Everything GREAT About Mad Max: Fury Road!

fun fact, george miller used to be an emergency med doc. i'm a surgeon and the fact that all the medicine in this movie was spot-on was really just icing on the cake for me: 1. the war boys are all dying of lymphoma, which is one of the most common cancer types caused by chronic radiation poisoning. hence the soft tumors (e.g. Larry and Barry) in areas containing lymph nodes (for Nux, his subclavicular nodes), the fact that they're anemic and need blood transfusions, and even the fact that they're pale with dark eye circles (again, anemia). 2. mad max has an IJ line the entire film. it's literally hooked into his internal jugular. it's often used to deliver medication because it enters the bloodstream very close to the heart (internal jugular --> superior vena cava --> heart) and thus gets pumped out to the rest of the body easily. however, used in reverse, it can also be an endless tap into his bloodstream and is thus useful for drawing blood out of him. 3. he's established to be a universal donor very early on, which is why he can give blood to nux and furiosa without causing severe reactions. 4. furiosa got stabbed in the side of her chest, likely collapsing her lung. these wounds can form one-way valves where air is sucked in with every breath but can't get back out. when she's wheezing horribly, she's dying of tension pneumothorax - i.e. the AIR in her chest cavity is building pressure that's getting harder and harder to breathe against. that's why it helps when mad max stabs her again in between the ribs. he's basically doing a brute force decompression. irl you can do this with a needle (needle thoracostomy) or a chest tube. however, she'd still bled heavily into her chest cavity through the same wounds, which is why she needed a transfusion to stabilize her.

The complete lack of explanation for some of the most awesome and intriguing designs makes for some of the best worldbuilding I've ever seen in a movie.

Fun fact about the second shotgun ‘malfunction’, it isn’t a malfunction. During the chase Nux fires one shot at the war rig, and the second shell is spent by Max trying to break his binds. And the weapon was never reloaded on screen, so I genuinely think Max just threatened them with a gun he knew wasn’t loaded.

Bonus fun fact: Max having bad hearing was so much of a plot point that he wore a hearing aid. Problem was the continuity with the kind of hearing aid he was wearing kept changing between shots and they decided they wanted to remove the hearing aid completely. So most times you see Max’s ear, that was probably a shot we painted to remove the hearing aid.

To add to the 'Max is an immortal' headcanon: Aside from Max being canonically far older than anyone in the film and surviving what nobody should consider this: Nux at the beginning of the film is so weak, he is almost dead on his feet. He needs to be hooked up to his bloodbag just to stand. And yet, one transfusion with Max later, and he's completely able-bodied for the rest of the movie, also surviving some pretty crazy shit. Again at the end with Furiosa: she's on death's door before the transfusion. Then, she is able to stand with Max's help on the hood. And yet when they are being lifted up mere moments later she is standing on her own with no apparent weakness. Almost as if getting a transfusion from an immortal makes people significantly stronger, even if not immortal themselves. Then there is just the 'vibe'. Max behaving as though he's almost lost the ability to speak or create language, very much gives 'immortal who has been around for too long' before reconnecting to the human race. Which is much less empirical but hey. It's Fury Road. We're all about vibes here.

Favourite dialogue from this movie: 'What are you doing?' 'Praying' 'To Who?' 'Anyone whose listening'

I remember reading a fun little behind the scenes thing about the design of Immortan Joe's car made out of two cars stacked on top of each other, which is that in a world where most people don't even have one of something, he's the kind of guy that has two.

"Oh, what a day… what a lovely day!" I came home from the theater after watching Furiosa to find this video waiting for me. On top of that, I just watched Fury Road two days ago.

"That's right! High octane, feral blood fillin' me up!" Man, Nux is an underrated character

I get that the timeline doesn't matter in these movies, but I ALSO love the idea that this one poor guy has been damned with immortality and he's just been around the wasteland for many decades

The single greatest moment in this entire movie is when she's trying to get Max to let her in the truck and nothing is working but then she realizes that he is a survivalist and getting the muzzle off his face is his greatest priority, so she offers him a way to get it off and there's a single beat and then the loud cello string coming in as he looks at her and lets her in. Great moment.

“This shows how much power furiosa has” and the furiosa movie really backed this up, she’s a badass

the brother in arms scene is literally worth like 100 wins right there. sometimes i go back just to watch it. it's flawless visual storytelling, thrilling action, and amazing music all in one. you literally see them go from enmity to wary neutrality to seamless alliance in that single action sequence. ughhhhhh it's just so good.

Guess I can watch "Everything great about Mad Max: Fury road" for the fourth time

There was a theory running around that Max is the personification of death in the wasteland, since that's what he witnesses the most, and what he lacks (there were more details, and some stuff that made the theory fall apart too, but i'll gloss over that), but i like the idea that max is now cursed to wander the wasteland forever, never dying or aging, forced to keep moving by forces he can't afford to think about because as much as he is tired by the survival, something keeps him going. It reminds me of some short story anthologies, where the characters are the same, but the stories are all different.

Single greatest win: A grandpa, who directed "Babe in the City", made one of the greatest action movies ever.

The thing that makes this movie just an absolute legend is everything being so mythical like you're talking in terms of gods and stuff and yet having the deeper layers you'd expect when you dig deeper. Theres clearly at least some kind of weirdo supernatural going on, Max has some prophetic visions and is clearly older than he appears, but also everything feels like it has an origin which differs a lot from myths. Having Furiosa as a movie now tells us even more and makes it more of a lived world but even then theres a place that miraculously is lush landscape surrounded by desert which is hard to explain

The Pole Cats are actual Cirque du Soleil performers!

I believe that in most of these movies, Max's story usually ends when the group he is helping find safety and/or leaves on a journey to find hope. When the Many Mothers, Nux, Furiosa, etc, drive off on the salt flats, that's usually where a Mad Max story wraps up. In this movie, Max decides that's not enough. If it was enough, he wouldn't be haunted by nightmares of those he has lost. Some of his ghosts are people he did bring to safety, but he knows they died looking for hope after he left them. So he decides to stop Furiosa's group, not only because they will die on the flats, but because he wants to see them find hope and safety. He wants to see this mission to its completion. It's a big character decision for Max to finish the mission, even after everyone is technically safe. IDK, that's my take.

As to Max being immortal, I mean….. if Fallout and many other nuclear based apocalypse stories are to be believed, I 100% think that Max just got exceedingly lucky (or unlucky) with some radioactive mutation that makes him immortal