You wonder what's been going on in post-production for the last 2 years, but at least it doesn't sound like THUNDERDOME!

From this week's Entertainment Weekly story --

“I wanted to tell a linear story–a chase that starts as the movie begins and continues for 110 minutes,” says the Australian writer-director. Fury Road features few digital effects and even less dialogue, he explains. “In this crucible of very intense action, the characters are revealed.”

Sounds interesting, but my enthusiasm remains a bit tempered. I just don't like the idea of Tom Hardy as Max. Once again I think it should have been Hugh Jackman, or Russell Crowe.

And I also remain pessimistic about the music. Who is left that could compose a score in league with that or Road Warrior or Thunderdome? I foresee them taking the easy, predictable (i.e. Zimmer-like) route.

Have you seen Hardy in anything other than Nemesis? He's multi talented and can play a variety of roles. Personally his casting, now that I've seen him in different films, is one of the things I am looking forward to with this movie. I feel like Jackman would have done nothing but reprise Wolverine while Crowe I couldnt see playing the part at all now...he's settled into the puffy character roles at this stage. Or NOAH lol

The fact that Miller hasn't directed a real live action film not aimed at kids in 20 years is the bigger concern for me. And why so long in post production? That's what's odd.

I agree on the scoring. I would be happy if there wasn't any music in the movie at all at this point lol...because the alternative is Zimmer and company.

The one thing I took out of the EW article is that it remains depressing Fox canned the 2001 filming that would've reunited Mel and Heath Ledger.

Miller apparently designed the entire film from start to finish with storyboards seeing as there is so little dialogue. He took them out of storage and used them -- this is pretty much the same film we would've had in 2001, just with Tom Hardy and a different cast. It's interesting they didn't have a script from the outset...the movie was visually designed and then the script written after the fact.

Hardy and Charlize Theron apparently didn't get along on the set, but they maintain everything is peachy. Miller says the film is 80% non-CGI FX, mostly practical stunts. The shooting that happened a year ago was for bookending sequences they felt were needed after they watched a rough cut.

AndyDursin wrote:Miller says the film is 80% non-CGI FX, mostly practical stunts.

The last time an aging filmmaker made that claim for a decades' later fourquel, we ended up with a movie that opened with a shot of a CGI gopher.

Monterey Jack wrote:

AndyDursin wrote:Miller says the film is 80% non-CGI FX, mostly practical stunts.

The last time an aging filmmaker made that claim for a decades' later fourquel, we ended up with a movie that opened with a shot of a CGI gopher.

lol. Somehow I have more faith Miller's claims are legit, seeing as it was in production forever.

Either way, we can tell from the trailer when it comes out shortly.

Maybe Miller will pull it off. It does look as though Fury Road will have the hard edge that was lacking in the watered-down Thunderdome.

I think Miller's involvement in Thunderdome was half-hearted (he farmed-out half the scenes to another director) and he obviously bowed to the pressure to make something more "family friendly" (with cute kids, bubble gum violence and corny humor). I guess it paid-off financially, if not artistically.

People apparently flipped out at the Comic Con screening footage shown a while ago. hopefully someone has a video of it!

Here's an article detailing the reaction:

http://www.mtv.com/news/1880067/mad-max ... n-footage/

The trailer is out -- this isn't the 5-minute reel that was shown at Comic Con, which was my immediate reaction, since this IMO isn't a particularly impressive ad.

Not much CGI, eh? Not so sure about that one...

My heart also sank with the words MUSIC BY JUNKIE XL too. Oh well, we all know it, but film music is dead.

Damn, I thought that John Powell was doing it.

AndyDursin wrote:My heart also sank with the words MUSIC BY JUNKIE XL too. Oh well, we all know it, but film music is dead.

Yeah...

I mean, this obviously isn't a sequel (as the V8 Interceptor was destroyed in Road Warrior) but seems to be a kind of re-imagining -- which is fine...but my cautious optimism evaporated when I saw "Music by Junkie XL".

George Miller's films inspired some of the best music of Brian May, Jerry Goldsmith, Maurice Jarre and John Williams. May actually wanted to go the obvious route and write a rock and roll score for the original Mad Max -- but Miller insisted on a more old school orchestral score.

How the mighty have fallen.

I still can't get over Miller's career. Here's a guy who started out as one of the Important Directors of the 1980s, only to basically become a hermit who -- for over 20 YEARS -- has directed only three films, every one of them a kids picture with talking pigs and/or penguins. The last "real" adult/live-action he directed was LORENZO'S OIL...in 1992! Yet he still carries a rep for his work decades back, even if he's done nothing to add to it since that time. He's more famous for the movies he didn't direct than the ones he did!

I mean, this obviously isn't a sequel (as the V8 Interceptor was destroyed in Road Warrior) but seems to be a kind of re-imagining

It seems like they're going the "Man With No Name" route, where Clint would play a variation on the same character who wasn't exactly the same character. This Mad Max isn't the Gibson character apparently but a variation on it. Seeing as there was no script with this film, only storyboards, I'm going to wager it's not going to make a difference really.

Either way, it doesn't seem like this movie is aiming for BEYOND THUNDERDOME-type pretensions, which is, at least, fine with me.

AndyDursin wrote:I still can't get over Miller's career. Here's a guy who started out as one of the Important Directors of the 1980s, only to basically become a hermit who -- for over 20 YEARS -- has directed only three films, every one of them a kids picture with talking pigs and/or penguins.

I get the feeling Miller soured on Hollywood, because he didn't have much control over the films he made there. I don't know how definitive this anecdote is, but a guy I knew in college was on the set of The Witches of Eastwick, and said that Miller was keeping things moving but didn't seem to have much creative input -- Jack Nicholson basically directed himself, Vilmos Zsigmond lit the set as he saw fit, etc. I also read an interview with Miller (some years earlier) where he carped "Making movies in Australia is about going out and doing it. In Hollywood it's all about making the deal". So I wonder if he just threw up his hands and turned his back on Hollywood.

AndyDursin wrote:Either way, it doesn't seem like this movie is aiming for BEYOND THUNDERDOME-type pretensions, which is, at least, fine with me.

Seems this film is what Thunderdome should have been. The original Mad Max took place in a society which was decaying, Road Warrior took place in a savage, lawless non-society, while Thunderdome depicted the rebirth of commerce and rudimentary communities. But while Thundome was "Mad Max Lite" (with its cutesy moppets and cartoon violence) Fury Road seems to return to the more brutal spirit of Road Warrior (i.e. Max being tattooed according to his worth as "raw material").

Check out this article by a friend of mine, who has seen a preview screening of Fury Road. No spoilers -- and he refrains from writing a "review" -- but he does provide some lucid inpressions about the tone and style of the film...

http://aftimes.com/2014/05/randy-does-n ... screening/

That's pretty much what I had read from some anonymous sources a few months ago when they supposedly had their first run of test screenings.

Look, this thing has been in post-production so long that I can't imagine it's not going to be pretty solid...and they had added shooting for bookending scenes last year, so it'll be interesting to see what's in there.