|
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
(1985)
In George Miller's third Mad Max film, set in
a post-apocalyptic parched world:
- the wooden sign welcoming entrants to the remote
Bartertown in the Australian desert: "Helping Build a Better
Tomorrow"
- the arrival of nomadic pilgrim and ex-cop "Mad
Max" Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) in Bartertown where he was told
by the town's corrupt and charismatic overlord Aunty Entity (Tina
Turner) and the bald Collector (Frank Thring) that power was generated
from methane-rich "pig s--t" in Bartertown's Underworld:
("Pigs--t. The lights, the motors, the vehicles - all run by
a high-powered gas called methane. Methane comes from pigs--t")
- the promotion of ritualized gladiatorial conflict
to settle disputes - in the massive caged Thunderdome, surrounded
by a bloodthirsty audience clinging to the bars; Aunty Entity urged
Max to challenge and combat her rival - the weirdly-original, two-person
Master-Blaster, composed of a "little one" (dwarf-midget)
known as the Master (Angelo Rossitto) who controlled Underworld - "Master"
was also "the brains" who rode on the back of the hulking, "muscle"-bound
body known as Blaster (Paul Larsson)
|
|
|
The Thunderdome's Master of Ceremonies:
"Dying Time's Here!"
|
The Two-Part Master-Blaster
|
Aunty Entity
(Tina Turner)
|
- Aunty Entity's introduction to the Thunderdome proceedings:
("Welcome to another edition of Thunderdome!")
- the fight was set up by the black-robed, ghoulish
Master of Ceremonies, Dr. Dealgood (Edwin Hodgeman), who held a scepter:
("Listen on! Listen on! This is the truth of it. Fighting leads
to killing, and killing gets to warring. And that was damn near the
death of us all. Look at us now, busted up and everyone talking about
hard rain. But we've learned by the dust of them all. Bartertown's
learned. Now when men get to fighting, it happens here. And it finishes
here. Two men enter, one man leaves. And right now, I've got two
men. Two men with a gut full of fear. Ladies and gentlemen, boys
and girls dying time's here!")
- the introduction of the two combatants: Mad Max against
the Master-Blaster: ("He's the ball cracker. Death on foot.
You know him. You love him! He's Blaster! The challenger, direct
from out of the Wasteland. He's bad. He's beautiful. He's crazy!
It's the man with no name! Thunderdome's simple. Get to the weapons,
use them anyway you can. I know you won't break the rules. There
aren't any. Remember where you are. This is Thunderdome. Death is
listening, and will take the first man that screams. Prepare! Two
men enter, one man leaves!")
- the scene of the spectators hanging on the giant caged
dome and cheering the gladiatorial action between the battling protagonists
bouncing on rubbery elastic bungee-type straps within the bars of
the Thunderdome, and the denouement when Max blew on his high-pitched
whistle (the sound was Blaster's weakness and incapacitated him),
and then knocked off Blaster's helmet with a sledgehammer - and "Master" was
revealed to be a retarded child: ("He's got the mind of a child")
- and after a long hesitation, Max made a decision to disobey Aunty
Entity and not kill his opponent; suddenly, Aunty's guards killed
Blaster
- Aunty announced Max's punishment for not killing Master
and for breaking the deal of "Two men enter, one man leaves":
(to the crowd) ("What's this?! Do you think I don't know the
law? Wasn't it me who wrote it? And I say that this man has broken
the law. Right or wrong, we had a deal. And the law says, 'Bust a
deal, face the wheel'")
Dr. Dealgood at the Wheel to Determine Max's Fate
|
|
|
"All Our Lives Hang by a Thread"
|
GULAG
|
- the scene of Max's sentencing, after the spinning
of a wheel to determine his penalty and fate, commented upon by
Dr. Dealgood: ("All our lives hang by a thread. Now we've
got a man waiting for sentence. But ain't it the truth? You take
your chances with the law. Justice is only a roll of the dice,
a flip of the coin, a turn of the wheel") - the wheel landed
on "GULAG"
- the exile of Max when he was banished into the desert
wasteland of Gulag on the back of a pack animal during a sandstorm,
where he was rescued by a tribal group of abandoned feral children
and teenagers led by Savannah Nix (Helen Buday) who lived in a lush
green oasis at the bottom of a rift in the desert; she called Max "Captain
Walker" and expected him to magically fly them "home" back
to civilization, a mythical place known as "Tomorrow-morrow
Land" - seen in a few slides in a hand-held picture viewer (with
pictures of Sydney, Australia before the apocalypse); the youths
were descendants of the victims of an earlier Boeing 747 airplane
that crashed, piloted by Captain Walker; its ill-fated flight was
to escape the crumbling post-atomic cities
- in the conclusion, the return of Max to Bartertown
to rescue some of the tribe's members (and to free "Master" and
take him along to help build a new home for the tribe), involving
a classic, lengthy desert chase sequence in junkmobiles between Max
and Aunty Entity (who wished to recapture "Master") - the
chase ended with her smiling farewell to Max when she spared his
life: ("Well, ain't we a pair, Raggedy Man? Ha, ha, ha. Goodbye,
soldier")
- the final flight toward abandoned, burned-out, dilapidated,
nuclear-devastated Sydney, Australia -- and the epilogue -- Savannah
Nix's poignant closing voice-over narrated monologue (her nightly
Tell) about the tribe's journey and its salvation by Mad Max: ("This
you know. The years travel fast. And time after time I done the Tell.
But this ain't one body's Tell. It's the Tell of us all. And you
got to listen it and remember. 'Cause what you hears today, you gotta
tell the newborn tomorrow. I's lookin' behind us now, into history
back. I sees those of us that got the luck and started the haul for
home. And I 'members how it led us here and how we was heartful 'cause
we seen what there once was. One look, and we knewed we'd got it
straight. Those what had gone before had the knowin' and the doin'
of things beyond our reckonin' - even beyond our dreamin'. Time counts
and keeps countin', and we knows now finding the trick of what's
been and lost ain't no easy ride. But that's our trek, we gotta travel
it. And there ain't nobody knows where it's gonna lead. Still in
all, every night we does the Tell, so that we 'member who we was
and where we came from. But most of all we 'members the man who finded
us, him that came the salvage, and we lights the city. Not just for
him, but for all of them that are still out there. 'Cause we knows
there'll come a night when they sees the distant light, and they'll
be comin' home")
The Tribe's Salvation by Mad Max - Flight From
Desert -
and Savannah's Narrated Epilogue
|
|
|
|
|
Bartertown Sign
In Bartertown: A City Powered by "Pig Shit"
Blaster's Helmet Dislodged, Revealing Retarded "Master"
Aunty Entity's Punishment For Max For Disobeying Deal: "Bust
a Deal, Face the Wheel"
Max's Sentencing:
Exile to Gulag
Savannah Nix
(Helen Buday)
The Feral Children
The Paradise Known as "Tomorrow-morrow Land" (Pre-Apocalyptic
Sydney)
Lengthy Desert Chase
Aunty Entity Sparing Max - and Her Farewell to Him: ("Well,
ain't we a pair, raggedy man?...Goodbye, soldier")
|