Mad Max: Fury Road Trailer Breakdown - 10 Things You Need To See
10. Everything Is Dependant On Oil
Mad Max takes place in a purposefully dystopian far-off future, but as we get closer to the actual time period in the original films (which was never specified, besides being a time when S&M bondage gear has become fashionable for everyday wear and Tina Turner has retired from pop music in favour of presiding over a Thunderdome), the more ridiculous speculative fiction elements have become worryingly less ridiculous. Killing people just to get at fossil fuels like oil? Ridiculous! Nobody would fight an illegal war over that! Without wishing to get all political about it, putting news reports about everyone being dependant on oil to the point that people are killing each other over it doesn't just seem like a handy piece of exposition. The original Mad Max trilogy was fairly apolitical, but George Miller has since utilised his cinematic output to push forward certain radical opinions he has. No seriously, Happy Feet is totally a polemic against organised religion. No, it really is! It's also about dancing penguins, and Mad Max: Fury Road is also about nutballs in post-apocalyptic Australia (or, actually, this time it's mainly filming in Namibia), but there's going to be some political subtext there too. The fourth film was originally delayed because the outbreak of the second Gulf War made it potentially politically sensitive. No such pulled punches this time.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
