5 More Wholly Inappropriate '80s Movies That Taught Me All My Life Values

2. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

The definitive Australian cult classic that set a benchmark for film making which arguably has yet to be surpassed, but has been emulated countless times. Starring Mel Gibson before the alcohol rendered his ability to think before he speaks useless, it is the continuation of the saga of Max Rockatansky, a former police officer who went "mad" after witnessing his wife and baby son run down by vengeful bikers. As the world falls into the chaos of World War 3, he heads out to the wastelands in his "pursuit special" in a never ending search for the ever precious commodity known as fuel.

In what has affectionately become known as "the Road Warrior" (the title under which it was released in the US as the original was mostly unheard of), Max stumbles across the last remaining oil refinery in existence that is under constant attack from a vicious band of marauding outlaws, and has to help find a way for the inhabitants to escape, not to mention deal with his own demons in the meantime.

It has gone on to become known as one of the greatest films of all time. It's featured in countless top movie lists, it's depiction of a post-apocalyptic future was widely copied by other filmmakers and in science fiction novels, has a very rare %100 rating at Rotten Tomatoes, made the careers of both George Miller and Mel Gibson, is one of Quentin Tarantinos favourite films (in which he himself has paid homage to with "Death Proof") and has become a cultural phenomenon, with shows like the Simpsons and South Park constantly making references to this "Ozploitation" masterpiece. Hell, you are considered Un Australian if you have not seen it. Maybe that should be the criteria for refugees and asylum seekers.

Lesson Learnt: Energy Conservation Now a lot of you don't remember but there used to be something called the "Cold War" which threatened the world with nuclear annihilation at a moments notice and living in the 80's as a child we were subjected to all sorts of post apocalyptic paranoia. One of which is what lengths people will go to survive. This whole film revolves around the notion that without fuel to light the fires the human race will descend into savagery not unlike their animal ancestors. They turn on each other all for the sake of a cup of Texas T. I don't know about you but living in a world like Max has to deal with would suck. Like, really suck. So the moral of this film for me at least is that in order to avoid such a catastrophic turn of events we must rid ourselves of our drug like dependency on oil and create a "green" and sustainable future using renewable energy. Cause regardless of how awesome the V8 Interceptor would be to own, it ain't going to look too cool sitting on the side of the road turning to rust and dust. Oh, and that whole armageddon thing as well. Alternate Lesson: Boomerang Appreciation This film created a whole generation of "feral kid" wannabes in this country that just had to learn how to successfully throw a boomerang (myself included) on the off chance we needed to take the fingers off a bad guy. Personally, I believe the local indigenous population got sick of us kids asking.