Furiosa, Witnessed

[ecarden]

Watched it, generally enjoyed it. Worst part was three ********s behind me who would not stop talking, despite repeated shushing by other people in the audience. I'm not talking about laughter or 'huh' or even general reactions like 'oh no.' I repeatedly heard 'this is stupid,' and similar comments that frankly didn't make much sense given what we were seeing on the screen, but I suppose it must have been confusing if you weren't paying any attention to the screen!

Anyway, the film itself is a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, which I quite enjoyed, providing the backstory to Imperator Furiosa. In that it does quite a good job of avoiding both of the main prequel diseases. First, it doesn't try to show how Furiosa got every little trinket and tool she happened to have in Fury Road, ala Solo. Second, it doesn't try to suggest that everything interesting in her backstory happened over some like, two week period, ala, again, Solo.

Instead, it covers about ~16 years in her life, from the time she was taken from the Green Place to when she is firmly established in Immortan Joe's service, though even though

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the last shot of the film is her sneaking the wives out to kick off the plot of Fury Road, it's clear that some adventures have been skipped over, as she's a Praetor at the end of the film, and an Imperator at the start of the next. And the trinkets/plot threads it introduces, it mostly pays off in this film, leaving some dangling threads to suggest that she had other adventures between the war and Fury Road, which is always nice.

We don't do too much expansion of the world building here, as most of the factions are ones we've already seen, with just a hint of

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the Green Place and Dementius's forces don't get too much world building behind them, though they do get the bit that was most interesting to me, the Historyman and his endless definitions and facts, who Immortan Joe's sons miraculously don't kill. There's a whisper of Ghengis Khan, and more than a whisper of the nihilistic child about him.

Lots of good action, and unlike Fury Road isn't all the exact same action, of a car chase. The villain is suitably hateful and her relationship with

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the other praetor is interestingly ambiguous. Some may read it as romantic, or would-be romantic, but to me it read as fatherly and surprisingly wholesome, though a lot of that is left ambiguous as this definitely isn't a film which explains everything to you. So, they're ambushed and separated after he's arranged for her to get the vehicle and supplies she needs to go home. She can leave. He's driving away and pulls out a signal flare type thing and fires a green one. It's never explained what this means, but...green means go, right? She starts to go, before turning around to help...which saves him in the short term, but turns what would have most likely been a quick death for him into a slow, torturous one, and costs her an arm...and yet this isn't actually a particularly cynical movie.

Genuinely enjoyed it, though not quite as good as Fury Road, I think. I may need to rewatch to see how that holds up. Just make sure you don't watch it with *******s over your shoulder.

[Errorname]

Rewatching Fury Road in preparation, and I know this might be a hot take, but Fury Road is a damn good movie.

[Peelee]

Rewatching Fury Road in preparation, and I know this might be a hot take, but Fury Road is a damn good movie.

Don't cut yourself on that edge.

[Khedrac]

Rewatching Fury Road in preparation, and I know this might be a hot take, but Fury Road is a damn good movie.

Watching Fury Road first is advisable, but not essential (though I would suggest not wathing the credits if you haven't see Fury Road).

Personally I thought this a better film than Fury Road, and really enjoyable.

[Infernally Clay]

I do intend to watch this soon, but there have been so many good action movies in the last month alone I should probably palate cleanse first.

I wonder if this is going to be a self contained trilogy. From what I understand, Furiosa does a lot of heavy lifting in the worldbuilding department so a third movie starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron again would be pretty cool.

[Ranxerox]

Rewatching Fury Road in preparation, and I know this might be a hot take, but Fury Road is a damn good movie.

Having watched Furiosa, I now want to go back and watch Fury Road again. Watching them in the in-universe timeline, rather than the order of release seems better to me.

[ecarden]

I do intend to watch this soon, but there have been so many good action movies in the last month alone I should probably palate cleanse first.

I wonder if this is going to be a self contained trilogy. From what I understand, Furiosa does a lot of heavy lifting in the worldbuilding department so a third movie starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron again would be pretty cool.

Could be, though if so, I sort of hope it would be strikingly different in tone/type than most Mad Max films, as Fury Road ends with everyone but Max staying put to try to actually build something functional in the Wasteland.

Now, you could imagine a film, or series based around that, or, if you need Max based around Max bringing back refugees, scouting trade routes, dealing with potential threats, etc. But it would be so much easier to simply have the attempt fail and the Citadel in need of defense against some overwhelming enemy and so replay Max's standard film path, though perhaps skipping the part at the beginning where he allegedly doesn't care about the people he's going to be helping/protecting.

Personally, I think a show dramatizing an attempt to build/rebuild a society that can actually function out of the pieces Furiosa et. al. have to hand would be extremely interesting, but it also would be very different from Mad Max.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Could be, though if so, I sort of hope it would be strikingly different in tone/type than most Mad Max films, as Fury Road ends with everyone but Max staying put to try to actually build something functional in the Wasteland.

Isn't that essentially what happens at the end of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome?

[ecarden]

Isn't that essentially what happens at the end of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome?

Right, Max goes in, doesn't want to help people, ends up helping people and leaves (or they leave) to go build something better, then he goes off to do the same thing again. This is Mad Max 2-4. That's mostly fine, but if they're attempting to do a trilogy, I sort of hope the third film would not just be the same as the first one (Fury Road, in this model).

[pita]

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The one thing about this movie I'm mixed on (everything else I am 100% positive about) is how I didn't feel there was, at any point, a moral core for Furiosa. Some kind of seed that got quenched by her hatred of Dementus. I think that the opening maybe needed something like that. But I'm not sure about it.

I will say, because I'm not leaving this purely critical: The battle where Furiosa gets promoted is one of the best fight scenes I've ever seen, on the level and maybe even surpassing anything in Fury Road. And the last conversation between Dementus and Furiosa was pure art - every single word spoken was perfect, and Hemsworth's delivery was amazing. In general, Anya Taylor Joy was a near-perfect choice for Furiosa, because she's one of those rare actors who can deliver a monologue with only a stare.

[Malimar]

I have a sneaking suspicion that the claim "you don't need to watch Fury Road first to enjoy this one" may be incorrect. But I think it's more likely that I'm just not the target audience for Mad Max in general. I suspect the intent is that one should turn one's brain entirely off and just allow the 'cool vehicles go boom' to wash over you like a tide. Which I can respect as a genre! It's just not for me.

Probably the most tedious part of this overall tedious movie is the interminable attack on the War Rig by the various flying dudes. We never see the whole complement of flying dudes, they simply spawn from the aether 2 at a time (politely taking turns). The only way to know when they're running low on flying dudes is when the War Rig has run out of white guy mooks & used the spinning flail dealy, which we can metagame to mean all remaining flying guys must be there for the two heroes to take out, so there can't be that many left. (You might say that this metagame logic should extend, that we can presume at any given time there are about as many flying dudes left as there are white dudes... but we never get a proper establishing shot of exactly how many white dudes there are, either! A lot more of them die than we ever see at once, really more than could plausibly fit on the War Rig plus two cars, so really the white dudes are just spawning out of the aether, too.)

[Dragonus45]

Very much the Thunderdome to the Fury Road but I liked Thunderdome so it's fine.

[Infernally Clay]

Right, Max goes in, doesn't want to help people, ends up helping people and leaves (or they leave) to go build something better, then he goes off to do the same thing again. This is Mad Max 2-4. That's mostly fine, but if they're attempting to do a trilogy, I sort of hope the third film would not just be the same as the first one (Fury Road, in this model).

I do wonder if they'll bring Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy back for the third one and have it set after Fury Road. Perhaps it's many years later and Furiosa has successfully created a prosperous home but someone wants to take it from her because the world has only gotten worse and obviously taking something that works is easier than building something that works yourself.

[Eldan]

It's... fine. Not great, but pretty good. Drags a bit occasionally. Doesn't have quite the energy of Fury Road. All the action scenes feel half a notch dialed down. But it's fine.

Edit: thinking about it, it's probably mostly the cinematography? The scenes don't feel quite as real, as visceral, the visuals aren't quite as amazing. Not sure what it was, but none of the scenes really wowed me.

[Dragonus45]

It's... fine. Not great, but pretty good. Drags a bit occasionally. Doesn't have quite the energy of Fury Road. All the action scenes feel half a notch dialed down. But it's fine.

Edit: thinking about it, it's probably mostly the cinematography? The scenes don't feel quite as real, as visceral, the visuals aren't quite as amazing. Not sure what it was, but none of the scenes really wowed me.

It was made way cheaper then Fury Road was so it lacked some practical effects.

[Eldan]

That would explain it. It's been a while since I saw Fury Road, but the action in that felt extremely raw and physical, since it was all practical. The CGI in this wasgood (as in, not immediately obvious), but I did think some of the action scenes felt a bit floaty.

That said, the CGI in Fury Road was also amazing. Both the low-key stuff like adding more rocks to the terrain to make it look more dangerous, and the big stuff, like the incredibly epic sand storm. I do think this movie lacked any big "woah" shots.

[Errorname]

It was made way cheaper then Fury Road was so it lacked some practical effects.

I would actually assume the big cut was in the digital side. There are vanishingly few shots in Fury Road that don't have at least some digital effects work going on but unless you know what you're looking for you won't notice, whereas a lot of the compositing and CGI work from what I've seen of Furiosa is considerably less seamless.

[Eldan]

Fury Road also profits from the action pieces being almost entirely set on the open road. So the CG needed is just open landscapes, mountains, boulders, weather. All very doable.

Large parts of Furiosa are set in settlements. I would assume that for example gun town was a real mining pit, at least partially, but they had to do more complex CGI for things like collapsing buildings and some very busy backgrounds.

[Tyndmyr]

It's... fine. Not great, but pretty good. Drags a bit occasionally. Doesn't have quite the energy of Fury Road. All the action scenes feel half a notch dialed down. But it's fine.

Edit: thinking about it, it's probably mostly the cinematography? The scenes don't feel quite as real, as visceral, the visuals aren't quite as amazing. Not sure what it was, but none of the scenes really wowed me.

Agreed. This movie is a good time, and the story's fun, but it's juuust a touch less intense and impressive than Fury Road. More world building though, and that's kind of cool.

The guy I watched it with said it tied into the video game surprisingly well, which I guess is those "other adventures" listed up above. I'll have to take his word for it, I suppose, as I never played the video game.

Ana Taylor-Joy is...relatively good, though less convincingly physical than Charlize Theron. Fortunately, the script doesn't call for a ton of hand to hand combat, so this isn't an obvious problem most of the time. The logistics mostly run on rule of cool, with just enough backstory to give a veneer of plausibility. You have foodtown, bullettown and gastown. Don't think too much about any other logistics. Rubber presumably something something synthesized from gas, who knows? All the leather gear? Part of the genre. Ignore the lack of animals to produce it.

Mostly, this works, as there's enough going on to keep you mostly distracted with the fun characters and such and not start wondering too much about the realistic nature of it all. Ultimately, it's as much aesthetic as anything else. A practical setting might be less fun, and that's right out.

[Tyndmyr]

Probably the most tedious part of this overall tedious movie is the interminable attack on the War Rig by the various flying dudes. We never see the whole complement of flying dudes, they simply spawn from the aether 2 at a time (politely taking turns). The only way to know when they're running low on flying dudes is when the War Rig has run out of white guy mooks & used the spinning flail dealy, which we can metagame to mean all remaining flying guys must be there for the two heroes to take out, so there can't be that many left. (You might say that this metagame logic should extend, that we can presume at any given time there are about as many flying dudes left as there are white dudes... but we never get a proper establishing shot of exactly how many white dudes there are, either! A lot more of them die than we ever see at once, really more than could plausibly fit on the War Rig plus two cars, so really the white dudes are just spawning out of the aether, too.)

So, I rewatched it and as I had initially had your impression, paid a great deal of attention to this...and it turns out that a great deal of care was put into continuity. Every single bike ever picked up, for instance, was crashed there earlier in the movie. There are no convenient things laying about, literally everything is very, very purposefully put there.

The War Rig crew is actually pretty numerous. They run a crew of about twenty on the rig. Yeah, there's fewer up top, but we have folks in the cab, down below, even one inside the aft. There are two cars with extra people, and both cars are packed. About a dozen each. There's also two on a bike. All of these are established at various times.

This does bring up another interesting point, in that total number of war boys is established elsewhere, and burning through 40 per fight is...not actually very sustainable. The "40 day wasteland war" is a bit of a curiosity, as given the lethality we have seen so far, it isn't clear why it would last so long. It should be a day, tops.

[ecarden]

This does bring up another interesting point, in that total number of war boys is established elsewhere, and burning through 40 per fight is...not actually very sustainable. The "40 day wasteland war" is a bit of a curiosity, as given the lethality we have seen so far, it isn't clear why it would last so long. It should be a day, tops.

So, I don't actually think the total number of War Boys is established. What is established is the total number outside willing and eager to sacrifice themselves at Joe's word, but that doesn't mean it's all he has.

But I do agree that no straight battle in the wasteland is lasting 40 days. My assumption is that Dementius got badly mauled in the first fight and never manages to recover, getting repeatedly chased down and pushed out of territory until he's forced into his final desperate flight. So it's not a forty day battle, it's a short battle, long chase, short battle, long chase, short battle, disperse, long chase, execution.

[Tyndmyr]

So, I don't actually think the total number of War Boys is established. What is established is the total number outside willing and eager to sacrifice themselves at Joe's word, but that doesn't mean it's all he has.

Oh, he's quite clear that every one of the war boys will do so. I don't think there's any reason for Joe to undersell the number of war boys he has available, as he is attempting to intimidate in this speech. He might have a few more in training or the like, but his total number was something like 160. If he's bleeding 40 every time a caravan gets ambushed, which....we straight up see happen twice, that's like half his force.

On the flip side, I have literally no idea how Dementius sustained his great horde off raiding before finding the Citadel. At some point, the supply of people to raid just isn't enough to sustain such a vast number off of.

I'm not sure that the logistics in this are meant for close scrutiny, though.

[ecarden]

Oh, he's quite clear that every one of the war boys will do so. I don't think there's any reason for Joe to undersell the number of war boys he has available, as he is attempting to intimidate in this speech. He might have a few more in training or the like, but his total number was something like 160. If he's bleeding 40 every time a caravan gets ambushed, which....we straight up see happen twice, that's like half his force.

Sorry, to be clear, if I'm remembering the way it plays out, Joe has Demenrius choose one of the war boys from the group that is visibly standing out in the open as the show of force, which he does. That one suicide bombs Dementius's men, then Joe says something like, 'whichever of the 176 War Boys standing here you had chosen would have done the same, you don't understand what you face, fool.'

Joe definitely gives a small number and he absolutely believes, probably correctly that he is telling the truth about their willingness to die at his order. But my recollection is that the size reference is to the ones who came out as the show of force.

It's like, if the President said, any of these 10 bodyguards would take a bullet for me, that doesn't mean the secret service is only 10 guys, or that those are the only forces available. We do see some non-war boy fighters, especially at the other locations.

Now, I do agree that none of the wasteland logistics make sense with modern tech. You're not feeding an entire town on an occasional one truck, two tractor delivery (to say nothing of water supplies) and replacing plains with desert and horses with motorcycles just makes Dementius's supply problems basically impossible.

But that's a broader fictional problem with (or simple disinterest in) logistics.

[Tyndmyr]

Sorry, to be clear, if I'm remembering the way it plays out, Joe has Demenrius choose one of the war boys from the group that is visibly standing out in the open as the show of force, which he does. That one suicide bombs Dementius's men, then Joe says something like, 'whichever of the 176 War Boys standing here you had chosen would have done the same, you don't understand what you face, fool.'

That's pretty close, but he's definitely not trying to imply that there's a different, less loyal class of warboys. Every warboy we are shown behaves like this.

It's like, if the President said, any of these 10 bodyguards would take a bullet for me, that doesn't mean the secret service is only 10 guys, or that those are the only forces available. We do see some non-war boy fighters, especially at the other locations.

Gas Town and the Bullet Farm are run by other individuals who have their own forces. Of course they aren't staffed by Warboys. Those are the Citadels troops.

So far as we are shown, all Citadel troops are warboys save for the handful of unique individuals above them. There is no other class of soldier available to make up the number.

Now, I do agree that none of the wasteland logistics make sense with modern tech. You're not feeding an entire town on an occasional one truck, two tractor delivery (to say nothing of water supplies) and replacing plains with desert and horses with motorcycles just makes Dementius's supply problems basically impossible.

But that's a broader fictional problem with (or simple disinterest in) logistics.

Essentially, yeah, the genre would more realistically support fewer numbers, and that would make for a much smaller scale conflict...but that doesn't work out in a cinematic perspective. Lots of story beats wouldn't make sense if each force was small and relatively defeatable. Rule of cool applies, and we have just enough worldbuilding to give us a thin layer of plausibility. Gas, munitions and food trade make sense at a sort of basic level, but actually digging into it just isn't worthwhile for the sort of story being told.

[ecarden]

That's pretty close, but he's definitely not trying to imply that there's a different, less loyal class of warboys. Every warboy we are shown behaves like this.

I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. I am not claiming there's another class of war boy (though there clearly are other forces at the Citadel, Jack and Furiosa, for one and a couple of other times we see other armed folks who aren't painted white, but instead have the top of their heads darkened like Furiosa does while working for Jack). Joe provides numbers, but only for the war boys who are standing out in the open, that doesn't mean it's his entire complement.

Different example, a store has a display of 50 oranges. The salesman says 'all 50 of these oranges are tasty, try one and see' that doesn't mean the store only has 50 oranges, just that that is how many are on display. Nor is he saying anything about how tasty the oranges still in storage are.

[Tyndmyr]

I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. I am not claiming there's another class of war boy (though there clearly are other forces at the Citadel, Jack and Furiosa, for one and a couple of other times we see other armed folks who aren't painted white, but instead have the top of their heads darkened like Furiosa does while working for Jack). Joe provides numbers, but only for the war boys who are standing out in the open, that doesn't mean it's his entire complement.

Different example, a store has a display of 50 oranges. The salesman says 'all 50 of these oranges are tasty, try one and see' that doesn't mean the store only has 50 oranges, just that that is how many are on display. Nor is he saying anything about how tasty the oranges still in storage are.

Yes, Furiosa and Jack have the rank of Praetorean, which is designated by the black face paint. There are only a couple of them, they don't affect numbers significantly. The same is true of Joe's children. They clearly are in a leadership position, but there's only a few of them. The mass of troops is war boys in both films.

[ecarden]

Yes, Furiosa and Jack have the rank of Praetorean, which is designated by the black face paint. There are only a couple of them, they don't affect numbers significantly. The same is true of Joe's children. They clearly are in a leadership position, but there's only a few of them. The mass of troops is war boys in both films.

Yes, I agree that the mass of Joe's troops are war boys. My point is that (1) the war may well have involved forces besides Dementius and Joe's direct forces. It doesn't appear either of the other towns were depopulated, just conquered and given what they see, I would expect them to side with Joe's forces; (2) the number we're given is not for the total number of War Boys, but rather is merely for the force which is standing out in the open and fills the entire space, so we do not know the number of War Boys at Joe's command. Given what we see, that's clearly a drilled maneuver to get everyone into position, which may be why Joe knows how many there are out there. It's intended as a show of force, so he's fitting in as many as he can, that ends up being whatever the number was, and he remembers it during his speech. I don't believe it's intended as a total number of War Boys under his command.

So, my expectation for how this might go is:

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Dementius's forces are ambushed as they attempt their sneak attack, and badly mauled. They're chased back to Bullet Town, where the locals have rallied and they're forced out again, though not before re-supplying (and maybe blowing local gas supplies to slow pursuit). They retreat to Gas Town and again are forced out by their pursuers and the locals (again, they manage to gas up, and damage the ability of their pursuers to resupply). They retreat again, maybe separating to try hit and run tactics, but they're losing and getting ground down. Dementius orders a last stand, then slips away with a core force, intending to rebuild his gang elsewhere. The last stand fails, but the Citadel's forces are at the end of their supply lines. Furiosa shows up and pursues, end of war.

This is obviously headcanon, but it offers some possibilities for how this might drag on a long time and end up where we see it.

[Bartmanhomer]

I saw Furiousa on TV on the internet a few weeks ago. This is my thoughts about this movie:

Spoiler: My Thoughts On Furiousa (2024)

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What I like about Furiousa is the origin story. What I don't like the movie is the repetitive action and most of the jokes were a hit and miss. It has a decent storyline. So I recommend see the movie and judge it for yourself.

[Hackmandu]

I ended up really loving Dementus (once I got over Chris Hemsworth's fake nose) as this visibly impressive specimen who seems perfectly poised in the beginning as the leader of a Mad Max gang, and as the movie goes along, it becomes extremely clear that

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he's just as lost, traumatized and confused as everyone else and just fighting for any semblance of control over the apocalypse that he can find. Like, he's clearly bitten off more than he can chew for most of the story, going up against this crazy wasteland religious tyrant, attempting to govern an actual settlement, even trying to raise a child as a replacement for the one he lost. Where I expected him to be just another gang leader, his character descent made him more compelling for me as a character than Furiosa was (not that Furiosa was at all a bad character). The fact that he clearly, somehow actually thought Furiosa would replace his daughter and is emotionally hurt when she breaks her silence to go with Joe, or where he orders Furiosa and Praetor Jack tortured to death but then turns away from them and cries (at the complete ruining of his plans? At the brutality he feels forced to inflict? At the bond they share with each other that he knows is hopeless and fruitless, just as his own was? It's unclear and can be any or all of these), made him feel extremely real. Don't get me wrong, he's a total POS and absolutely deserved to die since long before even the opening of this movie, but it really drove it home that "As the world fell, each of us, in our own way, was broken," because he was clearly an utterly broken shell of a man. His character was near-perfectly explained both through Hemsworth's acting and through his few unguarded moments, but also near-perfectly not excused even a little bit.

I was so glad they didn't have him and Furiosa engage in an epic chase or action-packed fisticuffs scene, and the end is instead Dementus being hunted down like any other raider, captured, and his despairing rumination on how the world is dead, nothing matters, and nothing he or Furiosa do will bring anyone back, even if he really, sincerely wishes either of them could. And Furiosa still takes her vengeance, but it sets up perfectly how instead of focusing on that, she has to try and rebuild the world herself, a little bit a at time, setting the stage for both her attempted rescue of the wives in Fury Road and for Furiosa to take over the Citadel and hopefully build something that rises above this endless wasteland after all that.

I really liked it. It's not Fury Road, its action isn't quite as perfect IMO, and it's not quite as well-edited (a few parts drag and it definitely could've been cut down to 2 hours) but it's still an extremely well done action movie that explores what living in such a wasteland is actually like (barring logistical details that others have mentioned) and what it does to people. There's no bad performances and several great ones. Anya Taylor Joy does a pretty great job with what she's given, but for me, Dementus stole the show.

[Imbalance]

Liked it. Evil Thor crashes rat rod convention, does poor reenactment of Love & Thunder, gets put in timeout by Groot. Would watch again.