MovieChat Forums > Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Discussion > Did anyone else feel bad for Aunty Entit...

Did anyone else feel bad for Aunty Entity? (spoilers)

posted 15 years ago by invisigothx11
26 replies | jump to latest

Sure, she was despotic, but she really did something great. There was a nuclear apocalypse, and all the survivors were left with was chaos, broken technology, and violent marauders in a dog-eat-dog world. You saw how in Mad Max 2 it was basically survival of the fittest.

But Aunty Entity established a freakin CITY in the middle of the dessert. She established law and orde and an economic system again, and got the town powered on new technology. Sure the laws were harsh and sometimes capricious, but people didn't just go around killing people anymore. And if they didn't break the laws (like Pig Killer), it seems like her citizens were pretty content and happy. She basically restarted society.

I thought it was reasonable that she wanted to take Blaster out. Maybe it was wrong to kill a tard, but Master Blaster was really capricious and unreasonable. The midget was shutting off electricity whenever he felt like it, and basically holding the entire city hostage to his whims because only he knew how to work the technology.

So in the end, when Max and the kids break in and destroy the entire city (probably causing some deaths of innocent citizens), I didn't see the point. Aunty Entity wasn't perfect, but she was providing a valuable service to the survivors of an apocalypse--a place to live, with electricity, food, a market, entertainment... a new society. And Max and his friends destroyed it for everyone.

Anyway, why were they going into Bartertown anyway?

[–] biolumen 15 years ago

I didn't see the point.

They re-entered Bartertown to rescue the children that went astray. Max and the kids didn't go out of their way to destroy what she had built. It basically boiled down to a 'them or us' situation, and the midget was grabbed because 'he's got the knowing of a lot of things' that would help them survive, not because his loss to the town would cause its demise.

Yeah, civilization may have been set back by the destruction at the end. The filmmakers encapsulate that disappointment in the dejected face of 'The Collector' character (Frank Thring).

[–] BuffaloWilder 15 years ago

I feel like citing again that there's quite a bit missing from the latter half of the film - in particular a stronger impetus to head to Bartertown after being stranded in the desert.

Death of a character, or two. All that jazz. You can find footage in the music video for Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero."

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[–] monicamercedesah 15 years ago

I see your point ...and I agree..

[–] dgiomeusoc 15 years ago

When Max rescued the kids in the desert, that was all of them. None had gone on to Bartertown. They see Bartertown in the distance, and Max says that it's their only chance. That's why they went there; they didn't have enough water to make it back to their old home. As for destroying the city, yeah, that wasn't the best thing to do. Bartertown may have been rough, but no one was forcing people to live there. But when making their escape, by then it was self-defense and they did what they had to do.

"I'll see you on the road!"

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[–] SpiltPersonality 15 years ago

Yes, I'm always amazed that we feel the ability to judge a society from the safety of our comfortable sofa.

Most people today in our society would think that someone being shot in the head for stealing a leg of lamb would be a bit excessive, but that's exactly what would happen in a society that was just being held together.

SpiltPersonality

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[–] sigmundfraud1017 15 years ago

Who run bartertown?

THIS THREAD RUN BARTERTOWN!!!!

[–] amoore-2 15 years ago

Yes- but what a swan song "You're quite the player Raggedy Man. Goodbye soldier". She understood her place in the world and Max's (even if he didn't).

And at the end of the day, you have to remember that she was a despot who manipulated her own rules to get what she wanted (gaming Max to fight Blaster).

[–] hellblazer-1 15 years ago

I actually agree with you. Watching the film again, doesn't it occur to anyone else how morally dubious the whole film is?

With the exception of Nix and the children, who are the "heroes" we are meant to be rooting for?

- Max, the hero from the two previous films but he "broke the deal" in Bartertown and had to "face the wheel". The law is the law and he broke it.

- Pig Killer, in a town of very dodgy people, he was still singled out for his crime and we only have his word that what he did was altruistic.

- Gyro Captain, his first act is to attack and rob Max.

- Master, a nasty despot who held Bartertown to ransom and frequently held Aunty Entity to ridicule but we are meant to feel sorry for him because without Blaster, he's just a dwarf. Aunty built the town and probably took Master in and gave him a cushy position in her administration and he abused her trust and went in for a power grab.

Apart from the deal with Max, did Aunty Entity do anything criminal? Or her guards like Ironbar? I don't even think she wanted Blaster's murder.

At the end of the film, after Bartertown has been disabled, Max leaves a bunch of PRE-PUBESCENT CHILDREN with three VERY DODGY OLD MEN. We see babies when Savannah Nix is telling her story - WHO'S THE PAEDO?

[–] zozogogo 15 years ago

Well we're supposed to come away from it all thinking Bartertown is the remnants of old world that lead to destruction while the children and their way (As shown at the end of the movie) represented a second chance for humanity to get it right. So destroying Bartertown is supposed to be seen as a good thing.

In all reality Max and co. just screwed up the lives for a large amount of people; though chances are Bartertown would/will just rebuild sans electricity and fuel, making it a more wild west town than ever.

[–] BuffaloWilder 15 years ago

It's never really laid out as simply in the film, I don't think - indeed, the children's oasis seems just as much at fault morally as Bartertown, being rooted in perpetual static myth, and so on; the point of the end is that a more permanent solution is borne out of these two disparate halves.

What's always intrigued me is how long the epilogue scene takes place after Max gives himself up to Entity and co., in the desert. Everyone looks a fair bit older.

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[–] jefgg 12 years ago

I felt bad for Tina Turner because she had a really bad boob job. I hate her annoying fake English accent.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] col547 12 years ago

No.I was totally pissed off that she didn't die after what she did to Max.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] jefgg 12 years ago

Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock in Tennessee and was raised there. In the '80s she started speaking with some kind of European accent. She did spend a lot of time there. But you don't usually pick up an accent in your 40s.

Her boobs may have looked okay in "Thunderdome", but they were definitely falsies.

[–] WeJamEcono 12 years ago

I agree with this. Could you explain Aunt Entity's final line? "Ain't we a pair." Could never understood why she said that.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] SteveResin 12 years ago

I always saw Bartertown as a portent, a warning if you like. In a perfect world Master & Aunty should have shared the duty of running the town, but both wanted ultimate power and were prepared to kill for it. Power corrupts and it had become a small reflection of the world pre-apocalypse.

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Duty Now For The Future