DIRECTED BY: George Miller

WRITTEN BY: Terry Hayes, George Miller

MEL GIBSON AS: ‘Mad’ Max Rockatansky

GENRE: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller

TAGLINES:

- Ruthless … Savage … Spectacular

- In the future, cities will become deserts, roads will become battlefields and the hope of mankind will appear as a stranger.

- Only one man can make the difference.

- When all that’s left is one last chance, pray that he’s still out there … somewhere!

PLOT SUMMARY:

Roaming the highways of post-apocalyptic Australia, years after he avenged his wife and son and his partner who were murdered by the motorcycle gang led by the evil Toecutter. Burnt out former Australian policeman Max Rockatansky, now known as “The Road Warrior” searching for sources of fuel, stumbles upon a gasoline refinery home to a community of survivors who are struggling for survival and finds the community is being terrorized by a band of brutal motorcyclists led by The Humangus and his finest warrior, Wez, who bid to loot all the gasoline from the refinery for themselves. The community hires Max, as Max agrees to help the community transport the gasoline across the highway and fight for freedom, as they are pursued by the Humangus and his warriors. –IMDB

RELEASE DATES:

1981 December 24 (Australia)
1981 December 26 (Japan)
1982 March 5 (Switzerland)
1982 April 28 (United States – New York Film Festival)
1982 May 1 (United States)
1982 June 10 (Argentina)
1982 July 1 (Hong Kong)
1982 August 11 (France)
1982 August 27 (West Germany)
1982 November 5 (Sweden)
1982 December 10 (Finland)
1983 July 29 (Norway)

TRIVIA:

- In one scene, Max eats a can of “Dinki-Di” dog food. “Dinki-Di” is Australian slang for “genuine, real.” (I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusion.)

- Renamed “The Road Warrior” for North American distribution because at the time, the original Mad Max (1979) had only been released there on a limited basis, so calling it Mad Max 2 would have confused viewers.

- The logo on the tank truck is “7 Sisters Oil”, reference to a conspiracy theory, popular before OPEC-conspiracy theories took over, that Standard Oil and six other companies controlled the world oil market and bought up and suppressed 200-MPG carburetor and so on to keep oil prices up.

- Reasons for Max’s silly outfit: Right arm of jacket missing- He had his arm run over by a bike in the first movie and medics would have cut the sleeve off rather than pull it over a damaged limb. Squeaky leg brace- He had his kneecap shot through in the previous movie. Harness with spanners and stuff dangling off it- To do running repairs on the V8. First two fingers of each driving glove missing- To enable easy insertion/ retrieval of shotgun shells from gun.

- Because he was relatively unknown in the US, the trailers did not feature Mel Gibson, but instead focused on the chases and action scenes.

- Director/Co-Writer George Miller was given the rights to this and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) to get him to step aside as the director of Contact (1997).

- Only two original Interceptors were used in the Mad Max movies. The one that was used in the first film was modified and reused in all of the interior and close up car shots in Mad Max 2: the Road Warrior. After filming was over, this Interceptor was bought and restored by Bob Forsenko and is currently on display in the “Cars of the Stars Motor Museum” in England. Another car was built for the chase scenes in the second movie but that one was destroyed when the script required it to be pushed off the road and blown up. The wreckage used to be viewable at Broken Hill, Australia but due to thefts it can’t be found there any longer. The Planet Hollywood Interceptor is a replica and was never used in any of the films.

- After Mad Max (1979) was finished, all of the cars were supposed to be destroyed, including the black interceptor. But someone thought the interceptor was too good to lose, so they saved it from the crusher. This was before the film was even released. When was in its planning stage, someone found out the interceptor had somehow survived, so they tracked it down, and bought it back.

- The black Interceptor driven by Mel Gibson is a 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe, a car exclusive to Australia. A limited number of these cars were exported by Ford to New Zealand and the United Kingdom, but never to North America. Since only 949 of that particular model Falcon were ever produced, they have become highly sought after by car collectors on six continents; there are over 100 of them that have been brought over to the United States so far, primarily by importing/replica car companies like www.madmaxcars.com (The largest importer and builder of mad max replicas in the USA) along with several Interceptor replicas assembled from “non-GT” & “GT” Falcon coupes.

- The dog used in the film, named simply “Dog”, was obtained from a local dog pound and trained to perform in the film. Because the sound of the engines upset him (and in one incident, caused him to relieve himself in the car), he was fitted with special earplugs. After filming was complete, he was adopted by one of the camera operators.

- Like George Lucas with Star Wars (1977), screenwriters Terry Hayes, George Miller and Brian Hannant were inspired by both Akira Kurosawa’s samurai films and Joseph Campbell’s book “The Hero With a Thousand Faces.”

- It was the most expensive Australian film produced up to that time.

- Contributing to the cost of production was the most expensive set ever constructed for an Australian film: the desert compound built in the desert of Broken Hill, New South Wales. The production also boasted the largest explosion ever created for an Australian film, which destroyed that very set.

- Both Mad Max 2 & 3 contain quotes from former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (1972 – 1975). These are the lines “We”re going to either crash, or crash through” from Mad Max 2 and “One day cock of the walk, next a feather duster” from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).

- The nude woman on the vertical stabilizer of the gyro is Karen Price, Playboy’s January, 1981 centerfold. (She is most noticeable when Max first approaches the machine while the Gyro Captain is hiding under the sand.)

- According to trivia book “Movie Mavericks” by Jon Sandys, one of the more spectacular stunts in the film was actually a serious accident. One of the motorcycle-riding raiders hits a car, flies off the bike, smashes his legs against the car, and cartwheels through the air towards the camera. This was a real, genuine accident: the stunt-man was supposed to just fly over the car without hitting it. But the near-fatal incident looked so dramatic that it was kept in the movie. The stunt-man broke his leg badly, but survived. (If you look at the stunt-man’s body frame-by-frame through his cartwheels, you can see that one of his legs is bending at a slightly unnatural angle around the knee.)

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