boyajian@akov68.DEC (03/26/84)
While I agree with the point that Nick Nicoll was making about "Desola- tion Opera" movies, I object to his simply tossing off THE ROAD WARRIOR as just a bigger budget remake of MAD MAX. Superficially, that seems to be the case, but thematically, they are complete opposites. In MAD MAX, our hero is a caring human being, who while believing that his job of "serving and protecting" is an important one, also is becoming dis- illusioned with the restraints that the police have to work under (a common vigilante theme), especially when his best friend on the force is burned almost to death after a member of the biker gang is released on a technicality. In addition, he seems to have a growing distaste for the not-by-the-book practices of many of the police, to the point where he tells his supervisor something on the order of, "The only difference between us and them is that we're wearing badges." By the end of the film, he has lost everything that he cares about in the world, his best friend, his wife, and his son. As a result, he also loses his humanity. In THE ROAD WARRIOR, we see Max as just another desert rat, roaming the roads searching for food and petrol, scavenging it from wrecks, or stealing it from others. Human life means nothing to him these days; notice how he treats the Gyro Captain. Whoever has the gold makes the rules, Might makes right, and all that. What his travails in this film do is to show him that alone, he *is* just another scavenger, and that human life and the need to strive for some- thing better is worthwhile. He finds that he needs others just as others need him, and this very fact helps him regain the humanity that he lost in the first film. This is a common theme in literature --- the losing of humanity (or faith or whatever other positive values) and the regaining of same through dramatic conflict. Usually this is done all in one story, whereas with Max, it's done in two. Perhaps instead of a remake of MAD MAX, THE ROAD WARRIOR is really the completion of MAD MAX. I recall a couple of interviews with George Miller in which he said that he wouldn't do a third Mad Max film just for the sake of doing another one, but only if he had a theme that expanded the character to the next step (whatever that might be). The fact that he is supposedly doing a third film presumably means that he's found such a theme, and if he has, I look forward to that film more than just about any other. While it may sound pretentious to say so, I have to agree with the assessment that Mad Max is an epic character in the true sense of the term. Put in a way perhaps more familiar to SF/Fantasy fans, I see Max as being yet anoth- er aspect of Moorcock's concept of The Eternal Champion, seen in terms of the society that he is part of --- the Road Warrior. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC Maynard) UUCP: (decvax!decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian) ARPA: (decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian@Shasta)