#i think the movie should have started with furiosa trying to escape the citadel and the subsequent raid on the rig

[deanpinterester]

as much as ppl like to meme on how fury road's plot is just "they drive across the desert and drive back" i think the simplicity is what made it work so well and gave it room to be a high octane over-the-top action movie. when i watch furiosa and see how much intricate backstory they're trying to fit into it i just can't help but realize how much that attempt at intricacy made the movie's pacing and structure very wonky

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Furiosa viewing #3 for me last night and I figured something out. I have heard multiple people say that the pacing of the movie felt off or weird or even "slow," even though the plot consistently moves along at a brisk clip. But what people were noticing was not the speed of the story but the structure.

I realized the pacing feels weird because the movie has two third acts.

The overwhelming majority of movies released by Hollywood studios follow a very standardized three-act structure. This is certainly not the only way to structure a film story, but it's the most common one in the Anglophone film world, so common that you have probably absorbed its pattern without even thinking about it. The previous Mad Max movies do generally fit this structure, and Fury Road fits it like, down to the minute.

When we get to the big fight sequence at the Bullet Farm, where we know Jack has prepared everything for Furiosa to leave and they just have to get through this one last mission together, my gut story sense was like this feels like it should be the third act. The fight in the Bullet Farm and the chase with Dementus that ends in Jack's death feels like it should be the climax of the movie. And not just because we are around the two-hour mark at this point, although we are.

In terms of themes and plot arcs and story beats, Jack's death feels like where the movie should end. We start the story with Mary Jabassa telling Furiosa to leave her behind and make it home safe. I'm sure Mary knows she's on a suicide mission at this point, but maybe she can hold off their attackers long enough for her daughter to escape. But Furiosa can't leave her mom behind. So she goes back, and she watches her mom die brutally and gets trapped by Dementus.

Then, at the Bullet Farm, Furiosa has her best chance yet at getting home. She has a fully loaded vehicle, and she's outside the Bullet Farm gates while Jack is stuck inside. Jack, too, tells her to run and save herself. (While it's never spelled out, I'm sure we're supposed to intuit that the green flare means GO.) He probably thinks he's dead either way at this point, but maybe Furiosa can make it out. But once again, she can't do it. She goes back to defend Jack, and we have this little bit of hope of, maybe this time she'll be able to save the person she cares about from being killed by the same warlord who killed her mother. Whether she succeeds or fails, narratively, this feels like it should be the climactic action sequence of the movie.

But there's still another 30 (ish?? I need to watch with a timer) minutes to go after that, in which we have a whole other plot arc of Furiosa getting back to the Citadel, making her prosthetic arm, and going off on her quest to hunt down Dementus. And if this part all feels a bit grueling, it's because your brain expected the movie to end half an hour ago.

(I should pause here to say that you absolutely can write a movie in three-act structure that's longer than 2 hours--you just have to stretch all the pieces out equally or it starts to feel lumpy. And the place where our attention spans are going to be least forgiving of lumpiness is at the end of the movie.)

Well, you might say, maybe Furiosa was just not written with the three-act structure in mind. And that could be true! But I would argue that the oddness of the end of the movie comes primarily from the film not being clear on what narrative question it's trying to answer.

Because an ending that focuses on Furiosa's choice between finally getting home or going back to try to save Jack is addressing the question of, "Do you prioritize saving yourself, or do you fight for the people you love, even if you may end up in a worse situation because of it?"

An ending that follows Furiosa's revenge quest seems to focus more on, "What does seeking revenge do to your humanity?"

Both of these questions are rich territory to be explored in the wasteland, and the other Mad Max movies deal with both of them. But I would argue that the first question is very clearly set up in the beginning of the movie as a thing we expect to be exploring, and the second question, not so much.

I think the story would have benefitted from picking one or the other. And if they wanted to tell a story about the price of revenge, then highlighting this earlier--either by making revenge Furiosa's primary motivation from the beginning, or highlighting it thematically by showing how the quest for revenge warps other characters--would have made the last section of the movie feel more like a payoff and less like a sudden left turn into the desert.

[fetus-cakes]

Furiosa: some jumbled thoughts

I genuinely think Mad Mad: Fury Road is one of the best modern movies ever. I rarely ever like prequels/sequels to beloved 80's franchises and yet Fury Road had me thinking and talking about the themes and storytelling for literal years after the movie was out. I even got the soundtrack and played it constantly while driving.

So! That means I had insanely high expectations for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. I don't think I was ever going to be 100% happy with any origin story for Furiosa, as nothing can really beat the limitless potential of an untold story. I still tried to go to the theatre with an open mind. Alas I was disappointed.

My verdict: Mediocre! much like when Nux ate shit right in front of his idol, this movie fails to stick the landing.

so my first complaint is: SHE HAD LONG HAIR WHAT IS UP WITH THAT SHIT

it's not just an aesthetic choice, in a world where a person fights all the time and she got to repair the engine while the truck is moving, long hair is a LIABILITY. it's going to get caught in a wheel and rip her WHOLE scalp offfffffff her whole scalp!

plus. it looked like a perfectly coiffed wig, which is so out of place in the WASTELAND. how does hair the wasteland look? it should be DIRTY and OILY, there's no fucking shampoo. instead her wig only got a little dusty at the end. here's my actual biggest complaint: it felt that they were contractually obligated to use the exact same sets, costumes and characters as Fury Road; we BARELY got introduced to any new people or places. EVERYONE looks the exact same as they do in Fury Road, which takes place NINETEEN YEARS after the events here

it's so so fucking boring that Immortan Joe, People Eater and Bullet Farmer look THE EXACT SAME as they do in Fury Road

in Fury Road there's the implication that Joe is slowly dying of various tumours and diseased flesh, but he used to be younger and healthier. we should have seen fit, strong Joe at his prime and maybe this was the START of his health problems; if this movie was any good we should have seen why he wears that teeth mask (it's to hide his possibly cancerous jaw)

People Eater has both syphilis and elephantiasis, both implied to be diseases he got from being a cannibal, but by the time you lose your nose and your leg looks so swollen those are later stages of those diseases, he's close to death in Fury Road. if he has no nose and a swollen leg at the start of Furiosa, that means he held on to life and sanity for nineteen years, which is very very unlikely Fury Road makes a BIG DEAL that Joe cares about his "wives". He treats them like property and obviously is a rapist piece of shit, but he does care a lot about what happens to them

you're telling me that Joe of all people wouldn't rip the entire citadel inside out looking for Furiosa went she went missing?

that he's so stupid he couldn't put two and two together that a little girl went missing from his harem and later a teenage girl appears "out of nowhere" among his warboys? and this teenage girl seems unusually healthy and capable, unlike most of the children of the wasteland? Furiosa SHOULD have been about her victimization at the hands of Joe and her many many attempts to escape, WHICH ARE MENTIONED IN FURY ROAD. instead we see her trying to run away once (1) and she never gets punished by Joe. her anger at him in Fury Road makes no sense now

I wouldn't say I want to see rape in a movie like this, but we got set up to think there's a lot more sexual violence in the wasteland. it's explicit in the Road Warrior, it's implicit in Fury Road

we got set up to think Furiosa was a "wife" or was at least the victim of Immortan Joe in a way like that we know for a fact that JOE has set up a system in which women, especially healthy women who can have children, are at a premium and he gets first dibs there's a very unsubtle gender divide in the Citadel that we know is Joe's doing because he's the one obsessed with having healthy babies and knowing this, they're expecting us to believe Furiosa was never the target of unwanted sexual attention? in this society that Joe specifically set up so women could be victimized? I have a hard time believing it

I really am not saying I want Furiosa to be the victim of sexual assault, but I do want them to give us a good reason why she is NOT when the previous movies have established this is a regular thing.

like we could have a scene where she escapes the harem very violently but gets caught, Joe might decide she's too much trouble to keep as a breeding stock but she's feisty and strong so he will give her a chance as a War Boy, and he gets to imply that he will force her to bear children if it she's not a good fighter what we get instead is that she dressed up as a boy (and somehow doesn't get caught for years despite her disguise being shit) and then gets taken up under the wing of Praetorian Jack and she doesn't disguise her gender anymore; and Joe doesn't care?? huh???

I WISH this movie was more about Immortan Joe establishing his own cult of personality that we see fully formed in Fury Road.

it would have been so good to see War Boys not quite as manically loyal to him until he comes up with the idea that HE is a god-king that will take the boys to paradise (Valhalla) 19 years is a good timeline to establish that sort of lore about himself. the fact that they ALREADY have it when Furiosa comes to the citadel is so SO boring

it's so boring that basically NOTHING changed in the citadel for 19 years, there was no power grabs or changes in hierarchy or changes to the lore that Joe has about himself everything was consistent and running smoothly for Joe for nearly twenty years? in a wasteland where resources are extremely scarce and people are CONSTANTLY murdering each other for water, gasoline and food? stability? in THIS economy?

it would have been more interesting if part of the movie was that someone else had the Citadel and then Joe came and took it and established his own society; and we see Furiosa trade one insane warlord for a different (perhaps worse) one literally one of the things that makes the Mad Max universe cool and fascinating is that the more fractured society gets, the more people in their own little pocket cities reinvent society with their own set of insane rules the only good thing about Thunderdome was the the fact that they had the Thunderdome to settle their disputes!

loyalty is a biiiiiiig theme in Fury Road, both in how Immortan Joe artificially enforces it with his cult of personality and how Furiosa and Max have the real thing for each through shared trauma it's so insane to me that loyalty from Furiosa to Joe is not addressed ONCE, it's something that he would demand from her he just accepts that she works for him? Joe is 1000% the sort of man who would force Furiosa to shoot her own friend to prove her loyalty to him, but we don't see anything like that

(this point is minor compared to the rest) I never understood chris hemsworth as Lord Dementus, like what the fuck is his deal he got better towards the end of the movie, but the first half he was so over the place was he gonna rape Furiosa's mom? no? why does he want to have the pretty girl-child so badly? is HE a pedophile? no? he likes children, but not in a creepy way? then why does he act so weird with her is he a capable war lord or just an idiot? hard to tell! why doesn't he sell Furiosa to Immortan Joe as soon as Joe expresses interest? slaves are a premium resource! if he really likes Furiosa, then why does he relent and give her to Joe when it's clear she's going to be breeding stock? it's like they saw Lord Humungus from Road Warrior and said "we want this character but without the S&M gay shit, oh oops but if he's interested in little girls that's bad in a different way"

we barely see Furiosa kill anyone in this movie, she doesn't even join in the WAR (the war that she SHOULD join to show her loyalty to Joe so he would trust her with the war rig!!) in Fury Road she is both ruthless and efficient killer. She's not cruel, but she has zero time to compassionate. someone explain to me how the hell she got to that point without murdering people up close and personal as a younger woman. in Fury Road she is NOT afraid to get into close quarters violence with Max, despite not having a gun and having the handicap of missing her arm (and not having her prosthetic one on). this tells us she's someone who KNOWS how to fight, someone who doesn't hesitate to kill

final thoughts: the music was so anemic, during one of the war rig fights I literally found myself thinking "where's the music? the music is supposed to get us pumped up for the action right now. I don't feel the adrenaline these characters feel!" did they record ANY new music for this movie? or was it all from the Fury Road soundtrack?

final final thought: Lord Dementus being used as living fertilizer for the peach tree is so stupid and impossible. It would have been better to shown him as a corpse, rather than someone who impossibly stayed alive for months or years for a sapling to grow. Did she implant the peach pit in his dick?

Showing clips from the original movie on a sequel should be cardinal sin in filmmaking. It's like they don't trust the audience to remember, or they're telling us "you liked this right? remember how much you liked this, you'll have positive associations with this current one!" do not remind me I could be watching a better movie instead of this