the top of the vehicle causing him to flip end over end, and he ended up breaking his left leg on the landing.
Rumor has it he insisted that the footage be used!
Stunt actors are a funny breed: if the stunt went badly, they don't want the footage to see the light of day.
Unless, of course, the 'Oopsie' turned out be truly epic.
That stuntman is Guy Norris. He broke the femur in his left leg, but his right leg was fine. George Miller, who used to be a doctor, tended to him immediately after the accident before he was sent to hospital. Guy Norris also worked as stunt coordinator on Fury Road and Furiosa.
@@pirobot668beta Oh, it was epic alright. They even used that scene in the television trailers. 😂
@@mocthezuma Thanks for the information!
That was like in THX 1138 that stunt biker told George to use the footage
I have heard it remarked that this is basically a futuristic Western, with the Humungous, Wez, etc as the Apaches beseiging the circled wagons of the settlers/prospectors/homesteaders and Max rides in as the laconic, lone gunslinger to help save the day. But as much as this riffs on the Cowboy genre, the number of post-apocalypse, dystopian straight-to-video rip-offs that this film spawned immediately after (Bronx Warriors, New Barbarians, etc) was unreal. Video rental shop shelves in the 80s were full of them ! But there was only One Mad Max 2... Pray he's still out there 😎
Well ackshually George Miller is of Greek heritage and this was more akin to the Turks attacking Byzantium.
Nothing like browsing the shelves of video rental stores in the 80s! I remember another sub-genre of action movies displayed in those stores in that decade - the ninja movies. There used to be a whole row of ninja movies on the shelf. And they were awesomely violent - seeing someone's face impaled by a shuriken.
@mikemazza1988 - "this is basically a futuristic Western ,,, and Max rides in as the laconic, lone gunslinger”
Agreed. And Max is arguably Australia’s version of Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti western “Man With No Name” character.
@@PatrickCooperPhotography-nw1pp so true and usually starring Sho Kosugi or Sonny Chiba...
The shocking thing about this movie is the simple fact that it holds up SO WELL due to three things.
1) That opening narrative is still one of the BEST openings to a movie ever. Even if you haven't seen Mad Max 1, it explains not just the character of Max, but the wold setting itself, so well in such a short amount of time.
2) The PRACTICAL effects making every stunt and set-piece a work of art. (Including the fact that the explosion at the base was the largest EVER filmed (at that point) and I think still holds the record for Australian film to this day.
3) The SIMPLISTIC character types and dialog. You just can't beat storytelling where the characters ACTIONS are far more important than their words when interacting with each other AND the setting that they are in.
George Miller is a Doctor, and trained as a Surgeon, before going into film directing, Some of the injuries of the cast, Miller left his camera to treat wounds, In the final road chase, a man flies through the air, almost upright, when his vehicles crashed - the Director Doctor got to him, before the local emergency services could get out to the location (years before cell phones, and GPS)
I'll never forget being 10 and laying on my living room floor when I watch this when it premiered on NBC in '82 and taking about it with my buds the next day at School.
I forget whether the movie mentions this, but that flying machine is known as an autogyro, gyroplane, or gyrocopter. It's basically a small plane that uses a helicopter-like rotor instead of standard wings. A rotor is just a type of wing, after all, even on a helicopter. That's the difference between this and standard planes, and the difference between this and helicopters is that the rotor is unpowered and free to move as it will.
Yes, I saw it in a theatre. Many times. I showed it. :) I was 19, working several independent theatres. I've had the fun of seeing a lot of films we showed become well-regarded by my favorite reactors. The Road Warrior is a great one! Can't wait to see what you think.
The doggy was rescued from a shelter for the movie. It became best friends with Bruce Spence, the chopper pilot. After the movie the dog was adopted by one of the stunt crew and went on to live a long and happy life in the country!
I like the fan theory that Max from fury road is actually the kid all grown up and taken the name of his hero. Because Max has that music box (in fury road)...which in this movie he left with the kid.
YES! I was a teen then, but I also loved FURY ROAD, but there is not a single moment of CGI in MM2; The Road Warrior! I remember when I first saw it, I realized I had never relaxed back into my seat as I watched it, which is the literal definition of watching something on "the edge of your seat"!!! I also really like Tom Hardy, but this was the single role where Mel was as cool as Clint Eastwood in the Dollars westerns! There's just no comparison!
The Interceptor, last of the pursuit specials, blows up here but also appears in Fury Road (where it is also demolished) 😅
It's existance in Fury Road is part of 'Max as myth' lore, in that it doesn't matter who the hero of the moment is, they will be driving a beastly black car and be called Max in the stories about them.
North America has Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, John Henry, and Johnny Appleseed. Australia has Max Rockatanski.
Actual stunts with real cars, trucks and bikes NO CGI, a masterpiece.
Now you gotta watch BEYOND THUNDERDOME
@14:18 "Is this a new love interest?"
No but that's Virginia Hey from Farscape!
Hey, Hey !
When we saw this in the theater way back in the 80s... the movie screen curtain was pulled tight on the tiny black and white newsreel openning as if that was all we were going to see. Then, when the movie went wide screen, they pulled the curtain back to show it all. Was super cool to experience it that way.
Most of the events described in the opening happened between the two movies. The fall had already started in Mad Max, but society hadn’t fully collapsed at that point. In the second (and all the subsequent sequels), the fall has long since happened.
Actually all those "events" were added after the movie was shot by order from the studio. The Original idea was there were no big apocalyptic events like nuclear war, society just fell more and more apart until it got to this state. However, the studio made them put in the nuclear war and other stuff because they felt nobody would believe society could just collapse on its own like that. Sad part is today its not so far fetched.
@@qam2024 Aye. It really feels like we peaked two or three decades back and now? We've got harder and harder choices to make as individuals, threats seem more dominating and existential, thriving is beyond most; merely subsisting is now enough of a challenge. Yes, it really doesn't take very many seemingly 'unapocalyptic' factors to bring the apocalypse.
Few, if anyone, in the US had seen Mad Max when this came out. Yes, it was a sensation, and spawned a whole genre of post-apocalyptic film. I'm pretty sure it was also the inspiration for _Car_ _Wars_ a pretty popular table top game.
Jen at 12:47: "Snaked!" That's a word you don't hear every day, but it sure fit the occasion!
A few bad guys experienced it first-hand in Escape From New York. 🐍
One of the narrative theories about the Mad Max franchise is that Max is a folk legend who becomes a lhero among the groups he helps and lives on in their stories
Its not really a theory, I think Millers basically said that himself... there all just retellings of a single event from a long time ago passed from tribe to tribe around the campfire.
Max is the Maui, Beowulf, Gilgamesh of the apocalypse... hell he might not even have been real to begin with when you think about it, a made up story told in one place that then got popular and spread and eventually became legend, or maybe myth.
I convinced my Dad to take me to this film, as I was 13 years, and it was an R-Rated film. Dad agreed, he could be adventurous in movies, like admiring "Easy Rider" in 1969, (Dad had been in the Air Force, a Doctor, Conservative politics then - yet he liked Alfred Hitchcock films too). So, we went to the cinema, had a great adventure. Got Mad Max from video shop, Dad and I went to see Thunderdomw, and Fury Road at cinema too. Even my Mom, and Brother went to see "the Road Warrior with me, on second viewing. We took a family vacation to Australia in 1986, traveling around the nation by airplane over three weeks -brilliant! I got into Australian movies, and Rock Bands too (INXS, Midnight Oil, Men at Work, AC-DC, Crowded House) - When I showed a friend "The Road Warrior" for the first time, during our college, he stopped the film, and said "Your Dad took you to see this!" "I have a cool Dad"
This WAS a big deal back in 1981. Not so much on the big screen, but on VHS video rentals (which were new at the time and growing in popularity), it was a huge hit. Classic film!
And I remember the movie getting a lot of exposure on cable television. (That’s where I first saw it.)
"Okay!"
( Cracks me up every time )
Great reactions to Mad Max 2: Road Warrior, Jen.
This is definitely the BEST Mad Max movie, however, my FAVOURITE Mad Max movie and the first Max movie I ever saw, is Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
An early draft of the script Humongous was actually one of the cops from the last film. That's why there are police in the evil gang.
The Road Warrior had a long second market run on The Movie Channel (an HBO competitor back in the '80s). As such, it was the first film I watched repeatedly and became obsessed with. My friends and I would watch it every sleepover and quote dialog from it. We were too young for the 'R' rating but that didn't stop us. Great times!
The guy who played the Gyro Captain is Bruce Spence, aka; Stretch. He has featured in the following mega trilogies:- The Lord of The Rings-Return of The King, Star Wars; Revenge of The Sith, The Matrix; Revolutions, and Pirates of The Caribbean; Dead Men Tell No Tales, plus Ace Ventura Pt.2, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of The Dawn Treader, among many others. He’s a Kiwi (slang for New Zealander) and attended the same High School I did (a decade or so earlier than me) in the West Auckland suburb of Henderson.
The helicopter you talk about is actually a Gyrocopter. This movie actually inspired my father to get one. He built one from a kit when I was a child in the late 80s and then a second one around 2010ish. They look like a helicopter but fly more like an airplane. The big rotor on top is not actually powered but simply spins by flying through the air. Acting like a wing. That’s why you see him spinning it by hand before he uses the propeller on the back to push him down the runway and make the top rotor spin fast enough to take off. They can’t go straight up and down like a helicopter. They are pretty rad and my dad is a badass. Just like this guy but with better teeth.
it's not a helicopter. It's an autogyro (yes, like James Bond uses in "You Only Live Twice"). It uses an UNPOWERED rotor in free autorotation to generate lift.
Yes unpowered only to stay upwards to be able to lift .
But it needs a powered forward thruster to be able to travel forward.
Pretty useless piece of machinery for practical use .
Only useful in James Bond and Mad Max movies .
@@gregorygant4242 Yes.
The war hadn't happened in the first movie. The opening was the in-between for continuity.
I was watching this movie way before I should have. My dad had bought a Panasonic front loader VCR that would record. It was a huge deal at the time, and like 1200$ in 1982ish, and then a Panasonic vhs camcorder about 1990, and my parents went to rent movies every other day, and would record everything they rented for about 10 years. At the time you could buy super high quality VHS tapes, and run them at a higher speed, and fit 3 movies on 1 tape. The tape I played 1000s of times was labyrinth, road warrior, and the princess Bride, but with one specific scene from this movie edited around (the first escape/ grape scene).
I built the interceptor as a model car, had the mad Max movie poster, and modified a model semi tanker with a Dremel and built the tanker to go with it. Had an obsession with mad Max looking cars, to the point I've modified many of my own vehicles in this style.
One other thing, Fury road not being connected only bothered me for about the first 2 minutes, because the first time I saw it was on an IMAX screen in 3D. It's just not the same on a normal TV. Especially the crashes, ducking to try and avoid getting hit with debris
The music is definitely the driving force in this film.
"He lives now... only in my memories."
The part of the tanker truck chase where the motorcycle hits the wrecked buggie and the cycle passenger guy goes cartwheeling through the air, that was an actual on-set accident that happened to get filmed. George Miller liked it so much that he insisted on keeping it in the film. I remember hearing that the stuntman in question survived, but had a broken collarbone and other injuries. I hope that he got a huge paycheck for his trouble.
I would agree that this is the best movie of the original trilogy but I still love the first movie. It shows the last attempt of maintaining order in world that is collateral damage after a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. I like the newer movies but nothing will ever replace all of the practical affects of the originals. Way too much obvious CGI and yes people did get injured filming these. Great video, can't wait for Thunderdome!!
I appreciate your music appreciation in almost all you videos.
Way too young to see this in the theater, but I have seen this so many times. It used to play on HBO when I was young. Love this one.
The dog didn't die. They fixed him up at the refinery then sent him to live on a farm. My mom told me .
Jen, I always enjoy your reactions to such awesome classics of the 70s and 80s very very much! Thanks alot for watching these! So, of course Thunderdome is a MUST. 👍 You have a wonderful day!👋
Love the thumbnail, Jen, nice recoiling from the mayhem!
This film set the standard for every single post-apocalyptic movie.
There are no bad "Mad Max" Rockatansky movies, but this one's generally my favorite. 😁
Everyone knows Mel Gibson, but Michael Preston (Pappagallo) was all over TV in the '80s and '90s, Bruce Spence (Gyro Captain) has shown up in more movies than I can count over the last five decades, and everyone who watched "Farscape" knows and loves Virginia Hey (the "Warrior Woman") as Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan.
As was pointed out, there's an evolution to the movies. The first was done on a shoestring. The second really found its footing. The third has a bigger budget, but it's a little more "Hollywood" and loses a bit of its edge... but not much. "Fury Road" took all that money and filmmaking experience and dialed it up to eleven. Haven't watched the most recent, though, so I can't speak on that one.
My favourite Mad Max movie. George Miller and Dean Semler and all the crazy stunt men are the true stars here. A fantastic piece of filmmaking.
This is a fantastic sequel. Love that the kid was the narrator.
Jen I hope you'll watch the 3rd. Still has a good movie rating of 79%
Alsp the Legendary Tina Turner plays one of the main characters.
She even wrote a cool theme song for the movie called
"We Don't Need Another Hero" Check out the music video after the 3rd movie as it shows spoilers.
just dropping by to wish everyone a wonderful live chat premiere continuing the mad max craziness . And what a journey it's been so far , everything a movie needs for an outstanding Jen reaction 🐕💥🧨🪃🏹🚌🔥 great commentary and outro Jen awesome stuff 🔥 💙 🔥 💙
Road Warrior is the most epic of the entire series. It's on my Bucket List of movies to see before you die.
Nice of you to sing the praises of this movie's musical score, which was composed by the late Brian May (NOT the same Brian May who was Queen's lead guitarist).
MM2 is definitely the best of all the Mad Max movies. I've rewatched it many times.
One of my favorite behind-the-scenes moments in Mad Max 2 was the part of the making-of documentary talking about how they used the most sophisticated safety systems and protocols of the time, and the visual on-screen was a bunch of guys breaking down cardboard boxes and making a pile out of them. I laughed so hard at that.
(I think this around the time they were talking about that unfortunate, but amazing stunt, where that guy accidently gets his foot snagged mid-flight, flips multiple times and, in real life, breaks most of the bones in his body - [edit: apparently just one of his femurs, ouch!])
That's played for laughs of course but stunt teams still use piles of cardboard boxes even today, they may not be "sophisticated" but they _are_ effective :).
I saw this movie in our small local movie theater in 1981 at the age of 11 or 12. It was such a thrilling experience! I didn't see the original Mad Max movie until it was released on home video years later.
No, this is not "the best one in the original trilogy".
This is the best one, period.
It started and inspired virtually all of the post-apocalypse scavenger movies, cartoons, music, fashion, games and books, to the point we consider it "standard" today.
The Ford Falcon XB V8 Interceptor is considered one our countries biggest and toughest cars. My neighbour has one. He pranged it into a tree in Canberra and it took him about 10 years to fix it. By that stage the petrol in the tank had totally evaporated so he got a 20 litre jerrycan and poured all 20 litres into it. It idled for 5 minutes before it ran out again and needed more petrol. 5'6" me sat in the driver seat and I couldn't even see over the dashboard, all I could see was the sky.
Yes, you are going to enjoy 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome', it's my favorite one of the trilogy. Back in the day, some friends (from South Africa) worked as motorcycle stunt riders in the first two movies, some of the stunt crew working on the first two got badly injured and one lost his life.
The influence this movie had on actions and apocalypse movies is crazy. Even in gaming, 7 Days to Die still has the gyrocopter and many other elements.
The guy with the mohawk is Vernon Wells. He also plays the bad guy Bennett in Commando.
Evil Freddie Mercury!
i love how max is just so disinterested with lord humungus threatening him lol.
Great reaction, Jen, I'm glad that you enjoyed it, hopefully you'll react to the third one as well. 🙂
I just turned 55. I saw this in the theater at 12 years old and it was an 18+ movie, but it was my birthday when it came out, so my dad came home from a hard day at work, took me and my 2 friends all the way out to the Dolphin theater in Vancouver to see it and we were blown away. Dad fell asleep half way through and I had to wake him up in the end credits to take us home.
I saw this in the theater way back when, and your reaction really brings back memories of that first time viewing: Thanks!
Mad Max was the vision. Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome were sequels demanded by the fans, basically. And Fury Road was demaned by the studio. But rather than "phone it in", they stepped up to the plate and knocked each one out of the park. Kudos to all who worked on these movies.
Mad Max introduced Gibson to North America. He gained stardom in the tragic war movie Gallipoli. This movie made him a superstar. It's the best of the bunch.
I don't remember the original "Mad Max" appearing in the cinema originally. I did see "The Road Warrior" in the cinema first, then "Mad Max" on something like HBO later. And it wasn't until "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" came out that I made the connection between them all.
"The Road Warrior" had a radio campaign, and the ads were played 2-3 times an hour. The radio station I listened to at the time was run by automation on the weekend, and it failed while it played the ad for this movie. So the ad played continuously for 45 minutes until someone could go in to the studio and begin a live broadcast.
I enjoyed "Thunderdome" the most out of the three. It had more of an impact on pop culture; its soundtrack had a couple of hit songs, and one of them won a Grammy. Its box office returns were modest compared to the first two, but they tripled the budget. Critics praised it more than they panned it.
Tina Turner's career had been in the tank since her break with her husband Ike Turner in 1976. The movie helped to revive it, along with her Grammy-winning "Private Dancer" album.
My 17 year old cousin took me to see this in the theater, I was 12. The first rated R movie for me. To say it was mind blowing would be an understatement.