The Big Picture - The Box Office Crisis, a ‘Furiosa’ Deep Dive, and the 'Mad Max' Movie Rankings

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

Sean opens the podcast by sharing some extended thoughts about the state of the box office as it relates to George Miller’s ‘Furiosa’ (1:00). Then, Chris Ryan and Joanna Robinson join to do a deeper dive into ‘Furiosa’ and its various successes and limitations (17:00), before ranking every installment in the ‘Mad Max’ saga (1:15:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Chris Ryan and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey. Hey. Hey. Can I talk to you guys for a second? Sure. Over 25 years ago, on September 29th, 1998, we watched a brainy girl with curly hair drop everything to follow a guy she only kind of knew all the way to college.

And so began Felicity, the brainchild of J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves, starring Keri Russell. And me, Greg Grunberg, a.k.a. Sean Blumberg. It won't be confusing at all. And me, Amanda Foreman, a.k.a. Felicity's roommate with the box. And I'm Juliette Littman. I was not on Felicity, but I remember every moment of it probably better than these two do.

All together, we'll be revisiting our favorite moments from the show and talking to the people who helped shape it. We talked to Keri Russell, of course, because she's the best. And also Scott Speedman and Scott Foley. I was team Scott. I just want to lay that out there right now. And we also talked to JJ and Matt,

the two brains behind this amazing series and many more people who work behind the scenes and in front of the camera. From Bad Robot Audio and The Ringer, this is Dear Felicity. Listen to Dear Felicity on Spotify or wherever you get

your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessey and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about what happened to Furiosa. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Chris Ryan and Joanna Robinson to dig deeper into Furiosa, a Mad Max saga, one of the year's best movies. But first, we need to talk about what happened at the box office over the weekend.

To quote Jerry Maguire, I'm not going to do what you all think I'm going to do, which is just flip out. Let's be direct. A Mad Max saga and the new Garfield movie, the two big new wide releases over the weekend combined for just $62 million domestically over the four days. That is simply not good. It's a severe underperformance relative to expectations for the films and also really for any major studio movie this time of year. It's the weakest Memorial Day performance in nearly 30 years. The last time it was this bad was in 1995, when a little movie called Casper was released and made $22 million over the three-day weekend. Adjusted for inflation,

that's $45 million, which is more than Furiosa and more than Garfield. Obviously, this has been happening all year, and especially in May. Box office is down 22% year over year, more than 40% since 2019. I've tried to let go of this sky is falling narrative that has hijacked so many of our conversations over the years on the big picture, especially after the mega success of Barbenheimer and the clarity that it provided, and for what audiences want and what they'll turn out for at the movies. But Barbenheimer, I fear, may be more of a historical outlier than a bellwether. We're clearly in a transitional period in movie history. So I want to be clear that this is not a discussion of the end of movies

or even movie going. My hair is not on fire. I'm actually kind of excited by the evolving but niche identity of movies. They are still big enough to support an industry, but not so big that they dominate everything anymore. I can see that this is true in part because this show has really never reached more people than it is right now. And that's really exciting because the love of movies has not gone anywhere. It's not going anywhere. It's just how, where, and when they're consumed that we're talking about. It's not all bad. We're just six months removed from Anyone But You becoming a mini-phenomenon with young moviegoers.

Six of A24's 20th highest-grossing movies have been released over the last 12 months. One of those movies, Civil War, just made $100 million, which is kind of a miracle if you think about it. Challengers just passed $80 million this weekend, despite being available at home for the past week. Dune Part 2 made $700 million worldwide. Even that dopey King Kong Godzilla movie made $560 million. But longtime listeners of the show know that inside me live two wolves. It's so over and we are so back.

But movies are in a different place in our culture and for casual audiences, not the psychos like you and me. We have a different relationship with them. But why and how did this happen? You probably know some of the reasons, but let's just put them all in one place for posterity's sake and for some context on what the future holds. I've got five key points that are contributing to this.

The first is temporary and obvious, but it's important to understanding 2024. And that's, of course, that number one, the dual strikes impacted the movie pipeline. There's no getting around this. There are fewer films this year, fewer big tentpoles, fewer surefire hits, fewer smaller movies that come out of nowhere. The six-month work stoppage from 2023 greatly impacted this. We can foreground this point. It's not the whole story. Number two, and this one is important. Urgency is gone and money ain't cheap. Unless your movie is an out-and-out cultural event, which is unpredictable, a surefire crowd pleaser, which is harder than it sounds, or stitched to some sort of controversy, which is

risky at best, wider audiences have been trained to just wait. During the pandemic, many of the major studios shifted their release windows, reducing the amount of time between when movies played in theaters and when they became available at home. In the 90s, when I was a kid, it felt like years would pass between the time when something like Speed played in movie theaters and when its VHS box would show up on the shelves at Blockbuster. It was more often four or five months, but it felt so much longer. So we went to the theater when the movie was released just to avoid the fear of missing out. That's gone now. We've discussed recently how the relative underperformance of the fall guy meant the movie would go straight to VOD just 17 days after it opened in theaters. During the pandemic, there was a lot of logic to this move. Audiences were nervous about venturing

out to theaters. In-theater marketing releases legitimized these movies. The VOD business was booming. There was money to be made. This also shrunk the windows when films would show up on streaming services like Max and Disney+. I could see this happening in real time as podcast episodes about films like The Banshees of Inisharan and Tar, two movies that we loved in 2022 but had pretty small box office grosses, were among the most listened to episodes of that year. The awareness of, enthusiasm for, and accessibility to these movies were just as strong for movies that made four or five times as much money at

the box office. They just weren't movies that people wanted to go to the theater to see. Audience behavior has been changing for decades with fewer and fewer tickets sold every year, but this windowing change supercharged audience expectations. Why go out and spend $100 on tickets, parking, and concessions, and also risk sitting next to a group of noisy teens looking at their phone for two hours when you can wait 17 days and screen a new movie on your 75-inch TV for your family of five for the low, low price of $19.99? It's a no-brainer for most people. To say nothing of the myriad options we have at home on our fingertips, from video games to social media to an endless stream of content to drown in. It's a genuinely hard case to make, and I

totally get that. Number three, franchise exhaustion. We've covered this ad nauseum on the show, but it bears repeating. This century's major franchises, Superhero Stories, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Transformers, Mission Impossible, The Fast and the Furious, Pirates, Jurassic Park, John Wick, James Bond, Planet of the Apes, Minions, The Conjuring, Jason Bourne, I could go on. They've trained audiences over the past 20 years to keep up and keep up and keep up with their stories, and eventually they bled us dry. Now there is a sense of confusion and ultimately exhaustion and disinterest from installment to installment in these elongated stories. Viewers don't want to do homework, and I don't blame them. Furiosa is a particularly complicated case, though. It's a prequel that recasts a key role nine years after the original, which happened to come 30 years after the previous installment in the series.

Like Solo and Lightyear, these are prequel stories that audiences just didn't want. And yet, audiences did want Wonka, a movie that I couldn't find any enthusiasm for, but also sort of fits this description. So there's a key point here. No one knows anything, and this isn't really a qualitative issue. Furiosa is excellent, but that didn't really matter here. But its predecessor, Fury Road, while a majestic and beloved film, was only a modest box office success back in 2015. Furiosa wasn't ever going to be a billion-dollar movie. That said, $31 million is a terrifyingly low number over a four-day period on a holiday weekend for a major release with two exciting stars and at a minimum,

a known quantity of story. Just two years ago, Top Gun Maverick made more than five times Furiosa's haul in its opening weekend. Okay, sure, the movie was long-awaited, marketed brilliantly, it featured Tom freaking Cruise. I get it. How about this one? In May of 2021, still in the midst of the pandemic era, A Quiet Place Part 2 earned nearly double Furiosa's haul, $58 million over that Memorial Day weekend. Or what about last year? The Little Mermaid, which is terrible, debuted over Memorial Day with $95 million, which at the time was considered a huge disappointment. That three-day opening is almost as big as the combined grosses of the top 12 films released this past weekend, which was $98 million.

Okay, I'll give you one more example. Back in 2013, three different movies significantly outgrossed Furiosa and Garfield. Those movies? Fast and the Furious 6, The Hangover Part 3, and the largely forgotten animated film Epic. These are not legendary movies. There was just much more interest in going to the movies back then. It's a cold, hard fact. Something has shifted here. Reliable brands, concepts, ideas are no longer working the way that they once did. Audiences are smarter or at minimum busier with distractions. It's hard to see a clear path to getting back to 2019, let alone 2013 or 1993. Number four, streaming happened,

and it is not unhappening anytime soon. I'm not just talking about Netflix, though of course they were the first mover tech company, and they completely squirted their toothpaste all over the movie theater, and we're never getting that toothpaste back in the tube. What Netflix did, among many other things, was make every other entertainment company in America blink.

They all thought they had to compete in order to be like them. So, for example, Disney, the company that famously limited the number of VHS copies of a film they would make available to purchase for a limited time before turning those films to the vault, actually went in the opposite direction. They made their entire catalog available to stream instantaneously for the low price of $4.99 a month when Disney Plus launched. Now, that was unbelievably great

for consumers, especially for parents like me, but it created habit and expectation that feels irreversible now. Now, when a movie is deemed unworthy of theatrical release, it can go straight to the streaming service. But there's no economy of scale here. The Lion King sits comfortably in a tile next to the Lion King 2 colon Simba's Pride. These two things are not the same, but that was at least telegraphed to us as an audience in the 90s. Now, Wish lives right next to Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas colon Cabin Fever, and it's hard to tell which of these was the major theatrical release and which one was the quickie straight to D plus cash-in. Want some salt in the wound? The best movie that you're likely to see in the month of June? It's Hitman, classically crowd-pleasing Richard Linklater movie starring our beloved Glenn Powell. And where will you see

it? Almost certainly on Netflix. And why? Because the major studios were not willing to pony up for this movie when it played festivals, and this movie was so clearly designed to be watched with a big crowd. Netflix was willing to pay to the tune of $20 million, which is great for them, but it's a symptom of everything that is wrong with moviegoing right now. Number five. Movies are more expensive in both directions. Budgets are higher than ever, a direct result of the explosive rise of the ceiling-scraping billion-dollar movie. There have been 50 billion-dollar grocers in the

entirety of movie history, and 43 of them have come since 2010. This dovetailed with Hollywood's worldwide expansion and a brief over-reliance on box office from China, which has dwindled over the years. In Hollywood's quest for the biggest possible victory at the expense of the solidly performing middle, tentpole films have gotten much pricier. More money for talent, more money for production, more money for digital effects. Don't forget inflation, insurance costs, and COVID protocols, which is often overlooked. It just costs more to make a blockbuster now than it did 30 years ago, right or wrong. Take The Fall Guy. It's earned $145 million worldwide from a tangentially known IP spinoff with two well-known, well-liked leads.

It's a grounded story, no intergalactic battles, largely stunt-driven action. One problem, it has a reported budget of $140 million. Is that the real budget? How much did the marketing spend cost? How much do theaters get? Who participates in first dollar gross? What was the studio chief's salary that year? Why are we so obsessed with the economics of these movies when what we ultimately crave is simple, good movies? I don't have the answer. I am part of the problem. I talk about this all the time on the show. But as Jules Winfield once said, I'm trying to be the shepherd here. I think big change is coming to this industry. All things considered, it's actually been a solid movie year so far. We had Challengers. We had Dune Part 2. You see, evil does not exist yet. What about I

saw the TV glow? Rent the coffee table tonight if you want your head blown off. But survive till 25 has become a mantra among producers and executives around Hollywood. And it's easy to understand why. Hollywood is a data-driven town, a market-testing town, a town obsessed with meetings and meetings about meetings, a town that is risk-averse, safe money-attracted, and in the age of global corporate publicly-traded ownership prioritizes the conservative choice over the risky bet.

So what will save us this year? Inside Out 2? Despicable Me 4? Deadpool and Wolverine? Joker 2? Wicked Part 1? Moana 2? Sonic 3? Beetlejuice Beetlejuice? I don't know. Even though I see a lot of them, I'm not going to try to convince you to see mediocre movies just because. But the success of mediocre movies does tend to buoy the industry at large to help bankroll more opportunities for filmmakers, to even let a big idea break through every once in a while. And mediocre movies are just not really winning now either. So we can keep a pact together. Keep the faith. Keep calm. Carry on. If you love movies, keep seeing them. If you don't, I do not know why you're listening to this. I'll try to better spotlight smaller movies this year.

It's hard because I don't know who's watching them and when, but last week we saw the results of the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Sean Baker's Enora won the Palme d'Or. It's the first American film to win the Palme d'Or since The Tree of Life in 2013. I love Sean Baker's movies, all of them. I've had him on the show before. I can't wait to see Enora,

which is reportedly an homage to Pretty Woman and also a story about labor and power. What a pleasure that will be to cover on the big picture. And don't even get me started on my excitement for Megalopolis, Kinds of Kindness, Oh Canada, The Substance, The Shrouds, Bird, and at least a dozen other movies that premiered last week at Cannes. And if we do survive till 2025, Valhalla awaits. We get an original Ryan Coogler, a new Paul Thomas Anderson, a new Jordan Peele, a new Bong Joon-ho, a new Superman, a new Pixar original, Brad Pitt in an F1 movie, Den of Thieves Pantera. Help is on the way. In the meantime, let's talk more about an actually good movie with Chris and Joanna Furiosa. We're diving deep into Furiosa today with two legends of the wasteland, Chris Ryan and Joanna Robinson. Hi, guys. Oh, hi. What's going on, man? Thanks for being here with me. How are you all feeling on this not-so-sunny Tuesday morning after we

experienced Furiosa? Feeling great about the world? I'm frankly disappointed that you decided to not go with the Furiosa smear of black pee that you had on earlier. Oh, that is actually a sick book. Yeah. I had to cleanse myself. I thought you could pull it off. No, no. I went to Immortan Joe Joe I negotiated for some water I cleaned myself up to be here with you guys today Chris how are you feeling? I'm doing okay

it's been a long weekend at the Citadel but you know the aquifer is pumping nice you've done the work once again are the breeders

ready to breed for you? we're talking about Furiosa you always go so early zero to breeders but when I see you I think of a full life you know I think of a full life I have to do that so fast. You always go so early. Zero to readers. But when I see you, I think of a full life. You know, I think of a full life. Furiosa, I mentioned this on the episode last week,

really my most anticipated movie in like five years. Maybe more. I was really, really, really excited for this film. And I think I was a little bit of a downer on last week's episode. You know, because I was I had too much Fury Road on the brain. You know, I was a little bit too psyched out by how much I love that movie. Well, how much of that is informed by now in reaction to the low box office, you feel the need to champion the movie? It's a good question. You know, at the beginning of this episode, I actually had a monologue where I was like you know what it's okay it doesn't even matter

that this movie wasn't a big success because I'm starting to reframe how I think about movies but that's big when something

it is big money doesn't matter are you post I'm post money yeah I'm post money less movies less money yes and I've been telling Joe Biden

I too am post money I no I think that it's not that I need this movie to be considered like greater than it actually is i think i stand by exactly what i said which is that this is a really really really good movie um it is not the like pinnacle of cinema that i think of fury road as but i i i

have to assume we haven't even talked about this movie at all that you guys both really liked this and i know you both really like fury road yeah so i'm glad that you're here to kind of like help me walk through some of the details of the story. So let's just begin at the beginning. Like Jo, what did you think of Furiosa? I'm actually closer to you. I'm more aligned with you. I liked it. I didn't love it. I really wanted to love it. And I also got hyped up by the early reviews that were sort of overpromising, I think, this whole idea of it's better than Fury Road. I was like, what are you actually talking about?

It's definitely not. But you and I did an episode on 3,000 Years of Longing and George Miller's last movie, which I think I liked a little bit better than you, but we both agreed was visually stunning and quite messy. And I would say the same about this movie, agreed was like visually stunning and quite messy and I would I would say the same about this movie that it's visually stunning I do want to champion people seeing it in theaters though like I really think it needs to be seen on the huge screen with incredible sound the same way we were talking about Dune 2 like I really want people to go see it but know that it's not going to be Fury Road and that's okay but it's not going to be that it's not going to be Fury Road and that's okay, but it's not going to be that. It's not going to

exceed it. And it felt both too long. I think as you and Amanda discussed, it's the longest Mad Max movie yet, but also that significant chunks were missing, that there is definitely like a much longer cut that exists somewhere. So both too long and yet I felt like I was missing chunks of the story. Yeah, I think you're right. Chris, I've seen you a few times this weekend and we've hardly at all talked about the movie Furiosa. Yeah, I knew we were going to talk about it here. I really, really enjoyed it. And it also reminded me that

no two Mad Max movies are alike, if you want to call it a Mad Max movie, which might be one of the reasons why people didn't go to see it is because it got out that there's no Max in it. But I think that... Are we doing full spoilers? Yeah, we're full of spoilers. Well, it's a Mad Max saga, but there's no... There's one shot. There's a dumb cameo. There's an Easter egg in our Mad Max movie,

yes. Sure. But I think generally speaking there, while Jack sort of plays that role, there's not a Max presence in it. But, you know, Mad Max and Road Warrior are not the same movie. And Road Warrior is much different. Thunderdome is much different than Road Warrior. Fury Road kind of created this new template that you thought maybe he could return to over and over again. But those are obviously incredibly demanding films

for both the filmmakers and the performers, as we've noticed from several interviews that Anthony LaGiore has given. So I kind of went into it with an open mind. I can see, I can definitely see what you're saying, where there's like, oh, there's a huge chunk here that I kind of wish, I almost wish like, if we're going to hit two and a half hours,

like keep me here for another 40 minutes and let's like tell the whole thing. Yeah, especially because it seems like, and I want to hear what you guys think about this too. One of the reasons to do this film for George Miller was kind of all bound up

in the final speech that Dementus gives when he's confronted by Furiosa at the end of the film. And this idea of like, can you make it epic? Like, can you take

your story that you've been telling your whole life about yourself and who you are and what you do and put it on the grandest possible scale.

Like Fury Road is a grand movie, but it's a two-hour movie. It's a two-hour action movie that takes place over one day. You know, The Road Warrior is an epic movie, but honestly like made pretty modestly and doesn't compare to like The Lord of the Rings or Gladiator or something like that

that has that kind of scale. So it seemed like he wanted to do his version of a mega action epic. And those movies are usually three hours. You know, they usually, and there it does, you could make the case that there is like, maybe we needed more of Dementus's story and to better understand where he was

coming from. Maybe we needed more of Furiosa's evolution to becoming the woman that she becomes. Maybe I needed more Praetorian Jack. I would have loved to have seen more about how he became the Praetorian driving the war rig. I think there's probably a feeling of scarcity for these films too now because they obviously take so long to put together and make and he is 80. And it's not like we're getting one of these every two or four years, like a Fast and Furious movie. It's like, no, this is probably 60-40, the last one of these. I think maybe even lower odds than that now after the performance.

Yeah, exactly. But to your point about the performance, and maybe even the film itself, I just want to say that I think we need to get back to movies being good. And I mean good, lowercase g. And that being an okay experience of the movies.

Because like, I was thinking about this when I was at, This is literally what I said. Okay, good. I was thinking about this when I was at the theater on Sunday night.

I think it was. Yeah, Sunday night. And I was like, there, it was like half populated. I had done a lot of like, oh, like, I don't, it's like like i'm trying to figure it

out because i know the amc movies start like a half an hour late and so like what time am i going to get home and i was kind of being annoying to myself and i was like what am i talking about like in 2018 i went to the movie like 50 times yeah and i saw the lodge with riley keough and it was like fine and i was like cool movie and. And went home. And we need to get back to having an okay experience in the movies and not every movie needing to prop up. Not only an industry, but an American medium of storytelling. It's like, they're here. They're going to be in the theaters.

They're going to be on VOD, whatever. I understand that there's a lot of existential questions facing the industry. But I think that a three-star Mad Max movie is about as good as a time I could have had on a Sunday night. Yeah, I mean, I think the issue is that, I mean, I'm not saying anything anyone hasn't said before, but that the threshold to getting people out of their house, to your point of like, how long does it take me to get there?

Is everyone going to be on their phone in the theater? You know, do I have a kid and do I need to get a babysitter? Or how much is it going to cost? All that stuff. And do I have a really nice sound system and a big screen at home? And can I wait two weeks and I can see Fall Guy at home? You know, like something like that. And so that threshold is so high.

And so then, yeah, the good disappears. That something has to be extraordinary to get people out of the house. And I don't, but I just think this is an extraordinary enough experience visually and like auditorily that I would urge people to get out of the house and see it if they haven't. Well, why do you think that Miller, you mentioned he's nearly 80 years old now,

like why do you think he wanted to make this movie? What was it about framing the story this way? Well, I certainly think, I mean, just reading about the making of Fury Road itself and he and some of his collaborators' conception of this world is like, Fury Road was not the only story that they had come up with. And there's like comic books and video games. And he obviously was working on Fury Road from as early as 2000, the late 90s, basically.

Yeah, mid-90s. And obviously that story went through a lot of different variations, but even as he was making Fury Road, had all these ideas for an expanded kind of look at the wasteland. So there was obviously just way more meat on the bone for him. And then when you watch this film itself,

I think especially in Dementus, there's a political commentary that feels very of the moment, and sometimes even on the too large of a nose of Chris Hemsworth, but it's like, it's on the nose, but it's like, actually, like, man, I can see why you made this movie right now. So I think it has, like, an urgency to it. I get it.

Yeah, I mean, so my understanding is that they wrote this entire backstory for Furiosa sort of when they were in the 20 year process of making uh fury road which they only storyboarded right there was no script for fury road they did this like massive storyboard thing but um that they had already written this furiosa backstory in fact i was revisiting um kyle buchanan's great book blood sweat and chrome about the making of Fury Road and rereading the part where they did auditions. And I hadn't seen Furiosa when I first read this book, but when they auditioned people, they had them use that Furiosa Dementia scene from the end of the movie that you were just referencing. It's described in

the book as like, F has been wronged by D and now F has the power and D you know they like didn't say who the characters were they had everyone audition with that like renters and they're reading for Mad Max reading from the scene you could pick to be either F or D because they didn't gender them but that scene was something that they used to like set the tone for Fury Road so I think he was just like I really want to see that scene like That scene has been on my mind for a really long time, and I want to do it. But I think, to your earlier point, Chris, about every Mad Max movie is different, which it is, and that's been some of the joy of the franchise. It feels so loose. They don't feel beholden to a lot of continuity or character arc for Max or even casting for Max when it comes to slotting Tom Hardy.

And it didn't feel that strange because each movie almost exists on its own. This is a different thing because you're slotting this in right before Fury Road. There's so much more classic IP continuity. It bleeds directly into Fury Road at the end of the movie. That is just, I know that Miller wanted to do something different with every single movie, but in doing something different with this one, he just played right into some of the traps of that we've seen in IP filmmaking, I think, you know, where you feel constrained. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest hurdle for me with the movie, and I saw it a second time with a sold out crowd on Memorial Day on, in IMAX. and I would say I liked it a little bit more

but maybe not as much as I was hoping I was going to with a fresh slate in my mind. What was the crowd like? Were they amped? No. Yeah. It was pretty muted in the room and I think there are like two sequences in particular in this movie that are the wowest

of wows. Like the highest level of action movie engineering that I think you really can pull off in the movies. And at those times, people were pumped. I didn't feel the same investment in the characters in the story. And I just think that this is something that all prequels have to deal with,

especially prequels that are not of the Prometheus variety where they're like, we're 5,000 years in the past or 500 years in the past and on another planet. When you're telling a story that is in that tight continuity that you're talking about, it's really hard to not feel like, well, I just know what's going to happen. I just know she has to lose her arm. I just know she's going to survive. I know she's going to become Imperator Furiosa. I just know where this is going. There's no world in which Dementus wins and then she dies.

Like, that isn't the movie we're watching. Yes, but I felt like, for myself, for the crowd I saw it with on Sunday, when it became apparent that there was actually a prequel to the prequel

that we were watching for an hour, that's when the air went out of the room. Yeah. Is when people were like, Anya Taylor-Joy doesn't show up for an hour.

How much is this about, like, this kid? Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know, like, it was never communicated, but it definitely felt restless as it was, like, Anya Taylor-Joy doesn't show up for an hour. How much is this about this kid? Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know. It was never communicated, but it definitely felt restless as it was like,

oh, we're going to do a whole thing with her. It's not just like a five-minute montage of Furiosa when she was a child. There it is. There, yeah. You tapped in. Furiosa. Welcome.

There he is. Paul Hogan is here, guys. I'm talking Furiosa. Anya Taylor-Joy doesn't show up until 50 minutes into this movie or something like that. That's like a big deal for the vibe. It's like tip-offs at 5.30. Actually, it's 6.15.

You know, I made a couple of mistakes in terms of the plotting when I was doing the episode last week. Like a week had gone by since I had seen it. Do you want to apologize directly to Cameron? Yeah, yeah. Dear George, I'm sorry. Have you apologized to Amanda?

Yeah seriously Never and I never will But I think that part of that was because there was a lot to kind of keep in your mind and also it didn't make as much of an impression

on me as I had hoped it would So when I went to go see the second time my hope was like I would focus more like I thought act one and there are five acts in the movie

was incredible The actual motorcycle chase the staging the framing the kind of like upsetting your expectations of what a fury road movie is like or what a mad max movie is where it was like very quiet and very um like the the perspective from which you see the road is so different from the way that you would see the road in fury road like it felt like kind of particularly upending what you thought this movie was going to be very Very effective, very exciting. It was really Acts 2 and Acts 4 in the movie

where I was like, do we need this? Which is sort of what you were talking about. Now, I found more to understand and appreciate and I thought that the confrontation

between Dementus and Immortan Joe at the Citadel was funnier maybe than I remembered. And a little bit, but there was... Hemsworth is just like, half of that is just gibberish, which is kind of delightful, actually.

It's fun. He's having a lot of fun, obviously, with this part. And he's really well suited to this part. But those are the two sequences, I think, where the movie really slowed down for people. Yeah. You know, where after you have the Stowe and then later that you have the Stowe away, War you have the Stowe away war rig chase

which is just unbelievable and then you go to the next phase where it's sort of like Furious has been captured but then she escapes but then she goes back

but then she gets an arm and then she goes back to go find Dementus again and then she has to go steal another car and you're like okay there's a really cool war

that they skip yeah that's the part where I was like history man switches sides how did that happen very strange instead we get

we get the guy who is eventually in charge of Gastown who spends way more time fondling his nipples in this movie than he does in Fury Road

like move figures around on a board and I was like the people eater this is very Game of Thrones season one where it's like

we can't afford a battle and I'm like you can't afford a battle how do they how do Immortan Joe and the people eater like manage their power within you know like there's a little bit of a i don't know what's it definitely seems like a more open like

kind of house judiciary committee debate style like cabinet that i thought that that a morton joe would be running i thought he would just be kind of like here's here's the word from on high you guys execute this. But Skrotis and Rictus also chiming in with a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking. I have a really important

question about Skrotis. Okay. Do you feel like he was created especially to be a Mikey Day as an L character? No. Great call. I'm actually wearing

my master's hat today for Scabbers Skrotis. We're trying to get him into Augusta National. Oh, wow. Exciting. Yeah. So what goes into that? He just needs somebody to stand as his sponsor.

He might need some plastic surgery. So Skrotus is your guy in this movie, clearly. I think he's really good. Do you have a person? I have a bit of an issue with the continuity of Rictus, which is that Nathan Jones, who's a performer who plays Rictus, who's wonderful. You know,

I mean this with no disrespect, like his body does not look the same now as it did nine years ago. Yeah. And so it's a bit strange that he would get more yoked in the future

because in Fury Road, he is, he is jacked. The apparent death of, because Grotus isn't in Fury Road, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry

for your guy. So like, maybe the death of his brother which i expected to happen this movie but didn't very strange that we didn't see that yeah off screen who knows or maybe he's

gonna get his own movie who knows but wow wow scrotus rising a mad max saga yeah he says no but maybe rictus is just like channeled his grief through getting yoked checked well so

then who is your little freaky weirdo from the george miller world yeah in this movie the is it the octoboss yeah yeah getting yoked, checked. So then who is your little freaky weirdo from the George Miller world? Yeah, in this movie, is it the Octoboss? Yeah. Yeah. The horns.

I liked him. I liked the little dude who OD'd in the cabbage during the stowaway truck. See, he thinks it's cabbage too. So there's been some debate. It's a cabbage-based economy, right? Is it cabbage or is it lettuce?

You guys think cabbage. Actually, it did look like heads of lettuce. My bad. I just said cabbage. I think it's cabbages. There's a few carrots in there, too. Yeah. He's making like a mirepoix, sort of.

Let's think about this. Like, imagine going to war for cabbage. Like, really. That's how bad things are. And guzzoline and bullets. The three, the triangle. You know? Yeah, yeah.

But re-watching Fairy Road after Furiosa and, you know, you have that whole prequel thing of like, do you want to know how she lost her arm?

Do you want to know how this happened? Do you want to know how did she get that gun? But for me, it was the, because the mortifiers, the guys on the bikes

who are in Fairy Road, I was like, oh, that's, I guess that's why they have horns. Right. Because they were just, you know, following the Octob octoboss yeah in honor of their their slain their fallen hero yeah yeah i i i guess i'm because of the way that you described it i'm not really like

too worried about not understanding the lore and the continuity and so that's maybe part of the reason why some of that stuff didn't i didn't feel like there was this payoff you know it wasn't like i i guess I ultimately felt similarly about the Star Wars prequels, you know? This very similar kind of like, and this is how Anakin became Darth. And I was like, okay, fine. What about how exciting it was when he was Darth Vader?

You know, like that seemed more exciting to me. And that could just be a personal hangup. That could just be, this is a mode of storytelling that ultimately doesn't appeal to me as much as, I don't know what's going to happen next. Like, that is maybe my ultimate excitement in going to see a movie. But there's like, you know, there's prequels like Andor, like that as a TV show where we know what's going to happen to Cassie and Andor. Yeah. And I'm not at all feeling like I'm wasting my time watching this, this show, because you can,

you can be additive in that sort of constrictive space. And for Furiosa, especially because her character doesn't have much of an arc in this movie because she's a little badass when we meet her. And then she just gets to be a slightly taller badass. Like there isn't this, like she was a soft, sweet girl from the green place and she got hardened by her time in the wasteland.

She was biting, you know, gas lines as a child so like i i don't know what evolution i saw for her versus like the first mad max movie when it's like he's a family man like all of this happens and the society itself is more teetering on the brink rather than in full-scale post-nuclear collapse yeah that's the other thing about the movie that I think is a bit of a challenge for your common audience which is just like this still does just look like the last world that we saw

even though that the framing of the story is very different it doesn't look radically different from the last movie which the last when Fury Road came out there was a sense of like we have never seen a movie that looks like this before. Well it also was like, oh, so that's why this took you 25 years is basically you were

waiting for technology almost to catch up with what you wanted to do. Were you guys bothered at all by the heavy use of digital and green screen in this movie? There's been some debate

about that. I don't think it was like as, I don't think the film was anywhere close to as dynamic or as groundbreaking as Fury Road road i didn't really notice it being it wasn't distraction for me was it for you not distracting but i noticed

it i think you can freeze frame any second in fury road and you feel like you're looking at a piece of art and that's not necessarily true of furiosa and there is yeah some like overt green screen happening but it does also still feel especially like in the sequences that work like in the war rig praetorian jack sequence which definitely had plenty of digital stuff going on but like that just feels i was thrilled yeah like it was thrilling i felt like i was watching paulo trini's ride the worm like i was just like here it is this is cinema this is what i'm here for i felt the same way about the um ambush at bullet town like I felt like even though there's obviously a lot of vfx going on that was what Miller does where you're like I know where the gate is and I

know where he's going and I know where the cranes are and like I that's like when you're like you're using your entire imagination and your imagination is being met on the screen because you can see it all kind of like playing out in front of you yeah you can i mean i i'm so interested in the idea that his editor margaret sixel is also his wife yeah they've been in this partnership forever but in all of the action sequences in all of these movies i think she's cut all of them maybe maybe only four of the five. There's a coherent geography to the action that is so opposite of what most contemporary action movie sequencing is like, where they're almost trying to disorient you and not make you understand how things are working to surprise you with images. Whereas in these movies, you, and they're not shot from the POV of the characters.

Like you're seeing the wider world. You're seeing like many shots that are expansive and then close-ups and then expansive and then close-ups. But you never feel confused. In a place like the Bullet Farm where we've never been. We've never been inside of that space. I was just, while we were killing time before the pod, I was just watching some Mad Max scenes on mute

because I didn't want our co-workers here at Spotify to hear me. That's how George Miller wants you to watch. You can watch them that way. You can watch the bullet farm thing and be like, oh my God, the gate came down and she can't get it up. But what is she going to do? Because if she goes in, she's only going to have a bike.

It has everything you need from visual storytelling is right there. You can tell the emotional stakes and the physical stakes just by looking at the composition, which is like, that's like how you make movies. And that's, sadly, I wonder if that's something that like, we should be celebrating more that this is something that this guy is almost singularly, I mean, him and Spielberg and a couple of other people are like just absolute geniuses doing. But that's, that's like something that furious is slightly gets away from because um like george miller self-taught filmmaker has said that he used to watch films without the sound

to understand not just silent films but like any film he liked without sound to understand how the visuals could tell the story uh he likes to cite that hitchcock quote of like i like to make movies where they don't have to read the subtitles in japan like all of all of that is true for him he's essentially as as Sean and Amanda were talking about like making elevated noisy silent films but then when you have Dementus who is the most loquacious character we've had in the Mad Max universe totally it just feels out of place it's it's so tricky like I really want to talk about Dementors because on the one hand like I think Amanda was trying to say

that this is like a like a redux of Thor which I don't really agree with. It's like Bad Times of the El Royale. That character. Which is a movie I

completely forgot about when we were talking about it but is the last time that he played a self-important bad guy. A cult leader. Yes a monologuing

snake hip. Yes. Low slung leather pants. Sure. Beautiful ugly person. Yeah. A monologuing. Snake hip. Yes. Low slung leather pants. Sure. Beautiful, ugly person. Yeah. He's very, very good at this kind of performance. This one's, I think, a little funnier than Bad Times at the El Royale.

I think that it being so funny and yet so kind of momentous and bound by the epic storytelling is a bit of a clash that makes the character a little bit hard not to understand necessarily but to kind of wrap your arms around. I think it's because it's such an outlier in terms of what these movies are. Something felt off about it even though I think

what you were saying is right which is like his character feels very contemporary even if it was imagined 25 years ago when he first started thinking of it. There's just major like modern fascism going on and his character where it's just like nihilism the elites yes i will give you all the things that you've longed for you know it's these rich guys who are taking it from you we're going to do it and then i oh what what a

surprise i've lost control of the crowd into the crowd and also this like persistent question that i have when i look at modern politics which is like why? Like why do you want to be in power and what does it actually provide for you and is it just ego?

Is it desperation? Is it a hole in the center of your soul? The Dementors character is kind of the same thing. He's a stand in for this like pursuit of something

that won't make him happy. There's a couple things that are like one every Mad Max villain is like a cult of personality kind of character, like toe cutter, anti-entity, like this is, or Morton Joe, like these are like cult leaders,

iconography, all this sort of stuff like that. When Dementus gets that sort of with the red powder on him and he becomes like red Dementus, I was just like, yeah, this is like image is so important for this guy. His whole parachute cape thing, yeah, this image is so important for this guy. His whole parachute cape thing,

like all of it is incredible. But also he's like this dark mirror for Max, right? He lost his family. This is what happened to this guy

when he lost his family. Those sliding doors. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Get Gwyneth. Where's Gwyneth? She would not fit in a Mad Max film.

Yeah. Actually, I want to see Gwyneth be like the villain in the next Mad Max film. I gotta say, Dementus' skin care, though, pretty solid, considering he's just out in the wastelands, just sleeping outside. This is one thing I wanted to say. I couldn't get through... Sorry, I mean, you had... No, no, no, no.

I feel like we three fair-skinned people want to hear your SPF thoughts. I think that there is a world in which they could have played... I think that I couldn't get over the nose. All I heard was the nose plays the entire time. It felt like it was, hey, I have an idea for this character. It's this nose. And then they shot too much of it and they were like, let's just keep the nose or whatever.

If he's just Chris Hemsworth and he looks like Chris Hemsworth, you kind of like, I get it. I get why this guy, like he's basically like the hottest dude in the wasteland is driving this kind of cult of bike lord. Like we're going to take over every spot we come across. And I just, the nose just took me out of it. It would have been almost more centering if it was just like Chris Hemsworth with maybe a scar on his face or something.

I got to disagree with you. I feel like, I think when you look. The nose plays. The nose plays and he's got teeth too. Yeah. The teeth and the nose work for me. And his like hick, like outback accent that he's doing. Accent's incredible.

Yeah. That may just be his real speaking voice. I couldn't say. I think that most fascistic leaders are like a little bit ugly. Yeah. And that their physical appearance is a part of their rise to awful power.

And there has to be something about you that you don't feel good about. Look at the long history of terrible people who dominated the world. They don't look like Chris Hemsworth. Yeah, they don't look like about look at the long history of terrible people who dominated the world they don't look like chris hemsworth yeah they don't they don't look like chris hemsworth and so i think that actually yeah you know you know musolini and so and they're certainly not built the way that chris hemsworth is built but you can you can understand so you're coming out out your hottest take of this movie is that

you're not sexually attracted to fascist leaders I'm not saying that I'm not prepared to put that on mic What a stance What a stance to take

I'm just saying the world is not physically attracted That's a good point but maybe emotionally attracted and you know I feel comfortable psychologizing all these dead fascists

that that is animating their quest for power you know that they feel less than and so they want to feel more than and you know the nose you know

this is maestro too I think it works here's a slight problem with this movie that nose didn't play for me so we're whenever we are into this podcast

and obviously are electrified by talking about Dementus both as a character and as a performance. And we're talking about Furiosa. And the movie's called Furiosa.

Yeah. This is a problem. I think you nailed it, which is that she starts out as who she is, and she never really changes. Now, she gets increasingly more reasons to want to seek revenge. She loses her mother. She loses her lover.

She loses her arm. These are all reasons to want to get revenge. But she doesn't change. We also don't get to see those moments. Like she, Jack dies. We don't really see it. I know. Like he's getting dragged.

So we presume he dies somewhere along there, but we don't see the moment. Yeah. We don't see the moment that she, that her arm comes off. That's kind of a sick, badass moment though. So I wouldn't like lose it. The arm hanging. The arm just hanging there. I loved it. It's awesome. But like, we don't get a moment for her to be like and also I expected and

maybe maybe subvert your own expectations but you know then she loses the star map I mean I guess the idea is that she's memorized it and that's how she can find the green place later but I was just sort of like oh no that's gonna be important like she's gonna lose that arm that has a star map on it I would like to see a moment other than, like, she screams in pain, but there's no, like, anguish or mourning for the loss of the arm, which Anya Taylor-Joy is incredibly capable of. And they don't, we just have her, like, sort of leaning in a doorway, watching the people eater move pieces around on a board.

Got it. And she's like, okay, here I go. Okay, so on the one hand, there's this obvious echo of the Max character by giving her so few lines of dialogue. Max very rarely talks

in the Mad Max movies. She is the hero of this movie. He's also captured immediately in Fury Road. Like he's already thrown into this like the first frame. Very similar framework.

You know, Annie Taylor-Joy, I wouldn't say is like the most loquacious actress, but she certainly knows how to deliver dialogue. Yeah, she does a fair amount of talking in Queen's Gambit and stuff. Yeah.

Um, but she is an actor of a face. You know what I mean? Like her, her special effect, her superpower is those huge wide set eyes and this like very steely disposition that she communicates in all of her movies. I just kind of wanted to hear from her a little bit more. Like, I kind of wanted to hear a little bit more about, I mean, it seems like she spent 10 years becoming a dog man in the Citadel, whatever that is. And that is elided.

You know, we just, like, go forward into the future. Get the wig kind of turning. Yeah, that big moment. And so, like, it just felt like there was a little hole where something, some more furiosa should have been and i still don't know if she's really right for this part um i don't know that i have a better idea for who should have played this character it's really hard to fill the shoes

of charlie's who is you know this word is overused but is iconic in fury road that is a a very memorable performance that is if you like that movie, is burned upon your brain. Yeah. But I don't know if she totally hit for me personally. What do you think? I just think it's a tough part to play. I think I was trying to figure out why I was leaving the movie thinking all about Dementus and also being like, can we get a Jack movie? Can I get the...

I would love a Jack movie. And, like, basically, like, countering my bias there, but... Because you hate women?

No, but, like, it's bad to walk out of a movie called Furiosa and be like, but who I'm really into is Scrotus,

you know? Yeah. Honestly, the female character that I wanted more time with was her mom. Yeah, her mom was a badass

yes and Charlie Frazier who I guess this is only her second movie and she was she's great she was in anyone but you right she was Glenn Powell's girlfriend

yes that's a big shift although you know would you prefer Sidney Sweeney play Furiosa no comment okay

you guys can get in the group chat about that later. No, someone I know suggested Mackenzie Davis, but she's, I think, too old at this point. A little too old, yeah. But I actually don't think Anya Taylor-Joy is wrong. I just think for what George Miller wants to do,

she does best when she's actually just staring. Because there's a scene with her and jack where they're talking and they're having their like their tender touch greased foreheads together like sort of uh quiet moment that's what chris and i do after every horror movie pod yeah we just go you show him the peach pit and you're just like yeah just like one day i will plant this inside you yeah oh wow the group chat's gonna be so little anyway but like I felt their connection less there than I did

when they were working on the rig together you know what I mean like through action that's where his genius of storytelling is so a funny thing I mentioned this to Chris yesterday

Tom Burke plays Praetorian Jack wonderful actor incredible in The Souvenir what does he where do you know him from I feel like the Hogg movies

yeah oh yeah Mank Mank of course plays Or Oh, yeah. Mank. Mank, of course. Plays Orson Welles in Mank. That part was originally supposed to be Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Yeah.

Which is really different. Which would have been cool, but super different. Different vibe. They have a totally different energy as actors. And I like the idea. I wonder if we would have been even more interested in a Praetorian Jack movie if it were Yahya. Because he has more of a movie star's energy I loved Tom Burke in this role

I thought he was awesome I'm also a huge like where's my Praetorian Jack movie person but I would love to see Yaya in this universe I just don't know

that I would switch out Tom Burke in that role but Yaya like in as like again one of those like, like decked out leaders of something, that would be really,

he's like, I don't ever want to see any blue paint again after Rashman, but you know. Good point. Good point. But like something really,

I don't know. Yaya as Grotus? Oh, that was, they left money on the table there. Yeah. I'm trying to,

I'm trying to articulate the Anya thing. I don't think that she does a bad job by any means i think that you guys have hit on it where it's like there there really isn't an arc to this character and even though you could say traditionally the max character in the films is a little bit of a cipher in some ways almost in each one of them like in mad max he's a family man who gets that taken away from him. In Road Warrior,

he's a loner who eventually decides to become part of a community or to save a community. In Thunderdome, he kind of tries to recreate his family with the kids. So there's like each one, he goes from like loner

to being part of something. And in Furiosa, she goes from badass kid to badass young adult. And that's it. You know? And then Fury Road starts. Exactly.

And what I love about the Mad Max arcs is that he's constantly like, he's actually constantly going through that arc of like, no, I'm alone. No, I will help people. No, I'm alone. Like, I like that. I can't be around people.

Like, you can't. Like, I'm too damaged by this. I have to disappear into the crowd. I can't stay with the kids. No, I'm alone. Like, I like that. I can't be around people. Like, you can't, like, I'm too damaged by this. I have to disappear into the crowd. I can't stay with the kids. Like, whatever it is. But she's, so I don't mind that it's not, like, a straightforward

Mad Max has been on this journey through all the movies. I kind of like that it sort of keeps looping around. But she's, yeah, she's just not on any journey. I was expecting, again,

who cares about my expectations, but I was like, is Jack gonna betray, like, what's the big thing that happens that, like, she's just not on any journey. I was expecting, again, who cares about my expectations, but I was like, is Jack going to betray, like what's the big thing that happens that like sort of calcifies her? And I just don't feel like I got that moment. Other than seeing her mom get eviscerated probably. Yeah, that's, I mean, who hasn't? That is a.

Homest among us. Well, I read, I don't know if this was true, but I read that the, this story was also potentially originally conceived as an anime. Yeah. And there's a, you know, that image early in the film when her mother is strung up on the tree where we get the close-up into the eye.

That is like the most kind of digital effect of the film, but also really, really effective, like a good use of modern tools. But I think that maybe that's an energy that's in the movie that I don't have access to because I'm not an anime fan and I wonder if maybe like some younger audiences I think that the people who like this movie really like it you know I think I think it basically has the makings in part because of its underperformance at the box office as a cult movie and that we'll be revisiting in five years and then in 10 years

and we'll be like we didn't know what we had we overlooked this yada yada the movie and that we'll be revisiting in five years and then in ten years and we'll be like we didn't know what we had we overlooked this yada yada the same thing that we do and I do all the time on these shows like the sickos who think Beyond Thunderdome

is the best Mad Max movie that I can't abide we will get there very shortly it is like you can see the trend line of that movie

go from like what a forgettable like weird tonally mismatched movie to I kind of think it's funny I kind of like it it to kind of think it's funny. I kind of like it. It's kind of awesome.

It's kind of amazing. Tina Turner. Yeah, Master Blaster. Yeah, yeah. To an enter one man leaves. Like it becomes part of our like lexicon. Gotta let movies live

past the opening weekend. Of course. I fully agree with that, yeah. But I there is something about the storytelling style that does feel a little bit different

in terms of its not just its obvious scoping over such a long period of time, but how to put this. Joe hit on it. There's a feeling in Fury Road where it's like he's been captured and he almost goes through the plumbing

of that building, you know? And then he gets out and he's fucking running. You know what I mean? And that's where Mad Max movies are like. They just go and they come back. Yeah. That's fucking running. You know what I mean? And that's where Mad Max movies are like. They just go and they come back. Yeah. That's that movie.

But Furiosa is goes, comes back, kind of like screws around a little bit, goes, comes back, like is captured. Like there's just a kind of almost like the gears got to use a car analogy. Like something happens in the transmission of this movie around those acts that you're talking about where you're like, wait, I was getting into this.

Yeah. Why are we? Right. There's two huge ones. There's the like, she's the dog man at the Citadel. And then 10 years go by. Yeah. And then there's the 40 days war that we don't see.

Yeah. Montage. And you're like, what? Was this like a budget issue? Or like what happened here? Or was it just too much time to have to cover that you had to make these choices? I can understand that. Or is she not involved in the 40-day war enough or is she like yeah she's building her arm that whole time yeah yeah i guess so is that how long it takes to build a mechanical

arm 40 days yeah yeah and 40 nights like porzingis is calf muscle you know you're just can you speak only in car metaphors for the rest of the pod? Yeah. Okay, great. As someone who really definitely knows how to drive a stick. You're a gearhead, right? Yeah. Do you think you'd do well in the wasteland? Oh, no. Chris? Yeah, I do.

Do you? Yes. First of all, the Interceptor, the black Interceptor that he makes the last of the V8s, is the coolest car ever made. It is sick. So just, like, I would essentially be his Australian dog. Interceptor that he makes the last of the V8s is the coolest car ever made. It is sick. I would essentially be his Australian dog. I would just sit shotgun with a red bandana

around my neck and just stare out the window. Would we put a bone in your mouth and tie a string to a rifle and you would menace a dog boy? Yeah, exactly. You are awaited in Valhalla. I don't think that I would really want to live in any of the known fortresses of the wasteland.

So Gastown, Bullet Farm, or the Citadel. You're thinking more of the Maggot Hole. That's good for you. I was going to say, I don't think any of us, none of our skin is made for. No, we're fucked. We burn, right? That's why I wear like my black like full.

Yeah, you're horn. I think you're the double octopus. I think we have in. I think you're in the double octoboss. I think we have to be the lords and ladies of the maggot hole. Okay. The number one podcaster in all of maggot hold. Yeah. I do want one of those gyrocopters, you know, where they're like, those guys are riding around on motorcycles. And then all of a sudden they're like, and they fly into the air.

I feel like that's a short life expectancy though. You think so? Whereas podcasting from the maggot hole where you're just like, welcome to the watch! Maggots are crawling all over my body.

Immortan Joe has renewed Ozark for season four. Thank you, all powerful Immortan Joe. Now I can find out what happens to Marty when he goes to Mexico. Wait, I have a question about your pod spouses.

How do Andy and Amanda do in the wasteland? Oh, Andy goes first. Yeah, I think Amanda goes second. I don't think they're built for it, if I'm being honest. I think I go third. I have some survival instincts in general, but the sun is an issue. There's nothing bad about it. I need to be cloaked.

I need that parachute cape wrapped over my face. I also personally have a huge stash of Aquafita. After the big short, did you start sucking up on water? A little salty though. Yeah, but better than mother's milk or nothing. No Fiji in the wasteland. It's tough.

Tough beat for big Fiji. Immortan Joe. Good leader, bad leader. Good guy. Interesting characterization of him in this film. Different actor. Yeah. Oh, right.

Okay. So that made... Hugh Pease Burns was Immortan Joe. And then I can't recall the name of the actor. Do you guys know much about the character itself outside of the films in terms of its mythology? Have you read all the comics? I've read some synopses of those comics. Oh, you're such a wiki guy.

I love this guy. Is he like a states rights guy? A colonel in the oil wars. And so he's an ex-soldier who finds the Citadel by like one day he like captures a guy and is like about to kill him. And the guy's like,

I can tell you where there's an aquifer. And so he, and there's like a long like siege of the citadel of Joe getting in there but that's how he. How does he get the respirator? What is that? I didn't get to that part. Wasn't in the wiki. Yeah. How old is Immortan Joe? Immortal. Yeah he's immortal.

But it's like how many years is his body? I'm gonna guess late 60s when we're seeing him. Late 60s? In 70s in Fury Road. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think you age faster in the desert,

so I would say like 50s in Fury Road. But he's pumping himself full of other people. But that dry air, that's really good for me, you know, with all this post-nasal drip.

Like I really need that dry air. This is why you need to move to Vegas. Yeah. Gastown, I think I could do okay. Gastown? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And actually, you're really the gas guzzler guy. I know. You're the guy who do okay. Gastown? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And actually, you're really the gas guzzler guy. I know. You're the guy who loves to just fill up that tank. Yeah, it's funny. Do you see yourself, what about at the bullet farm?

It's a little spare. It's designed for me. Yeah. You know, a little. At Gastown, you have to be like constructing replicas of waterhouse paintings of nymphs on the wall. That's a good point. Is that something that you want to do with your life?

It seems fun. Okay. It beats like racing around for my life. Honestly, like if I, the thing I would want to train to be is a Praetorian Jack. I would love to be out on the open road. I feel like there's some sun protection in the, in the grease. In the greasing. Yeah.

Yeah. What about one of the, one of my favorite moments in the movie actually is the Dementors' trick to break into Gastown where he scoops up what appears to be the wet white clay

that's I guess sitting just under the dirt at all times and makes it into like a goop yeah so that his henchmen can resemble

war boys that scene is really good great sequence and when he's like make it real now yeah and then he kills his own men and that's why the Octoboss

is like I'm out of here yes we're gonna fly a scene that the first time I saw it I was like oh that's pretty cool and then the second time I was like man

there's like actually like not four set pieces but six or seven set pieces in this movie that I hadn't totally realized is that part of your apology yes sorry George

there's more set pieces not sorry Amanda but I think that that could be sunscreen. Oh, okay. Yeah. I think the war boys. Oh, like zinc on your nose, but like all over your, okay.

And those guys notoriously like really mindful about their health. Yeah, yeah. They don't get cancer at all. Did you guys clock the guy with the stripes on his head? Was the same guy, oh, you haven't seen the fall guy. You've seen the fall guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember the drug dealer?

Yeah. That's the same guy. The drug dealer in the fall guy is one of the key henchmen. You haven't seen The Fall Guy. You've seen The Fall Guy. Do you remember The Drug Dealer? That's the same guy. The Drug Dealer and The Fall Guy is one of the key henchmen. It's so good. This is why theaters are dying. Because of me? You fucking bastard.

It's me? It's not any one person. Are you going to rent it on VOD? Like a cuck? No, I'm just not going to see it. Like, oh God. I refuse to see The Fall Guy. You will watch it.

Yeah. You hate Emily Blunt? They've centered her story? Is that the issue? Yeah. This is an actual two- they've centered her story. Is that the issue? Yeah. This is an actual two-hander. I only see movies about women where women are de-emphasized.

It's good. The good news is there's a hundred years of cinema for you. The Odenkirk cut of Little Women. Yeah. It starts with like,

Pa! And that's it. Okay, cool. I was happy for that guy, whoever that Australian actor is. I looked at his IMDb and he just made two films, The Fall Guy and Furiosa. He's off to a great start. I was happy for that guy, whoever that Australian actor is. I looked at his IMDb and he just made two films, The Fall Guy and Furiosa.

He's off to a great start. I was thinking about The Fall Guy a lot because of all the incredible stunts in this movie. The Fall Guy rules. You should see it. I will see it.

Some of the movie that is being made in The Fall Guy definitely resembles The World of Furiosa. So there is an interesting echo that both of those movies

ultimately have not really worked at the box office even though they're both very fun. What else about Furiosa? What thrilled you? What didn't work for you? I kind of denouement of any of these movies before, really, and basically makes flesh a lot of the ideas

that are floating around in the exhaust fumes of all of these movies. There it is, thank you. But it's both an interesting statement about like Dementors' psychology, but I think in a way like George Miller's. Now, I may now have at this point over-indexed for no matter what, when a great filmmaker makes a movie, there is going to be an essay about his own filmmaking in the movie.

When we've been doing it with Mank and we do it with Fablemans and we'll do it with Megank and we do it Fableman's and we do it with, we'll do it with Megalopolis and all this stuff. But I couldn't help but feel like when he's just like, I'm basically out here in the desert, just trying to feel something, you know, if I'm paraphrasing Dementus,

that it sounded a lot like George Miller. Like, it's just like, what do you do when you make Fury Road? How the fuck do you top that? How do you find the thing? It's not 3000 years of longing. Yeah, it's probably not that. Well, you mentioned

that movie at the top and that movie does feel very much in conversation with this movie too, though, because that is... The chapters. Yeah, the way that it's organized, but also this idea of like

kind of stories we tell ourselves to live, you know, like that is kind of what these movies and what his work and what his big ideas are about is we create these mythologies and then we constantly are trying to live up to them and so like even a character like dementis is like the only way i can get through my day and avoid my own you know inimitable grief yeah is to seek something greater than myself yeah and my version of that is power death destruction at all costs yeah and you have to tell yourself this the same way that

like the Tilda Swinton character has kind of vanished into like her own imagination because there are things that she doesn't want to deal with in the real world and George Miller who you know famously was a medical doctor before he was a filmmaker who witnessed like some real pain and trauma yeah some really ugly things and who brings that sense of like the physical the painful physical into every movie that he makes i just re-watched lorenzo's oil this weekend holy shit like a difficult movie to watch that is and you know he's like i had to get through this to make myself feel whole i have to tell these stories yeah um and it's interesting that he put those words into a character's mouth in that way in this movie yeah and if you take dementis as a stand-in for populist right-wing leaders at

this moment and his the whole thing about like the difference between hope and hate uh i think that that was that was a pretty it was it was like a unexpectedly profound moment at the end of a movie that is so hard charging and physical i think what's so special about the mad max franchise in general is this idea that like george miller has had control over it the whole time how rare that is it's not it's not just like a warner brothers property it's like george miller has had this from you you know, scrappily fundraising to make it in the first place. My favorite bit of trivia

about the Mad Max franchise is that I think the only reason he has the rights is because he got fired off of contact. Jodie Foster ran her mouth in an interview

and he sued the studio and he got the rights to Mad Max as part of the settlement. So I was like, thank you Jodie Foster for Fury Road.

Such a fascinating turn. It's incredible. I do want to see George Miller's contact for the record. That is something I'm interested in. Absolutely. Is it all Jake Busey? Yeah, probably. Yeah, Praetorian Jake.

Yeah, Praetorian Jake. Love that. The teeth will play. Okay, so it's his story. So we're meeting this filmmaker wherever he is in his life and what's on his mind at that time. And you hear the stories about Thunderdome and the fact that he had to like basically half quit that movie because he lost Byron Kennedy, his producing partner, been grieving and a man who has taught himself how to make film and a man who has gone through the industry and made Babe Pig in the City and, like, all these other things is we getting to watch, like, what does it mean then to make a film after you've made Fury Road? Yeah. And that's where we are meeting him and his filmography.

And I think, I don't think there's another franchise that does that for a filmmaker. Like, I don't think we have another piece of IP that... Yeah, it's not like Jurassic Park. It's not like a lot of these films where it's just like, this really is this blockbuster personal expression. Yeah. Did you watch any of George Lucas's remarks at the Cannes Award acceptance that he had? No, what did he say?

Where he was like, I hate franchises and stuff? I sensed a touch of melancholy, I would say. He's not amped for the accolade? I don't, well, he didn't mention that title in particular, but I don't know. It's hard to say with those guys who've had this extraordinary success, who are legendary in their field of work,

but who have like birthed something that feels very much like out of their control. So Miller is an interesting, that's an interesting way to frame him as somebody who is ostensibly still in control of the thing that launched him into the world of creativity, really. And now I wonder like,

does he give a shit that the movie didn't perform at the box office? I have to assume he thinks about that. I think probably only in as much as it might prevent him from making another. I think that's the only reason. But the way in which he hasn't fit into studio filmmaking or the film industry time and time again

and has been fired or called difficult or as Jodie Foster called him, naive or whatever it is, that he is something very singular. And a lot of his movies, the Mad Max movies, certainly before, I think Fury Road is perfect and dead. But the Mad Max movies

or like Witches of Eastwick, a movie that I love, but don't really love watching, but love remembering. Does that make any sense? It's a great way to put it. There's like a little bit of an off kilter nature to all of his movies.

I watched Happy Feet for the first time with my daughter this weekend. Gotta tell you something, she didn't like it. She really had a hard time locking into those penguins. Did you take her to Furiosa though? I did.

She's that front row and she is now wearing the grease on her forehead. And I think it's because he has obviously a left of center sensibility in terms of the way that he tells stories

and that that movie is kind of an experiment and then it became this weird freak breakout hit kind of similar to babe it's a movie that was kind of an experiment and then became this weird breakout oscar nominee and made a lot of money and then there was a sequel and there was also a sequel to happy feet in the same way and so he's like able to simultaneously be idiosyncratic and also reach audiences in a unique way his other movies that are kind of

non-franchise oriented ultimately Witches of Eastwick and Lorenzo's Oil are very odd and I agree like kind of odd to revisit

but are kind of like great YouTube movies where they have great scenes like the cherry pit vomiting scene in Witches of Eastwick will stay with me

for the rest of my life like there are just moments in Witches of Eastwick that are some of the best things I've ever seen and I think I will just wind up thinking about Furious the same way where I just remember the rest of my life. Like there are just moments in Witches of Eastwick that are some of the best things I've ever seen. And I think I will just wind up thinking about Furious the same way. Where I just remember the parts of it

that worked really well and gloss over the parts that didn't. I don't know if it's going to be one that I will rewatch the way that I've rewatched Furry Road or Road Warrior again and again. But I think it's a movie

that I will think of more fondly as time goes on because I will just remember the War rig fight or the motorcycle chase or whatever and not think about her in the cage for however long she's in the cage or whatever, you know? Learning to read. Yeah.

Yeah. Would you be a history man? I probably would. I probably would. You're not a tattoo guy, right? Oh, I got two. Oh, you? Yeah.

Oh. Yeah. But I think probably that would be the best job. That means you can't guy, right? Oh, I got two. Oh, you? Yeah. Oh. Yeah. But I think that, I think probably that would be the best job. That means you can't go to heaven, just so you know. Does?

Yeah. Yeah. No, it means you can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery? Is that what that means? If I'm tattooed or a history man? I honestly don't know. If you can read?

I do, you know, one thing about the franchise that I did want to ask you guys is sort of, it starts in late 70s, then you go 79, 81, 85.

He knocks these three out within seven years of each other. And they have an almost fucked up Bond quality to them where there's a little bit of continuity, but for the most part, the continuing adventures of this blank super driver out in the wasteland.

All portrayed by Mel Gibson. What happened to him? What's going on with him? Hard to say. He also had some interesting experiences in vehicles. Oh, did he? Did something happen? I'm getting pulled over.

I missed it. Okay. Bit of a piss boy himself, yeah. Let me ask you this. If I traded you three, almost as good as Road Warrior movies every three or four years but you don't get Fury Road

what would you take? No deal. No deal. No deal. No deal. You didn't have to think about it. I was comparing Fury Road to like

Lords of Arabia on the pod last week. And I agree with you. Like I think it's one of the most important and perfect movies ever and it it is this culmination like furiosa doesn't dim that at all and it is this culmination of so many different things and when you hear again to cite kyle buchanan's blood sweat and chrome i think one of the best like books about making a movie that we've had uh in a long

time um like when you think about all the things that could have been with Fury Road when he was like maybe Eminem for Max or, you know, like all these like what ifs or yeah. Well, Heath Ledger is a better, better case scenario, but like,

or like the idea of Chris having to pick between Tom Hardy and Jeremy Renner. Those are like literally two boys. I know. Where are you? Would you want to see Renner's Max? I'm, I'm happy with, with Tom Hardy in the way that it got Renner. Even though he needed to be completely ADR'd entirely. So it's a Tom Hardy movie.

Do you think that Renner, I don't know, what would have happened to Renner's legacy if he was handed Mission Impossible and that didn't work out and he was handed Bourne and that didn't work out and he was handed Mad Max and that didn't work out? That would handed Born and that didn't work out and he was handed Mad Max and that didn't work out. That would be tough. He would still be

the mayor of Kingstown. Let me tell you. Yeah, mayor of your heart. Is that the name of that show? Mayor of Kingstown. What season are they on? Three.

What? Have you been keeping up? I have more, I watched half of season two and tapped out, which is not an unfamiliar experience with Taylor shows, but,

I see. You know, they start really strong. But, but I think, like, Fury Road, there's so many things,

a million things that had to go right to get it, and a million things that had to go wrong to get it. And it's also a culmination of his, he's like James Cameron or Robert Zemeckis

or, like, who are interested in technology. Yeah, the technocrat geniuses yeah endlessly curious in technology and so Fury Road is just like the perfect version of that and then Furiosa is just sort of like a bridge too far in some directions you know what I mean but like no I wouldn't would you trade Fury Road for three Mel Gibson Mad Max movies in the 90s I'd to

paraphrase Bill Simmons, I'd have the meeting. You know? You'd take the call. Yeah. You get your guys together in a room and you talk it out. Yeah.

Who are your guys? Well, I mean... Is Andy one of your guys? Dementus? Scrotus. Lord Humongous. Wait, Scrotus is definitely... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Monty from Thunderdome. Yeah. Toe Cutter's there. Toe Cutter, yeah. Toe Cutter. Yeah. We get the guys together and we're like, what if,

you know, make five of these badasses. Yeah. I do have a real deep affection. As we will talk about when we sort of rank these for the

elevated B-movie origins of this franchise. And I love and appreciate and worship fury road and can't believe it's it it worked the way it did given how it was made but there's part of me that's like i kind of i do kind of love the like australian outback grimy fucking grindhouse version of of this story yeah i do think that's probably a bit generational. Sure.

If you saw a movie like that at a younger age, like I think this is a real like, when did you see the movie? Yeah. Had to be there. In which order? And that actually is, before we rank the movies,

like the last question I wanted to ask, there's no way to actually know how you would feel about this, but if Furiosa was the first movie and Fury Road was the second movie in terms of release, would you feel differently? Would you, you know, like,

how would that reshape, like, is that even a useful exercise to put it in that context? Well, I mean... Because obviously chronologically... Yeah, we can... You could basically do... You could do that now.

You could start watching... That's what I mean. Furiosa is a pre... You know, is... Before you watch Fury Road. I mean, I effectively did that when I saw the movie a couple of weeks ago. And then my wife and I re-watched Fury Road. And I was like, I think part of the reason why last week on the pod, I was like,

eh, this is pretty cool. Was I was like, I just watched Fury Road. Sure. And I was like, this is the movie. This is, you know, this is what's so great. You know, it doesn't, it shouldn't take away from Furiosa's accomplishments, but it invariably does. I think it was such a mistake.

And George Miller has said they went back and forth on this, but I think it was such a mistake, as you mentioned, to show clips of Fury Road at the end of Furiosa. I was like, don't show me the masterpiece.

That was a little bit Rogue One going into New Hope. Kind of like, oh, shit. Like, it's really cool, but you're also like, Star Wars starts. Is there a world in which

a de-aged Charlize in this movie is more effective than Anya Taylor-Joy? That world doesn't exist because Charlize wouldn't touch, I don't think would touch

this with like a 30-foot pole. That's the other thing is like, they've got a, the other sort of thing they have in the chamber is the backstory

they wrote for Max like the year before for Ero, but I was like, Tom, you burnt the Tom Hardy bridge there was some suggestion over the weekend

that he actually would go back to him for the next movie which I find really hard to believe I just don't think Tom would go back well and there is like I think

either in comic form or whatever like a written out like Furiosa at the Citadel like kind of trying to protect it story

you know like there is a sequel like or at least story for a sequel for Fury Road. But I don't think Charlize Theron is going to do that. What I think actually would be really sick is if Furiosa wound up being a terrible leader. Because of what Dementor says to her at the end of this movie. He's like, you have become, you will become me, all that sort of stuff like that. And the fact that like there is a version of the ending where she keeps him sort of with her,

this like shadow self with her or stuff like that. So what if once Furiosa rises up on that platform, it's like a beautiful sort of hopeful ending, but like who's to say she would be a better leader? If the idea of this world is power corrupts there is no such thing as a good leader which is sort of what george miller said then like maybe we don't ever want to see what furiosa would do with all that power i don't know we call that the rise of corporate feminism that is a movie i do not think would do well

furiosa turning bad furiosa becoming marine le Le Pen. Yeah. Like, not good. Yeah. It would be really interesting though. And the kind of like honestly brave thing that George Miller would do. You know,

like he's not, he believes in the idea more than he does in like the fan service of making you excited about seeing them. But I suppose if people were pissed

that like Luke Skywalker moved to an island to, you know, drink green milk, they'd be really mad. I think they would get mad that Furiosa became like a center-right

parliamentarian. Last Jedi, where are you at on that? You know that I do not like that movie. Last Jedi. Oh no, The Last Jedi of Rise of Skywalker, I don't like. I like The Last Jedi quite a bit. I tried to trick you into something and then you were like, whoa, you actually don't like it. Yeah, no. You like The Last Jedi

and I don't like The Last Jedi. Mad Max movie rankings. Okay. There's five movies. I feel like this is a bit of a chalky exercise, but I want to go through it with you guys.

I'll say for me, my least favorite of these movies is Beyond Thunderdome. Okay. I think half of Beyond Thunderdome is good. But there's a whole other half.

Yeah. I'm not disagreeing with you. Which half don't you like? The second half. The kids. The kids, yeah the kids yeah the ewoks okay i think everything through trial by combat yeah is is pretty cool and then and you would do great in barter town i think you think so oh yeah constant deal dealing and wheeling and like just being like, I'll trade you two Blu-rays for, you know, a sippy cup of Fiji water. And, you know. Can you?

No deal. You've bore witness. Spit in your hand. To the amount of- You love making contact with other people's hands. Physical contact is something I'm really into. Master and or blaster. Who am I in this equation?

I was going to ask. Yeah. I think master, unfortunately for me. You've seen me negotiate with my child a lot over the last few days. That's not a fair, like, that's not a, that's a bad example. Like that sample size is poisoned. I've lost every single negotiation. You know, like, can I have one more cookie battle? Did not, really did not. Can I tell a quick anecdote? Please. I bought his daughter a gift and I, we purposely left it in the car for dinner because we were like, you know, we want to not distract from the social component of being with his daughter at dinner.

So we were like, okay, we're going to like, and at one point, Alice was like, I want to get up, you know, from the dinner table right now. And I was like, here's the thing. I have a thing for you, but you just have to chill for like two minutes. And she just looked me dead in the eyes and said, here's the thing. I have a thing for you, but you just have to chill for like two minutes. And she just looked me dead in the eyes and said, I want the thing. And listener, I got the thing. She got the thing. It was a book.

I don't know if she's a Morton Joe or the people eater in this equation. Or Professor X, because I was like, you know what, that's pretty adorable. I'm going to go get it. She's very powerful. Okay, so thunderdome is five for me uh it's not is it is that that's not the case it is not the case for me is that the case for you it is the case for me okay uh mad max the first one is five but with with all due respect i just don't choose to re-watch it very often because you think the toe cutter is misunderstood you thought it was no i didn't get

a fair deal like with one eyebrow shave i just think that thought it was you wondered what you would look like with one eyebrow shave I just think that it's like do you watch straw dogs a lot

like it's got like a darkness to it and a kind of like gritty sounds like a great time so just too

raw I like it a lot I think it is like the it's like the black and white sketch of like what he would wind up doing.

I think that's fair. Um, so what does that mean? Thunderdome is four? No, Furiosa is four. Wow. That's fascinating.

I say, but this is not like a, that shit at the bottom. It's like, like these are five really good to, little G good. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's, I think Furiosa is really good, but I think i have it at four you think furiosa is not as good as thunderdome this is this is a born in the 70s situation yeah um but he was like but when i saw you earlier you were like i liked it i love these movies this is this is probably you're bringing the right energy to this. I think Alien is my favorite franchise. I think Mad Max is pretty high up there

at this point. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Along with what? Divergent? No, Maze Runner. Maze Runner.

Yeah. Did you support Westfall by seeing the Apes film? That's what I did do. I didn't go see Fall Guy but I will go see the cinema of Ball.

Yeah. Okay. Do you know the Legend of Zelda? Do I know? Like, it's Link, right? And he's got a rescuer, right? Yeah, we did that already.

Okay. You missed this moment. I saw. I mean, I watched the clip. It was really good. He said through gritted teeth. Okay. What's your...

Just give me your rankings. Break it down for me. It's Beyond Thunderdome at the bottom. Then it's Mad Max. Then it's Furiosa. Then it's Road Warrior. And then it's Fury Road. So that's my list as well.

Okay. Joanna, as is often the case, we are usually very aligned on these things. Okay. So do your five? Mad Max at five. Furiosa at four. Thunderdome at three.

Fury Road at two. No! Just get out of here. Road Warrior at five. Furiosa at four. Thunderdome at three. Fury Road at two. No! Let's just get out of here. Road Warrior at one. This is great podcasting, but very chaotic. You love Road Warrior, though. I love Road Warrior. Have you told the story about how you first watched Road Warrior?

I don't know why I said that. Well, my mom showed it to me. How old were you? Young enough that there were some disturbing elements to it and that I got incredibly terrified of boomerangs off of this movie. Yeah, the fingers. I love that part. But yeah, Road Warrior is the original article in my head

when I think of this. When I close my eyes, I think of Mel Gibson driving the decoy tanker out of the community and being chased by humongous. Okay, here's a good game Road Warrior or Alien

Alien Road Warrior or Star Wars A New Hope Star Wars Road Warrior or Jaws Jaws

Road Warrior or The Exorcist how like I think Exorcist is a better film and more important I probably have seen

Road Warrior more. Which do you prefer? To watch? Yeah. Rogue Warrior. What's another some iconic 70s franchises that shaped Chris's mind? You know him more intimately than I do. Your peach pit has been inside of him for longer.

That's some of my best work. I hope that moment is clothed and clarified. Just me growing me growing out of myself and you being like now i will pod was it a peach or an apple it was definitely a peach because the pit apples don't have pits when's the last time you had an apple uh i i eat an apple every day this is something you should know about me my daughter eats two apples every day great she is addicted to underneath that core is not a pit. I know that. Okay.

But that pit doesn't come from the peach that she pulls. It comes from her mother. She hands her the pit. So, like, obviously, there could still be peaches. Yeah, but the pit. Maybe it's like a hybrid. She's been hiding the pit. I wondered that.

Is there some sort of, like, mutant fruit? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That could be it. An each. Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't align well. An each.

An ap-durine. An ap-pul. Can I ask you guys another hypothetical? Yeah. George Miller will make another Mad Max saga film, but this one is broken

from the Citadel, Gastown, Bullet Farm. This one is set in Mar-a-Lago. No, but this one is more of a vroom-vroom, hour 50 B movie. Yeah. Of course. Yeah?

Yeah. Okay. So you're not like, each film needs to try and top Fury Road. I like that about it. I made that note in the doc here. Each one of these movies is iterative of the last movie and also a complete rejection of the last movie. It seems to be what gets him excited about making them.

So there would have to be something about the road movie that is different from what we've seen before. I really liked Amanda's question of what's west of Westeros? What's happening outside of Australia in this post-apocalyptic future? I mean, I wonder whether or not, I don't know who owns this IP, but in 10 years, we're going to find out, you know? Yes. Oh, that's kind of scary.

My question, when I was thinking through Amanda's sort of proposition of like what's happening elsewhere, I'm like, well, we're going to have to, well, they have a lot of aircrafts, actually, not long distance aircrafts, but they've got some aircrafts.

But I was like, could we do Fury Road on a boat what if what's happening is just what's happening yeah fury boat fury boat is a great idea yeah and we need to amend i don't know if it'll cruise control yeah and i don't know if it'll be as good as battleship but i think it could try and battleship they did audition for yeah should doesleship need to be reclaimed? No. You know who's really good in Battleship is Rihanna. Yeah. Yeah, Rihanna's great.

I agree. She's like, man the torpedoes. She's the weapons person on the boat. Yeah. Rihanna auditioned for Fury Road, by the way. That would have been interesting. Did she? Yeah.

As for Furiosa? I think for One of the Wives. One of the Wives, okay. And she came in, George Miller says she came in dressed as Rihanna because she didn't know what the movie was. What does that even mean? I don't know. Like a rock star.

I don't know. How was she supposed to come in? Like wearing like a satiny cloak? Some muslin wrapped around her body. I don't know. Interesting. Battleship is one of the worst movies ever. I saw so many bad movies during the pandemic.

We had a bad movie club and Battleship was one of the worst movies ever. I saw so many bad movies during the pandemic. We had a bad movie club and Battleship was by far the worst. Here's what I don't understand about Battleship. I haven't seen the film in a long time, so I'm just kind of freewheeling here. Obviously, that's my guy who made that movie. It's a colossally bad movie. Why did it have to be aliens?

What did you want it to be, Russians? Just other countries' battleships? Like when you're playing the game Battleship? Yeah. It's not like Alien Battleship. I don't think they wanted it was kind of like

Top Gun and Water. I don't think they wanted to wade into the geopolitical waters. Just find and make up a country. Yeah. I agree.

I also wonder whether or not Sonar has gotten so good. It's like could you really get like snuck up on by a Navy? You know? It just reminded me

that I was just watching The Interpreter, Sidney Pollack's film. Have you guys seen that? It's on Netflix. Just fired up. Never seen it before The Interpreter, Sidney Pollack's film. Have you guys seen that? It's on Netflix. Just fired up. Never seen it before. Just closing out my Sidney Pollack filmography viewing experience.

Honestly, not bad. Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman. A little bit long, but good. It is a little bit long. But that's an example of a movie where they just invented an African nation because they clearly did not want to annoy, I guess, Zimbabwe. So they just made up a country and it worked fine and I was like

wow this Zawani seems like a bad guy what's going on in Mobutu I think is the country can't remember so why don't we head to Mobutu

and Fury Boat I think David Zaslav should call us and or George Miller can call us 20 years Zas on top of the Mad Max IP

is tough is a tough look I mean it won't be bad when George Miller has gone to the great place of abundance and David Zaslav is like, now I can get my guy.

Dune, coal and grain place. Len Weissman can get in here. But all the HBO. I was going to say West Ball, but it could be worse. It could definitely be worse. But like all the HBO Max shows that we're going to squeeze out of this.

This was almost a mid-90s TV show. They got close to that. like in the Highlander vein. I'm usually a grouch about that, but I could see that. There's so much to explore here. There's a Knight Rider version of the show. Yeah, exactly. Where it's just like mystery of the week. Last question for you guys. Green Place overrated? Well, Green Place

meaning the place of abundance where well, we know that it's overrated. We know that you have to walk around on stilts and live in bird's nests there. So Furiosa. Yeah. I don't need a horse that much, you know. Really bad sense of, like, you know, she's not a great leader when you think about it. She puts all of her eggs in one basket.

Okay. Well, here's the question. Fury, do you want to make Fury boat or do you want to make Furiosa colon bad leader? Like, I think. Why not both? Why not both? Why not both? Get Aaron Sorkin on Furiosa's hardships

as a leader. That would be kind of like his I Love Lucy movie, but about Furiosa. So we're like, are we walking and talking through the maggot hole? Yeah.

Like, is that... Being the Furiosas, that's an idea for a movie. I'm interested in that. Guys, this has been great. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts you know and it turned out

that you're all kind of on the same page as me which I was not expecting I was expecting that we liked this movie like a huge thrum of enthusiasm and

you don't understand but actually I feel like we all are on the same page this is really good I feel like it's just like the can-pilled people if this

movie had started with and with Anya playing Furiosa as like a androgynous mechanic yeah I would have been like you fucking did it again

and we got like like vague occasional flashbacks to like I don't care I don't care I got it I know where she comes from

because it's talked about in Fury Road like I know that she comes from this matriarchal like utopia I want to see her working on trucks and then she realizes

she's the prince who was promised when it comes to driving. Is that a thing for you? Like a woman building a machine? Is that an appeal? I'm just saying

that's an hour and 50 minute version of this movie that's sick. Okay. Fair enough. Any closing thoughts? I would not cut the Mulvaney

from this movie. Yeah. I think the chase is arguably the best thing in the movie. The motorcycle chase? Yeah. I think the chase is like arguably the best thing in the movie. The motorcycle chase? Yeah. I love that part.

I would not say Fury Road is not the best Mad Max movie. You brought it. Yeah. But I would look forward to seeing how each of you would thrive in the wastelands.

I really would. I mean, just podcasting from the maggot hole is just... I love that for you. I bet it smells great in there. Valhalla awaits you both on The Watch.

Chris Ryan on Trial by Content on House of R. What are you... Are you... You guys are prepping? We are going to be... You're prepping for something special. We're doing Talk the Thrones on the House of R feed. And we'll be doing that visually as well.

George Miller's directing. I've quit five times. There's a lot of speed ramp, like, just like, zoom in on Chris on the mic, you know?

I'm never in 24 frames. I'm either slower or faster. Who's driving this pod? It's Chris. Did you re-read before this new season? Fire and Blood? Yeah.

Yeah, but that's easy. That's crazy. Did you, and you've already re-watched as well? Yeah. And what about you? I just Ron Burg crazy. Did you, and you've already rewatched as well? Yeah. And what about you? I just Ron Burgundy it. And I'm like,

He reads the wikis. Amen Targaryen! And then he goes, What's the dragon? Which dragon's that one? Mallory and I wouldn't have a job if Chris did all the reading or watched all this stuff.

That's our job. I'm the common man. In so many ways. Truly, in so many ways. A man who just wants to see Anya Taylor-Joy build a machine and have dragons explain to him. Thank you so much, people.

Thanks for being here. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner. Thanks to Jack Sanders and Corey McConnell on video. Later this week, Chris will be back. Amanda will be back. We'll be building the Richard Linklater Hall of Fame. What's your number one pick in the Richard Linklater Hall of Fame what's your number one pick in the Richard

Linklater Hall of Fame Jo? That is such a good uh Where'd you go Bernadette? I'll find a way to defend it uh

Dazed and Confused Dazed and Confused great choice alright we'll see you then you