The devolution of Mad Max

'Mad Max 2' was a startlingly innovative piece of visual story telling. It adhered to Hemingway's 'Iceberg theory' in that much of the backstory was implied or engaged the individual viewer's imagination, rather then being tediously spelled out and I think you can make a case that the narrative was essentially 'The old man and the sea'. The vehicles which are so important to the story were somewhat believable - they looked like they could function and be the product of a society that had regressed to the extent depicted and likewise the villains were surreal but somewhat plausible. And in the pre-CGI age when you could still break a few stuntmen the chase scenes have a visceral realism that is unmatched.

When I watched 'Fury Road' it referenced many of things that made MM2 amazing, whilst introducing some of the elements that have come to inform modern films and make them so very terrible. The villains were ridiculously over blown and cartoonish to the point of having little internal plausibility. The same with the vehicles - apparently some were almost impossible for the stunt drivers to operate effectively and this was obvious just by looking at them. Would a resource scarce dystopian society have a vast top heavy vehicle covered in speakers with a guy playing guitar, and other such vehicles that would struggle to function on desert landscapes? Like so many elements of modern films this is over blown and ridiculous just for the sake of it. Good films - including sci fi - have an internal plausibility. 'Immorten Joe's quasi-religious rule also fails the internal plausibility test on so many levels.......firstly his failing, tumour covered body is obviously not immortal to anyone who is anywhere near him and for an ex military man his tactical decision making is absurdly bad......'let's take all of our forces out into the desert then sit around and wait for them to double back and......' It goes on......

And then there's the mish-mash of plot devices which suggest the writers were trying to cater to everyone......a group of much older women have implausibly survived in a world where even Max struggles.......there is a sudden romantic sub plot.......the obligatory huge final chase which only really happens because of Joe's inept tactics......a strong female character who threatens to over shadow Max who is meant to be the lead.......'Furiosa' is a great character but there is an ambivalence about the centrality of the lead which of course leads to a discussion of the new 'Mad Max' film which er.......doesn't even have him in it. Time and again characters do things which don't make much internal sense just for the sake of progressing the narrative towards a particular scene.......it is like there is a series of boxes that must be ticked and the purpose of the narrative is to tick these, rather than tell a compelling, internally consistent and plausible story.

Then there's the amateurish CGI.

I thought it was terrible rubbish and I gather the four other men in the cinema thought the same.

And now there's 'Furiosa'.......a prequel to a spinoff that is branded as a 'Mad Max' film but he isn't in it.

Can Hollywood please pay me millions of dollars to explain why this is a flop? Audiences are sick of the endless milking of earlier successes and the bait and swap tactics of trying to exploit an existing franchise whilst presenting a completely different character(s) and plot emphasis. The irony is that if they had the courage to present this as a stand alone film in its own right without trying to leverage off the good will of the Mad Max films - a gutsy young woman fighting to survive in a dystopian and apocalyptic future - it may well have done a lot better.

Franchises like 'Star Wars' and 'Marvel' have all but died due to this terrible laziness - leveraging off earlier successes; vacuous writing; shallow character development that relies upon overblown and cartoonish elements; lack of internal plausibility; stupid looking special effects.....and time and again the major studios scream 'diversity!' at the fan base when they don't dutifully support this rubbish as though that alone should be enough. 'Star Trek' did diversity in the 1960's.....films like 'Alien' and 'Terminator' had gutsy female leads.....but they also had amazing story telling, strong internal plausibility and great characterisations.

Pay me millions Hollywood and I will fix your problems. I will hire writers who love their craft and the subject matter. Let's have a return to great story telling, rather than this terrible laziness and fan blaming.