MovieChat Forums > Mad Max 2 (1982) Discussion > Why even fill the tanker with anything a...

Why even fill the tanker with anything at all??


I guess the sand was just for the big reveal at the end. Otherwise, the only thing it's going to do is weight down the truck.

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Correct.

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the only thing it's going to do is weight down the truck.

And that's the point. A full trailer handles / behaves differently than an empty one.

The whole point was to draw the gang away from both most of the group and all of the fuel. That will only work so long as the gang believes that the fuel that they want is in the tanker. Anything that might tip them off to the fact that the fuel isn't in the tanker is a threat to send the gang chasing after the rest of the group before they've gotten a big enough head start, and that would mean that everybody dies. So you do *everything* in your power to make the gang believe for as long as possible that the gas in in the tanker. That means that you fill the tanker so that it behaves as it would if all of the fuel was in it.

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@PillowRock Nailed it. I would add that they wanted to ensure that Max believed that the tanker was full of gasoline - otherwise he may have acted differently.

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@PillowRock Nailed it. I would add that they wanted to ensure that Max believed that the tanker was full of gasoline - otherwise he may have acted differently.


True, and those guys have been stealing from tankers for a long time, even in the first Mad Max film. So, they'd know too if the tanker wasn't full.



"Guys like you don't die on toilets." Mel Gibson-Riggs, Lethal Weapon

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[deleted]

True, and those guys have been stealing from tankers for a long time, even in the first Mad Max film. So, they'd know too if the tanker wasn't full.


lol rindercella....those guys stealing gas isnt even the same gang as in mad max 2 ffs....


~If the realistic details fails, the movie fails~

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As if the caravan of lunatics chasing it is somehow expert in the road characteristics of empty vs. full tankers and has the presence of mind to actually notice? And who's to say they had enough fuel to fill the entire tanker to begin with -- they had room for maybe a dozen 55 gallon drums of fuel on the bus, a semi tanker can carry at least 8,000 gallons.

I could see some inertial value to a partial load of sand -- it would make whipping the combination into enemy vehicles far more destructive. But sand is nearly twice as dense as any liquid and it would be easy to overfill the tanker and make it extremely difficult to maneuver. I think the weight of an empty tanker plus the added weight of the extra armor and people would have been more than sufficient to provide battering power while still leaving the tanker fast and highly maneuverable.

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ha yeah good point !! Only reason at all would be for the reveal at the end,

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An empty trailer is easily spotted, it will behave totally differently especially on less than perfect roads. Very easy to tell.

...then whoa, differences...

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Not only that they had their own citizens posted on the truck and the feral kid in the cab. Why risk those lives for a tank of sand? Would the gang really be that suspicious if there wasn't 3 guards posted on the tank while it's driving?!

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@joexbondo Would the gang really be that suspicious if there wasn't 3 guards posted on the tank while it's driving?!
Yes, and rightly so.

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They're sacrificing themselves for the group. Or the Greater Good if you like. Why is Max doing it? Hard to say. He's enigmatic in many ways.

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They're sacrificing themselves for the group. Or the Greater Good if you like


I often wonder why the Chief Mechanic was allowed to do this, wouldn't his talents been more useful with the convoy escaping and not the suicide mission to lure the gang?
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Truth is no defense to the overarching goal of submission.

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lol he was pretty insistent. I don't think they'd have gotten him on the bus if they'd tried.

But yes, it does seem a waste. Perhaps he was over the whole being a cripple thing and wanted to go out in a blaze of glory.

...then whoa, differences...

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That could be it.

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[deleted]

I always assumed he knew he would ultimately be useless, maybe even a liability. They were just headed to the tropics and then they were going to create a new civilization 'far away from men on machines.' He was about to have no purpose, and wanted his death to mean something.

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Beans are evil. Bad, bad beans.

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I think he wanted to stay with Warrior Woman.

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They had to make it look like it really was important to them. So defenders had to be there and it had to be full of something to make the raiders think it was gas.

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they had their own citizens posted on the truck and the feral kid in the cab

The group didn't post the feral kid in the cab. He was a stowaway.

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