What is Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome about?
The entire Mad Max franchise is a series of allegories where two opposing aspects of human nature come into conflict. Beyond Thunderdome explores the relationship between art and commerce. It connects the idea of commerce with the cynical, selfish behavior of the people of Bartertown. Then ties the idea of the arts to the kids of the Lost Tribe and their youthful dreams of a better, grander tomorrow.
Cast
- Max Rockatansky – Mel Gibson
- Jedediah – Bruce Spence
- Jedediah Jr. – Adam Cockburn
- Pig Killer – Robert Grubb
- Savannah Nix – Helen Buday
- Mr. Skyfish – Mark Spain
- Gekko – Mark Kounnas
- Anna Goanna – Justine Clarke
- Scrooloose – Rod Zuanic
- Slake M’Thirst Tom Jennings
- Aunty Entity – Tina Turner
- The Collector – Frank Thring
- Master – Angelo Rossitto
- Blaster – Paul Larsson
- The Collector – Frank Thring
- Ironbar Bassey – Angry Anderson
- Written by – Terry Hayes | George Miller
- Directed by – George Miller | George Ogilvie
Art versus commerce
There’s a quote from Geroge Miller that I think helps explain the Mad Max franchise. “What’s really attractive with the storytelling—and I’m sure it’s why Westerns have been around so long—is that you can go into allegory. You can have fun with allegory and it all comes out of the architecture of the story.
The first Mad Max looked at what happens when the systems that provide order fail to contain the most chaotic parts of human nature. It externalized this through the conflict between the Main Force Patrol and Toecutter’s gang. The collapse of the justice system leads to the collapse of society as we know it. Max’s journey encapsulates all of that. He starts the film as a proper family man with a home and a job. He ends up as one of the terminal crazies.
The second Mad Max, The Road Warrior, picks up three years later and reverses the order-chaos dynamics from the original. Toecutter’s gang had been a minority. But Humungus and his scavengers represent how chaos now reigns. Contrasting them are the setters barricaded in the oil refinery. They embody how civilization and the better parts of humanity are barely holding on. So their escape serves as a metaphor for the idea that good still has a place in this world, that society as we knew it might find a way to thrive again.
Beyond Thunderdome starts 15 years after Road Warrior, which is 18 years after Mad Max. Bartertown isn’t perfect but it’s a marked improvement over what we saw in Road Warrior. An organized society has won out over the tribal anarchy of Toecutter and Humungus. Except this society is all about commerce. Transactional value trumps things like decency, kindness, compassion, etc. It’s a dehumanized place.
Of course, like in the previous films, there’s a counterpoint. Juxtaposing the soullessness of Bartertown is Planet Erf. Where Bartertown was dirty, gritty, and very machine-centric, Planet Erf is a literal oasis, verdant and vibrant. It’s full of innocent kids who tell stories, play games, and share resources. There’s an emphasis on art and community. That is the part of the human condition that Bartertown is missing.
So while The Road Warrior asked if human decency could still exist post-apocalypse, Beyond Thunderdome asks if art and culture can survive. Max keeps being the deciding factor in this struggle, tipping the scales for good to win out over bad.
Jedidiah and Jediadiah Jr. embody this shift. When the film begins, the father and son use their plane to rob Max. At the end, they use the plane to save the kids, Master, and Pig Killer from Aunty and fly everyone to Sydney.
Why it’s important for Beyond Thunderdome to end in Sydney
Lore-wise, it’s just cool to see what a major city looks like. The previous films had been in the Outback. So we didn’t know if things were just bad in the wilds or everywhere. When we see how destroyed and empty Sydney is, it hammers home just how bad things are.
Thematically, we talked about the dichotomy between Bartertown and Planet Erf. One embodied commerce. The other embodied art. But they were separate. When Jedidiah flies into Sydney, you have people from both places who will now start a new community in the ruins of what was one of the most successful cities in the entire world, a place that managed to balance business and culture. The Sydney Opera House is a great symbol for that.
So the larger implication isn’t just that “Yay, this group of good people survived.” It’s that there’s still a place for intellectualism, storytelling, and refinement. That people will still dream of doing more than just meeting basic needs and indulging in primal entertainments. They’ll want to learn, to build, to dream.
Was Jedidiah the Gyro Captain?
This is something that fans of the franchise debate. Road Warrior had the Gyro Captain character who flew an autogyro. Bruce Spence played the role. Bruce Spence also played Jedidiah. Who is also a pilot. So they must be the same character, right?
Nope. George Miller went on record and said it’s a different person. I actually read about this before watching the movie. So I went in expecting it to be confusing. But it seemed pretty straightforward to me. Jedidiah has a different look and vibe than Gyro Captain. And he and Max don’t recognize one another. Plus, we know that Gyro Captain led the caravan from Road Warrior up north and was their leader. So that he’d be mucking about Bartertown just doesn’t seem to fit.
Why cast Spence? It’s not uncommon for filmmakers to work with actors on multiple movies, especially for small roles like this. It was also the 1980s, before the collective scrutiny of the internet, so they probably didn’t think many people would notice or really dig into it all that much.
And Miller does have a penchant for callbacks. Road Warrior has a rig chase, while Thunderdome has the train chase, while Fury Road and Furiosa have more rig chases. Furiosa’s Octoboss uses an autogyro. There’s a lot of poetic repetition, these visual and narrative rhymes that occur across films. It’s like how Miller brought back Toecutter’s actor, Hugh Keays-Byrne, to play Immortan Joe in Fury Road.
The children are our future
In art, children almost always represent potential and the idea of the next generation. It’s no different here. Bartertown is full of adults who are selfish, conniving, and materialistic. Aunty and Master Blaster both dehumanize their underlings and control Bartertown and the underworld through fear and aggression. Meanwhile, the kids don’t fight with each other—the fight for one another. When Max says he needs all the water he can carry in order to rescue the ones lost in the wasteland, they all throw in their bottles. It’s heartwarming. It makes you think that if these kids grow up and maintain this same spirit that the world can be, will be, a better place.
Who was Captain Walker? Who were the kids?
So Miller gave a bit more backstory here. At some point, during the Pox-eclipse, Captain Walker tried to rescue a bunch of people by flying off with them in the Boeing 747. But emergency issues meant landing in the desert. The survivors found the oasis, aka the Crack in the Earth. At some point, Walker decided to go on an expedition and took a bunch of adults with him, promising they’d return. They never returned. Over time, other adults would do the same thing. Until just the children remained.
The kids were a mix of initial survivors (like Slake and Savannah) and those born in the oasis community to parents who would eventually wander off.
Why did the painting of Captain Walker look like Max?
Max was unconscious when he first came to the camp and the kids had a lot of time on their hands. They probably did the painting after finding him. Which is why it looks exactly like him, including having a monkey companion.
How much time is there between Thunderdome and Fury Road? How old is Max?
So there’s a whole story that happened right after Thunderdome that came out as a comic book as part of Fury Road’s release. It picks up right after the events of the film. Max ends up in Gas Town and tries to help a mom and daughter but both end up dead. He makes it out alive, with a brand new Interceptor. Fury Road happens sometime after that.
When Fury Road came out, Miller told Fandango: If you put a gun to my head, I’d say after Thunderdome, but it’s very loose. I can’t even work out the chronology of the first, second, and third, let alone the fourth thirty years later.
Max was around 23 in the first film. And Thunderdome was 18 years later. So minimum age would be around 41 in Fury Road. Which would fit the fact that Tom Hardy was about 37 when filming.
Some of the confusion around “when” comes from the fact that Miller has said Furiosa is set about 45 years after the collapse. Which makes it sound like 45 years after Mad Max. But we don’t know exactly when the collapse happened. Before Mad Max? Between Max and Road Warrior? Between Warrior and Thunderdome?
It also seems like he didn’t care all that much. So worrying about the dates probably isn’t a great use of time.
Why was it called a gulag?
So Max’s punishment for breaking the deal with Aunty is “Gulag”. Which ends up meaning that they send him on horseback into the wasteland. “Gulag” was a labor camp in the Soviet Union. The word was an acronym for the agency that managed the camp—Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagerey (the Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps). Similar to how in the United States we call the United States Department of Justice the DOJ. Or the Federal Bureau of Investigation the FBI.
In Thunderdome, the gulag isn’t a labor camp and there’s no group overseeing anything. So why call it that? I’d argue it’s supposed to indicate how some of these words from the pre-apocalyptic world persist but the meaning has changed. Someone remembered a gulag was a punishment but none of the details. So they called sending someone out into the wasteland a “gulag”.
How did the monkey find Max?
Plot! It’s one of those things where you just have to suspend your disbelief. What’s even more outrageous than the monkey finding Max is the fact that the monkey, carrying a water canteen, not only found Max but traveled the same distance that killed the horse.
What is Tomorrow-morrow land?
Just part of the stories the children had told each other. Especially because they had an idea that cities existed and that more advanced technology had been part of the world. So they dreamed of going to a place that was full of the promise of arts, culture, technology, etc.
Who was Byron Kennedy?
Byron was a good friend of George Miller. They went to the same university and were creative collaborators. He was the producer, cinematographer, and editor of Miller’s first film, a short called “Violence in the Cinema, Part 1”. They had a production company together called Kennedy Miller. Together they made Mad Max and The Road Warrior. But he passed away in a helicopter crash in 1983, at only 33 years old.
Miller said he made Thunderdome partially in order to stop feeling so sad.
