Flubs and Trivia
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

Where possible, the flubs / trivia are listed in the order in which they appear in the movie. Recent additions marked in yellow.

Note that I don't have the time to verify everything people keep sending me, so I'm marking most new additions with UNVERIFIED.

Film Flubs

• At the very beginning of MM3 we see the view of Max's vehicle from the sky.  Notice the the wind is blowing to the right of the vehicle (you can clearly see this from the wind trail of sand).  After Max is hit by the plane and we see a front shot of the vehicle leaving Max behind (he's down on the ground, knocked out for a while), the wind "dust" trail is now blowing to the left of the vehicle. Yet, as we see the plane pass over head of Max while he's running after the vehicle, the wind now switches back to blowing to the right of the vehicle. Again, when the pilot of the plane (Bruce Spence) jumps on to the vehicle and rides away with Max in pursuit, the wind switches to blowing to the left of the vehicle.  Finally, as we get a close up shot of Max's beat up and cut feet walking, the wind trail is clear blowing to the right.  That's one wacky wind pattern!

• When he pulls the whistle out of his boots that the monkey has dropped, he blows into it and they pan out to a wider shot. He now seems to be standing away from his boots on the other side of the screen.

• The sawed-off shotgun Max has in Thunderdome is not the same one used in MM1 and MM2, look at the stock (handle). The one used in MM1 and MM2 has a pistol grip style.

• UNVERIFIED When Max is giving his weapons to the Collector in Bartertown, notice that he sets his Shotgun on the Right side of the WW1 Era pistol, but then later on, after he sets his last weapon down you'll notice the shotgun is now on the left side of the WW1 Era Pistol as Max is walking away.

• UNVERIFIED After Max has passed the 'audition' Auntie goes over to her periscope into underworld to show Max Master Blaster. Auntie holds the handles of the periscope and rotates it to the right. The shot of the bottom of the scope in underworld rotates to the left.

• When max goes to the wreck of the 747, the character Screwloose climbs the plane's tail, right to the tip of it. He would need a 40 foot ladder to get up there! The inside tail section of a 747, as well as most planes, has an internal ladder much like the "jeffries Tube" on Star Trek. It runs along the inside front edge of the tail for access to the top for servicing inspections, etc.

• Pay close attention to the record the children of the fallen 747 have. It seems fine. Then watch it close as Max and the children crawl through the pipe in Bartertown to gain access to "Underworld". The record is completely warped. There is no way that record would play on any record player, let alone the one it is played on later in the movie. 

• In the scene where the children finally get to play the record, the record is spinning the wrong way. Turntables normally spin clockwise, yet in this scene the arm and needle are on the left, and the turntable is spinning counter clockwise.

• In the last scene where Max is about to jump out of the truck to save the flying jalopy, he is seen hanging out of the driver's side (Australian) and then at the last second is shown jumping out of the passenger's side (drivers side U.S.) Not verified: Someone else says he actually climbs to the top of the vehicle and jumps from there, and not from either side of the cab...
  

Trivia

• The working title for Thunderdome, to attempt to "hide" the production from outsiders, was "Desert World".

• One of the guns that Max hands to the Collector in Thunderdome is Bubba Zanetti's WWI era pistol.

• If you look closely at Max's left eye (The one that was messed up during The Road Warrior) during certain scenes in Beyond Thunderdome, you can see that the pupil is wide open while Max's other eye looks normal, obviously the eye is shown to us to be damaged.

• Is that Charlie (Mad Max 1) working in the underworld of Bartertown? Just after Max meets Pig Killer, he walks past another worker who looks amazinly like Charlie. What's odd is that this guy looks up and follows Max, as if he knows him - in addition to which the camera stays locked on him, instead of following Max. Check it out - I don't know for sure if it's the same actor, he doesn't have a speaking part, and doesn't appear to be credited.  Anyone know for sure?

• The choices on the wheel would appear to be: Life Imprisonment, Amputation, Underworld, Death, Forfeit Goods, Spin Again, Hard Labour, Acquittal, Gulag and Auntie's Choice.

• Although I've been asked, I'm still not entirely sure of the origin of Pig Killer's "No matter where you go, there you are" line, which was also used in Buckaroo Banzai a year earlier. The Buckaroo Banzai FAQ offers a few possible suggestions though.

• If you look at the credits, Mel Gibson is listed amongst the stunt crew. This effort gained Mel an entry in the Guiness Book Of Records as the "bravest actor" - he is apparently the only leading actor who has also been credited as a stunt man in the same film.

• Is Bruce Spence meant to be the same character in Thunderdome? See the other trivia page.
  

For flubs & trivia, thanks to:
Kieron Murphy,  Karol (the Wordwarrior), Christopher Crockett,
Coldsnow, Mobydrift, Scott Crawley, Paul (Barney) Miil, Carlos Pina,
Don Gomez, Jason Smith, Peter Horne, George Gorman, Robert Ploof,
Pierre Savoie, MadMax1929@aol.com, "warriormax", Rob (Gnarler),
Elliot Wrann, Terry Parker, Ross Beckley, Tyrone Serrick, John Slovick
Chris King, Dave Ford and David Marsh.

A note about flubs...

I originally intended this to be a list primarily of "fun" stuff, like really glaring continuity errors, things being in shot when they shouldn't, etc. Some people have emailed me flubs which require really intricate technical knowledge to even pick, or are either minor and uninteresting, or ambiguous as to whether it's really a mistake at all. For a long time I've rejected the less fun ones to try and keep the list to what I thought was interesting, but I keep getting emailed some of the small ones over and over, so now it's just easier for me to put them up and forget them. But please bear this in mind when you send me something, because I'm sure most people are like me, and would rather just stick with the fun stuff, and not get too picky about minor technical errors and so on.

Back To The Mad Max FAQ