Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985) - by J. Molotov

Wow. I don't think I can evaluate this movie in anything resembling a systematic manner.

First, I think it is important to note that I now realize that I've never seen the first half hour to forty-five minutes of the film before. Having now see the beginning, several of my questions concerning plot have been answered: why Max was in Bartertown, how he got involved with Aunty, why he was fighting in the Thunderdome, why the midget (Master) was imprisoned in pigs, why Max had to kidnap the midget, and even the biggest mystery of them all, WHY THE PIGS WERE THERE! If you remember, I said in my previous treatise on the The Road Warrior that I had an inkling of the connection between the pigs and the gasoline shortage. Well, I was right. It's the methane gas from the pig shit that fuels Bartertown's crude civilization. I think during the many questioning sessions, one of you must have told me this, but I didn't believe you. It was too much for me at the time, and I apologize.

The thing is, it was all of these questions that were blocking me from truly seeing this film. I needed to understand the basic plot points in order to even get into the movie enough to really watch it. And now that I did, it is all so clear:

This movie is INSANE. I mean, total fucking madness.

I now have a whole new set of questions, ones that stem from a deeper level than simple plot discussion:

1. I don't really understand the children. I know they were in a plane that crashed, and that they obliquely refer to them going with Captain Walker and splitting away from the other people, but I could not understand where all the parents were. And when did Captain Walker leave them in order for him to supposedly come back like a messiah in the form of Max? And what the hell is with that creepy one with the black and white face paint?

2. I don't understand why the main mechanism for pig shit refinery or whatever in Bartertown is a train which is somehow still functional as a vehicle for Max, the children, the Pig Killer, and Master to escape on. Who built those train tracks? Why did they lead to the middle of nowhere and then stop?

3. I DO NOT understand why "Jedediah the Pilot" was a character in this movie, when he was clearly the same actor (Bruce Spence) who played "The Gyro Captain" in The Road Warrior. He was obviously not meant to be the same person, because when he and Max finally see each other face-to-face, there is no recognition. What the fuck is that about?

4. I don't understand Max's punishment chosen by the wheel ("bust a deal, face the wheel"). He spins it and it lands on "gulag". I wasn't completely sure what a gulag was (dictionary.com says, "the system of forced-labor camps in the Soviet Union; any prison or detention camp, esp. for political prisoners"), but I was pretty damn sure that it was NOT "tying someone backwards to a horse, putting a Bob's Big Boy head over his head, and sending him out into the desert with no supplies".

5. Perhaps my biggest question regarding this film is: WHY DOES AUNTY LET HIM GO AT THE END?!?!?! I've never understood this. I wonder if I ever will. She's chasing him, and then the children and Master get away, and Max is there, and she lets him go. Is it because she just wanted to get the midget back, and now that he's gone it doesn't matter? But isn't she angry that Max stole the midget, AND that he basically destroyed Bartertown, which she worked so hard to build and create civilization in? I just don't know. I just don't.

I don't know if I can talk about this anymore. My brain is severely damaged from it. It has been for years and I think that this whole attempt to find understanding has merely exacerbated it.