Mad Max: Fury Road - The Metacontextual Edition

Witness this!

Movie opens on the sounds of a high octane engine alongside a voice-over as credits roll...

furyroad_audience

Audience: Wait, wait... hold on a second... it says on the screen there that Mad Max's last name is "Rockatansky." For real?

Yep. That's canon.

furyroad_audience

Audience: Huh, I never knew that he even had a name beyond "Mad Max." Anyway, sorry to interrupt. Carry on.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: It was horrible, what happened... we called it "the eighties." There was a plague of aerobics and neon, and global nuclear war was a standard premise in movies because of the cold war, and that's when this movie franchise was born. Times have changed, but we've got the premise we've got. Anyway, I'm basically nuts, and I hear voices...

furyroad_melgibson

Mel Gibson: Hey, how come I couldn't play this role? I'm not too old! Especially since later on there's going to be a bunch of old women on motorcycles who do a pretty good job of fighting.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: We've been over this Mel. I'm nuts in a troubled-past-that-haunts-me way. You're actually nuts, in a homeless-racist-off-his-lithium way.

furyroad_melgibson

Mel Gibson: Aw, fuck you. Every part of you is... fucking fake... fucking fake... You are the most synthetic person... who the fuck are you?

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: I'm the inevitable supplantation of older actors by younger actors as franchises seek profit from new generations of audiences in the circle of capitalist life. Anyway, I hear some cars coming to chase me.

Suddenly Rockatansky is chased by people in cars, who pretty much capture him immediately.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Goddamn it. I'm all tied up, but these guys suck at tying knots, so I'm outta here!

Running down a corridor, he is suddenly confronted by ghosts from his past.

furyroad_littlegirl

Ghost Girl: Why didn't you save me?

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Who the fuck are you? That feral girl from the second movie?

furyroad_littlegirl

Ghost Girl: That was a boy, and you saved him.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: So... are you supposed to be my daughter? No, wait... in the first movie it was established I had a son...

furyroad_melgibson

Mel Gibson: Forget the girl! Save yourself! The franchise must continue if I've got even a chance on getting in on this action with a cameo or something!

Rockatansky makes it to a doorway, but it turns out it opens to a sheer drop. He almost manages to jump to some hook thingy for safety, but is pulled back in by his captors.

Cut to title card, and then we transition to a woman walking to a truck that's all black and spiky and shit.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Take note of my prosthetic hand. It won't have any real impact on anything, it's just here to do a mostly ineffectual job of distracting you a little from how crazy hot I am in the hope that you take me more seriously as a bad ass protagonist.

There is a large ceremony and gathering as the truck is prepared, and a freaky as fuck looking old man emerges to address the people from way up on a cliff side on a balcony that somewhat resembles Castle Greyskull.

furyroad_proletariat

Proletariat: Immortan Joe! Immortan Joe!

furyroad_audience

Audience: "Immortal Joe"?

furyroad_proletariat

Proletariat: Immortan Joe!

furyroad_audience

Audience: "El Mortenjo"?

furyroad_proletariat

Proletariat: Im-Mor-tan Joe!

furyroad_audience

Audience: "I'm Mort Ten Joe...?"

furyroad_proletariat

Proletariat: Ugh... Never mind.

furyroad_imortenjoe

Something-Something-Joe: All hail me! Because you have to admit it's pretty impressive how much I've achieved within the mere twenty years or so that it's been since the apocalypse, assuming the previous movies count and this isn't some kind of reboot. I mean, Rockatansky was already at least mid twenties in the first movie and now he looks mid thirties. As a character, he's fifty, tops. All the retro-fitted waterworks and everything must have started pretty much right after the last bomb dropped. I mean, do you think all this barbarian-diesel-punk aesthetic is easy? Carving a skull shaped balcony into solid rock on a sheer cliffside is a fucking garguantuan task just on its own. And don't even get me started on the ground work of building a culture that's motivated to do any of this in the first place. Anyway, enough about me. Have a little water.

furyroad_proletariat

Proletariat: Change we can believe in!

Something-Something-Joe pushes some valves that poor water on the desperate huddled masses. The water stops short of satisfying everyone, because this society works not that differently from ours.

furyroad_imortenjoe

Something-Something-Joe: Okay then, I thought I'd let you all know that I'm sending my best team, led by my top warrior, Feminista, to go on a supply run to the gas station.

Feminista drives the truck out into the desert, along with an escort of other cars that, like every vehicle in this movie, look like the evil version of Wacky Races.

Meanwhile, back at Castle Greyskull, obese women are being pumped for their breast milk. Something-Something-Joe hands a bottle of milk to his muscle bound son.

furyroad_sonofjoe

Son Of Joe: Surely the amount of milk made by humans is only a fraction of output compared to what it takes to keep them in good enough health to be producing it. Wouldn't it be far more efficient and sensible to just be eating whatever it is we're feeding them?

furyroad_imortenjoe

Something-Something-Joe: This isn't about what works, this is about what I like, and I like breast milk! Now drink!

furyroad_sonofjoe

Son Of Joe: Tastes like papaya.

furyroad_audience

Audience: Ew.

furyroad_littleperson

Little person who isn't Warwick Davis or Peter Dinklage: Hey, I'm watching Feminista with my telescope here, and it looks she's going rogue!

furyroad_imortenjoe

Something-Something-Joe: What the...? Why would she...? Oh! Shit! She took my women!

furyroad_milkwoman

Milk Woman: She didn't talk all your women...

furyroad_imortenjoe

Something-Something-Joe: She took the hot ones! The ones that matter!

An armada of cars, including one with the Kodo drummers and a dude with a guitar head out to intercept Feminista.

furyroad_nux

Nux: Hey! You guys can't go do war without me!

furyroad_notnux

Not Nux: Dude, you're in the middle of a blood transfusion... or something? I don't really know the medical premise is here, like why a blood transfusion would help your cancer or whatever is wrong with you, but it doesn't matter. Bottom line, you're connected to the main character by some kind of blood line so you're not eligible to come.

furyroad_nux

Nux: How about I just strap him on to the front of my car?

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: But if I'm your blood repository, why would you put me in a position of the most danger? Isn't that needlessly inviting the risk of you not having the blood you need to do your thing?

furyroad_nux

Nux: Look, for story purposes, the point is that for the entire first act you're just a resource being carried around like so much luggage. I could have stuffed you in the trunk and achieved the same narrative goals. But come on, this is a way more awesome way of going about it.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Ugh. Fine. But only if I get to wear a metal face mask thing, kind of like what I wore when I was Bane in Dark Knight Rising. I'm thinking I might make that my thing.

Rockatansky is strapped to the front of a car that Nux is driving, and they head out to do a crazy car chase battle that also involves a gang of spiky hedgehog looking cars. It's pretty sweet. Seriously, go watch the movie.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Okay, almost got rid of everyone, now for my last move, which is to rely on the weather. According to... uh... a forecast I knew about maybe, there's a category 5 deus ex machina blowing in from the east, so I'm heading straight to it!

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: What the hell is happening? Is this is a sandstorm? A firestorm? A black hole? Why are some cars getting carried off by the wind and not others?

furyroad_audience

Audience: Who cares? We thought we were pretty jaded to gratuitous special effects by now, but this is pretty fucking awesome!

Cars are blown around in the tornado-sand-storm-lightning-vortex-whatever, and after many near death situations, Rockatansky is knocked free from the car he's on. Fade to black.

Open on a pile of sand, which turns out to have Rockatansky underneath it.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: There is no fucking way any human would have survived all tha... oh, wait, I'm still alive. Alright then... Up to now my character has had just about no agency whatsoever, and that doesn't make for a good hero. Time to take my fate into my own hands. First, I'm going to reference maybe the most famous scene from the first movie by threatening to blow off a guy's limb to get out of some chains. Remember when my character told that one dude back in the first movie he'd have to saw through his own leg?

furyroad_melgibson

Mel Gibson: I remember. I made the character a bad ass anti-hero before that was a thing.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Ugh, fuck of Mel. The writers made the character an anti-hero.

furyroad_melgibson

Mel Gibson: Well, your gun didn't work, so who's the loser now?

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: It was a comedic misdirect, you idiot. Anyway, I'm still connected by a chain to this butoh dancer looking dude. Hmmm... oh, hey, that truck is over there, so I'll drag this guy over there with me, see what's up.

Rockatansky sneaks up on the truck and after coming around to the other side sees what appears to be a Victoria's Secret runway show.

furyroad_babes

Crazy Hot Babes: Oh, hey there. We're the MacGuffin.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: You're all super hot, but you're way down on Maslow's Hierarchy of needs right now. Get me some water.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Sure, have a little... psych!

Feminista tackles Rockatansky, and Nux wakes up, and an awesome fight happens involving Nux, a chain, a gun hidden under the truck, the Victoria's Secret models, and all sorts of jazz.

furyroad_audience

Audience: Nice.

Rockatansky prevails.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Okay, I've finally cut the chain to Nux, so now I'm taking your truck and I'm outta here. The bad guys chasing us have not only managed to find us despite the fact that we could be anywhere in the desert after that storm, they've picked up reinforcements, so fuck all of this. Check ya later, suckers.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: My truck won't go anywhere without me starting it with the secret code. Because convenience.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Ugh, fine. All the hotties in the back then.

furyroad_blondhair

Blond Hair: Wait, I need to kick this chastity belt first.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Doesn't it go without mention that your characters would resent having to wear chastity belts?

furyroad_georgemiller

George Miller: I didn't write this movie with "subtlety" in mind.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Enough chit-chat, we've got to get going. I've got a thing arranged with some biker dudes in a canyon a little ways from here, and then after that, we can go to the green zone.

They drive to a really narrow canyon, and there are biker dudes everywhere. Feminista gets out of the truck to talk to them.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Alright, I brought the fuel in exchange for you blowing up the rocky gateway thing behind me so that the people chasing me can't get me.

furyroad_canyonbiker

Canyon biker: Hey, you said you'd only be chased by some dudes, but actually you're being chased by a lot of dudes.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Does that change things?

furyroad_canyonbiker

Canyon biker: Uh, Maybe? I don't know. I mean, seems like if you're going to be a hassle for us we could, like, just let those dudes chasing you keep chasing you and probably eventually kill you.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Well, I'm not giving you the oil I promised you anyway! It was all a trick or something. We're out of here!

furyroad_canyonbiker

Canyon biker: Hey, fuck you! Now I definitely should just let the people chasing you just run you down and kill you.

Just before Something-Something-Joe's armada can enter the canyon, an explosion blows up some overhanging rocks so that the passage is blocked.

furyroad_canyonbiker

Canyon biker: What the...? Why the fuck did we do that? How is that even remotely in our interest?

furyroad_georgemiller

George Miller: Who knows, man.

Something-Something-Joe manages to get his car through, because if there's no chase, there's no movie.

furyroad_nux

Nux: Also, I've been hiding on the back of the truck, so now I'm going to come up to the front and try and kill Feminista!

furyroad_babes

Crazy Hot Babes: No you're not! And we're going to not only fight you, we're going to get into a weird argument about life and society, using awkward catch phrases we've made up. Basically our standpoint is that you're delusional for believing in Something-Something-Joe.

furyroad_nux

Nux: What? Something-Something-Joe is good! You should give up and come back!

furyroad_redhair

Red Hair: Fuck that. It's people like you that make everything suck!

furyroad_nux

Nux: We're not to blame!

furyroad_blondhair

Blond Hair: Then who killed the world?!

furyroad_melgibson

Mel Gibson: The Jews.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Mel, Shut the fuck up. This movie almost didn't get made because of you.

In amongst a lot more chasing and shit blowing up, Nux gets a ride from Something-Something-Joe back to the truck.

furyroad_nux

Nux: Give me a gun! I'll jump on the truck and shoot Feminista!

furyroad_imortenjoe

Something-Something-Joe: Alright, here's a gun. Now don't fuck this up.

Nux immediately fucks up.

furyroad_nux

Nux: Damn it! I dropped the gun. Now I'm a failure in the eyes of my demagog leader, so I think I'm going to sulk my way into a character change in the back of the truck where no one can see me.

furyroad_imortenjoe

Something-Something-Joe: Ugh, if you want something done right... I'll just shoot Feminista myself.

furyroad_preggers

Preggers: Not if I get out on the side of the truck and be a human shield! You won't shoot me because I'm carrying your baby.

furyroad_imortenjoe

Something-Something-Joe: You're right, I won't. Hey! Look out for that rock!

furyroad_preggers

Preggers: Nice try. As if I'd fall...

The truck sideswipes a rock, and it looks like Preggers is killed instantly.

furyroad_preggers

Preggers: Psych! I'm still alive!

furyroad_audience

Audience: Aw, come on. How'd she survive that? I mean, we were kind of suspecting her character would make it to the end anyway, but...

A part of the truck breaks off and Preggers falls to the ground where she is immediately run over by Something-Something-Joe.

furyroad_preggers

Preggers: Double psych! I'm for real dead now. Also my baby.

furyroad_audience

Audience: Oh, shit! Okay, you got us on that one.

Something-Something-Joe gives up for the moment because he's bummed out about running over his prize sugar baby. Feminista and the gang drive off into the night.

Later, while driving across a dark and muddy landscape, Red Hair goes to the back of the truck and finds Nux laying there.

furyroad_redhair

Red Hair: What are you doing back here?

furyroad_nux

Nux: I got dizzy and needed to lie down.

furyroad_redhair

Red Hair: Dizzy?

furyroad_nux

Nux: From the speed at which my character's motivations are doing a complete 180 degree turn.

furyroad_redhair

Red Hair: Cool. Hey, have you noticed I'm pretty?

furyroad_nux

Nux: That settles it. I'm nice now.

The truck gets stuck in some mud, and for some reason most of the bad guys are hanging back while a single car in unlimited ammo mode approaches, shooting all over the place.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: I got this.

Rockatansky leaves, there's an explosion off in the distance, and then he comes back.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Okay, I blew them up. We're all good.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: You blew them up off screen? In a movie that exists purely to sell action sequences?

furyroad_nux

Nux: It's supposed to be evocative of how bad ass he is...?

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: ... and not at all because no one could figure out how exactly I would take on a moving car defended by automatic weapons in the dark on flat ground with no features to use to my advantage.

Cut to the next morning where they come across a naked woman screaming for help in a tower.

furyroad_bait

Naked tower chick: Help! Help!

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: She's bait. It's a trap.

furyroad_redhair

Red Hair: Wait, so, she's always sitting up there at the top of a tower, completely exposed in the baking desert sun, screaming her head off, just on the off chance that someone comes by?

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Hmm... now it makes sense why my people have mostly died out.

Feminista stops the truck and gets out

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Yo, people hiding out in the hills around us! I'm with you! I am the daughter of the person who was the tribe of the thing with the mother of the other person or whoever and the all the other untrackable references to people not in this movie.

furyroad_hellsgranny1

Hell's Granny: She's cool everybody, her story checks out.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Cool. So, where's all the parks and farmland and stuff?

furyroad_hellsgranny2

Other Hell's Granny: You mean that muddy wasteland you drove through last night?

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: What? How did the green zone get all fucked up?

furyroad_hellsgranny3

Another Hell's Granny: It's not clear, really, but I think we can just gloss over that. In this post apocalyptic hellscape it's not hard to imagine it could all just go to shit for whatever reason.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Well, fuck, there go all my plans. Pretty much the end of the movie as far as I'm concerned. I guess maybe we should just chill for the night, and then tomorrow we can take off. Like, just drive away, to nowhere in particular.

furyroad_hellsgranny1

Hell's Granny: What else would we do?

furyroad_redhair

Red Hair: I certainly can't think of any other options.

With nothing much else to do, they camp out at night and look at the stars. They watch a satellite move through the sky.

furyroad_blondhair

Blond Hair: They say the satellites used to transmit "shows..."

furyroad_hellsgranny1

Hell's Granny: Oh yeah, there was Game of Thrones, and Walking Dead, and Community and..

furyroad_blondhair

Blond Hair: What? What the fuck are those?

furyroad_hellsgranny1

Hell's Granny: Shows. Weren't we talking about shows?

furyroad_blondhair

Blond Hair: How do you know so much about them?

furyroad_hellsgranny1

Hell's Granny: According to any discernible timeline from the previous movies, and Rockatansky's age, I would have been late thirties or so when the apocalypse happened, so I would have grown up on shows. Most of us here would have. The real question is, how are you so clueless about them?

furyroad_blondhair

Blond Hair: Oh. I guess satellites aren't so mysterious then.

furyroad_hellsgranny1

Hell's Granny: Nope.

Next day, they are biking to nowhere in particular when Rockatansky stops them.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Hey, maybe it's in your feminine nature to avoid conflict or something, but let me mansplain the option of going back to Castle Greyskull and retaking it.

furyroad_hellsgranny2

Other Hell's Granny: Listen to the man. He's right. We could do it if we manage to trap all those dudes in the canyon or something like that.

furyroad_redhair

Red Hair: I can't believe we didn't even mention the option before! It's as if it were completely inconveivable to us.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: I suppose I could have come up with the idea myself, thus depicting the women as having that much more agency, and that could have been done without sacrificing anything of the narrative structure, but that might be going too far. Women do a lot in this film, but really we should have a man provide the key moment of decision making.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Glad I could help.

They head back to Castle Greyskull, and are intercepted along the way by Something-Something-Joe and his armada of cars. Much fighting that is awesome to watch and pointless to describe in text ensues.

Anyway, Rockatansky and the gang prevail. Something-Something-Joe gets his face ripped off and all the bad guys get blown up real good.

furyroad_redhair

Red Hair: Hey, don't just gloss over the fact that Nux sacrificed himself all heroically and shit.

Yeah, he went out like a champ. All the Hell's Grannies died being pretty heroic as well. All the hot chicks survive though.

furyroad_redhair

Red Hair: Funny how that works.

Feminista is badly injured, and as she convalesces in the back of the truck, Rockatansky uses this moment of calm to talk to her.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: My name... is Max.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Sorry... what?

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: My name. It's Max.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: ...

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: ...

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: ... and?

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: I thought it was important...?

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Is this supposed to be a moment between us?

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: ... uh... yes? Maybe? If I'm being honest, I'm also unclear.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Yeah. I don't want to be rude or anything, but I feel like I kind of have my own thing going on right now. You know, being almost dead and everything.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Yeah. Sorry. Now I just feel awkward.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Yeah.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Let's just cut to the next scene.

They arrive back at Castle Greyskull. Everybody gathers for their arrival. There's no indication that these people have anything else do to, like leisure activities or productive labour. There don't even seem to be dwellings anywhere. Maybe they live in caves? Anyway, everyone crowds around Rockatansky and Feminista.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: So, if you could all, like, drop the entire cult of personality built around Something-Something-Joe just as easily as Nux did so that we can wrap this movie up without any questions about how we can just assume power, that'd be swell. I mean, we're all a bit exhausted from the last two hours of action, so we're not really up for another protacted battle scene to capture Castle Greyskull.

furyroad_proletariat

Proletariat: Sure.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Sweet. Thanks.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Okay, looks like everything is sorted here, so, I'll be on my way. Just going to give you a knowing nod and be gone.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Just before you go, I want to point out that you're basically a hero to the only half dozen hot women on planet earth. And they're like, actually hot, in a world where the baseline standard for hot is usually "only partially disfigured from radioactive syphilis." Seems kind of a missed opportunity to just walk away from that.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Still, I'll check ya later.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Okay... but... also, just saying, you and I also may have a thing. I'm not making any promises, but, you know, I see you as my only equal in this realm of idiots. And even a severed arm doesn't stop me being Charlize-Theron-level-uber-hot. Plus, I get bonus hot-points for being one of the few genuinely badass female movie characters to come around in a long time.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Yup, that is true.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: We also have an infrastructure with water, crops, the beginnings of possibly some kind of democratic society, defenses... you know, shit that makes life livable, and not a desert wasteland full of death and anguish.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: I hear what you're saying. I really do.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Also, you don't have a car. I mean, ordinarily I'd let you have one of ours, but, you did kind of help me blow up almost every single car we even know about, so all we have left are the handful of broken down shitty ones that we're going to need for defense.

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: You are a wealth of solid information and convincing arguments for staying.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: So you'll stay?

furyroad_tomhardy

Rockatansky: Nope. Got me some sequels to find. You can't build a franchise out of love, stability, and community building.

furyroad_charlizetheron

Feminista: Alrighty then. Good luck out there.

furyroad_melgibson

Mel Gibson: Hey, this movie was a bit too good! It's like you don't even need me anymore. Fuck that! Pay attention to me, goddamn it! I've got things to say about women too! Witness me!

furyroad_audience

Audience: Fuck off, Mel.