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I just watched Beyond Thunderdome last night, for the first time in over 10 years. It's never been my favorite, but I used to like it more than I do now. It starts out okay, but after the fight in the Thunderdome, it sort of takes a left turn with the tribe of kids that rescues him from the desert. The chase at the end was like a watered down version of the action in Road Warrior and Fury Road, and it made me realize that for the majority of the movie there was no chase action at all. There was a little too much "humor" for my taste, and Iron Bar (I never knew that was his name until I looked it up on IMDb) was annoying at the end with all the faces he was making. The pilot and his son were great though, and I liked when Max sees him at the end and says "You!" Unless I missed something, I don't think Max saw his face earlier in the movie, so I'm assuming he's the same character as he was in Road Warrior. It's still a better movie than a lot of others, but not nearly as good as the other Mad Max movies.
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Not the same pilot from Mad Max 2. I always thought Thunderdome was the weakest of the series. Lately though I’ve gone back and found it pretty entertaining. I would like to see a prequel about Aunty Entity and how Bartertown started.
Same pilot as Road Warrior. Actor’s name is Bruce Spence. They never explicitly connect the two characters, but it’s not too far a leap to put it together - same actor, both pilots.
It's decent up until Max meets the kids. God, they're so ponderous. Ironbar is also a terrible character, basically a poor man's Wez as presented by Looney Tunes.
He was probably the most annoying part of the movie.
“Poor man’s Wez, as present by Looney Tunes”
Freaking love this 😂
Almost everyone will tell you that all Mad Max movies are self contained and separate but to understand Beyond Thunderdome better you absolutely have to put it in context of the rest of the original trilogy. That way you'll understand the upbeat tone and what George Miller was going for.
So in short:
MM1 was pessimistic.
MM2 was nihilistic
MM3 was optimistic
Not my words, that's the arc of the original trilogy as envisioned by George Miller. He wanted to end the trilogy on a high note, showing hope and the rebuilding of the civilization. Max was supposed to reconcile with humanity by saving the kids, the main villain - Auntie doesn't kill Max. The kids are goofy so they threw in a bunch of comedy, the upbeat music, they didn't even consider a chase scene at the end at first. Nobody really even dies in it (except for Blaster, the horse and one of the kids). So you can look at this film like a shitty Mad Max film because it's not all gloom and doom, but that was never the intention. Looking at it from a different angle explains why.
I didn't know about all that. That's pretty cool.
That’s a greater summary.
I’ve defended Thunderdome in the past by pointing out that Road Warrior tells us (in opening narration) that it’s the story of Max learning to live again, but that to me it doesn’t really feel like it. A few short scenes with the Feral Kid sells the idea, but not convincingly. Thunderdome, otoh, shows us Max learning his humanity properly, and I think it’s great for that.
(And for all the criticism of the final chase people give it, seems a lot of folks are forgetting that “two men enter, one man leaves” is arguably single the most widely known iconic thing to come out of the original three movies)
The main setback in Thunderdome is the lack of an actual villain. The wasteland itself is the most ruthless character in the movie, the only true villain.
All other movies have the psychotic warlord as a villain, and the whole movie is set as a conflict between the world and the villain. In that sense, Aunty is one of the good guys. She's basically Papagallo from MM2.
I don't mind the kids. They're a stark contrast to the wasteland, even more so than Aunty. The Captain Walker story is a cool one, and most importantly they serve as a group therapy, or a group intervention for Max, that resets his mind back on track. The hair cutting and grooming, and then washing in the water is highly symbolic. And of course, the "I'm the guy who holds Mr.Death in his pocket" scene is one of the coolest in the whole franchise, IMO.
Auntie Entity is great. In the other films you had clear villains, but Auntie is more nuanced than any other antagonist in the series. She can be cruel, but also merciful. Her decision not to kill Max in the end, even calling him “soldier”, speaks to the depth of the character. She respects chivalry and likes that it’s still present in the world. So there’s even some hope for her, too.
The costumes, the vehicles, and the weird genre of music they invented for the film were just such an evolution from the road warrior (for my money still the best in the series). There was only a 4 year gap or so between making the Road Warrior and Thunderdome, pretty amazing they put that all together in 4 years without the modern benefits of CGI and digital filming. Story-wise, I think it’s the best. The internal logic that runs through the movie is really commendable. It’s epic in ways that the first two films are not.
Like most people, I do see the faults: it’s a little too goofy where it should be more traditional in its action beats, and after the Thunderdome sequence it veers a bit too much into myth and symbolism. The ending chase sequence is gorgeous, and the one-man charge Max does in the end is very, very cool, but it would have been good to see Max kill a few baddies too haha. Making the movie PG-13 was a mistake in retrospect, but I doubt a studio would have funded it without watering down the violence.
I’ve long felt Beyond Thunderdome was the least of the Mad Max films and you site some of the reasons why it didn’t work for me as well. I thought it started fine and up to the actual Thunderdome bit (which, if you’re into comic books, sure did look like something from a Jack Kirby comic book!) was quite good but, like a slowly deflating balloon, what followed was disappointing.
I do, however, find it interesting that Fury Road seems to be taking equally from The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome. To wit: It seems to take the extended (and very exciting) final chase and makes it most of the movie. It takes the post-apocalyptic town and its iron fisted ruler -along with the idea of a female bad ass- from Beyond Thunderdome. Auntie Entity is almost like a merging of Furiosa (post taking over the town at the end of Fury Road) and a female version of Immortan Joe.
Either way, it is what it is!
Auntie Entity was definitely a highlight. When she jumps down into the Thunderdome screaming was pretty rock n roll.
I forgot to mention that I really liked the ending, the narration from Savannah.
Interestingly, Thunderdome was originally supposed to be a Lord of the Flies type movie about the feral kids - Mad Max was added later by George Miller. It wasn’t supposed to be a Mad Max film at all.
Max knew Jedediah from his vehicle & clothes in the opening of Beyond Thunderdome, it’s not the same character as Road Warrior since we hear what happens to him from the closing Narration/flashforward.
Generally I agree with you but I like the ending chase a lot more than you do.
If the final chase wasn't so kiddy and goofy, the movie would have been perfect, imo. Get rid of Iron Bar's unnecessary screen time and make the children less active in the fighting, and the fight would have been more serious.
The rest of the story is great as far as I'm concerned. The children being so bizarre was interesting and I don't think their inclusion detracts from the movie until the final chase.
when this came out my cousin was working at the theater and got me the cardboard standee, it was huge it literally took up a third of my bedroom. unfortunately my mum is a proper c*** and threw it out while I was out of town visiting family. 😢
I'm pretty sure George wanted to make a Ridley Walker movie and this is the closest he could get to get funding to adapt it to Mad Max. In a way he did make a Ridley movie and certainly brought the association of the novel into his world as apparent in the 'history man' and the type of speech we see in Fury Road and even the game, the comics and presumably in Furiosa. He has always been limited by the reach given to him and now age reaches. As a father Thunderdome is the only Max movie I can share with my children and shouldn't be challenged otherwise and I think he knew that and was limited by what he had to produce. If he was making movies in a previous generation he would be like David Lean. He came too late and not early enough and never enough support. He could only make fragments of vision limited to the reach of his hand and mind in a studio world that always wanted less than what he had.
I feel like Thunderdome was important in bringing us Fury Road.
The first film is pretty solid pre-apocalypse. The second is very solid post apocalypse. The third is a little off the rails, thematically, and it establishes that, yeah, the Mad Max Apocalypse is kinda fucking weird. It's not your bog standard end of the world. You can have a pig-fart based economy and be 100% sincere about it.
Once you accept that, then the Citadel seems totally grounded.