Who would win?
Then remind yourself, this films does not take place in a world of magic.
Unless Theron had some ju jitsu/ krava maga stuff hidden up her sleeve that Hardy didn't, Hardy is a lot bigger and would probably whoop her.
Does that matter? Mad Max isn't a complete fantasy land, but it's hardly a world of realism, either.
Then why doesn't he fly?
shareBecause every movie gets to build its own rules that it sets up in the first few minutes.
In Fury Road, we see the weird, unsettling world of the War Boys and this body-modification land. We see the post-apocalyptic waste, we see Max and the other denizens as "survivors" clawing at each other. We see by the way the action scenes are shot what kind of world this is.
Consider The Matrix: they make sure we can see Trinity run across walls and kick guys through walls right away. They start us in code. They provide the information we need to know the world.
Back to Max: given the "rules" laid out for this world, we know that there are unusual, fantatical people who can do things they might not be able to do here in terms of "action movie" potential. We see pole-vault mechanisms. We get clues from Furiosa's dress sense and mech arm that she ain't no ordinary person. The rules are set. These rules do not include flight.
Just because a fictional universe doesn't adhere to reality's physics doesn't mean that the fictional world will have no rules or be supernatural/fantastic in every way possible.
That's why they can't fly.
But I'm getting the feeling that I don't really need to explain this.
Does it matter that they have created a world where somebody who looks like Charlize Theron could be a formidable opponent to somebody who looks like Tom Hardy?
So why not make a gangster movie set in the 30s where everyone can fly (but their ability is never mentioned nor integral to the plot)?
shareI really don't understand what you're about here.
In action movies, many of them, as with Fury Road, people fight at degrees that they cannot otherwise perform in real life. John McClane takes hits that would drop regular people. Ripley bests the perfect killing machine. I'm talking about the "rules" of a movie's universe, some of which are expressed in literal terms (Morpheus describes the parametres of the program to Neo) and some are expressed by environment (in Fury Road, combatants are shown to have preternatural fighting skills).
Movies are constructed this way to capitalise on themes, emotions, and ideas, or to deliver certain aesthetics. Colour is modified in the film Avalon or in The Wizard of Oz. Colour is absent in Manhattan. These evoke moods. In Watchmen, people fight at levels they couldn't possible get to in real life. We see a grim aesthetic, the film is shot with slow mo sometimes - all of this is done to preserve an atmosphere that boosts the themes or attitudes of the story being told. Sometimes this is done well (The Matrix) or not so effectively. But it's just the way storytelling works.
Putting in extraneous details (people can fly) into movies where it's never mentioned or important to the plot isn't done in good storytelling because it raises questions that the audience won't have answered. So that's why you wouldn't make it so somebody could fly in a gangster picture (unless you had something to say or wanted a magic-real/faerie story world for whatever purpose).
In Fury Road, they need Furiosa to be an action hero and to present both a counterpart and, early on, a mini-antagonist for Max. They need her to be formidable. They do this by giving her an action movie skillset and capabilities that make her a good balance/foil for Max, a good opponent for Joe, and a good character for the world of the film.
"Putting in extraneous details (people can fly) into movies where it's never mentioned or important to the plot isn't done in good storytelling because it raises questions that the audience won't have answered."
You're getting warmer.
I am tired of playing this passive-aggressive game.
You asked whether or not Theron could beat up Hardy. And I basically said, "No, but in the movie, sure." and then asked why it mattered.
After that we launched into this weird world where you keep asking me to explain basic story telling to you, and from the start I figure you know better, but you're trying to go somewhere baffling.
Here are cards on the table for you:
My impression is that you're saying that it's impossible for Charlize Theron to beat up Tom Hardy and therefore Mad Max: Fury Road is a POS movie with a feminist agenda and you hate that and so the movie is stupid.
I think that the movie does a credible job of creating a heightened world where I buy that Furiosa is a unique character who has the combat skills and fortitude to snarl with Max. Their physical size aside, she's a sculpted warrior with clear bionic enhancements and is likely a lot less dehydrated and malnourished than Max. Plus it's a world with war boyz and fire guitars and fluid-pumping body armour and whatnot. That's been my whole point.
As to the relevance of the capabilities of Furiosa, the themes of the movie are along releasing from shackles and forming communities, so getting over the shackles of initial distrust and antagonism to form a bond with Furiosa is a necessary part of the plot and the character development of both leads who have serious issues with trust and care and need to get over that and work together and if these two are not equal to each other - ie, able to go toe-to-toe in a fight - it annihilates the tension and makes the struggle meaningless, not to mention too easy, to make for an entertaining and worthwhile two-hour story.
How warm am I now?
I'm saying if we'd spent twenty years making movies where characters flew (without that being a significant factor in any aspect of the narrative) twenty years later, people would be more inclined to ignore the nature of reality due to that influence.
Reality is a social construct.
That is the narrative. They have been pushing it for a while now.
Noticing this is becoming a choice (when it shouldn't be).
If we did make flying an innocuous part of film life, though, I don't think anybody would be leaping from buildings thinking, "Cary Grant could, why not me?" Consider Hong Kong martial arts wire-fu films: nobody thinks becoming a kung fu master lets you fly.
If your argument is that reality is perception, I agree from a certain philosophical point of view, but there are certain constants which will insist upon being perceived a certain way.
So, if - in your head - you imagine you can fly and leap from a cliff, you will perceive yourself as flying. Therefore, reality is that you can fly. Sure. But the constant of gravity and the impact at the bottom will change your perception regardless of what you convinced yourself of ten seconds prior.
In the Mad Max example, the obvious truth of a Charlize Theron sized-and-shaped person being completely unable to beat the tar out of a Thomas Hardy type will be a perception not upheld by reality for any Theronesque people who try to perceive reality that way.
In that regard, I don't think reality is a social construct so much as society is a collective imaginative bargain or contract that we strike with one another.
Filmmakers (as any artists) put their ideas forward. Sometimes those are good ideas, sometimes bad, but the best films raise questions and debates, put forward interesting points of view, and allow us the chance to engage with those ideas off-screen.
I don't think the "message" of Fury Road is "women can beat up men". If it was, though, this (generally incorrect) idea would last the ten second fall before gravity taught a harsh lesson.
What is becoming a choice?