Now that you've watched all three Mad Maxes which one stands out to you?
Hard to say. I think they’re three pretty different movies. The first one seems like a misfit because of its pre-apocalyptic (or mid-apocalyptic-but-people-don’t-realise-yet) setting, and the fact that it was very much made by Australians for Australians, so it’s unconcerned with being comprehensible to outsiders (hence people going around talking about the duck’s guts and hoon trouble). It’s powerful because it has a profound quality of strangeness that is nevertheless rooted in the recognisably everyday. It’s also an amazing example of how much you can achieve on the smell of an oily rag if you are sufficiently determined and mental.
The second one is probably the most successful as a film. It’s basically a Western, so its story structure feels familiar and satisfying while being freshened up by a very distinctive setting and production style. I found the Humungus a less satisfactory villain than the Toecutter or Aunty Entity, perhaps simply because we can’t see his face, so we can’t see his expression or really feel we know him as a character. I just checked and the Humungus actually predates Jason Voorhees as a hockey-mask wearing villain (since Jason appears only as a child in Friday the 13th and wears a bag over his head in the sequel, not acquiring his signature mask until the third film). The Toecutter and Aunty Entity both have a lot of personality, and they both have a social structure around them which informs our view of them and what’s important to them. The Humungus, like the Toecutter, has a gang, but I understand less about why his gang is together and why he’s their leader (apart from being the weirdest-looking hoon of the lot). Since the IT WAS GOOSE ALL ALONG twist was dropped, we don’t get any character background or motivation for the Humungus. Nor do we see any evidence that he is, in fact, the Ayatollah of Rock and Roll-ah. That’s really a claim he should have been able to back up. That’s the weakest aspect of The Road Warrior for me. Wez was a more interesting character because he had a relationship. Oh, and it’s got the Gyro Captain, who is an excellent character. Good dog, too.
The third one has the most charismatic antagonist (and unlike the Toecutter and Humungus, Aunty isn’t really a villain) and some great lines and concepts, but the story screeches to a halt with the child tribe, as we discussed, and the Bartertown half of the story and the child tribe half don’t seem to have much to do with each other. I have no idea why they took Master with them on the train or where the hell he got that three-piece suit from or why there was a Parlophone record on board. Why was there a train under Bartertown? What the fuck was going on there? It felt like there was an explanation for that - and Master’s whole deal - that got cut. I would have liked to jettison the kids altogether and focus the plot on the power struggle between Aunty and Master Blaster, the culture of Bartertown and what it suggests for the future of the Wasteland and the recovery of humanity, and Max’s role as a wild card in all of this. If Jedediah was going to be there and so distinctively dressed, there needed to be more point to him. This movie also needed a dog.
For the Hummungus I seem to recall that they wanted to imply that he was a former soldier, that the revolver case was his, and went well, nuts. Not only does he predate Voorhes but in a sense he predates Mainstream Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Mr. Universe body with a strange accent (In this case Swedish rather than Austrian) (also Hercules in New York was dubbed)
Agreed with Aunty Entity, The Train I think they were using the mechanical parts as integrated part of Bartertown’s power supply? Like that truck in the guerilla village in Predator?
