MovieChat Forums > Mad Max 2 (1982) Discussion > If Max isn't really the hero of this mov...

If Max isn't really the hero of this movie...


Who do you think is the real hero of this movie if Max here is just a supporting protagonist? Is it the Gyro Captain, or Pappagallo?

reply

I would say Pappagallo, since The Plan was apparently his, and he intended from the beginning to lead the refinery inhabitants to a better life. Max and the Gyrocaptain both started out as self-centered scavengers, and joined up with Pappagallo later on, for their own reasons. The only reason Max or the Gyrocaptain wanted into the refinery in the first place was to score gasoline, not to join the community.

- HOW kin I be so brainless, when I is so smart?

reply

I only asked because every movie after the first seems to be less about Max and more about another character. Like Fury Road, it seems to focus on Furiosa more.

reply

Not in this one, Max is without a doubt the protagonist here, and does the most heroic acts throughout.

I consider this the only Mad Max movie to be solely focused on him. In the others (even the first) they meander a little and occasionally shift focus to different characters, but here we follow him from start to finish and focus on his character arc.

We get no backstory on any other character. We never find out how the people came across the refinery, how long they've been together etc.

The refinery situation is ultimately secondary to Max regaining his humanity.

reply

I thought only the first Mad Max was about him.

reply

I have heard/read that Pappagallo was formerly an executive of Seven Sisters Oil, which is the brand on the tanker, and apparently the previous owners of the refinery. So I assume that the refinery was kind of an outpost before the world crashed, and most of the refinery inhabitants are former employees of Seven Sisters, or the children of former employees. Wouldn't be so hard to imagine that Pappagallo was visiting the outpost in an official capacity and got marooned, or that he sought it out after the crash.

- HOW kin I be so brainless, when I is so smart?

reply

Maybe. Who knows?

reply

[deleted]

I'll go along with that theory.

I never had a problem with not knowing, just saying that George Miller was clearly more interested on focusing on Max's journey itself rather than who he he's helping which changes in Beyond Thunderdome and Fury Road.

Even when Papagallo starts giving his speech to the community, we don't stay on him we cut to the beginning of Max's relationship with the feral kid which is giving him the music box.

reply

Then again, the other hero of the movie could be the Feral Kid. Especially considering that an older version of the Feral Kid is narrating the movie.

reply

buddyboy28...Max aint a hero...heroes make heroic acts cause they wanna help others...Max is an anti-hero...a selfish *beep* who only make things if he can gain something out of it except in Fury Road at the end when he comes back and really helps the women back to the base.

~If the realistic details fails, the movie fails~

reply

[deleted]

gasoline


Gazzalean.

reply

Sorry; my Australian is a bit rusty.

- Crazy. All crazy but I'm.

reply

I have heard/read that Pappagallo was formerly an executive of Seven Sisters Oil, which is the brand on the tanker, and apparently the previous owners of the refinery.


Gyro as an executive of a company, I find that hard to picture.
Maybe an employee.

reply

I still it's Max.

reply

Hmm, sure.

reply

That's right, I'm sure, and so are you now.

reply

I only posted this because of Mad Max: Fury Road. Some people consider Furiosa the true protagonist than Max, but Max being demoted to a supporting protagonist has been done in the Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome, has it not?

reply

No, because it's his story. He's a burnt out cop wandering post-apoc Aussie outback trying to survive.

reply

Max being demoted to a supporting protagonist has been done before in the Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome, has it not?


No. You keep saying this but you can't come up with anyone who shares the movie with Mel's Max like Furiosa does in Fury Road because the original movies were solely about him.

reply

No, you guys are actually wrong. Max only got caught up in the plot, it wasn't really about him.

reply

Max only got caught up in the plot, it wasn't really about him


That's why we followed him everywhere from start to finish, he set the movie in motion by finding the truck, he took out most of the bad guys, he was the ONLY character with any backstory, and the Feral Kid narrated his character arc for us - how he went from being a cop to burnt out shell of a man to redeeming himself 

reply

So?

reply

Is that all you've got?

I've decided Max isn't the really the hero or the focus of the movie but I can't back it up 

reply

I guess so.

reply

The only movie where Max truly had focus was the very first one.

reply

I see what you're doing, and it isn't working. Mad Max, Star Wars, Ghostbusters etc. all suffer from the same cancerous illness. Sometimes it is more subtle, like in Mad Max (even though the term subtle isn't really adequate), sometimes more, much more obvious like in other two examples. It is called feminism, and in its most aggressive form it demands political message even from the most creative directors.

So don't try to alter the originals to fit the PC grotesque that is Fury Road.

I was always a die hard Mad Max fan, and I never saw the purpose for Fury Road (other than giving credit to Miller, finally and officially), especially since it was, as Star Wars, just a rehash in a more PC, feminist friendly makeup. And even more importantly the most unoriginal work of one of the most creative directors in cinema.

All of those, dear, old classics are being remade to serve a certain political agenda nowadays, and it makes me physically ill.

So just stop making excuses for a film that is obviously your (hopefully)guilty pleasure.

reply

Nice theory but Mm2 had far more competent women in it than FR. Warrior woman, the mechanic, the older woman were all portrayed as competent and respected. Even the blond chick ultimately chose the honorable course.

reply

It did. And it did great job with female characters. Competent women does not equal feminism however.

Feminist characters are surreal, unrelatable fantasies of feminist activists. Flawless and patronising characters that turn a movie into a lesson in political correctness.

reply

The mechanic was male.

- Crazy. All crazy but I'm.

reply

Yes, the lead mechanic was male. However, there was a shot of a female mechanic in the preparations-to-leave montage. It wasn't heralded as being exceptional or groundbreaking - which made it so, in 1980, when we all thought Princess Leia was badass because she got off a single shot at a Stormtrooper before she got captured. That the mechanic was there, working, and not a plot point was pretty ground breaking for the time. And 35 years later, the same director failed to put anything equivalent in his remake. Sad, actually.
_____
#Team Cap
Unapologetic Moffat fangirl
Beans are evil. Bad, bad beans.

reply

Well, Max isn't supposed to be a "hero". He's a loner and anti-hero, with ambiguous morals, although in the case of Max, his behavior is justified.

reply

Since Max is inspired by Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a thousand faces" id say hes a hero, a reluctant one granted but a hero regardless.

reply

True.

reply

If Max isn't really the hero of this movie


He is. In all three of the original trilogy.

In Fury Road, this changed. He got a co-lead in Furiosa who was basically Warrior Woman, Savannah Nix and Aunty Entity (with some of Max himself) rolled into one.

I hope that clears everything up.

reply

No, I don't agree with that at all.

reply

I don't care. Facts are facts.

You've being made to look stupid in this thread.

You haven't come up with ONE reason why Max isn't the sole hero of the original movies. You just don't want him to be becuase he wasn't in Furiosa Road.

reply

It's not a fact! You make it out to be one!

reply

[deleted]

He DOES do a lot in Mad Max: Fury Road! Look, he beat Furiosa in a straight up fight, he kills the Rock Rider Chief and the Bullet Farmer, uses the People Eater as a human shield, and beats Rictus in a straight up fight also! This argument is over.

reply

[deleted]

The OP's a loser.

They start a thread trying to minimalize Mel Gibson's role in the original movies and trying to big up Tom Hardy's role, fail to back it up and end up looking stupid, so spit out their dummy and report you to the mods and get your posts deleted.  ROFLMFAO

reply

[deleted]

Neither did I.

I just asked them to name one character who had as much screen time and did as much as Mel's Max in the previous movies, and made a point about how you don't even see Max kill the Bullet Farmer in FR, and then my post's gone and I get the red writing. 

reply

I just asked them to name one character who had as much screen time and did as much as Mel's Max in the previous movies


What a movie is about often has very little to do with who is on screen the longest. Either you don't understand the point of movies or you don't understand how stories work.

reply

Either you don't understand the point of movies or you don't understand how stories work


I don't think you understand sh!t about this thread.

Re-read it maybe it will sink in.

reply

You just proved how marginal of a character Max is in the parallel project called Fury Road.

Downplaying Max's role in the originals is a predictable move of new age MM fans. Admirable, but completely futile and devoid of good sense though.

reply

Another reason why I refuse to acknowledge Furiosa as the main protagonist is because of feminism.

reply

[deleted]

[deleted]

[deleted]

Max is the main character and focus in this film, but for the sake of argument, probably the Gyro Captain. Pappagallo and the kid just aren't in it enough, even if the kid is the narrator.

reply