So says The Humungus. Correction, The LORD Humungus. But let’s backtrack.
Gather ’round, my friends, and let me tell you about the year 1981. Computers? Pfft. Hardly anyone owned them. But automobiles? Those we had in abundance, all running on “the black fuel.” The guzzoline. The world had weathered two major OPEC-related energy crises in the previous decade, and any Middle East conflict was viewed as a potential flashpoint for World War III. Suppose everything had gone up in a whirlwind of nuclear fire? Enter Max Rockatansky, aka Mad Max.
We had already seen dystopian cinema, from classics such as Planet of the Apes to cult movies like Soylent Green and Damnation Alley. But no film was as influential on the look and feel of post-apocalyptic science fiction as The Road Warrior, inspiring everything from cheap Hollywood knockoffs (Steel Dawn, Cyborg) to, um, expensive Hollywood knockoffs (Waterworld) to groundbreaking computer games (Wasteland) (1). Whenever you see cannibalized cars, mohawked modern barbarians, and retrofitted weapons, you’re inhabiting a world first conceptualized by director George Miller. Even 2Pac was along for the ride a decade later with the video for “California Love.” (2)
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The Road Warrior was officially known as Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior in Australia, but since Mad Max was largely ignored by the States (3), the name of the film was changed for American distribution, with a three-minute opening narration that neatly summed up the state of the globe and Max’s (Mel Gibson) backstory:
Energy Crisis —> World War 3 —> Societal Collapse —> Max’s descent into desolation after losing his wife and infant son to a marauding biker gang. Boom. Simple and to the point (4). The film’s plot? Ditto. Like a western gunslinger riding in to save a tormented rancher, Max is a scavenger who happens upon a besieged oil-powered compound in the Australian outback. The peaceful settlers stand no chance in open combat against the savage motorized gang commanded by Lord Humungus (5). Escaping without fuel isn’t an option, and while the settlers possess an oil tanker, they don’t have a working rig capable of hauling it. Can a shell-shocked Max find a rig, run the gauntlet, and lead them out of the desert to safety? Cue up the mayhem, complete with a climactic vehicular battle that spans the final 20 minutes of the film.
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I am generally not an action movie guy. I am definitely not a car guy (6). So. . . what’s the appeal here? Why do I hold this film in such high esteem? 1) The gritty realism.
There is nothing fantastical about The Road Warrior. Nothing is pristine. Nothing is in abundance. Anything remotely valuable is in extremely short supply, from ammunition (7), to provisions (Max feasts on canned dog food), to the guzzoline. Outside the compound, the most prized spoils from defeated combatants aren’t possessions, but simply the tanks of gas from their vehicles.
Contrast this environment with that of 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which was set in a time far after societal collapse, and featured a bizarre landscape that would seem highly improbable in a world ravaged by war. Exhibit A: the flame-throwing electric guitar. Try and imagine Max’s tanker with this gentleman aboard during the final chase — the incongruity would jolt you out of the whole story. 2) The mystery. Outside of the opening voiceover, The Road Warrior doesn’t impart any clear exposition. The viewer may know a bit about Max’s background on the Main Force Patrol (Australia’s highway police) if they watched the first movie, but we can merely infer about the rest of the principal players. Much like audiences speculated about Darth Vader — what happened to The Humungus, and what’s under his mask? How did the oil refinery and compound come to be? What’s the backstory of the Gyrocaptain, an oddball sort that Max encounters during his travels? Ditto with the Feral Kid, a child at the compound who dresses in furs and growls in lieu of language? 3) The visuals, sense of space, and stunts.
Computers have been an incredible boon to filmmaking in general. In years gone by, one had to have access to expensive equipment to cut a film, with the process being rather painstaking to boot (8). But digital editors have also led to what some have deemed “Chaos Cinema” — an explosion in the number of cuts, leading to disorientation and a lack of spatial awareness in action scenes (9).
There’s a lot going on in the two pivotal chase sequences in The Road Warrior, with the oil tanker beset on all sides by enemy vehicles as well as marauders on top of the truck during the final act. But via a mix of longer takes and overhead shots, it’s clear at all times where all the principal players are.
And those players risked life and limb, with multiple broken bones (and worse) resulting from motorcycle mishaps during the carnage. About the intensity of the action, Roger Ebert remarked, “I thought I was looking at shots that were not faked, in which people had to have been killed.” One stunt performer was even instructed not to eat for 12 hours before a particular shot… just in case they needed to perform emergency abdominal surgery. Lordy. One final note: the colors. Much credit is due to Miller for largely eschewing CGI in Fury Road, but… well, the word on the street is that he originally wanted to show the film in black-and-white, but the studio refused. So instead, he cranked up the saturation to inhuman levels. Was it visually impressive? For sure. But run a side-by-side comparison with The Road Warrior. Which feels more authentic? Eventually, Miller did release his original vision as Fury Road: Black and Chrome. Way more gripping, though there still was the matter of that guitar player…
Footnotes
(1) Chronicling the genius of Wasteland (one of the half-dozen best games for the Commodore 64) would require an essay in its own right. Its unofficial PC successor, Fallout, eventually circled around to the screen via today’s Amazon television series.
(2) Technically, the video referenced the next Mad Max picture, Beyond Thunderdome, but I’m including it under the Road Warrior umbrella.
(3) Charitably, the original Mad Max was a rather uneven B-movie that was inelegantly dubbed upon arrival to our shores. The best things about the film were that A) it put Mel Gibson on the map; and B) its success in Australia meant that Miller would be given a budget big enough to see his vision properly executed on screen.
(4) A phrase that would also describe Max’s taciturn nature. The Road Warrior was rather notable for “fewest lines of dialogue by a film’s lead,” and rivaled only by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator during the 1980s. (5) The Humungus was played by Swedish bodybuilder and former Olympic-class powerlifter Kjell Nilsson, who won the part in just a five-minute meeting with Miller. With his intimidating physique, distinctive accent, and a hockey mask disguising (but still hinting at) serious Body Horror, he’s basically a combo of Conan and Darth Vader.
(6) A brief history of my experience with driving-related cinema/television: Hated Baby Driver. Loved Drive. . . although that wasn’t really a car-centric film, so much so that it even famously attracted a lawsuit from a lady who claimed the trailer constituted deceptive advertising. I’ve managed to miss the entire Fast & Furious franchise, although I’ll stipulate that the Bill Simmons/Adam Carolla discussion of Fast Five is comedic genius that requires zero knowledge/viewing of said picture. Knight Rider? OK, KITT did appeal to Young Kevin, but it was basically a SuperCar, with the personality of a snarky British butler to boot.
(7) Max begins the film with an empty shotgun which is still fearsome enough to dissuade trouble, while The Humungus wields a scoped .44 Magnum that he loads with a near-sacred reverence. The other members of his gang don’t have firearms at all — they brandish crossbows and air-compressed arrow guns.
(8) As someone who’s assembled documentary shorts via Ye Olde Computer, I’m pretty sure that having to snip/cut/splice together hundreds of sections of physical film would send me into a fetal position in short order.
(9) For more information, head here for a written write-up, and here for the start of the original video essay.