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George Miller 1984 vs. George Miller 2024

posted 6 months ago by ReelReviews14 (1220)
26 replies | jump to latest

Just like James Cameron did with the recent 'Terminator' sequels, and John Carpenter did with the recent 'Halloween' sequels, George Miller ruined his OWN legacy with his latest retarded 'sequels' to his ICONIC, beloved 1980s franchise.

My first exposure to George Miller wasn't even Mad Max. It was Twilight Zone: The Movie, where Miller EASILY made THE BEST of the four segments in the movie, with his remake of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", starring John Lithgow. This was an extremely remarkable accomplishment in the early 80s because A) The original B&W TV episode of the story with William Shatner was ALREADY an iconic "classic" story in its OWN right, and B) The two "big name" A-list Hollywood directors on Twilight Zone: The Movie at the time were Steven Spielberg and John Landis. The "lesser known", obscure directors at the time were Joe Dante and George Miller. Spielberg and Landis had each directed a string of huge Hollywood blockbusters before Twilight Zone, while Dante and Miller had each directed only two low-budget, obscure cult films. This was a huge upset when Dante and Miller's segments turned out to be much BETTER received than Spielberg and Landis! If you've never seen Miller's version of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, do yourself a favor and watch it immediately on a home theater system in HD. It will leave you riveted.

Fast forward 40 years later, and Miller has now gone full circle... the guy is now an A-list, big-budget, Hollywood director known for a string of blockbuster films (Happy Feet, Fury Road, etc.) and yet his "eagerly anticipated" summer blockbuster is losing to some crappy CGI remake of Garfield. 'Furiosa' is getting the kind of response that Spielberg got when his contribution to Twilight Zone: The Movie was its WEAKEST segment: "Kick the Can". Oh George, how the mighty have fallen...

Seeing how George Miller has ruined his own franchise, the only way it could be salvaged now is if George Miller was no longer "involved" in a Mad Max project and they brought back Mel Gibson (who has PROVEN he KNOWS how to make brutal, bad-ass, kick-butt movies with amazing ACTION scenes like Braveheart, Apocalypto, and Hacksaw Ridge) to revive the franchise and bring it back to its roots. Similar to how Godzilla Minus One recently OWNED the 2014 'Hollywood' Godzilla movie, and Gareth Edwards even openly admitted he was "embarrassed" how much BETTER the Japanese movie was than his slick Hollywood crapfest.

I'd love to see the look on George Miller's face if Mel Gibson produced, directed, and STARRED in a REAL Mad Max movie, and it completely destroyed the Furiosa garbage at the box office!

[–] sonans (1543) 6 months ago

Wrong. George Millar already ruined Mad Max before: didn't you watch Mad Max 3? What a trash.

[–] ReelReviews14 (1220) 6 months ago

You're sort of right, except you meant to say Mad Max 4 with Tom Hardy as Faux Max.

Surely you can't mean Beyond Thunderdome, that film is iconic. Two men enter, one man leaves!

[–] HellFire (561) 6 months ago

Mad Max was never the same once Byron Kennedy died. He doesn't get enough credit for what he brought to the franchise.

There was a very strange, eerie, almost Horror type vibe to the first two films, particularly the first, that I loved, that was gone by the time of Thunderdome, and I'm convinced that darker tone was down to Kennedy.

He was also responsible for some of the best ideas in the franchise. Even people like myself who don't rate Thunderdome much tend to like the Thunderdome fight, and that was Kennedy's idea. It was supposed to be used in The Road Warrior initially because the oil refinery community would've been more like a proper town if they'd have had the budget for it.

[–] bozo_500 (13104) 6 months ago

As a kid in uk I grew up in the 80s fearing the Mad Max films as scifi horror movies in the same genre as The Terminator, Alien/Aliens, Predator, Blade Runner, The Thing, Robocop etc (stuff I didn't dare watch until I was abit older) but I knew Beyond Thunderdome was like a Mad Max'lite bc of the kids on the poster and it was rated 15, not the 18 certificate Mad Max 1/2 were as well as those other films I mentioned (except Blade Runner was 15)

[–] christomacin (4655) 6 months ago

Brian. May's eerie, sometimes even lurid, musical score gave the first two films a macabre tone.
Maurice Jarre's Thunderdome music, although suitablely barbaric, lacks the eerieness and menace.of May's work. The hallucinatory use of dissolves (witu carrion birds as a harbinger of death), and long stretches without dialogue also created this unsettling tone. However, this was offset by perfectly placed black humor..The first two films were also very funny! This is unlike the mostly silly jokiness of Thunderdome or the total lack of humor in Fury Road and Furiosa.

[–] HellFire (561) 6 months ago

Agreed. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. Brian May's effective music definetly added to the tone of the first two as well. There was just a few pieces here and there in the first that I didn't care for. Sounded a bit too soapy. I think it's the music when Max and Jessie first go on their road trip that I'm not fond of. But overall, yeah, great music.

Again though, even without Brian May, I think the subsequent films would've had a darker tone had Byron Kennedy lived.

He was described by the people who knew him best as intense and with a dry sense of humour, and he was an uncredited writer on Mad Max 1 and 2. I definetly think he had a lot to do with that darker edge.

Take the Thunderdome fight, which again was Kennedy's idea. You have Master Blaster lunge for Max with a spear, Max jumps over him, and Master Blaster accidentally stabs a spectator and you hear him cry out in pain. A rare moment where you get that black humour you got in the first two. Contrast that with the end chase, which was just slapstick nonsense.

[–] Bateman (600) 6 months ago

Can't disagree.

In fact, I'd say Wake In Fright (1971) is more of a proper Mad Max film, thematically and stylistically speaking, than anything Miller has stamped that name onto lately, despite 1) preceding the entire series by almost a decade, and 2) not being an action, post-apocalyptic or sci-fi film at all.

Hell, while I'm at it, Figures in a Landscape (1970), Sorcerer (1977), Le Dernier Combat (1981) and Morning Patrol (1989) all gave me way more Mad Max vibes than Fury Road.

[–] ReelReviews14 (1220) 6 months ago

Interesting. I'll have to check out those films. Definitely would be cool if the have a vibe like the first two movies.

It's like how there have been six Terminator movies now, but only the first two count as legitimate parts of the franchise, despite James Cameron being "involved" in Terminator 5 and 6 and swearing up and down how "good" they were. Really, the only post-Terminator 2 project that successfully matched the vibe of the first two movies was the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. (unless you count the Terminator 2: 3D-Journey Across Time theme park ride)

Maybe we'll get a Mad Max TV series someday that successfully captures the tone of the Mel Gibson era films.

[–] LoveCatsHateDogs (1935) 3 months ago

"Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles"

Didn't that have a love story between a human and the cyborg played by Summer Glau? I remember finding that so ridiculous I didn't even bother watching the show because of it.

[–] bozo_500 (13104) 6 months ago

I'd love to see the look on George Miller's face if Mel Gibson produced, directed, and STARRED in a REAL Mad Max movie, and it completely destroyed the Furiosa garbage at the box office!

I imagine he'd be furiosaus!

[–] ReelReviews14 (1220) 6 months ago

>> I imagine he'd be furiosaus! <<

😂😂😂

[–] mooville (40) 6 months ago

I agree with parts about what you're trying to say.. the problem is Furiosa is actually not that bad of a movie. I wouldn't be able to explain why the movie tanked so hard at the box office, only speculate that it was just bad timing. Gotta remember that the box office isn't the whole picture for movie lovers, some do terrible at the box office and later become cult classics. Just look at how bad John Carpenter's The Thing did at the box office, and how now basically it's being held as one of the best sci-fi horrors ever made.

Do I think this is the best Mad Max movie ever made? No, but it's definitely worth a watch and it exceeded my expectations. I don't think Furiosa was made to replace Mad Max, it was made to expand the Mad Max universe.

[–] ReelReviews14 (1220) 6 months ago

If it wasn't falsely marketed as part of the Mad Max "saga", it MIGHT be watchable on its OWN if it were some generic "stand alone" summer action movie.

But, of course, it IS part of the Mad Max "saga" and it doesn't have Max in it, so its doomed to failure. The best case scenario for this film is it becomes a "cult classic" someday the way Halloween III: Season of the Witch did after it failed at the box office because it a "sequel" in name only to the first two Halloween films. However, I suspect that won't happen because Season of the Witch was far more original and interesting. I doubt this movie is anywhere near as "amazing" as the people trying to salvage its pathetic box office claim it is.

It's more likely to go down in history the way Men In Black: International did (and honestly, I didn't think that film was nearly AS BAD as people claimed it was. I'd rank Men in Black 2 below it)

[–] bozo_500 (13104) 6 months ago

MiB:International another Hemsworth bombing a previously successful franchise along with Ghostbusters 2016 and now Max Max:Furiosa, next up a 2for1 takedown in the Transformers/GI Joe movie!

[–] ReelReviews14 (1220) 6 months ago

Hmmm. Interesting. You make a good point that Hemsworth has starred in a bunch of "installments" that have ruined iconic franchises lately.

I don't think any of those bad films were Hemsworth "fault", though. Actors have to work with the material they're given, so the only blame I can assign him is agreeing to those putrid scripts in the first place.

MiB:International was similar to Flopiosa, marketed as "another installment" of a beloved franchise, but it was really pointless spinoff with none of the original cast. The UK setting was particularly jarring since neither of two major actors that are supposedly secret agents at the "UK branch" had a British accent, including Hemsworth. Still, I don't think it was as bad as MiB2, which DID star the original cast.

Ghostbusters 2016 idiotically gender swapped all the original roles for its "reboot", and had Hemsworth in the role of a "Janine" type character. That premise was DOA before anyone saw a second of the film.

Flopisa cast Hemsworth as the bad guy in some post-apocalyptic world. Nothing wrong with that, its actually GOOD casting and Hemsworth can pull it off nicely. The only disadvantage he had there was the villians of the previous Mad Max films were so iconic that its difficult to top them.

[–] moviechatterer (15583) 6 months ago

You lot wont be satisfied with any Mad Max film until Gibson magically transforms into a 30 year old to star in it

[–] moviechatterer (15583) 6 months ago

I'm beginning to think a certain demographic of Mad Max fans are more intellectually stunted man babies then those Star wars nerds continually crying about why the latest offerings are not as good as the first ones they saw when they were 10yr olds.

[–] [deleted] 3 months ago

100%

[–] LoveCatsHateDogs (1935) 3 months ago

No, it's more like that some people will swallow any old shit.

(I actually liked Furiosa for the most part)

[–] AnthonySocksss (445) 3 months ago

Tell us genius, why are the latest offerings not as good then lmao

[–] moviechatterer (15583) 3 months ago

They are as good , you're just letting nostalgia cloud your judgement , and for some people having a woman in a main role seems to be a problem

[–] AnthonySocksss (445) 3 months ago

No nostalgia required, I just recognize that some people prefer the grittiness and originality of the first films instead of corporatized, made-by-committee soulless reboots! If people didn’t like women in the lead roles then many franchises with women wouldn’t be successful (e.g Alien)

[–] HellFire (561) 3 months ago

George Miller 1985 Vs George Miller 2015
In 1985, he'd finished the third Mad Max film and he made sure that you could look at them as standalone films but also that they connected with a continuity for the way civilisation collapsed, and the way Max goes from losing everything in 1 to slowly regaining his humanity in 2 to becoming a selfless hero again at the end of Thunderdome. And he carries all of his injuries over from the previous films. The interceptor is blown up in 2 so he doesn't have it in Thunderdome. He has a discoloured eye with a fully dilated pupil in Thunderdome from where his eye was damaged when the interceptor crashed... you get the idea. Even on the Road Warrior blu ray commentary he says "This is the film where Max slowly starts to regain his humanity".

George Miller in 2015 when he's promoting Fury Road.
"I never thought about continuity when I did the first three Mad Max films because they were designed to be different films".

He'd rather completely disrespect the older Mad Max fans and act as if we're stupid rather just admit that Fury Road was basically a reboot/sequel hybrid.

[–] moviechatterer (15583) 3 months ago

"just admit that Fury Road was basically a reboot/sequel hybrid."

So what if it was?
If he had stated that at the beginning would that have changed the quality of the film?

Its same with this "Max" bullshit
re furiosa people be like "but .. but ... it says max in the title and theres no max , ergo the film is shit"
i dont see the logic .
He should have just called it "Film #5" and avoided this issue?

He did in fact do this and called it "Furiousa" but apparently people still want a max.

[–] HellFire (561) 3 months ago

Well for a start, it would've helped explain why Mad Max was now like a Marvel comic book where Max did things like survive huge sandstorms with ease instead of being the more realistic human being that Mel Gibson's Max was.

[–] DarthAckbar (2039) 3 months ago

i didn't even watch the new ones, they look ridiculous