Mad Max

Post by **Gendo** » Sat Jul 04, 2015 10:45 pm

I know this has been discussed a lot around here, but I don't see an actual thread for it. So I had no interest in seeing Fury Road, at least not until maybe some day on DVD, but everyone kept saying how amazing it was. So I saw it yesterday.

I have very mixed feelings about it. Plenty of good stuff, sure: amazing action; keeps you pumped the whole time. Very creative and unique designs, imaginative costumes and sets, etc. Very interesting filmmaking style/editing with the way they showed things. But all that being said, it was just nothing more than action. No real story, no interesting characters or dialog, no emotional involvement in the things going on. Basically no real plot to speak of. It's just a group of people trying to escape from another group of people who are hunting them down.

Now there's nothing wrong with that. Predator and Commando were awesome, and they had nothing but action. But from the way everyone had been talking about this movie, I was expecting a lot more. I thought it would be more than just a pure adrenaline action movie. Did people say this was so great for the reasons I listed that I liked about it, or do they also think that there's more to it; something good outside the action?

Oh yeah,edited to say that we saw it at a bar/theater place, and in 3D. The 3D was pretty awesome. The theater itself as good, but no IMAX or anything. But it's the kind of place where you eat and drink during the movie. So towards the beginning of the movie, we were eating dinner, and it's not at all the right type of movie for that. I kept feeling like I couldn't look away from the screen for a second without missing something, but I had to to eat.

Post by **aels** » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:23 pm

http://forum.pittersplace.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=569

Post by **thesalmonofdoubt** » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:28 pm

Yeah - still haven't seen it and was probably gonna wait for the BluRay and just watch it at home - was tempted to change this plan based on all the positive feedback and that I do really like Tom Hardy .. but left that run a bit late now and its only showing on smaller screens now that its been out for a while- which isn't a substantially different experience than me just watching it in my home cinema so - will still probably give it a miss.
I've only heard the reviews for this run at two speeds - effectively, that its either the best thing like evah .. or that its pretty much as you described, a good old well crafted old school action movie, but nothing game changing.. So,. I am intrigued but feel that I'd walk away with pretty much your thoughts on it.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:30 pm

Just because there was little dialogue it doesn't mean there was no story.

Post by **Gendo** » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:31 pm

aels wrote:http://forum.pittersplace.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=569

Oh, Derived liked it. I should have known it wouldn't be that good then.

Post by **Gendo** » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:32 pm

thesalmonofdoubt wrote:Yeah - still haven't seen it and was probably gonna wait for the BluRay and just watch it at home - was tempted to change this plan based on all the positive feedback and that I do really like Tom Hardy .. but left that run a bit late now and its only showing on smaller screens now that its been out for a while- which isn't a substantially different experience than me just watching it in my home cinema so - will still probably give it a miss.
I've only heard the reviews for this run at two speeds - effectively, that its either the best thing like evah .. or that its pretty much as you described, a good old well crafted old school action movie, but nothing game changing.. So,. I am intrigued but feel that I'd walk away with pretty much your thoughts on it.

Oh yeah, worth noting that Tom Hardy basically plays a side character.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:39 pm

have fun being wrong about everything

BruceSmith78 · Post by **BruceSmith78** » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:43 pm

I'm drunk, so trying to describe why this was a great flick right now will be hard. I'll just say this is one of those few times where DA's right about a movie. Best movie I've seen this year, and probably the best I've seen since the last planet of the apes movie.

Murica

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:46 pm

Nope, like I said, I'm always right about movies.

Also I agree with sikax with wanting the previous boards' content back, so I can pull up some of my old movie reviews. They were pretty good.

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:31 am

It was all right. Not great. 8/10 or so

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:41 am

You downgraded it from "indeed quite great" to "all right".

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 3:37 pm

A man's got a right to use different words.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 6:32 pm

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 7:21 pm

sikax wrote:A man's got a right to use different words.

It hurts doesn't it?

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 7:22 pm

Oh yeah, worth noting that Tom Hardy basically plays a side character.

This is a joke, right?

Pope Bucky · Post by **Pope Bucky** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 12:00 pm

Dr_Liszt wrote:
Oh yeah, worth noting that Tom Hardy basically plays a side character.

This is a joke, right?

Gendo is right on this. I came out of the movie having loved the action. When asked about the movie, my one complaint has been that Max had no character growth in this movie.

BruceSmith78 · Post by **BruceSmith78** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 2:28 pm

You mean aside from starting out wanting to leave the girls stranded in the desert because all he cares about is his own survival to ending up going back and helping the girls fight through an army of death when he could have let them go their separate ways?

Post by **Gendo** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 2:47 pm

I didn't say it because he didn't change; I said it because he had less actual presence than Furiosa. Except the intro, it was a while into the movie before he actually did or said anything. I've heard the same comments from multiple reviewers who also really liked the movie.

Also, I think I should amend my OP a bit to clarify that I really did like it. I'll get it when it comes to DVD and I look forward to seeing it again. It has really stuck with me on a strong way; one of those movies where my long-term reaction is more positive than my immediate reaction. I do think my criticisms were valid; but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a great movie.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:10 pm

And even if it is true that Max that didn't change, I don't get why people get so hung up on character growth anyway. Some of the best movies have characters who don't grow or change at all. Nightcrawler, as an example.

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:12 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:Some of the best movies have characters who don't grow or change at all. Nightcrawler, as an example.

Are you serious with that one?

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:23 pm

Uh, yes? Lou Bloom doesn't change at all. He's the exact same person from beginning to end.

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:31 pm

I wholeheartedly disagree. He absorbs new information like a sponge and then manifests that new knowledge into increasingly violent behavior. He evolves from a petty crook to an explicit murderer simply by observing how other people do things. I suppose you could say he always had the capacity to be any sort of criminal, but there are huge leaps between stealing fence to killing people. You can see his eyes light up when he's absorbed something new, most obviously after he shoots the "murder house" footage and immediately edits it with his laptop on his trunk. His reaction is "Holy shit, I can get away with anything!" and he proceeds to do more fucked up shit.

I mean, if learning something and then acting on that knowledge isn't character growth, what is?

Post by **Gendo** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:34 pm

sikax wrote:I wholeheartedly disagree. He absorbs new information like a sponge and then manifests that new knowledge into increasingly violent behavior. He evolves from a petty crook to an explicit murderer simply by observing how other people do things. I suppose you could say he always had the capacity to be any sort of criminal, but there are huge leaps between stealing fence to killing people. You can see his eyes light up when he's absorbed something new, most obviously after he shoots the "murder house" footage and immediately edits it with his laptop on his trunk. His reaction is "Holy shit, I can get away with anything!" and he proceeds to do more fucked up shit.

I mean, if learning something and then acting on that knowledge isn't character growth, what is?

Very well said. I guess people tend to think of character growth as inprovement or becoming a better person, leaning their lessons, etc. But you point out that it doesn't have to be this way.

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:43 pm

It's true that in most cases the hero gets all the character growth and the villain stays essentially at the same level of evil and it's up to the hero to stop him blah blah blah, but that is boring and that is bad writing. So when a film's central character is the evil one, it's necessary to give him some room for growth. And the writers of Nightcrawler did that extremely well.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:45 pm

His personality never changed though. In the beginning he didn't just steal fences, he knocked out a guy and stole his watch just because he wanted it. He might not have killed people (that we know of), but it was clear he always had the capacity to if he wanted to. He was just never in a position where it was potentially rewarded for him to do so, so he didn't. He put himself in an environment where unscrupulous behavior was more rewarded than usual, so he allowed himself to become more uninhibited. That's not a change, that's perfectly consistent with the kind of person he was before.

I have never heard of your definition of character growth before. I mean, by your definition, virtually every single character who ever existed in a movie exhibited character growth.

Unvoiced_Apollo · Post by **Unvoiced_Apollo** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:56 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:His personality never changed though. In the beginning he didn't just steal fences, he knocked out a guy and stole his watch just because he wanted it. He might not have killed people (that we know of), but it was clear he always had the capacity to if he wanted to. He was just never in a position where it was potentially rewarded for him to do so, so he didn't. He put himself in an environment where unscrupulous behavior was more rewarded than usual, so he allowed himself to become more uninhibited. That's not a change, that's perfectly consistent with the kind of person he was before.

I have never heard of your definition of character growth before. I mean, by your definition, virtually every single character who ever existed in a movie exhibited character growth.

I think this all lies on what your definition of "improvement" means relative to the character. Do they become a better person? Or do they merely adapt and change as a result of what they learn?

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:02 pm

Yeah, he adapts, but he doesn't change his underlying personality one iota. And that's how character growth has been defined every single time I've seen it - that a part of your core personality needs to significantly change. It doesn't even matter if it changes for the bad or good. Walter White changes for the bad, but everyone agrees he still exhibits character growth. He's a much different person at the end than he was at the beginning.

I have literally never heard of the "learning something and acting on it" definition of character growth before.

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:15 pm

Hmm. Well now we're getting into what defines character growth, and not just in the movies. Surely we can all identify when our personality has changed significantly in our life. But isn't this manifested in a change in behavior? Otherwise, how is it identified? How can you say your personality has evolved if changes in behavior aren't discernible?

With Lou Bloom, his behavior changes drastically, getting more and more violent as he uncovers new methods for getting the shot. At the beginning of the film, his range of what is acceptable was not as expanded as it was by the end. If he had the same exact capacity the whole time, he would have not had any problem with killing the owner of the junkyard, or simply robbing the pawn shop owner. But he didn't, and that's because he had to "work his way up" to different stages of what behavior is acceptable to accomplish his goals.

To me, this is fundamentally the definition of growth. I mean, "adaptation" and "change" are essentially synonymous to me, I guess. What is "change" if it isn't reaction to an experience?

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:17 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:His personality never changed though. In the beginning he didn't just steal fences, he knocked out a guy and stole his watch just because he wanted it. He might not have killed people (that we know of), but it was clear he always had the capacity to if he wanted to. He was just never in a position where it was potentially rewarded for him to do so, so he didn't. He put himself in an environment where unscrupulous behavior was more rewarded than usual, so he allowed himself to become more uninhibited. That's not a change, that's perfectly consistent with the kind of person he was before.

I have never heard of your definition of character growth before. I mean, by your definition, virtually every single character who ever existed in a movie exhibited character growth.

He didn't knock the guy out to steal his watch; he knocked him out to not get caught. And your point that he inserted himself into a world where crime (or the exploitation of crime, which is also crime) is more or less encouraged and indeed rewarded, is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

This is a man who is driven by ambition to be successful, not crime. Every crime he commits, in his mind, is a means to be more successful financially. He's basically building a resume. What he learns on the job allows him to open new doors in terms of what behavior is acceptable. He doesn't get off on the criminal activity, it's just a means to an end. What I mean by his character evolving is that he gets way better at achieving his goals this way by learning new techniques. So, yeah, I guess most characters in history exhibit character growth. What's wrong with that?

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:29 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:Walter White changes for the bad, but everyone agrees he still exhibits character growth. He's a much different person at the end than he was at the beginning.

The only way Walter White differs from Lou Bloom is that his initial inspiration for crime was that he needed money to treat cancer in order to help his family when Lou just wanted some money. At some point before Nightcrawler began, Lou had that initial inspiration to commit crimes. We don't get to see that. Maybe he was similarly inspired, trying to help out family or whatever. Maybe he's just a crook. It doesn't really matter.

But let's flip it around and pretend we don't get to see Walter's reasoning for doing his first cook. We don't know he has cancer. Their two stories after that are remarkably similar. Would you say Walter White shows more character growth after becoming a criminal than Lou Bloom did? They're both committing increasingly violent crimes by adapting to the worlds they've thrown themselves into.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:36 pm

Well, I disagree that his range of behaviors was less expanded at the beginning, so I think that's where our disagreement comes from. I think the reason he didn't kill the guy at the beginning was because he was smart enough to know that you can't just kill everyone you want without getting in trouble at some point. Most sociopaths understand that there are rules you have to follow, even if they don't understand what they're for or care. If he killed the guy, there would have been a manhunt. And every once in a while might not be a big deal if he keeps moving, but you can't get into the habit of it, so he didn't. Knocking him out served his interests just as well while minimizing risk.

It always seemed to me that Lou Bloom was portrayed from the very beginning as an empty shell of a person completely dissociated from how normal humans work. He had almost no natural human emotions, no ability to read off people, no intuition for how human morality works, and he always spoke in corporatese as a substitute for his complete lack of ability of communicating like a normal person. His base, craven, ugly instincts were always apparent. This is just me, but it seemed to be immediately clear that he could easily kill someone if he wanted to, he just never did (or was never shown to).

But then he gets into a position where violent uninhibited behavior is more rewarded than the life he was leading before, and he jumps at it. And he adapts to it, realizing as he goes on that not only are his instincts not punished anymore, but he's actually incentivized to follow through on them, as the consequences for failure grow as his empire grows. This is actually the entire point of the movie. He doesn't change, his material conditions do. The system in which he embeds himself facilitates his increasingly violent behavior - which was always there under the surface, but which never had a reason to be unleashed.

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:45 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:Well, I disagree that his range of behaviors was less expanded at the beginning, so I think that's where our disagreement comes from.

I am beginning to suspect this is the case.

Derived Absurdity wrote:It always seemed to me that Lou Bloom was portrayed from the very beginning as an empty shell of a person completely dissociated from how normal humans work.

True, but I wouldn't go so far as to say he was capable of killing anyone until the opportunities presented themselves. Taking advantage of an opportunity doesn't necessarily mean the capacity was always there. He went through logical stages to get to the point where murder was acceptable; it wasn't always acceptable.

Please do address my question on the difference between "change" and "adaptation". I'm interested in what you think.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 6:56 pm

I think you're right. Sort of. I think in the real world "personality" can be reduced to how someone adapts to his/her environment and changes in response to conditions.

Personality is a very fluid thing. Sometimes I think it doesn't even really exist, it doesn't refer to anything real. We have a habit of modeling a person's personality in isolation - this is how a person "innately acts" independent of circumstance - but that does't make any sense. It's only sensible to model personality in relation to a whole bunch of other contingent factors. Now there are some extreme examples - such as many mental disorders - where it does make sense to model someone's personality in isolation, but the vast majority of time in "normal" people that doesn't explain much of anything.

But we model fictional characters far differently than we model the personalities of real people. Good characters have a well-defined personality, meaning that the range of possible behaviors they exhibit is restricted. If it's too broad, then people can't get a good handle on it and rightly or wrongly we label it as undefined. Characters are typically far more restrictive and vivid than real people. So we expect characters to go down a narrow set path when they exhibit "growth" based on how we typecasted them at the beginning. So... I don't know where I'm going with this. But I agree, they're synonyms.

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 8:04 pm

Man, I just wrote a big ass post on the differences between a fictional character and a real person and how we perceive each one's personality differently, but it was becoming way too wordy and tangent-y. So I edited it to make it more coherent and then I go to post it and I'm logged out.

So it's gone.

Anyway, it basically boiled down to: Yeah, a fictional character isn't real but their world is presented as real so I attempt to immerse myself in their world for the sake of getting as much out of the movie/show as I can. Blah blah blah, doesn't change anything.

Pope Bucky · Post by **Pope Bucky** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 11:23 am

Well, at least we know Lou Bloom can steal a thread, with or without character growth.

I was just making the point that Max at the end of Fury Road is Max at the beginning of Fury Road, or The Road Warrior for that matter. He cares about his own survival, gets sucked into someone else's survival situation, and heads off at the end, concerned about his own survival. Same thing for the last three movies. He had the most character growth in the first movie.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE the action in the Mad Max movie franchise.

The Pitters' Place

Mad Max

Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max

Re: Mad Max