Canononical placement - some thoughts

[L88]

I've been milling over a lot of information, quotes, photographs, theories, articles, you name it... More importantly than all that I've been thinking... A or B?

A) If the new series fits into previous canon, how and where should it fit?

B)If the new series is a an outright reboot, discarding all of the previous movies, where does it start off?

These are two very obvious questions which have to some extent been answered. First consider this quote from Tom Hardy in 2010:

...but needless to say, if we could draw a line between what Mad Max has become and the story of Mad Max and revisit...it's a revisit.

Mad Max 1 is the story of Mad Max, without any question, and The Road Warrior is definitely what Max has become. What's said here would point directly to the gap between Mad Max 1 and The Road Warrior. A huge gap. Okay, yes this is speculation but also kind of obvious. It is also reinforced later when he says:

...we are not going to look for recreating a new world and a new visit to the first two movies...

This very firmly points towards scenario A that the new films fit into previous canon. Let us presume for now this is true...We know the Interceptor is back, we know that they've built new interceptors for the movie. Again this points to the gap between MM1 and RW. As the interceptor is obliterated in RW.

So... Fury Road... I'm sure I'm not the only person who is reminded of this...



Could Fury Road chronicle the downfall of the MFP? Taking us from the declining society and vigilantism we see in MM1, through (presumably) nuclear meltdown, to the desolate wastelands of RW. It seems quite unlikely since so far we've only seen photographs of vehicles reminiscent of The Road Warrior... But who is to say they haven't got a bunch of yellow Ford Falcons with red and blue striped paint jobs stashed away somewhere? The only vehicles we're sure of are those in Namibia that are too large and obnoxious to be hidden. Remember, they are filming two movies out there... Maybe they will film earlier parts of Fury Road in Australia...

Do you think they're going to kick off Fury Road straight away with Max inexplicably in the wasteland with his car? I'm not sure... Even The Road Warrior had a prologue which gave some insight into the gap between the movies, the meltdown of society and the (unspecific, but presumably nuclear) war that ended society and rendered the world as a wasteland. There is a good posibility that they may use a similar prologue in the introduction of Fury Road, it's certainly not out of the question. Certainly for newcomers to Mad Max... I don't think Fury Road is going to jump straight into a wasteland scenario like we all expect it to.

Personally I would love to see some more MFP action. There is more to explore there. To see the failing struggle to maintain order in a climate of rising chaos. Sure... okay Tom Hardy isn't Mel Gibson. But personally I think the potential for story to be explored between MM1 and RW is more important than the visual continuity of the actors.

Well I don't know... this is my own speculation.

[biolumen]

I think what Hardy was saying was that rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, his interpretation of Max will be dropped into a universe that we're quite familiar with (i.e. same backstory, post-apocalypic setting, etc), with the probability that some of the details will be different (i.e. Max's dress, demeanor, etc). So I'm thinking it'll be largely canonical, but not 100% so.

All the filming locations are stark, desert locations, so I don't think that we'll be seeing much from the time frame of MM1. If anything, we might see something in a brief prologue like we saw in MM2 to set the movie up for the audience.

Additionally, the Interceptor built for the movie resembles the car from the second film rather than the first, so if Fury Road does take place between the first and second movie rather than after Thunderdome as previously planned, then I think it'll take place a lot closer to the beginning of MM2 than the end of MM1.

Exploring Max's adventures immediately following the end of MM1 would be very interesting, but I think the only chance we may see that is in the Mad Max video game, and even then I'm not holding out much hope.

[L88]

I think you are right in everything that you said biolumen. Interestingly, one thing I noted when they unveiled the interceptor is that they kept the back half of the car covered in a tarp. You certainly couldn't tell if the tanks were on the back or not. I agree that it looked much closer to MM2, as the lower half of the front was not present, and also the headlights were covered with perforated black steel (though that may have been a temporary placeholder if they were still working on the car).

Are all the filming locations confirmed? I know that pre-production has been going on for some time and they're presently shooting in Namibia... But who's to say they might not shoot at other locations, towns and the like? I really hope there is at very least a prologue of sorts to set the mood and to tell us where we are, so to speak.

[biolumen]

Interestingly, one thing I noted when they unveiled the interceptor is that they kept the back half of the car covered in a tarp. You certainly couldn't tell if the tanks were on the back or not.

Someone here confirmed that the Interceptor seen at the press conference is the same car built for the 2003 incarnation of the movie, seen here at the link below. You can just make out the tanks in the back.

http://www.apocalypse.co.za/images/Last ... eptors.jpg

Are all the filming locations confirmed?

All we have is a photo of some locations on a map. There could be other locations in Namibia, or even back in Australia, for all we know. In an article linked below, Miller said in reference to filming in Broken Hill...

"A full  Australian crew picks up and goes there to shoot the desert scenes, and comes back here to do other scenes, then all the post-production and digital work is done here.”

http://www.afr.com/p/george_miller_new_ ... cyZa4s97fI

So what does the underlined part mean? I think he's speaking of scenes filmed on sound stages, but it could also mean some scenes filmed in or around Sydney.

BTW, do you have a link to the second Hardy quote in your original post?

EDIT: I just noticed a bit from the article I linked to above.

The film will now shoot in Namibia from April (see box, p.32) with additional filming and post-production back in Australia.

So they are going to film back in Sydney, but obviously the whats and wheres are not known.

[L88]

The second quote was from the same interview, the same paragraph in fact.