Mad Max: Fury Road

[JD]

Loved the film, however the feminist angle to me was a total joke.

The whole premise of the film Protecting 5 babes in their underwear in a high speed ultra octane persuit.

Seriously can you get more of a macho fantasy.

I'd be a liar if babes wearing nothing wasn't part of what made the action such a high stakes story.

That wasn't a 'Feminist angle', it was a 'Humanist angle'. For it to be a macho fantasy, Max would have had to end up with one or more of them. The closest we got to that was one of the women cradling a manipulated soldier like a child, giving him the first (Non-sexual) tenderness he'd received in his life.

I didn't see that as five hot women being protected by a macho man, I saw it as five slaves being delivered to freedom.

Also the women were far from helpless, they even used themselves as shields knowing the bad guys would refuse to harm them.

I would hope the sequel focuses on a completely different location. It seems more in the spirit of Max for him to keep wandering out there on his own.

That probably depends on if the story changed with the title change. Originally it was Furiosa, so unless she leaves The Citadel, it will probably at least start there.
I've been wondering if they might deal at all with either the Bullet Farm or Gas Town. Both of those were allies of Immortan Joe,

Spoiler: end of Fury Road

and now that he's dead, their leaders are dead, and Furiosa is in charge of The Citadel, I wonder where their loyalties lie now

.

 

[ITL]

Can't...stop...laughing...j-just read the reviews...

http://www.amazon.com/Wilton-710-55...5858&sr=1-1&keywords=wilton+silver+color+mist

"Oh what a spray! What a lovely spray!"

 

[Autistoid]

That wasn't a 'Feminist angle', it was a 'Humanist angle'. For it to be a macho fantasy, Max would have had to end up with one or more of them. The closest we got to that was one of the women cradling a manipulated soldier like a child, giving him the first (Non-sexual) tenderness he'd received in his life.

I didn't see that as five hot women being protected by a macho man, I saw it as five slaves being delivered to freedom.

Also the women were far from helpless, they even used themselves as shields knowing the bad guys would refuse to harm them.

I would hope the sequel focuses on a completely different location. It seems more in the spirit of Max for him to keep wandering out there on his own.

My point is you get away with a movie that you otherwise wouldn't.

If they were a bunch of 40 year old women, you'd not be getting the ratings that this movie is getting.

Not because there's some sexist conspiracy that men are trying to protect.

Simply because it's a story were hard wired to have a stake in.

The problem, feminist can't accept that were all hard wired by biology.

This notion that it's only young, dumb, or classless men that are engaged in this is absolute nonsense.

This new wave of feminism are people that are just not ok with aging, gender and how our society works.

I'm not saying our society isn't horribly flawed. However starting with gender is just dumb.

I'd give alot more credit to the feminist angle in this movie, if it wasn't a 5 foot 10 ex model in the supposed lead.

Gender is just one way in which people segment society.

Height, looks, age, financial status, are just a few ways more.

 

[Trekker4747]

Wow. You *really* have something against 40-year-old women, don't you? I've seen plenty of 40-year-old women I'd go for over a 20-something.

Anyway, I do think people rooting for the "feminist" angle is a touch extreme and maybe reading into story cues such a touch too much. It strikes me as looking into an expressionist painting and seeing in it more what you want to see/what's in your soul that what the artist originally intended.

The female characters in the movie were well done but, come-on, other the Furiosa they were there as a touch of eye-candy and plot devices. A movie about enslaved women fleeing their captor is hardly a unique plot or story, either. The female characters were done well but I don't think the movie was going for any real-strong feminist angle or agenda beyond making an entertaining movie that was perhaps playing on tropes a bit.

 

[Venardhi]

Here's the thing I see a lot of the press not getting on the feminist angle. They didn't set out to make a feminist action film, they just set out to make one that wasn't awash in the usual oblivious failings of so many other full throttle action films. They hired a feminist to help them avoid the pitfalls that plague so many other stories of this nature, not to make it a manifesto of feminine power or gender equality. They wanted to present the characters and events without fetishization or titillation or otherwise diminishing to the many women filling out the cast of characters.

That is what makes it one of the more powerful statements of feminism in practice. While the female characters may not be seen as equal in their fictional world, they are given equal respect by the storyteller and (hopefully) the audience.

 

[JD]

^Which is sadly rare in these kinds of action movies. Most of the stuff I have seen have really just been praising those aspects of the movie. I think the only people really accusing it of being a "feminist manifesto" are the anti-feminist nutjobs.

 

[Cyke101]

They wanted to present the characters and events without fetishization or titillation or otherwise diminishing to the many women filling out

Well, they do it twice, but avert the usual tropes in the process. The water hose scene showed Max's priorities (get the water!), and the second was clearly a trap in which genre-saavy Max and home girl Furiosa were able to avoid.

 

[Autistoid]

Wow. You *really* have something against 40-year-old women, don't you? I've seen plenty of 40-year-old women I'd go for over a 20-something.

You say that but anyone that's been in that actual situation(of equal choice) will disagree the majority of the time.

Dating a older partner for men is a challenge and a rather unpleasant part of life. The same forces cause much insecurity for women.


Do you think charlize theoron is proving anything by looking the way she does at her age.

Acting roles for women past 30 are typically dependent on getting work done.

It's a fact of life that evolutionary needs drive us to the utmost degree.

They are ugly, pervasive and aren't gonna go away.


The problem with feminists, civil rights activist, etc, is that many fail to empathize with the supposed wrong doer.

People without empathy behave badly regardless of what beliefs they have about women or other people.

People with empathy generally are reacting to alot of pressures.

We've been brainwashed to think ironically by sci fi, that these problems are all driven by irrational beliefs and can be just wisked away by education.

It's an exceptionally condescending platform, and loads of recent information shows that they're are some real limits to how far these things can go, unless you can control the ignored pressures that lead to the problem in the first place.

Idealist cannot except many of the reasons suggested sociobiology.

 

[Autistoid]

Here's the thing I see a lot of the press not getting on the feminist angle. They didn't set out to make a feminist action film, they just set out to make one that wasn't awash in the usual oblivious failings of so many other full throttle action films. They hired a feminist to help them avoid the pitfalls that plague so many other stories of this nature, not to make it a manifesto of feminine power or gender equality. They wanted to present the characters and events without fetishization or titillation or otherwise diminishing to the many women filling out the cast of characters.

That is what makes it one of the more powerful statements of feminism in practice. While the female characters may not be seen as equal in their fictional world, they are given equal respect by the storyteller and (hopefully) the audience.

This whole part makes no sense in contrast to what I was saying.

It was a symbolic gesture to broaden the audience and to make it a bigger hit.

If they were respected they wouldn't be wearing almost no clothes for the entire film.

this is the nonsensical nature of this movie. It's point means nothing.

To compare it to fast and the furious or whatever teenager movie is a joke. It clearly was in a class of a more serious nature, for more mature audiences.

Whatever fantasies people wanna have about supposed chauvinism treating women with respect was never an issue for the classier bunch.

It was the treating of them as equals which was the issue.

And this movie clearly does not do that.

 

[Autistoid]

They wanted to present the characters and events without fetishization or titillation or otherwise diminishing to the many women filling out

Well, they do it twice, but avert the usual tropes in the process. The water hose scene showed Max's priorities (get the water!), and the second was clearly a trap in which genre-saavy Max and home girl Furiosa were able to avoid.

I really don't know what you guys were expecting to do if this was written chauvinist.

compare him to the character in gladiator, which as far as I know had non of the same motivations.

A strong male character isn't suppose to be distracted by temptation.

 

[Trekker4747]

I'm sure something was said in those last three posts, I'm just not sure what.

^Which is sadly rare in these kinds of action movies. Most of the stuff I have seen have really just been praising those aspects of the movie. I think the only people really accusing it of being a "feminist manifesto" are the anti-feminist nutjobs.

Probably, but plenty of feminist blogs and reviewers have lauded the film for its feminist message and strengths which, for me, is odd because I don't think it's something the movie was going out of the way to do. It may have gone against many sexist tropes and types in the movie, pushed against the norm for this genre of movie but it's hardly feminist or anti-masculinity.

But the voices of these two groups give feminists, and men, a bad name in how vocal and consuming they're being over this movie. A dumb summer action movie.

Again, enjoyed the movie and had a ball in it, but for me at the end of the day it's a summer action movie that's going to be forgotten about by winter.

 

[BillJ]

Decent enough movie. Spectacular to look at but the story seemed a little thin.

 

[HarryCanyon1982]

I saw this 4 times and i did a marathon of the MM movies before seeing this as i saw them on blu-ray.

This was a hell of alot better than the watered down PG-13 3rd movie and glad it went back to the gritty r-rated adult formula of the first 2 classic. I've been a fan of this series for a long time and it didn't disappoint me.

Who else thought Joe was like something out of Fist of the North Star?

 

[JD]

Sounds like I made the right choice when I decided not to get the Furiosa comic. I had originally just planned on waiting until I had gotten through some of my other unread comics, but now I'm not sure if I want to read it at all.

 

[Aldo]

I usually pass on the Marvel movie tie ins for somewhat similar reasons. They never feel like they're written by anyone who is remotely involved in the making of the actual films. It sounds like this one isn't any different.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I usually pass on the Marvel movie tie ins for somewhat similar reasons. They never feel like they're written by anyone who is remotely involved in the making of the actual films. It sounds like this one isn't any different.

The director, George Miller, is one of the writers and had final approval on the overall story. He's intimately involved.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/a...ax-fury-road-furiosa-1-cover-and-solicitation

 

[Aldo]

I know that.

The article implied that it felt like Miller wasn't as involved as everyone has been lead to believe. As I haven't read the title yet, I was merely commenting on what the article said.

 

[kirk55555]

I got to see this recently, and it was ok. The action scenes are decent, but the movie feels like its just a bunch of action sequences with a bare minimum of story stuck in as an afterthought. At about the mid point the action scenes just kind of stopped making an impact because there was just so much action and so little story or character stuff. I like that the female characters are fairly strong when it comes to how they act, but no one (including Max and Furiousa) gets enough character development for me to care about anyone individually. Its far from being a bad movie, but it doesn't have enough to it to be more than an ok movie I don't regret watching, but I probably won't watch again. If I rated it, I'd probably go with 7/10 or C.

 

[BillJ]

Decent enough movie. Spectacular to look at but the story seemed a little thin.

I got to see this recently, and it was ok. The action scenes are decent, but the movie feels like its just a bunch of action sequences with a bare minimum of story stuck in as an afterthought. At about the mid point the action scenes just kind of stopped making an impact because there was just so much action and so little story or character stuff. I like that the female characters are fairly strong when it comes to how they act, but no one (including Max and Furiousa) gets enough character development for me to care about anyone individually. Its far from being a bad movie, but it doesn't have enough to it to be more than an ok movie I don't regret watching, but I probably won't watch again. If I rated it, I'd probably go with 7/10 or C.

I don't think I can fairly grade it until I see it a second time, which will be on Blu-ray. I'm curious about what I may have missed being caught up in the action the first time around.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

Hey guys, went and saw this at the matinee and it's a lot of fun. One thing that's really bugging me is did they say they could go for 160 days on those motorcycles? I don't get how they could possibly have the fuel or supplies to do so and it seems like WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY off. Did I mishear this or am interpreting it wrong?

Saw this in IMAX 3D at the Scotiabank Theater in Toronto, loved it.