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

6. The Four Horsemen 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.