this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2025
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The first Mad Max movie is literally just a cop (Max) fighting against a deadly biker gang in a small town. The second movie didn't say anything about an apocalypse, it was just set in a desert wasteland.
It was the American (maybe international?) version of Mad Max 2 that added a prologue about an apocalyptic world event.
So yeah, in the original Australian version, this may just be some lawless hicks surviving in the Australian desert, while the rest of the world continues on like normal.
You can see the original script here: https://www.scribd.com/document/253321759/Mad-Max-2-Script
That script matches the production script you can see here: https://propstore.com/product/mad-max-2-the-road-warrior/262-hand-annotated-production-script/
So, it seems like there was no more oil (the imagery in the script seems to suggest the oil fields being burnt). It is a world-wide apocalypse, although not necessarily of the nuclear kind - it depends how literal you think "touched off a blaze which engulfed them all" is.
I haven't watched Mad Max one in twenty years, but I'm pretty sure the backdrop is rising international political tensions and the ending suggests a global nuclear war.
Opening monologue to The Road Warrior:
My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. But most of all, I remember the road warrior, the man we called Max. To understand who he was we have to go back to the other time, when the world was powered by the black fuel and the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel — gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded — a whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the roads it was a white-line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice, and in this maelstrom of decay ordinary men were battered and smashed — men like Max, the warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything and became a shell of a man, a burnt-out desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again.
So, if I'm understanding this correctly, the Road Warrior took place in a past that was "powered by black fuel." Which suggests that in the future we are actually NOT dependent on oil.
They don't mention anything replacing the black fuel. Could just be (likely) the future is unpowered altogether.
I’ve not seen mad max in a very long time but it’s definitely post apocalyptic
Thunderdome is a prime example how Americans ruin everything
Oh come on, can't we just get beyond Thunderdome?
Nah that’s Fury Road. Shouldn’t have been called a Max film, it’s just seppo Hollywood action garbage.
How can one man’s opinion be so horridly wrong? Teach us, oh Big One.
You’re so cool!
Also a terrible opinion. Now I definitely think you’re a fool.
Oh no 😢
So you're saying it was...mediocre?
Sure?
Yikes.
Sorry, am I meant to thoroughly enjoy every generic Hollywood action movie?
Not the parent you're responding to, but I think it's that my "mediocre" comment was a reference to the movie, and yours was a literal response to my joke. A bit of a whoosh situation.
Oh right. Thanks for explaining that.