I'm a little put off by this talk of Furiosa having only 30 lines of dialog. Sounded a lot like there being no story all over again. I was hoping this flick would have all the story Fury Road didn't bother establishing.
shareIf anything, I think each of the MM films have woven more and more story and character development into what originally was just a lot of road battles and chases. Most would probably agree, The Road Warrior is by far the best film of the franchise, and it wasn't much more than one huge car chase. And Mel only had 16 lines of dialogue in the entire film.
But more story was built into Thunderdome, and more world-building. George Miller and the writers REALLY get very into the world-building and backstories of the characters, to excess. I read a book on the making of the 4 films (up to fury road), and each characer has a backstory and did weeks of workshops just learning who they are in the film and why...even if some of those characters have no dialogue at all.
In Fury Road, there was quite a bit of story....(much more so than The Road Warrior)....so, people need to decide if they just want another big car chase movie, or if they do indeed want more story, purpose, arc and world-building....because the latter is where George Miller has been going.
Road Warrior was a whole lot more than a huge car chase - it was the next installment in the story of the eponymous character, and flawlessly executed at that. The fact that Mel Gibson only has 16 lines of dialogue in it only highlights the sheer genius of the script.
Consider the opening scene, when after dispatching two of his pursuers and seeing himself rid of Wez, Max finds a music box mechanism in the bloated corpse of the truck driver. He winds it, its simplistic, tinny rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" in stark contrast to all the death and destruction around him, and he clearly reminisces. He remembers. He thinks back to better, happier times. He almost smiles... and then realizes what's happening. He's letting his guard down; he's almost allowing himself to feel. So right back up come his defenses, he stops winding and pockets it, carries on with rifling through anything the men he has just killed might have had that he could use, and drives on aimlessly as he's been doing every day of his life.
It's a phenomenal, brilliantly written character moment, with not a single word spoken or necessary; Road Warrior is full of similar scenes. The big truck chase doesn't happen until way into the second half of the film, as opposed to Fury Road, where it's actually the entirety of it.
It's funny I saw Fury Road twice in the theater and once at home and I can't tell you much about the storyline.
If I had to explain it to my niece I'd say the good guy is a captive until halfway through the movie, he somehow gets loose, teams up with some bald woman, turns the truck around, and takes out the bad guy with an oxygen mask on his face.
The only fun part of the movie is some skinny guy with white paint all over his body and he pours gasoline all over his body but unfortch never lights himself up.
Most of the story i'm looking for is on the Immortan Joe side of the fence, the establishment of the Citadel, and history of Bullettown and what not, why there's Breeders, what's going on with all them milkin' titties, how the hell did we end up with this army of War Boys. All that good stuff. Think i'm in for a lot of disappointment.
shareMiller is still adding pre-production storyline elements from Mad Max 3. Byron Kennedy drafted them up before he died in a helicopter crash. Miller has simply floundered without him.
shareGeorge Miller kept talking about this sweeping epic covering a lifespan so i'm expecting an Apocalyptic Lord of the Rings. But it looks like we're just getting a two more hours of crash em and bash em.
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