Episode 59

full
Published on:

26th Nov 2024

Mad Max: Fury Road

This week, we dive deep into the exhilarating world of "Mad Max: Fury Road," exploring its status as one of the greatest action films of all time. With the backdrop of a desolate and ravaged landscape, we discuss how George Miller masterfully blends stunning visuals, practical effects, and a hauntingly emotional storyline, making this film a true cinematic masterpiece.

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Matthew Blevins joins me to reflect on the film's complex characters, including the fierce Furiosa and the tortured Max, as well as its unforgettable supporting cast. We also touch on the film's significant themes of survival, sacrifice, and the stark reality of a world stripped of resources. As we celebrate Thanksgiving in the USA, we express gratitude to our Movie Wars listeners. You can enjoy this pod on the way to enduring your in-laws, crotchety grandparents, and unwanted siblings.

The latest installment of the Movie Wars podcast dives deep into the world of Mad Max: Fury Road, a film that has captivated audiences and critics alike since its release. Hosts Kyle and Matthew Blevins engage in an expansive discussion that not only evaluates the film's stunning visuals and groundbreaking action sequences but also explores its rich thematic elements. They reflect on the film's unique portrayal of a post-apocalyptic society where resources are scarce, and survival is a daily struggle. The conversation touches on the intricacies of character dynamics, particularly the compelling relationship between Max and Furiosa, as well as their respective journeys amidst the chaos of a war-torn world. The hosts highlight how the film beautifully balances high-octane action with poignant moments of character development, showcasing the emotional depth of its protagonists. With insightful commentary on the production challenges faced during its creation, the episode celebrates the vision of director George Miller and the collaborative effort that brought this cinematic masterpiece to life. For anyone who has ever felt the thrill of a non-stop action film or pondered the moral complexities of survival, this episode offers a rich tapestry of analysis and appreciation for Fury Road.

Takeaways:

  • Fury Road represents a significant evolution in the Mad Max franchise, revitalizing the series with fresh storytelling.
  • The film exemplifies how practical effects and meticulous world-building can enhance cinematic experiences.
  • Max's journey in Fury Road showcases his transformation from a traumatized survivor to a hero.
  • The supporting cast, particularly the women from the Green Place, adds depth and complexity to the narrative.
  • Each vehicle in Fury Road serves as a character in itself, symbolizing the harshness of the post-apocalyptic world.
  • The film's exploration of gender politics and power dynamics is both overt and meaningful.
Transcript
Kyle:

Movie Wars.

Kyle:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Movie wars podcast.

Kyle:

I got my friend Matthew back on the line with me.

Kyle:

What's going on, buddy?

Matthew:

What's going on?

Matthew:

Kyle, it's good to see you and hope all the movie warriors out there are doing great as well, so.

Kyle:

Yeah, well, I was looking forward to having you back in the studio, but, like, you like what happened to you a couple of weeks ago.

Kyle:

The flu has rampaged my house, and I thought maybe I didn't want to ruin your Thanksgiving with the flu that's going on over here with all four of my children and my wife, it's just a matter of time before I die.

Matthew:

Yeah, well, honestly, you might get the best of it because if you get the flu on Thanksgiving, then you're going to be able to isolate yourself in your room, people are going to feel sorry for you and bring you good food and stuff.

Matthew:

So just watch movies all day, man.

Matthew:

It's gonna.

Matthew:

It's gonna work out.

Kyle:

That actually sounds like the best version because I don't even like Thanksgiving food.

Matthew:

Yeah, right.

Kyle:

I don't even like it.

Kyle:

I married.

Kyle:

I'm a Southern boy, and I married into a northern family.

Kyle:

And when I had their f.

Kyle:

The first time I had their version of stuffing, I almost went into, like, shock.

Kyle:

I was like, what is this?

Kyle:

Like, what are these?

Kyle:

What are these fruits?

Kyle:

There's just random.

Matthew:

War started, man.

Kyle:

It's exactly right.

Kyle:

Well, if you're a Movie wars fan, you might be thinking, why am I listening to this on a Tuesday?

Kyle:

We always release on Thursday.

Kyle:

But because of the holiday this week, I wanted to give you something a little early and make sure that you have something to listen to when you're driving to your in law's house getting ready.

Kyle:

Nothing better than Fury Road to prep yourself with.

Kyle:

With the family.

Kyle:

What do you think?

Matthew:

Oh, man.

Matthew:

I think that you should put Fury Road on, pass out in the recliner, and then circle back and then listen to this podcast and avoid your family at all costs.

Matthew:

That's my.

Matthew:

That's the only through line.

Kyle:

Yeah, you should turn your.

Kyle:

You should turn weird Uncle Bob into a blood bag and then just, like, maneuver him around the house during the football game.

Matthew:

You can.

Matthew:

Well, I mean, you're probably contributing to your blood alcohol content at dangerous levels if your uncle is the same as mine.

Matthew:

So just be cautious about who you hook up to as a blood bag in your family.

Kyle:

Yes.

Kyle:

Yeah, you.

Kyle:

Yeah, you don't want to get that kind of transfusion going on.

Matthew:

No, you don't want to get the Heroin uncle.

Matthew:

Either that.

Kyle:

We picked him up off the street for Thanksgiving.

Kyle:

Here he is.

Kyle:

All right.

Matthew:

Oh, you don't already have a heroin uncle.

Kyle:

Yeah, we got to go find one.

Kyle:

No, I have Copenhagen.

Kyle:

Copenhagen, uncle.

Kyle:

Bottle of.

Kyle:

Or a handle of bourbon a day uncle.

Kyle:

No heroin when you.

Kyle:

Well, I do have one.

Kyle:

My aunt stole my grandmother's.

Kyle:

I have a bit about this, actually.

Kyle:

I've been working, but I have an aunt that stole my grandmother's cancer medication and tried to sell it on the street like it was oxycontin.

Matthew:

Oh, sure.

Matthew:

Yeah, man.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Real class act.

Matthew:

Dude.

Matthew:

That's a cottage industry in my family.

Matthew:

I don't know what you're talking about.

Matthew:

Yeah, dude, there's.

Matthew:

There's probably at least like, three of my extended family members that is.

Matthew:

Or that are using that for their active employment right now.

Matthew:

That.

Matthew:

That's just jokes, guys.

Matthew:

I'm not.

Matthew:

Don't look into that.

Kyle:

hey always dread getting that:

Kyle:

You know, that's amazing.

Matthew:

Independent contractors, the whole lot of them.

Kyle:

I love it.

Kyle:

Well, I.

Kyle:

And I don't want to be cheesy here, but it is Thanksgiving, and whether you celebrate or not, I do want to express gratitude for our crew, not just for our fans, our amazing listeners, but movie Wars 2.0 has been a great success.

Kyle:

You know, I.

Kyle:

I kind of bashed my head against the wall for months trying to figure out how to get this thing back on track after, you know, my initial host had to leave.

Kyle:

And folks like you, Matthew, Seth, Drew, we have Mariana Brown coming on.

Kyle:

John Detoy is going to come on.

Kyle:

Lee Harden.

Kyle:

We have a nice slew of people coming on, so I'm very thankful for you and the new slew of guest hosts that have come on and just added so much.

Kyle:

But I'm also extremely thankful for our listeners.

Kyle:

So, you know, got to be cheesy.

Kyle:

Show that gratitude.

Matthew:

Heck, yeah, man.

Matthew:

And I'm grateful that.

Matthew:

That I connected with you and got on this podcast.

Matthew:

It's just fantastic to have an outlet to talk about movies that I love and to do it with someone who has as much passion about it is serious about the level of production that you put into Movie Wars.

Matthew:

It's just great to be able to be a part of that.

Matthew:

So I'm very grateful for that as well.

Kyle:

Heck, yeah, man.

Kyle:

Well, theoretically, we should be in a better place.

Kyle:

Obviously, we have to get to the war card to kind of figure out where we're actually at, but you were in the studio with me last time.

Kyle:

You left with your head Hanging low because we talked about Beyond Thunderdome.

Kyle:

We were both in a weird place after that, wouldn't you say?

Matthew:

Yeah, I don't know.

Matthew:

It's the worst parts of nostalgia just coming back to bite you.

Matthew:

Yeah, everything.

Matthew:

You start to realize your childhood might have sucked a little bit when you go back to movies like Beyond Thunderdome.

Matthew:

And you know, it's kind of disappointing when you came off of Road Warrior, which is like one of the high points of the series.

Matthew:

So I say one of the high points might be a little spoiler going into what we're talking about today.

Matthew:

So.

Kyle:

Yeah, one of the high points in cinema, you know, and you've so well articulated just the Australian film movement that launched this thing.

Kyle:

But here we are 30 years after Beyond Thunderdome or what I called Lord of the Flies with some Mad Max sprinkle sprinkled in, or Peter Pan, even though Peter Pan hadn't been made yet.

Kyle:

With some, with some Peter Pan sprinkled in.

Matthew:

Well, and it gets it right off the bat where instead of Tina Turner coming on the opening credits, you get the sound of an engine.

Matthew:

It's like, we're back, baby.

Matthew:

This is Mad Max again.

Kyle:

A blood curdled logo.

Kyle:

We're eating two headed radiation radiated lizards right in the first minute of the film.

Kyle:

We got a chase right off the bat.

Kyle:

And you know, and it's actually is whatever you think about this movie, we'll set that aside.

Kyle:

It's a miracle this movie even got made in the first place.

Kyle:

isit and come back to this in:

Kyle:

You know, they had planned to work with Mel Gibson to reprise his role.

Kyle:

And then in:

Kyle:

And then Heath Ledger gets attached to it for a little while and then they replace Mel Gibson with Tom Hardy.

Kyle:

And there's just a lot of this film went through a lot of issues getting made.

Kyle:

And then there was a, you know, the Iraq war.

Kyle:

And I think, what is it?

Kyle:

Is it Nambia, where they were going to film?

Kyle:

They were going to film in Nimbia.

Kyle:

And then because of that, the safety issues, they ended up having to move.

Kyle:

They moved to Broken Hill.

Kyle:

And then Broken Hill there was a crazy rainstorm.

Kyle:

And this is all a very consolidated history over the course of over 15 years.

Kyle:

And then there was a crazy rainstorm that led to crazy flower like wildflower growth.

Kyle:

And all of a sudden there are these beautiful flowers growing in the desert.

Kyle:

Never happens.

Kyle:

Totally took away from the rustic scenery they were going for.

Kyle:

So then they went back to Nbia.

Kyle:

They went back to their original setting and.

Kyle:

And so it just went through absolutely absolute hell to get here.

Kyle:

Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy hated each other.

Kyle:

There's just a lot to how this film got here.

Kyle:

And the fact that, you know, it's, it's a 70 year old George Miller with $150 million budget.

Kyle:

Pretty wild, right?

Matthew:

And it just goes to show that like this is exploitation cinema, but it's.

Matthew:

You put money behind it.

Matthew:

So you take those exploitation ideas and now you're amplifying it artistically to the nth degree.

Matthew:

And man, it just with the level of experience that George Miller had at, by that point in his career.

Matthew:

Even though, you know, he was just doing stuff like Happy Feet and you know, Babe.

Matthew:

But by the time he got to that point in his career, he was, he was a master auteur.

Matthew:

And I think that all of those setbacks probably contributed to how amazing this movie turned out because you just have these meticulously crafted storyboards that you can tell that each and every piece of that, that movie, every frame was, was meticulously planned.

Matthew:

And it just translates and you know, it tells, it tells stories upon stories in every frame as a result.

Matthew:

So I don't know, I think something was trying to stop it from being made, but it allowed it to give it the proper amount of time to make a cinematic masterpiece.

Matthew:

And you know, I kind of put this.

Matthew:

It would have to be one of the best action movies, one of the best action movies that's ever been made.

Kyle:

Yeah, I'm glad you said it first because I'm always afraid of leaning into hyperbole, but I put in my notes that this is one.

Kyle:

I've seen a few movies several times in theaters.

Kyle:

You know, the Dark Knight series I've probably seen twice.

Kyle:

But this is the movie I've seen the most in theaters.

Kyle:

I met someone that saw this movie in theaters nine times.

Kyle:

This was a movie that people were watching and then re watching again.

Kyle:

And it is the most exhilarating action movie I've ever seen.

Kyle:

It's.

Kyle:

It's got an insane pace.

Kyle:

And I believe one thing I found out in my research was is that in the script, the.

Kyle:

This was basically a storyboard.

Kyle:

You know, it wasn't a traditional script.

Kyle:

And because George, like you said, he is an auteur it's not like he was having to repitch this to become the director of this movie and pitch his vision.

Kyle:

This is his vision.

Kyle:

So he got to just storyboard it, and they wrote.

Kyle:

The dialogue was kind of in the margins.

Kyle:

You know, it's like.

Kyle:

Because there's, you know, there's so little of it.

Kyle:

And he got away with that.

Kyle:

And it's so well done.

Kyle:

It really is one of the most exhilarating experiences.

Kyle:

And I'm a cheap ass.

Kyle:

And so for me to go to the theater three times on my own dime is pretty wild.

Matthew:

Absolutely.

Matthew:

I came around to it late.

Matthew:

I actually didn't get to see it in the theater.

Matthew:

I don't know.

Matthew:

There was some.

Matthew:

I think by that point, I had been past a lot of my film criticism stuff, and I think I had a massive chip on my shoulder about movies in general.

Matthew:

And, you know, I just didn't.

Matthew:

I'm like, mel Gibson is still out there in the world.

Matthew:

It's like Quentin Tarantino said in an interview about Fury Road.

Matthew:

It's like, in a world where Mel Gibson exists, like, how can he not be Mad Max in the Mad Max movie?

Matthew:

So there was just.

Matthew:

You have a lot of distrust about these franchise films and these, like, these tent pole films that come out, and people say a lot of things about them, and I'll go to the theater, and I'm generally usually not impressed.

Matthew:

So it took me a number of years to actually get around to Fury Road, but I'm glad that I did, because it's a phenomenal piece of cinema.

Matthew:

I mean, it's.

Matthew:

George Miller, I mean, from the very beginning, has been a master of telling stories with the elements within a frame.

Matthew:

Just these little, you know, these little visual elements that kind of.

Matthew:

That kind of tell you everything.

Matthew:

But then you also give him a lot more experience and a lot more money in Fury Road.

Matthew:

And he's able to do it in a way that just.

Matthew:

I don't know, it captures the psychological turmoil of the characters based on the colors of the frames.

Matthew:

I mean, there are just so many things going on simultaneously.

Matthew:

This is advanced filmmaking.

Kyle:

It really is.

Kyle:

It's advanced in so many ways.

Kyle:

And we'll get into those dynamics.

Kyle:

And, you know, I had.

Kyle:

This film had kind of revitalized my love for this franchise because it was 30 years between beyond Thunderdome and the release of this film.

Kyle:

And I grew up watching the original Mad Max and Road Warrior with my dad.

Kyle:

And those were just movies I grew up loving.

Kyle:

And I kind of.

Kyle:

But I kind of dissipated you know, I didn't really remember much of Beyond Thunderdome when I was rewatching it for the podcast.

Kyle:

I was a little shocked.

Kyle:

I was like, I remember watching it when I was younger, but it was not as memorable as the first two.

Kyle:

And I kind of had like, just kind of distanced myself from this whole thing.

Kyle:

I just didn't really ever foresee it coming back.

Kyle:

And, and then I saw the trailer and I saw Charlize Theron and then I saw it wasn't Mel Gibson.

Kyle:

I was really hesitant, but I felt like it was like something I had to do.

Kyle:

I had to go see it.

Kyle:

And then I went back two more times.

Kyle:

So, like you said, really well, really amazing filmmaking.

Kyle:

And they kind of took a gamble.

Kyle:

I mean, a lot of stuff can happen in 30 years.

Kyle:

I mean, we talked about how just between Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome, Terminator came out.

Kyle:

And so action was changing, you know, and things were changing.

Kyle:

And filmmaking like 30 years, expand that to 30 years.

Kyle:

Think about everything that's come out in that time.

Kyle:

The Matrix has come out.

Kyle:

All these things that have changed the genre, and they're like, we're going to go back to IP that originated in 79 and kind of take a gamble that a whole generation of people that may not even know who Mad Max is.

Kyle:

Pretty big gamble.

Matthew:

That's, that's a huge gamble.

Matthew:

And it paid off in a way that was like, here George Miller at 70 years old is redefining the genre yet again.

Matthew:

So, you know, more power to him, man.

Matthew:

That's what, that's what old filmmakers should be doing.

Kyle:

I think that's probably the one thing that does, does make you happy.

Kyle:

If someone else would have taken the horns here, who knows what would have happened if someone not George Miller came in and said, we're gonna reboot this franchise.

Kyle:

Kind of like the Crow, kind of like Robocop.

Kyle:

All these other beloved IPs in this action space that we've seen.

Kyle:

And the fact that at 70 he came in and did this, pretty wild.

Kyle:

I wonder what I'll be doing at 70.

Matthew:

Yeah, no kidding.

Matthew:

Not, not.

Matthew:

I don't think I'll be building literal worlds, not only story wise, but like just the amount of production value and everything that he had to put into to creating the vehicles.

Matthew:

And just every little minute piece in that film has a backstory.

Matthew:

Every character in that film has a backstory.

Matthew:

It's just a phenomenal piece of filmmaking.

Matthew:

But to answer your question, as far as what might happen if someone came at the franchise with less Care.

Matthew:

And I think you end up with what you get in Furiosa, A Mad Max tale.

Matthew:

But that's a spoiler for another episode.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah, I'm glad you said that about the details, because one thing, I was rewatching it for the.

Kyle:

For this podcast, and, like, something that stuck out to me was, like, this is a really small detail, but when Furiosa is shifting in her rig, like, there's all these buttons on the shift knob, like, and she's using them.

Kyle:

You know what I mean?

Kyle:

Like, she's shifting, but there's this.

Kyle:

There's, like, a knobby, and she's, like, pulling on the knob, and then she shifts it again, and, like, there's these little switches, and she's using everything.

Kyle:

I know that's a really small detail, but.

Kyle:

And we'll get to a rando about this, but there were 470 hours of footage that they filmed for this that they had to edit down.

Matthew:

Wow.

Kyle:

It took the editor two months to watch all of the footage or three months to watch all the footage, just to watch it and to get ready to edit it.

Kyle:

I love that detail, and I don't know why it stuck out to me this time, but there's these.

Kyle:

Just little things that, like, mean a lot.

Kyle:

Like, she's not just shifting a war rig.

Kyle:

She's got these buttons and these combinations.

Kyle:

It's just so well done.

Matthew:

Even the gas pedal has a.

Matthew:

Has a significance to it because it's a.

Matthew:

It's a woman's shoe size.

Matthew:

It would only work with a woman's foot.

Matthew:

It's sized for a woman's foot.

Matthew:

Yeah, that's a.

Matthew:

That's an insane detail.

Kyle:

And it's got a logo on it.

Kyle:

Right.

Kyle:

And she locks it down, and it locks, and then she comes out with a crossbow.

Kyle:

Yeah, it's.

Kyle:

It's.

Kyle:

There's just so much to it.

Kyle:

And I don't know about you, but there's.

Kyle:

I.

Kyle:

It's one of the few movies where, like, I don't.

Kyle:

I don't remember being bored, and I don't remember thinking too much.

Kyle:

I kind of just was like this the whole time.

Kyle:

If you're only listening, my eyes are wide and I'm just, like, waiting.

Matthew:

Yeah, man, it.

Kyle:

Like.

Matthew:

Like Road Warrior, where it just kind of happened like, the.

Matthew:

It kicks into high gear, and then it just stays there and just keeps charging forward.

Matthew:

I mean, this takes that.

Matthew:

And I.

Matthew:

I mean, it just sprays chrome spray paint in its mouth and just charges ahead even faster.

Matthew:

It's.

Matthew:

It's amazing.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

It's incredible.

Kyle:

Before we get to the questions, just a quick, quick request to the fans out there.

Kyle:

If you love this, and I know you got a Mad Max fan out there, make sure you share this.

Kyle:

It's Thanksgiving.

Kyle:

They're miserable.

Kyle:

They're going to want to retreat to the bathroom, put on their favorite podcast.

Kyle:

You know, no one wants to talk about the Pilgrims.

Kyle:

No one wants to watch football.

Kyle:

You want to listen to Movie wars on Thanksgiving?

Kyle:

And I'm giving this to you two days early.

Kyle:

That is my Thanksgiving gift for you.

Kyle:

That is my.

Kyle:

That is my.

Kyle:

What is it?

Kyle:

The Mayflower?

Kyle:

Is that what they came over on?

Kyle:

I can never remember.

Kyle:

That's my Mayflower.

Matthew:

That's your Mayflower.

Matthew:

And if they can't be grateful about that.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Then you can just kiss my whole ass.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Every inch.

Matthew:

It's not the message we want to go with on Thanksgiving.

Matthew:

Sorry.

Kyle:

Get your T square out.

Kyle:

Measure it up.

Kyle:

Every inch of my ass.

Matthew:

But I think what I had meant to, like, imp.

Matthew:

I.

Matthew:

I was going for more of a.

Matthew:

If you didn't have anything else to be grateful for, because I know some of you, you know, you.

Matthew:

Maybe you don't, then you have this.

Kyle:

To be grateful for, and it's Fury Road.

Kyle:

It's.

Kyle:

It's Fury Road.

Kyle:

I mean, hell, yeah.

Kyle:

Share your share with your grandma.

Kyle:

There we go.

Kyle:

The questions.

Kyle:

All right.

Kyle:

Considering that.

Kyle:

Considering all that's going on in this world.

Kyle:

We've got more radiation this time.

Kyle:

The world's more dilapidated.

Kyle:

I mean, you could get a job that's much worse than Blood Bag, right?

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Yeah, literally.

Kyle:

I mean, contextually speaking.

Matthew:

100%.

Matthew:

100%.

Matthew:

And that's what I find fascinating about this movie, is that if you take resources, like the deprivation of resources to the absolute limit, then humans themselves, everything that we produce, then become, like, exploitable resources.

Matthew:

And it's just a fascinating element to this.

Matthew:

To this world that Miller has built.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

I mean, what are some of the other jobs, too?

Kyle:

I mean, you'd be a war boy.

Kyle:

You could be a lactation specialist.

Matthew:

Well, I mean, there are a lot of fluids in the body, and so I think they're all getting used.

Matthew:

They're using the whole buffalo, so to speak.

Matthew:

So I don't know.

Matthew:

There's probably fertilizer workers.

Matthew:

I imagine that wouldn't be the worst job, though.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Or you could just be the person that waits with a bowl of water at the bottom of the citadel.

Kyle:

Waits for.

Kyle:

With your.

Kyle:

With your basket bowl, trying to catch some drops.

Matthew:

Catch some Drops and not get addicted.

Matthew:

That's.

Matthew:

If you want to get addicted to something, then you want to go with chrome spray paint.

Kyle:

Yes.

Kyle:

And I love it because these movies always use the speed up.

Kyle:

You know, they always, like, they'll enhance the speed of some random clip sometimes.

Kyle:

I love that they did it, in this case for the spray.

Kyle:

Like, when they spray go, all of a sudden it gets really frantic.

Kyle:

I love it.

Kyle:

It looks great.

Matthew:

Oh, yeah.

Matthew:

And then when he's, like, he's going through his euphoric stage and he's receiving the blood from Max as well, and, you know, and then you've got these just chaotic sandstorms happening and just lightning raging, and it's just encapsulating what's happening inside of the character as he's just getting all of these things poured into his brain.

Matthew:

And, you know, it's.

Matthew:

I don't know, man.

Matthew:

It's just visual storytelling at its.

Matthew:

At its best.

Matthew:

And I, you know, I seem to be using a lot of hyperbole in this episode, and maybe I am want to do that in life.

Kyle:

I don't know.

Matthew:

Maybe.

Matthew:

Maybe people should get a little more excited about the things they like.

Matthew:

Maybe it's your problem and not mine.

Matthew:

But this is a good.

Matthew:

This is a pretty damn good movie.

Kyle:

Well, it's because you've been exiled from Bartertown.

Kyle:

You know, we.

Kyle:

We made that march.

Kyle:

We took one for the team.

Kyle:

So just keep doing that podcast.

Matthew:

Yep.

Matthew:

And we ran out of giant carnival heads, and so we're going to do the next one.

Kyle:

Yeah, yeah.

Kyle:

More of a serious question here, and I'd love to lean on your.

Kyle:

Your movie critic profession here.

Kyle:

You know, it's hard to tell.

Kyle:

Is this you?

Kyle:

And I kind of speculated this a little bit in small, small increments in the last podcast, but is Fury Road a hard rebound from.

Kyle:

From Thunderdome?

Kyle:

Is this like, wow, we went.

Kyle:

We went somewhere where this franchise probably shouldn't have gone, and we did things that we probably.

Kyle:

That probably weren't true, or is this just 30 years of a lot of adversity?

Kyle:

And, like, it's.

Kyle:

We're lucky this got made at all.

Kyle:

And we went through several actors And, I mean, 30 years is a long time.

Kyle:

Are they even thinking about Thunderdome?

Kyle:

Which one is it?

Matthew:

I think Miller had a vision from the very beginning in that, you know, I think that the politics of filmmaking in the 80s and whatnot, probably trying to.

Matthew:

Because he's.

Matthew:

He's coming from, like, Australian independent cinema and then trying to operate in a.

Matthew:

In the American Film racket.

Matthew:

And he's got this co director and now he's got a deal with Tina Turner and all that.

Matthew:

It's just a product of the time more than anything.

Matthew:

And I think that as an artist, I think Miller, this is probably the closest approximation to what he maybe had envisioned artistically and actually achieving it on screen.

Matthew:

I would.

Matthew:

I would have to say that it's going to be hard for him to be able to top this ever again.

Matthew:

I think this is the high watermark of his career.

Matthew:

And, you know, it's.

Matthew:

It's the result.

Matthew:

Result of a lot of careful planning, world building.

Matthew:

I mean, it's just insane.

Matthew:

The level of obsession that he has put into bringing this entire world to life.

Matthew:

That has nothing necessarily to do with the character of Max that, you know, we all loved and whatnot.

Matthew:

He's.

Matthew:

He had his own vision about this thing, and it wasn't what we had envisioned, but he.

Matthew:

He showed us and he's like, yeah, this might not have been what you had in mind, but this is it.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah, I totally agree.

Kyle:

And, you know, one thing we really hit on with Beyond Thunderdome is just that the.

Kyle:

The, you know, barter town was.

Kyle:

Even though it was somewhat tyrannical, it was a pretty joyous place to live for the most part.

Kyle:

I wasn't.

Kyle:

They were trying to present us a dystopian world, but it was like a caricature of that.

Kyle:

I never quite felt the.

Kyle:

The depravity of it.

Kyle:

Whereas, you know, Road Warrior, you're feeling it all the way through.

Kyle:

The characters embody it.

Kyle:

It just drips from those people.

Kyle:

Here it is.

Kyle:

They have taken it all the way back.

Kyle:

ou know, it's almost as if in:

Kyle:

So I think in a lot of ways, absolutely, whether it may have been subconscious, I don't know, but maybe.

Kyle:

Maybe this is just 30 mil, 30 years, like you said.

Kyle:

And like, he had this vision and he knew exactly what he wanted to do and.

Kyle:

And this is what.

Kyle:

What the output was, you know, But I can't help but think that somewhere in his mind, maybe there was this, you know, Beyond Thunderdome was a weird.

Kyle:

Was a weird offshoot.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

I would have to imagine that in his mind that maybe that doesn't exist so much.

Matthew:

Or it's not.

Matthew:

I don't know, it's not canonical.

Matthew:

I don't know.

Matthew:

It's.

Matthew:

It Doesn't.

Matthew:

If.

Matthew:

If you took the first movie, Road Warrior and Fury Road, and put them as a trilogy, that's.

Matthew:

That's a pretty darn good trilogy right there.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And maybe you can tell what he was thinking, because there's no saxophone here.

Kyle:

Imagine in Fury Road.

Kyle:

Can you imagine that?

Kyle:

Take the film exactly how it is.

Kyle:

Just splice in a random saxophone scene.

Matthew:

I think that he should probably accompany the Doof Warrior or.

Matthew:

What's that guy's name, the guitar.

Kyle:

Oh, yeah, He.

Kyle:

I don't know that he has a name.

Kyle:

You're talking about the metal guitar player.

Matthew:

The metal guitar player that wears his mother's face, apparently.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Kyle:

I don't know that he has a name, does he?

Kyle:

I know the.

Matthew:

I thought it was, like, Goof Warrior or some crazy thing like that, but I don't remember.

Matthew:

But, you know, I think that if you got like a.

Matthew:

Like a saxophone player with a cod piece like.

Matthew:

Like Lost Boys and just have him coming in there, and if it shot flames, that could be fantastic.

Matthew:

So I don't know, they might have missed out that.

Matthew:

You know, they could have had the saxophone nod in there, and they could have done some cool, crazy stuff with it.

Kyle:

Absolutely.

Kyle:

Let's get to the randos here.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

We'll start off with the guitar player.

Kyle:

So that's one of the most legendary scenes.

Kyle:

And I was.

Kyle:

I was pleasantly surprised with how well I reacted to that, because I have been critical of some of the stuff, like in Beyond Thunderdome, where they kind of pulled you out with the saxophone.

Kyle:

You know, they did little things, but for some reason, I don't know why I think is they did a good job layering it in, because I love it when they're lowering the rigs to go.

Kyle:

To go chase Furiosa.

Kyle:

And they got the timpanis and they're back there doing the percussion.

Kyle:

And this is a civilization that is reveling.

Kyle:

And it makes sense because at first you're like, well, how do they have all these great resources?

Kyle:

And then you see that nobody else does.

Kyle:

You have Bullet Town, Gastown.

Kyle:

You have the Citadel.

Kyle:

And then you see the people begging for water like nobody else has resources.

Kyle:

So it actually makes complete sense that they would have the finest.

Kyle:

But I love that they're playing the timpani and then the guitar player.

Kyle:

At first, I'm kind of like.

Kyle:

And then I love it.

Kyle:

Like, I think it's utilized.

Kyle:

I actually love the really disgusting metal riffs coming out.

Kyle:

Anyway, that.

Kyle:

That guitar was a 132lbs, according to the actor the actor is an Australian artist named Sean Hape.

Kyle:

His stage name is Iota.

Kyle:

I think it's Iota.

Kyle:

It's either loade or Iota.

Kyle:

But in an interview with Vice, he talked about the flame throwing guitar weighing 132 pounds and it actually blew out real gas powered flames.

Kyle:

And he controlled the gas flames with his whammy bar.

Matthew:

Heck yeah, dude.

Kyle:

So maybe the coolest person ever or.

Matthew:

The coolest whammy bar ever, dude.

Matthew:

Like, yeah, I, all of my, all my whammy bars ever do is just pull it out of tune so I want flames to come out.

Kyle:

Yeah, I'm a big, big guy.

Kyle:

My guitars all have, I install even on my like my sgs.

Kyle:

Like they all have Bigsbys.

Kyle:

And yeah, there's definitely, there's definitely no gasoline.

Kyle:

But that, that would be cool.

Kyle:

I love it.

Kyle:

Uh, yeah.

Kyle:

So originally Mel Gibson was supposed to actually take this role.

Kyle:

Like we said in 98.

Kyle:

t through all the way through:

Kyle:

But Tom Hardy actually, after he was cast, had lunch with Mel Gibson kind of asking for his blessing.

Kyle:

Um, and I actually posted a video about this Today on our TikTok and Instagram feed.

Kyle:

But Mel Gibson was being interviewed and he, he called him a, a firecracker is how he described Tom Hardy.

Kyle:

Actually said Tom Hardy reminded him of one of his sons.

Kyle:

You could tell that Mel was a little perturbed, not at Tom, but just at the fact that he ended up not reprising the role.

Kyle:

But he definitely was happy that Tom Hardy.

Kyle:

And he acknowledged that it was a much different interpretation.

Kyle:

But he said, given the way George Miller had developed his vision and the way Furry Road was envisioned, he said the way Tom played it was exactly what was needed.

Kyle:

So really interesting that Mel gave the blessing but also loved what Tom did.

Kyle:

He really seemed to admire him as both a person and an actor.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And I don't think that Tom had much of a choice but to deliver exactly what George Miller wanted him to deliver.

Matthew:

Because from what I understand, he didn't really understand exactly what he was supposed to be portraying or conveying at certain, at certain points of the film.

Matthew:

But whatever it was, you know, it, it worked.

Matthew:

It was, it was.

Matthew:

You know, he kind of.

Matthew:

We had talked about previous installments where, you know, did he have that feral quality?

Matthew:

He was starting to really have that feral quality in a way that Mel Gibson didn't bring to that character.

Kyle:

He was starting 2 and 2 and like we dissected in Beyond Thunderdome, he was this jovial.

Kyle:

15 years.

Kyle:

Well, that's the fanfare estimate.

Kyle:

15 years removed from Road Warrior, and he's happy as can be.

Kyle:

This is the Max we.

Kyle:

This is the Max that really we should have gotten.

Kyle:

Or maybe it may be slightly tampered, but if you really think about the digression of the world, the regression of the world, this is who Max should be becoming.

Matthew:

Deeply, deeply traumatized Max.

Matthew:

And it comes through.

Matthew:

And Hardy conveys that very well.

Matthew:

And there's also this kind of.

Matthew:

Like I've talked about before, he's got this goofy, childlike quality to him, but it works for this context.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And this actually really worked for me, too, because this actually, Tom being cast was one of the reasons I was finally able to push myself to go see it, because I was kind of starting to fall in love with him as an actor, because I had been falling in love with some of his roles.

Kyle:

I had first seen him in Inception, and then it kind of worked backwards from there.

Kyle:

It just so happens I'm a giant Nicholas Winding Refn fan.

Kyle:

Most people know him as the director of Drive, but I love his older films, like Valhalla Rising with Mads Mickelson, the Pusher trilogy, again with Mads Mickelson.

Kyle:

But he directed Bronson, which is kind of the movie that Tom Hardy had been in other movies.

Kyle:

But this was him on display in his range.

Kyle:

And so I was kind of having this love affair, learning and seeing Tom Hardy.

Kyle:

And then I was like, now he's like one of my favorite characters of all time.

Kyle:

I was like, usually I would be really upset by recasting, but I was like, this might work.

Kyle:

And I actually really loved what he did.

Kyle:

So.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And just when he.

Matthew:

He actually takes the character through an entire arc as well.

Matthew:

When he's.

Matthew:

We first encounter him, you know, it's.

Matthew:

You know, Max has to be captured from time to time.

Matthew:

It's the only way he gets haircuts.

Matthew:

But then he's kind of just.

Matthew:

He's.

Matthew:

He's kind of just grunting and, you know, barely communicative and, you know, just that one base.

Matthew:

That base instinct of survive, you know, that's all he's embodying.

Matthew:

But then when he's.

Matthew:

Basically, when he restores Furiosa's ability to breathe and then gives her blood, Max is reborn in that moment.

Matthew:

And, like, he's just as good in that moment, bringing the humanity back to Max for that one moment as he is just being kind of this Feral creature in the beginning of the film.

Kyle:

Yeah, it really is.

Kyle:

That's his mythos, you know, it's this really hardened, callistic series.

Kyle:

And again, Beyond Thunderdome does not understand this, but remove that.

Kyle:

He is this hardened survivor in this really just ruthless world who has kind of this ounce of humanity in there, and he taps into it when it matters most.

Kyle:

And that ounce pushes him across the finish line for people that he didn't start off caring about.

Kyle:

But all of a sudden, he's able to really kind of like injecting the NAS into the engine of a war rig is able to find the love again for that moment.

Kyle:

And that is what makes him such a special mythological.

Kyle:

Mythological character.

Kyle:

Which is interesting because, you know, these aren't based on comic books or a novel.

Kyle:

And that's really a novel esque concept.

Kyle:

And I love how they're able to poetically capture something that's not based on a book or a comic book or anything like that.

Kyle:

And they actually tap into something very poetic.

Kyle:

So.

Kyle:

All right, next rando.

Kyle:

Like I said earlier, this is a.

Kyle:

This is me repeating myself, but it's worth saying so.

Kyle:

470 hours of footage were filmed for this film, for this movie.

Kyle:

Margaret Sixel was the editor, and it took her three months to watch all the footage in its entirety, just to see the footage.

Kyle:

And there's a lot of numbers out there I've seen.

Kyle:

Two years, three years, but approximately two to three years to finish the editing, to edit.

Kyle:

Just to edit the movie.

Kyle:

That's pretty incredible.

Kyle:

Like.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And it show.

Matthew:

It shows.

Matthew:

It shows.

Matthew:

There's not a wasted moment, not a wasted second in that film.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

What's the cutting room floor look like for this movie?

Matthew:

I can't even imagine.

Matthew:

You could.

Matthew:

You could make 30 other movies just out of the leftover pieces.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Incredible.

Kyle:

Morando is here.

Kyle:

Oh, about 80%.

Kyle:

I don't know where someone got this number, but it feels about right to me.

Kyle:

80% of the movie is completely practical effects, whereas.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And that's stunning.

Kyle:

And there are some stunning frames we can talk about with that, too.

Kyle:

The other 20% really are focused on the skyline.

Kyle:

They wanted to edit out the skyline and make it look the right way.

Kyle:

Furiosa's arm and a couple of stunt performers.

Kyle:

But for the most part, the stunts, the war rig people jumping and bouncing around and all those things is very practical.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And that's.

Matthew:

That's what makes it so incredible.

Matthew:

I mean, it just takes you right back to Road Warrior.

Matthew:

And it's like, I.

Matthew:

I know Safety measures have prob.

Matthew:

Improved since then.

Matthew:

But there's just something.

Matthew:

It just feels so much more dangerous than any of the other films with the level of stunt work that went into this movie.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

You know, and the image that is synonymous for me is.

Kyle:

I don't know how they accomplished this, but it's.

Kyle:

Towards the end, when you have the.

Kyle:

It's one of the.

Kyle:

It's pretty much the final engagement and it's.

Kyle:

Do you remember?

Kyle:

It's like pixelated.

Kyle:

You know what I'm talking about?

Kyle:

Like, it's almost like you're seeing it in the dust, but it's almost like this pixelated view and you got the guys swinging.

Matthew:

Yeah, yeah.

Matthew:

On the pole vaults and.

Matthew:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle:

That image is burned in my mind.

Kyle:

Just.

Matthew:

It's just incredible.

Matthew:

And I think you could take.

Matthew:

You could pause that movie at literally any frame and you could probably print it off and hang it on your wall.

Matthew:

And like, the.

Matthew:

What.

Matthew:

Like I was talking about before, what they did as far as illustrating the inner turmoil of the characters with the color correction and the color gr.

Matthew:

And it led to some just very, very interesting imagery that.

Matthew:

I mean, you just don't see this in any other action movies.

Matthew:

You see other movies that have kind of tried to do these stylistic things, but, I mean, without the level of caring about why each thing is happening on screen, then you just take all of the heart out of it.

Matthew:

So.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Wonderfully said last Rando.

Kyle:

I didn't actually.

Kyle:

I knew a lot about this movie going in.

Kyle:

A lot of this stuff was a surprise, but this was a new fact, I found out.

Kyle:

So for the War rig to keep.

Kyle:

For safety purposes, George Miller actually recruited people that were behind the Olympic game ceremonies in Sydney and Beijing to kind of help make all the War Rig stuff safe because there were so many stunts and things going on.

Kyle:

And I guess I don't really remember.

Kyle:

I don't watch the Olympics, but I guess there was some component of vehicle rig stuff going on for the Olympics during Beijing and Sydney, but he required some Olympic folks to come in and.

Kyle:

And help move that forward.

Matthew:

Yeah, you would have to have something.

Matthew:

Some sort of experts.

Matthew:

I mean, there.

Matthew:

I'm trying to think of that one specific scene where the.

Matthew:

The vaulter.

Matthew:

Nux's vaulter is jumping off of the back of the war rig.

Matthew:

And, you know, it's that final moment right before he.

Matthew:

Before he dies.

Matthew:

And, you know, they filmed that practically.

Matthew:

I mean, they're.

Matthew:

They're.

Matthew:

Yeah, there are.

Matthew:

Basically, there's a caravan of all These war rigs going at like, at full speed and, you know, it just pulls you short just before the spikes on the vehicle, like, impale you.

Matthew:

It's incredible.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

I love that you said that.

Kyle:

It actually reminded me of something I wanted to talk about, which is one thing that really blew my mind is because of the minimal dialogue.

Kyle:

One thing they really were able to do is they convey.

Kyle:

They actually conveyed a lot of emotion in this world with the lack of dialogue.

Kyle:

One that got to me was, do you remember when the.

Kyle:

The war boy gets the arrow in the face and he stands up and that's the first time we see the chrome.

Kyle:

At first you're thinking it's, you know, oh, it's kind of just funny, jovial, but, like, then you realize that this is their world, like.

Matthew:

Right.

Kyle:

This is their religion.

Kyle:

This is all they have.

Kyle:

And then.

Kyle:

I don't know why I thought this, maybe because I have four kids.

Kyle:

But I was like, who are these people going to be in a non dist.

Kyle:

Like before the apocalypse?

Kyle:

Like, who were these people?

Kyle:

Because this is who they are.

Kyle:

And I don't know why it was so heavy this time.

Kyle:

He's got an arrow coming out.

Kyle:

And he was so happy.

Kyle:

And they were so witness, you know, they were so excited and they were so excited for him to take the 2.

Kyle:

The 2 pole vote pole vault explosives and jump onto the buzzard car or whatever.

Kyle:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle:

That was really heavy to me.

Kyle:

All of a sudden I was like, this is.

Kyle:

This is the world.

Kyle:

These are boys, you know, these are young adult men.

Kyle:

And this is the world that they.

Kyle:

But this is.

Kyle:

He's carrying out what he believes to be his life's work here.

Kyle:

And they didn't say that.

Kyle:

They didn't say this is my life's work.

Kyle:

But, like, it was conveyed to me in a very, like, Neanderthal way.

Kyle:

And I was.

Kyle:

I just found it to be very heavy without the dialogue even.

Matthew:

Absolutely.

Matthew:

And the, you know, the other characters giving it reverence in the way that they did and it.

Matthew:

Yeah, it's like in their world, this is the ultimate sacrifice.

Matthew:

This is.

Matthew:

This is what it was all for.

Matthew:

So.

Kyle:

And then you parallel it and then you.

Kyle:

You parallel that to Nux, you know, who is almost pathetic and.

Kyle:

And he ends up being very heroic, but he's chained to his car.

Kyle:

And I.

Kyle:

I didn't realize it till, like, this is like my 15th rewatch or whatever.

Kyle:

I don't even know, but it was like he was chained to his car and they're driving into The.

Kyle:

The storm, I think it's a tornado with some kind of weird desert storm.

Kyle:

I still don't know what it is, but he's not doing really anything exemplary.

Kyle:

Like the other guys, where the other guys were jumping, literally sacrificing.

Kyle:

And it was like he knew the end was close and he was like, I have to.

Kyle:

I have to get that purpose and I have to do this.

Kyle:

So he's like, he's emptying the gap, the guzzling into his car.

Kyle:

He's got the flare.

Kyle:

It was.

Kyle:

But you almost get that pathetic.

Kyle:

Like, he's so desperate to.

Kyle:

To achieve this purpose that he's willing to.

Kyle:

He's.

Kyle:

I mean, this.

Kyle:

That's not going to do anything to that war rig.

Kyle:

You might damage it a little bit, but it was just really heavy.

Kyle:

To me, like, God, he's so desperate to fulfill this Valhalla purpose because that's all he has that he's willing to do this.

Kyle:

And it was very desperate.

Kyle:

And it spoke a lot about the world that these people live in.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And I kind of wonder, too, is if the storm, the sandstorm with the lightning and everything, if there's a subjective element to that, because it's kind of right after he does the chrome spray and he's got the Max Blood coursing through him and he's just like, having this existential crisis in the meantime.

Matthew:

Meanwhile, he's got this kind of resolute look on his face as he.

Matthew:

And then everything goes wrong.

Matthew:

He's like, predestined to fail at his attempt to just sacrifice himself in a meaningful way.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

It was emotionally heavy because I keep thinking, like, who are these people going to be?

Kyle:

It's just, you think about circumstances and we have three wars going on in the world right now.

Kyle:

You can't help but think it's like, God, it's like, give me.

Kyle:

Give me an apocalypse in 10 years.

Kyle:

Like, who do I become?

Kyle:

Am I a War Boy?

Matthew:

I think we're finding out in real time.

Matthew:

I don't know.

Kyle:

Give us.

Matthew:

I think we're two years into the, like, eight more years.

Matthew:

I'm going to be wearing an eye patch for sure.

Kyle:

Yeah, we're just court jesters for the warlord.

Matthew:

That's right.

Kyle:

That's all we are.

Kyle:

We're just one bad joke away from, like, I have a bit about this, but leave it.

Kyle:

Leave it to me to be the first person canceled in an apocalypse, you know, for a bad joke.

Kyle:

Shall we War?

Kyle:

Shall we War Boy?

Matthew:

Let's.

Matthew:

Let's do it.

Matthew:

Let's let's go, shall we?

Kyle:

War rig.

Kyle:

All right.

Kyle:

As a reminder to the crew, shiny and chrome is our yes, we like it.

Kyle:

A positive affirmative.

Kyle:

And Blood Bag is no, we don't like it.

Kyle:

We don't dig that thing.

Kyle:

And then we'll do a final score at the end.

Kyle:

Top Bill Cass, Tom Hardy, and Charlize Aaron.

Kyle:

Or Theron, as I hear people say.

Kyle:

Theron there.

Kyle:

I'm just gonna say Theron.

Matthew:

It's 100% shiny and chrome all the way.

Matthew:

On this cast, they nailed the roles.

Matthew:

Tom Hardy's coming into, like, a franchise that, you know, that was already well established and we all had nostalgia for, and he was able to bring something fresh and new.

Matthew:

And, you know, Charlize Theron there, she was able to.

Matthew:

I don't know, there was just a.

Matthew:

She brought both a femininity to the character that.

Matthew:

But she also brought this adeptness.

Matthew:

And so together, the two of them, you know, despite not liking one another in real life, there was just this dynamic between the two of them that, you know, they weren't necessarily allies out of any sort of, like, common, mutual viewpoint.

Matthew:

They were allies because they both had particular skills that were needed for the two of them to survive.

Matthew:

And, you know, whatever misgivings they had with one another on set, it turned into a pretty powerful dynamic duo.

Kyle:

Yeah, that was beautifully said, man.

Kyle:

I.

Kyle:

You know, Tom Hardy, like I said, he might.

Kyle:

He may be, if not my favorite top three actor.

Kyle:

I think he has an insane amount of range, and this is.

Kyle:

This is really where he's been asked to do the least in.

Kyle:

In some of the roles that he's been given.

Kyle:

But he still accomplishes a lot here.

Kyle:

And it kind of goes back to the comment, and this goes for Charlize, too.

Kyle:

One thing that Miller just really pulls out of his actors is that hardened exterior with that Carmel Center.

Kyle:

You know, somewhere in there is that humanity that we lost, but these people still have that ounce.

Kyle:

Knucks has it, and Charlize has it, and Max has.

Kyle:

Sorry for you.

Kyle:

Furiosa has it, and I love how they choose when they.

Kyle:

They tap into that for Furiosa, she's so skilled.

Kyle:

She's so tough.

Kyle:

She's so hardened.

Kyle:

But her softness for the green place and that.

Kyle:

That home that she desires, it's no wonder there was a spin off.

Kyle:

And you can say, you know, we'll leave that for another day.

Kyle:

But I am not surprised that Furiosa was the spinoff, because Miller loves this character, and it's one of my favorite displays of femininity in.

Kyle:

In film.

Kyle:

I just love that hardened exterior.

Kyle:

She's skilled.

Kyle:

She's give.

Kyle:

She's not.

Kyle:

She's not so mailed in with her, with her feminine power that it's, you know, almost like, oh, they're just trying to send a feminine message.

Kyle:

Like, she's actually displaying that and has that beautiful feminine softness towards her home that she's looking for.

Kyle:

So I think these.

Kyle:

These top Bill actors are tapping into that in a big way, maybe better.

Kyle:

I hate to say it.

Kyle:

I love, you know, I love Mel Gibson and I love the original, but I think these two deliver that message in a bigger way.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Certainly with more.

Matthew:

More depth and complexity than was they would even ever thought to do.

Matthew:

Maybe.

Matthew:

I'm not sure how Mel would have pulled that off, what was in.

Matthew:

Because he didn't have someone to bounce off of that would have been as powerful as him in any of those films.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And maybe the world is, you know, if you, you know, again, beyond Thunderdome throws us.

Kyle:

Throws us a loop.

Kyle:

But I mean, if you want to try to think, you're trying to reconcile that these are campfire mythological tales and the fact that the world's getting progressively worse, you're trying to pair those two things.

Kyle:

You know, Mel never faced in his roles, never had to face this level of depravity that we have here.

Kyle:

Because now we have radiation, we have people controlling water.

Kyle:

We have, you know, only three major centers of commerce, you know, thriving where else, everyone else is starving for water.

Kyle:

You know, this is the deepest level of depravity.

Kyle:

And we do get a max here that is short on words, you know, so it's interesting.

Kyle:

We asked.

Kyle:

We asked Tom not to do a lot with his.

Kyle:

With his speaking, but we asked him to do a lot with his nonverbal, with his physicality here.

Kyle:

All right, Supporting cast here.

Kyle:

All right.

Kyle:

This is interesting because just recently, someone on this list is actually getting a lot of praise for a role they just played.

Kyle:

That would be Nicholas Holt, who plays Nux.

Kyle:

He's in.

Kyle:

Is it juror number two?

Kyle:

Did you see the trailer for that?

Matthew:

No, I hadn't seen that yet, but I knew that he's starting to get a lot of heat from this, from his Knucks role, and deservedly so.

Kyle:

Yeah, he's starring.

Kyle:

He's starring in this juror number two role, and it's getting a lot of love.

Kyle:

It's directed by Clint Eastwood and written by Jonathan Abrams.

Kyle:

I just wanted to point that out because it's crazy to see him from there I've seen the trailer.

Kyle:

It's actually one movie that's actually at the top of my list right now of movies I want to see right now.

Kyle:

So we have Nicholas Holt as Nux.

Kyle:

We have Zoe Kravitz, who plays.

Kyle:

I didn't realize in the movie.

Kyle:

They have all these extended names.

Kyle:

Toast the Knowing.

Kyle:

And then Hugh Keys Byrne, Immortan Joe, who's our friend Toecutter.

Kyle:

So we get a call back from our original.

Kyle:

Our original Mad Max in:

Kyle:

Nathan Jones is Rick Dysrectus.

Kyle:

I almost named my son that.

Kyle:

And then the list kind of goes down from there.

Matthew:

But.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Kyle:

What do you think about the supporting cast?

Matthew:

Yeah, they.

Matthew:

They all seem to occupy that world.

Matthew:

You know, we talk about.

Matthew:

When you think about some of the oddball characters in the first Mad Max movie and how they seemed.

Matthew:

Some of them seem to come right out of like a college theater troop or whatever.

Matthew:

Every single actor, supporting or otherwise, seem to just fully inhabit this world.

Matthew:

In Fury Road, they're.

Matthew:

They're just all like, they, they.

Matthew:

They're just, I don't know, baked into the.

Matthew:

To the frame.

Matthew:

They're perfectly suited.

Matthew:

Nobody feels out of place.

Matthew:

There's no performance in there that takes you out of this world.

Matthew:

And with the amount of frenetic stuff going on screen, everybody had to do a lot with what little like, substantive.

Matthew:

Substantive screen time that they had that wasn't like an action set piece.

Matthew:

And even during action set pieces, you still got the humanity, even out of those supporting characters.

Matthew:

So.

Matthew:

Yeah, yeah.

Matthew:

Shining in chrome all the way.

Matthew:

For sure.

Kyle:

Yeah, for sure.

Matthew:

I agree.

Kyle:

And I think the War Boys are really interesting because, you know, in Road Warrior specifically, the villains were all tasked with something different.

Kyle:

They all had very individual.

Kyle:

Yeah, they were all mostly wearing S and M gear.

Kyle:

It's interesting to see this large group of people that look the same, that act the same.

Kyle:

These War Boys are kind of a cult.

Kyle:

Right.

Kyle:

I think that's a really interesting touch.

Kyle:

And it worked for this.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Both cinematically and story wise.

Matthew:

I mean, how cool is it at that beginning of when Max is being pulled back in, when he's trying to escape after he was initially captured?

Matthew:

I mean, just all of these faceless zombie figures.

Matthew:

And then to take it's.

Matthew:

It's a.

Matthew:

It's a great cinematic conceit, first of all, because you have these really interesting characters and, you know, you get so much out of there with them being bold and having these, like, emotive faces.

Matthew:

But he stripped them of all of the things that would make them unique.

Matthew:

Meanwhile, I can think of at least like four different war boys that you were invested in their story.

Matthew:

You knew exactly who they were.

Matthew:

You know, they were, they were all identical, but they were, you know, individual enough to be, you know, individually compelling.

Kyle:

So, yes, I totally agree.

Kyle:

I felt that.

Kyle:

I think you actually said what I wanted to say.

Kyle:

I just didn't have the words for it for some reason.

Kyle:

Even though they're, they're a group, you feel for each of them individually.

Kyle:

I think it does go back to the thing I said earlier.

Kyle:

It's like, these are young, youngish boys, men, young adults, or maybe some of them are a little older.

Kyle:

But like, you can't help but think it's like, who, who would these people have been?

Kyle:

And they, it's like they have stories.

Kyle:

And I think, I think without using a lot of dialogue, the supporting cast really delivers.

Kyle:

And I got to give a major shout out to Nathan Jones, who plays Rick Dysrectus.

Kyle:

There's always, there's always an endearing thing about the guy that's cast because the actor is probably just gigantic, muscular and huge.

Kyle:

That's what Lord Humongous was and too.

Kyle:

And there's, you know, Michael Myers.

Kyle:

Some of the actors that play Jason Voorhees were cast because of their size, but it's very endearing.

Kyle:

And he's actually a really good actor and he demonstrates the, the numb skulledness of that character and he's huge.

Kyle:

So shout out to all the big muscle guys out there that get recruited to play these parts in these giant movies.

Matthew:

And how hilarious was it when he was like, I had a baby brother and he was perfect.

Matthew:

And then Morton Joe, you go to his eyes and he's both, he's both pissed off because he's lost his baby, but he's also like, this is the one I'm left with.

Kyle:

Yes.

Matthew:

Moron.

Kyle:

Yes.

Matthew:

It's so.

Matthew:

It's like expressing all of that with nothing more than eyes.

Matthew:

It's fantastic.

Kyle:

Yeah, it's, it's so well done.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Huge, Huge, shiny and chrome here.

Kyle:

You went shiny in chrome here too.

Kyle:

Yes.

Matthew:

Yes.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Huge, shiny in chrome.

Kyle:

And it's honestly like, when I was thinking about these two categories, I was like, it was kind of hard to spend a lot of time thinking about it because I was so pulled in.

Kyle:

I was like, I'm not even really thinking about these performances.

Kyle:

I'm just, I'm getting a visual feast.

Kyle:

So it's like, how do I criticize the acting when there's so much being executed at a high level, and it's.

Matthew:

All serving the purpose.

Matthew:

So it's like, how could you possibly critique anybody's performance when it's all in service of building the world that Miller had wanted to execute in his mind?

Matthew:

So.

Kyle:

All right, we got two zero, shiny and chrome here.

Kyle:

This one's going to be interesting.

Kyle:

Vehicular manslaughter.

Kyle:

How good are these vehicles?

Kyle:

The war, The.

Kyle:

You know, the.

Kyle:

And we're just.

Kyle:

As a reminder to the crew, we just came off Beyond Thunderdome, where we were.

Kyle:

We saw the Road Warrior pretty much taken off the road for long periods of time.

Matthew:

Yeah, this is.

Matthew:

I mean, I would.

Matthew:

I would love to just go and, like, how cool would it be to drive one of these actual rigs that they built for this movie?

Matthew:

I mean, every vehicle has a backstory.

Matthew:

Every steering wheel has a backstory.

Matthew:

Every.

Matthew:

It's like, come on.

Kyle:

This is.

Matthew:

This is executed on a level that no one had ever dreamed of when.

Matthew:

When they made Road Warrior.

Matthew:

You know, the vehicles themselves are as much like characters as any character in the movie.

Matthew:

And, you know, you got that with the V8 interceptor in the previous movie, obviously, but these are these insane war machines that are just, like, dripping with character.

Matthew:

And.

Matthew:

And even, like, even those that aren't directly purposed for, like, war, you've got the ones that are, like, carrying the bureaucrats and the leaders around, and they look like the types of vehicles that would be, you know, carrying bureaucrats and leaders around.

Matthew:

So just the level of production and care, and I mean, wow, how long would it have taken them to just conceived of a lot of these.

Matthew:

These insane vehicles?

Matthew:

I'm trying to think through all of the history of, like, cool vehicle movies.

Matthew:

go back to, like, Death Race:

Matthew:

Go build an actual war machine.

Matthew:

And this entire fleet of this.

Matthew:

This movie.

Matthew:

Like, I.

Matthew:

It's.

Matthew:

It's insane.

Matthew:

The.

Matthew:

What Miller put into just the cars, I mean, the characters, the.

Matthew:

Every piece of it.

Matthew:

He's never going to top this.

Matthew:

He's never going to top this.

Kyle:

So I agree.

Kyle:

And I had this thought, too, in a world.

Kyle:

And again, I hate to keep, like, saying back to Beyond Thunderdome, because all of a sudden we have a surplus of animals, whereas nowhere else in the franchise do we have animals, except for a couple of radiated lizards and a dog.

Kyle:

You know, in a.

Kyle:

In a lifeless world where we have radiated humans, people affected by radiation, and very few animals, the.

Kyle:

The vehicles are evolution I look at the buzzard cars, the porcupine, you know, it's like.

Kyle:

Yeah, it's almost like the.

Kyle:

The.

Kyle:

Because we can't see evolution in creatures, we see evolution in our war tools.

Kyle:

And I love how it's almost like each set of vehicles in each group, like, you have the motorcycle crew, it's like they evolved on one side of a mountain, and the buzzard ones they assigned, like, this is how they adapted to the world in their little pockets of the universe.

Kyle:

And so I've kind of thought that, like, oh, wow, this is.

Kyle:

This is evolution in this world because we don't have life, we don't have trees, we don't have animals.

Kyle:

This is how we evolve is through our tools and our vehicles of war.

Kyle:

And so I loved how each time a new group was introduced, it was almost like a new species was being introduced into this lifeless world.

Matthew:

Absolutely.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

That's a great take.

Matthew:

The buzzards exemplify that perfectly.

Matthew:

They're the spiky things or the.

Matthew:

You know, you get your old Crohn's on the motorcycles, and it all makes sen sense within the world as well.

Matthew:

These aren't just like, flare.

Matthew:

They didn't just throw these spikes on there for a particular like.

Matthew:

Or they.

Matthew:

They didn't just throw the spikes on there with no purpose in mind.

Matthew:

You know, these.

Matthew:

These were evolutionary traits just like you described.

Matthew:

You know, where you have pole vaulting war boys.

Matthew:

Your.

Matthew:

Your obvious response to that would be then to put spikes on the outside.

Matthew:

So, you know, you get this evolutionary thing happening.

Matthew:

It's.

Matthew:

That's a really.

Matthew:

I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's a really cool way to look at it.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And you actually hit on something else too.

Kyle:

I would.

Kyle:

My.

Kyle:

My number one thing if I had one wish is I would ask George Miller or whoever on set was responsible for designing the weaponry and the artillery because they are so purposeful and like, you buy in these pole vaults, the swinging.

Kyle:

They're so.

Kyle:

That's such a creative thing that they did.

Kyle:

That's one of the most endearing things about this movie to me is the functionality and the purpose that they have.

Kyle:

Nothing, Nothing seems weird to me when they jump off with the javelin bombs and they're throwing, like.

Kyle:

It's like, that seems like what they would develop in this world because they know, like, you can't just shoot.

Kyle:

You can't just have guns.

Kyle:

Like.

Kyle:

Like, we need stuff that, like, can get through the buzzard spikes.

Kyle:

Like, we can't just.

Kyle:

We.

Kyle:

Because we can't jump on them.

Kyle:

We'll just be impaled.

Kyle:

So it's like it's.

Kyle:

They just got so creative.

Kyle:

That would be my one thing is I just want to get into their brains.

Kyle:

Like how did you, how did you develop such a like organic, purposeful set of like weapons for these, these road warriors?

Kyle:

We are three to zero here.

Kyle:

It's going well for a Fury road here.

Kyle:

How great is this apocalypse, huh?

Matthew:

Yeah, this is, this is the setting.

Kyle:

Rating our apocalypse here.

Matthew:

Yeah, this.

Matthew:

Well, I mean if you think about, if you think about the pragmatic effects of a like, of an actual apocalypse and you're running out of resources, you're going to have these pockets where certain resources are going to emerge where you don't have those resources available in other areas.

Matthew:

And so you're going to get like a citadel, bullet town, gas town kind of dynamic and it's almost like a reemergence of government in a way.

Matthew:

It's a reemergence of society in its base level.

Matthew:

So it's.

Matthew:

They did, they did some really fascinating things with the apocalypse.

Matthew:

And you know, it's.

Matthew:

I think that they, they actually unlike, unlike Beyond Thunderdome where you know, things were just kind of thrown in because that's kind of a cool thing to do without a lot of care or thought put into it.

Matthew:

It seems like the elements were very carefully plotted out in this one.

Matthew:

And you've got mother's milk and you've got blood bags and you've got humans being used as resources which would be the natural evolution of things.

Kyle:

Yeah, I remember all the jokes and from our first podcast about the ice cream shop.

Kyle:

You know, I love that there are no ice cream shops here.

Kyle:

This is.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Not even shitty ones that for that ice cream shop in the first movie had terrible ice cream.

Matthew:

But there were, there was still an ice cream shop.

Kyle:

Yeah, exactly.

Kyle:

Here we, we've got nothing.

Kyle:

So this is the full on vision and this is another limitation I, I guess this series would face from now on is like how much more desolate can this get?

Kyle:

You know, I mean this is truly an economy that's just truly built for war.

Kyle:

The only roads are the roads that connect the various the Bullet town, Gas town and the Citadel.

Kyle:

It's truly just prime for war.

Kyle:

So it's like how much further can you take that message?

Kyle:

It doesn't really matter because Fury Road did it so well.

Kyle:

So I definitely give it for this apocalypse.

Kyle:

I think it's a total, it's a slam dunk for shiny and chrome.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Shiny and chrome as well on mine.

Matthew:

I don't think I actually said as much, but yes, for sure.

Kyle:

Yeah, it's wonderful.

Kyle:

It's hard to argue.

Kyle:

I mean, it's the most desolate, for sure, with the lack of ice.

Matthew:

And it's a fantastic parable for the way that civilization actually works.

Matthew:

And you've got.

Matthew:

You've got three countries, so to speak, and there.

Matthew:

There's Are.

Matthew:

There are mutual, mutually beneficial arrangements happening, and it's all political and whatnot.

Matthew:

And so I think that.

Matthew:

I don't know if it's.

Matthew:

If it's sliding more into desolation at this point.

Matthew:

You're seeing, like, a re.

Matthew:

Emergence, but it's a.

Matthew:

Like the reemergence of, like, a bully society where, you know, the worst get to be in charge and for whatever reason, their subpar seed gets to.

Matthew:

Gets to carry on and consume all the resources.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

You know, one thing we haven't really hit on a lot is the group.

Kyle:

You know, the group of women from the Green Place.

Kyle:

I think that's an interesting little thing here, and I'm glad that.

Kyle:

I don't know how you feel about this, but I'm kind of glad that it's been wiped out.

Kyle:

I think it would have been interesting if.

Kyle:

If they actually went back and it's there, this paradise that they think exists is still there.

Kyle:

And the way they kind of.

Kyle:

What was it then?

Kyle:

They have.

Kyle:

The people on stilts.

Kyle:

What are they called?

Kyle:

They have a name.

Kyle:

I can't remember.

Kyle:

The ravens or the crows.

Matthew:

Yeah, I can't remember what the name was.

Matthew:

But I was thinking of how everything had a pragmatic purpose.

Matthew:

Even that has a pragmatic purpose.

Matthew:

They can't actually touch the ground because of the radiation levels that are happening in those, like, wastelands and whatnot.

Matthew:

So.

Matthew:

And.

Matthew:

And they look all creepy, and it's.

Matthew:

It's a.

Matthew:

Creates a fantastic aesthetic, but even that it's thought out, there's a logic to why they're on those stilts.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And Furiosa's response when she.

Kyle:

She realizes that they passed it, like, that was that thing you saw.

Kyle:

That was it.

Matthew:

Yeah, that was breaking.

Kyle:

But, yeah, in this hard and callous world, we get a very beautiful, like, response like.

Kyle:

Like, wow.

Kyle:

Like, that was her hope.

Kyle:

Like, that's the thing that's been driving her.

Kyle:

That's why she took these women.

Kyle:

She's thinking she's saving them to something better.

Kyle:

And it is gone.

Matthew:

And then you find out that home was where you left it the whole time.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Yep.

Kyle:

Yep.

Kyle:

Back at the Citadel.

Kyle:

Right on.

Kyle:

Cool.

Kyle:

So we are.

Kyle:

Man, we're just trucking right along here for shining chrome.

Kyle:

Zero blood bag here.

Kyle:

How good are these bad guys, huh?

Matthew:

Yeah, I mean, and these aren't just faceless bad guys.

Matthew:

Everybody has a particular purpose.

Matthew:

Everybody has a backstory.

Matthew:

Everybody has a reason for doing what they're doing.

Matthew:

Doing.

Matthew:

I mean, there's a faceless quality, I guess, to some of the Buzzards and these odd factions and maybe the bullet town factions or whatnot.

Matthew:

But you kind of get why they're.

Matthew:

Why they're carrying out the way that they're carrying out.

Matthew:

And, you know, frankly, like, who's the.

Matthew:

Who is the bad guys in this?

Matthew:

Who.

Matthew:

Who's the protagonist in this?

Matthew:

Who's the.

Matthew:

Is this Nux's story?

Matthew:

Is this.

Matthew:

You know, who's the bad guy?

Matthew:

But are we talking about war boys that are kind of chasing our heroes?

Matthew:

If, you know, if we're talking about those guys, then I'm instantly compelled by their stories, and, you know, I want to know more about them.

Matthew:

If we're talking about the Buzzards, it's like there's these weird.

Matthew:

They are these weird evolutionary offshoots, as you said.

Matthew:

Or if we're talking about the crones from the Green Place, you know, it's even her.

Matthew:

The.

Matthew:

I can't remember the character's name, but she had the seeds, you know?

Matthew:

Well, I guess you couldn't call her a bad guy, objectively, because she kind of joined the winning team at the end.

Matthew:

And that's what I'm saying is it's hard to identify who the bad guy is, except for, obviously, these bureaucrats and whatnot.

Matthew:

And so, yeah, each one of them is kind of interesting and visually interesting and representative of, like, the corruption of politics taken to the nth degree.

Kyle:

So, yeah, it's almost like, who oppresses the most people?

Kyle:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And it's like, why do these idiots get to oppress the most people?

Matthew:

Like Morton Joe.

Matthew:

He physically is, you know, falling apart.

Matthew:

He's not the most intelligent leader I've ever seen.

Matthew:

And meanwhile, like I said, his.

Matthew:

His idiot children get to carry on and, you know, use up all the resources.

Matthew:

Meanwhile, you know, people are fighting for water.

Matthew:

So, yeah, I lost my train of thought.

Matthew:

But it's shiny.

Matthew:

It's shiny and chrome.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Oh, I give it a big shiny and chrome, and there's a few reasons.

Kyle:

First of all, I love that Immortan Joe is my favorite thing about him.

Kyle:

And people might think this is stupid, but his, his protective shield has a six pack etched into it.

Kyle:

Like it's almost like it was him trying to remember who he was once upon a time.

Kyle:

Like maybe he looked more like Rictus at one point in his life.

Kyle:

And he's, you know, like in all the things he's doing, his body is completely decaying and he looks like cookie dough.

Kyle:

And he's.

Kyle:

He's.

Kyle:

He's dying.

Kyle:

He does not look good.

Kyle:

But he's got all these things.

Kyle:

He's got the.

Kyle:

What do they call it in the military?

Kyle:

The decorum is what they call it The.

Matthew:

Oh yeah, the.

Matthew:

All of his medals and stuff.

Kyle:

Yeah, his medals and stuff.

Kyle:

He's got medals on this thing.

Kyle:

Like it's, it's like it's.

Matthew:

He's got a giant crotch piece.

Matthew:

He's got.

Matthew:

He's got a.

Kyle:

Yes.

Kyle:

Also, I think there's something very Roman about this.

Kyle:

I don't want to get too deep on this, but it's like the bullet farmer or it's a people eater from, From Gastown.

Kyle:

He's got the nipple piercing and he's purposely cut out a hole in his shirt so you can see his.

Kyle:

But it's this gold.

Kyle:

Like it's like it's very Roman that like these people are.

Kyle:

It's demonstrating how much they are living in their excess.

Kyle:

And I think that's what actually makes them really great villains.

Kyle:

And that's kind of the proliferation point.

Kyle:

Yes, everyone, it's.

Kyle:

It's a scenario where like a zombie scenario where like, yes, it's.

Kyle:

The people are.

Kyle:

The bad are actually the bad guy, not the zombie.

Kyle:

Right.

Kyle:

Because everyone's trying to survive.

Kyle:

So.

Kyle:

And it's.

Kyle:

What you do to survive is very much a, you know, it's subjective based on your own journey.

Kyle:

So it's kind of similar to that.

Kyle:

But here there's this very like Roman designation for these bureaucrats, as you've called them, because they look decadent.

Kyle:

They're doing what Roman leaders did or any tyrannical force or leader for a massive civilization that had.

Kyle:

Had come into domination, which is.

Kyle:

They're donning the gold.

Kyle:

They're.

Kyle:

They're wearing certain types of, you know, garb to represent where they are.

Kyle:

And I thought that's what the people leader was.

Kyle:

He was so massively overweight because he's eating.

Kyle:

He's got an excess of food.

Kyle:

Like that's what made these bad guys interesting.

Kyle:

It's like, oh, you see these skinny, really desolate, like homeless people, like trying to beg for water.

Kyle:

That's the disparity of the people eater from Gastown.

Kyle:

He is that Roman emperor who's.

Kyle:

Who's eating to.

Kyle:

To the fullness and has the gold and all that.

Kyle:

So I didn't want to get like, too pretentious on that, but that was kind of the thought I had.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And then his.

Matthew:

His gouty foot is used.

Matthew:

Yeah, yeah, it's.

Kyle:

It's.

Matthew:

It's perfect, actually, because it's like.

Matthew:

It kind of just carries on the.

Matthew:

That whole notion of using people for resources.

Matthew:

But, you know, because of his excess, he has this massive gouty foot that.

Matthew:

That Max is then able to put on the.

Matthew:

On the gas pedal and then use it to.

Matthew:

To launch the vehicle into a fiery demise.

Matthew:

So it's.

Matthew:

That was very fascinating.

Kyle:

I have gout.

Kyle:

He's like our.

Kyle:

He's our poster child now.

Kyle:

You know, it just shows that you can.

Kyle:

You can aim high and do amazing things with gout.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

You can eat people.

Matthew:

You can get some nipple rings.

Matthew:

Let's go.

Matthew:

I have a message board.

Matthew:

Let's.

Matthew:

We'll talk.

Kyle:

Maybe one of my questions.

Kyle:

My questions earlier should have been like, at what point do you do the golden nipple ring and the apocalypse?

Kyle:

Like, when is it okay to do that again?

Matthew:

Like, well, I never stopped.

Matthew:

So it's just like, when do you cut the holes?

Matthew:

That's what I want to know because I'm waiting for the go ahead.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

Cutting a hole in your shirt to show your nipple ring is.

Kyle:

That's a step.

Kyle:

That's a step.

Matthew:

That.

Matthew:

That's.

Matthew:

That's a flex.

Kyle:

Man.

Kyle:

We got two categories left.

Kyle:

It doesn't matter at this point.

Kyle:

We've got to go through them.

Kyle:

It's five shiny and chrome here.

Kyle:

This is going well.

Kyle:

A stranger walks into town.

Kyle:

You know, these are our western elements.

Kyle:

This is us, you know, recognizing that these films are very much.

Kyle:

Although.

Kyle:

Although it's subtle, predicated on the whole concept of the Western of a stranger walks into town.

Kyle:

How do you think those elements fared here in Fury?

Matthew:

Well, so it's.

Matthew:

This movie is so genre redefining in every way that it redefined action movies.

Matthew:

And it.

Matthew:

Yes, at the heart of it, it has those western elements.

Matthew:

It's just.

Matthew:

It's a.

Matthew:

You can't.

Matthew:

It's inseparable from the series.

Matthew:

I'm not sure if you can tell these campfire hero walks into town stories without that western mythos attached to it, so.

Matthew:

Well, we'll talk about that, I guess, in the next movie.

Matthew:

I think that we lost some of it there, but in this One.

Matthew:

It, you know, the story elements.

Matthew:

It, you know, Max is the typical Western antihero, as he always was.

Matthew:

Furiosa is literally driving the stagecoach.

Matthew:

The whole thing looks like Monument Valley, except for on lsd.

Matthew:

It's like.

Matthew:

I think it keeps all of those Western elements, and it holds true to that Western mythos in a way that I think Thunderdome kind of lost the point on that.

Matthew:

But, yeah, shiny and chrome on that.

Kyle:

Yeah, I go shiny and chrome, too.

Kyle:

And again, we have to, because we're looking at the whole franchise.

Kyle:

It's real easy to pick on beyond Thunderdome.

Kyle:

But, yes, it definitely lost that element because I think Max was doing so much, and he was doing too much.

Kyle:

He was way too jovial compared to where we thought he should have been 15 years after road Warrior.

Kyle:

And this is the strangest of strangers too.

Kyle:

I mean, Max is truly traumatized.

Kyle:

He.

Kyle:

He's.

Kyle:

He's mentally ill at this point.

Kyle:

He has ptsd.

Kyle:

He has gone through a lot, and he's truly just operating in survival mode.

Kyle:

And I think.

Kyle:

I think it's interesting watching how crazy the world is around him, because his.

Kyle:

The whole thing with the Western element.

Kyle:

He ends up in a situation he doesn't want to be in, but ends up finding that human center and ends up wanting to help these people in their cause.

Kyle:

That's.

Kyle:

That's what Mad Max is.

Kyle:

He's a side character, in a way, to the bigger story.

Kyle:

He's such a side character here.

Kyle:

He doesn't even say his name until almost the end of the movie after he's earned trust.

Kyle:

And I actually.

Kyle:

My heart moved when he.

Kyle:

He nods at Furiosa at the end when she's on the.

Kyle:

On the platform rising, and he kind of just gently nods and he just sidles on out.

Kyle:

I don't know about you, but I was thinking, I'm like, where's he going?

Kyle:

Where's he going next?

Kyle:

I was truly emotional because I'm a Mad Max fan.

Kyle:

So I'm like, oh, where's Max going now?

Kyle:

And this was the most subtle exit he's had.

Kyle:

And it's truly.

Kyle:

It's actually more Western than a Western in a way, because Clint Eastwood is always my.

Kyle:

In the Dollars trilogy is always kind of my point of reference for that type of thing.

Kyle:

You know, he always at least has a, you know, something to go out on.

Kyle:

You know, a big, like, you know, a statement or, you know, he.

Kyle:

Something happens.

Kyle:

Right.

Kyle:

But here, Max is just totally fine.

Kyle:

Just disappear.

Kyle:

Literally disappearing in the crowd.

Matthew:

It has such a fascinating shot too, because it does several things.

Matthew:

It does several things at once.

Matthew:

He shows the respect of Furiosa.

Matthew:

It shows that they had shared that moment, but now he's moving on and you know, riding off into the sunset, so to speak.

Matthew:

But it also shows that, that despite everything that's happened to Max, he's not a victim like the rest of the people that are surrounding him.

Matthew:

Like the rest of them are all just static.

Matthew:

It's his face that you see.

Matthew:

He's the one that's going to go forward.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And almost the other people are almost blurred.

Kyle:

I don't know if they're actually blurred, but my mind remembers them as almost blurred.

Matthew:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matthew:

It's like no matter what the world does to maximum, he's not going to resign himself to, you know, begging for a bowl of water.

Matthew:

That's never going to be his story.

Kyle:

Beautifully done.

Kyle:

Kind of a tear jerker, actually.

Kyle:

Well, at six zero we got one more category, Strangers in Need here.

Kyle:

You know, this is us evaluating the people that Max gets involved with involuntarily against his own will, but ends up loving them anyway and, and helping them usher in their revolution here.

Kyle:

Are these people people worth saving?

Kyle:

Do we like this group here?

Kyle:

I guess that would be Furiosa and her crew of.

Matthew:

Yeah, ex lovers.

Matthew:

I think that they are probably one of the most deserving of the, of the franchise, I think as far as victims go, because they're, they're not these like weird ass lost boy children and like.

Matthew:

And you know, these are women that were being exploited as a resource.

Matthew:

They had absolutely no say in, in any about their life.

Matthew:

And that's a very powerful statement.

Matthew:

You know, he was, you know, George Miller was able to sneak a lot.

Matthew:

Well, not sneak, it's very overt, but the gender politic part of it.

Matthew:

Meanwhile these, you know, these women, they're all, they're all beautiful in their own way and they all represent this like this untouchable, pristine beauty.

Matthew:

But they embody so much more of that or more than that, rather.

Matthew:

You know, each one of those characters has their own arc, their own moments of heroism, you know, their own struggle.

Matthew:

And you know, Furiosa herself as kind of taking that as her own personal crusade, you know, based on what we know of her story at this point.

Matthew:

It's like, I don't know, I don't know if Max could have come across a more deserving group, obviously.

Matthew:

So full, shining and chrome on that.

Kyle:

Yeah, wonderfully said.

Kyle:

It's almost the philosopher's journey, right?

Kyle:

The whole thing about they do come from.

Kyle:

Yes, it's horrible what they've been subjected to, but compared to the rest of civilization, they are in decadence.

Kyle:

Like the layer is, you know, they've got greenery inside of the citadel.

Kyle:

They have like, obviously it's horrible what they've been subjected to, but compared to everyone else, they still are coming from this decadent.

Kyle:

But it's in that decadence that you can only when you have that level of decadence can you receive, recognize the situation you're in.

Kyle:

And I think that's what's beautiful about it is that they recognize that this isn't the way it's supposed to be.

Kyle:

And it's.

Kyle:

I thought it was going to be weak point because the first time I saw it I was like, all right, this is.

Kyle:

These girls are wearing like white dresses.

Kyle:

Like.

Matthew:

Right, right.

Kyle:

They're almost too beautiful for this world.

Matthew:

Original.

Matthew:

Like.

Kyle:

Yeah, yeah.

Kyle:

And.

Kyle:

But then like, I think Miller, if anything is incredible at writing these female heroes.

Kyle:

I love how he does it.

Kyle:

And you know, there's very few, like, I put Cameron in that realm too.

Kyle:

James Cameron, Miller.

Kyle:

These are action directors that somehow in these action sci fi type movies are able to elevate women through these really strong, like one, like courageous, beautiful, strong, like.

Kyle:

And that's, that's what furiosa.

Kyle:

Is that the same as Sarah Connor is like, yeah, I love that archetype.

Kyle:

And I really think.

Kyle:

And they do it without.

Kyle:

They do it without watering down femininity either.

Kyle:

It's almost like it's strong with its own merit.

Kyle:

And I think all these women, and I like what you said, they're almost individually, they're so individual with the little dialogue with little backstory.

Kyle:

I feel like I understand who they are and what they're going for.

Kyle:

And so I think, I think like you said, this is the group.

Kyle:

Of all the groups that we've seen Max get involved in their lives, this is the one that we cheer for the most.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And you talk about how that they, they were subjected to a certain level of decadence.

Matthew:

It's like, that's so.

Matthew:

It would be so strange to be subjected to decadence against your own will to be used as breeding stock.

Matthew:

It's so sinister in a way that it's like you, you never had a choice to struggle.

Matthew:

You weren't given the option to struggle.

Matthew:

But as soon as they were given that choice, they showed up.

Matthew:

They did, you know, things that they had never been prepared for.

Matthew:

And you know, and they, and they came across very heroic in doing so, yeah.

Kyle:

And so sinister that this.

Kyle:

Even if.

Kyle:

Even if there's a.

Kyle:

If there's a small monicum of a chance that the green place exists, that this paradise exists, they were willing to risk it all with Furiosa to go to that thing because that was better than this hellhole.

Kyle:

So even though that technically was decadent, like you said, sinister indeed.

Kyle:

So shiny and chrome, though, across the board here.

Kyle:

We just hit a seven seven zero here.

Matthew:

That doesn't surprise me at all how.

Kyle:

Much of it is that we just got back from beyond Thunderdome.

Kyle:

It's been a long march from the Citadel or from Barter Town to the Citadel, I tell you.

Matthew:

But I think if you.

Matthew:

If you would have come off, off of any installment and went into Fury Road, I.

Matthew:

I would have rated it just as highly.

Matthew:

I think that even as a standalone film, if it were outside of the Mad Max franchise, it is a powerful piece of cinema all by itself.

Kyle:

Yeah.

Kyle:

And we're seeing just reboots across the board.

Kyle:

And I don't call this a reboot because it's our old friend, it's George Miller who's at the helm here.

Kyle:

We're living in reboots.

Kyle:

And we just did the Crow reboot because we rounded out our Crow series with a different crew on Movie Wars.

Kyle:

And just the cookie cutter nature of which films are being funded and attacked, I mean, it makes you thankful for like the A24s and some of these, you know, Blumhouse and some of these smaller outlets making fantastic films.

Kyle:

But by and large, we're just seeing a watering down of cinema.

Kyle:

And so this is, you know,:

Kyle:

You know, this was just a reminder of what's possible.

Kyle:

You know, like we said, very little cgi.

Kyle:

The CGI is very minimal here.

Kyle:

You know, just visionary filmmaking.

Kyle:

The good use of a budget because we've seen $150 million films before and we've seen them die and just crash and burn, you know, so this was.

Kyle:

This, to me, every time I watch it is a reminder like this is possible.

Kyle:

Like, this can be done.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And.

Matthew:

And I.

Matthew:

And I don't consider Fury Road to be like a product of its time in the slightest.

Matthew:

I think it's like a.

Matthew:

It's an auteur vision that was carried out exactly how the.

Matthew:

The director wanted it to be carried out.

Matthew:

And I think it's going to stand the test of time as a.

Matthew:

As an important piece of cinema.

Matthew:

Not just action cinema, but just as a piece of cinema.

Kyle:

Yeah, man, totally.

Kyle:

Well, dude, this is fun.

Kyle:

We are we're almost done with our journey.

Kyle:

Here we have one left.

Kyle:

Here we have the Furiosa, which I've only seen once.

Kyle:

I'm gonna have to revisit it.

Kyle:

I don't even know if there's a lot of research out there to be had on it.

Matthew:

Yeah, I hope.

Matthew:

I hope that some poor bastard did not have to dedicate, you know, hours and hours of his life to try and research Furiosa.

Matthew:

I don't know.

Matthew:

We're just gonna do one podcast episode on it, and I feel a little bit a sympathy for us.

Kyle:

I'm feeling bad.

Kyle:

Hey, at least I really respect and like Anya Taylor, Joy, we can start out positive.

Kyle:

She's been in a lot of great movies.

Kyle:

I think she's, like, the hardest working woman in Hollywood right now.

Kyle:

Like, she keeps popping up in shows and movies, and she's done so.

Kyle:

Like, I loved her in the Northman, loved her in the Witch.

Kyle:

Like, I think she's fantastic.

Kyle:

So, you know, it's.

Kyle:

It'll be interesting to see how we.

Matthew:

We.

Kyle:

We judge her performance, as, you know, the cast that was molded here with.

Kyle:

With Charlize Theron as the adult Furiosa.

Kyle:

So it'll be interesting to see.

Matthew:

Very much so.

Kyle:

Well, dude, this is always fun.

Kyle:

I hope you have an amazing Thanksgiving.

Kyle:

I hope you didn't get the flu through our digital interface here.

Kyle:

And.

Kyle:

Yeah, man.

Kyle:

Thank you all.

Kyle:

Hope you all have a Thanksgiving.

Kyle:

We're thankful for you.

Kyle:

I'm Kyle.

Matthew:

And I'm Matthew.

Kyle:

All right, love y'all.

Kyle:

Bye.

Kyle:

Movie Wars.

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Movie Wars
A panel of standup comedians deliver deeply researched and thoughtful film analysis.
A panel of stand-up comedians blends humor with deep film analysis, using their unique ‘War Card’ system to grade movies across key categories. Each episode delivers thoughtful insights and spirited debate, offering a fresh, comedic take on film critique. New episode every Thursday!
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Kyle Castro