Film Theory: Mad Max Is Actually A Horseman Of The Apocalypse

Mad Max is a franchise that came back from the dead in 2015. Three instalments strong in the 1980s and seemingly untouchable ever since, it was a risky move for George Miller to resurrect his brainchild for modern audiences - but one that paid off in incredible fashion with the intense apocalyptic vision we were delivered.

Fury Road begins after the collapse of civilisation, depicting a small group of survivors in the wasteland ruled by a tyrannical leader, Immortan Joe. Capturing slaves, brainwashing soldiers, and turning women into breeding machines, it comes to light that Imperator Furiosa, leader of his army, has had enough: stealing his best War Rig and riding out into the wastes to liberate Joe’s five beautiful wives.

Caught up in the conflict and endeavouring to help Furiosa escape, ‘Mad’ Max Rockatansky serves as a begrudging aide to the women, if only to serve his own goal of getting the hell away from those that would prefer him dead.

It’s in this way that a theory has been drawn out from the dusty crevasses of Mad Max’s universe, which we'll expand upon here. What if this exaggerated display of world-ending violence is actually a metaphor for a mythological event? What if, in this world of Valhalla and War Boys, a deeper religion is at play? What if Mad Max is actually the heralding of the end of the world: a living horseman of the apocalypse?

Floating around the internet not long after the film’s release, fans have speculated the connotations between the biblical horsemen and Mad Max in great detail, taking the three main adversaries, Immortan Joe, The Bullet Farmer, and The People Eater, and delving deeper into their representation to find something more at play in Fury Road.

For some background into the horsemen themselves, the four are said to represent the beginning of the end of the world, functioning as the first round of judgement upon those on Earth to give civilisation a chance to redeem themselves before they die.

Appearing in the New Testament of the bible, they’re said to arrive when humanity has little hope left for a future, leaving nothing but fear and desperation in their wake - representing death, famine, war, and disease, though these have been interpreted slightly differently over the years.

Obviously, in place of true horses, these harbingers of the apocalypse ride atop armoured vehicles, designing trucks and rigs that aptly reflect their insidious representations and the end of the world as a modern occurrence.