-Anonymous

Since 1979, Mad Max has been a subject of interest to audiences internationally. It was originally a response to the oil crisis in the 1970’s and was built on wide-spread panic, as most dystopian movies and novels tend to do. It is violent, and for such a depressing idea, it is very interesting. In the eighties, there were three movies: Mad Max, Mad Max: Road Warrior, and Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome. In 2015, Mad Max was revamped, and the most widely known film, Mad Max: Fury Road came out. Recently, a new installment, Mad Max: Furiosa hit movie theaters.

The movies are violent, bloody, and just overall not a situation anyone wants to find themselves in. It takes place in a future Australia, where trees and green plant life are no longer an option for sustaining all of the people in the desert wasteland. Water and gasoline are hoarded by motorcycle riding warlords, who the average person must submit to, or face an extremely gruesome death. 

The first trilogy is about a man named Max, played by Mel Gibson (booo) who is trying to uphold the last whisperings of the law, while biker gangs ravage the country. His wife and young son are murdered by said biker gangs, and he goes on a path of revenge, trying to end the scourge of the nation. He ends up in the last movie, as a gladiator who gets dropped into the desert and is rescued by a pack of feral orphans who he follows into the desert. Basically, it is all over the place, and the plot is as thin as spider silk. 

Fury Road (2015) however, is a much richer plot, and has depth to it. It follows a woman named Furiosa, who rescues a warlord’s five wives, and takes off on a high-speed chase through the desert. She meets a “war boy” (a man who paints himself in white paint and lives a life so that he can die in war, an honorable death) and an escaped captive, named Max. Yes, the same Max from earlier. This time, played by Tom Hardy.

The most recent movie, Furiosa, is one that I have not seen. From what I have heard, It is possibly the bloodiest, most violent installment, and it is not a fun watch. Furiosa gets taken from her mother, who dies brutally, and is thrust into the hands of the warlord Dementus. He tries to conquer the citadel, the home of Immortan Joe, the warlord from Fury Road. 

Regardless, the future in Mad Max is quite terrifying. Any sort of apocalypse is. The thing to do in an apocalypse is not to hide on your own, stuck in a bunker in no-where Idaho. It is to find community, to build sustainable energy sources, and find yourself a home within community. What can a doomsday prepper do if they find themselves with a broken leg and no doctor? What can a doomsday prepper do, when they have been alone so long that they don’t remember the sound of their voice? Prepping, while it seems like the answer, is really not. While a community can crash and burn during the pains of hunger, and the scarcity of clean water, they still have the capabilities to survive. One cannot build a life filled with sustainability, healthy food production, and safety, alone. It is simply not possible. Mad Max is the picture of selfishness, and lack of community. The biker gangs may be working together (which is why they have survived) but they could still share their bounty and keep people alive. I don’t see the world ending anytime soon, but learning to share may have to come long before the four horsemen arrive.