Film Junk Premium Podcast #39: Mad Max Trilogy + Waterworld

Posted by on May 12th, 2015   Filed under: Featured, Film Junk Podcast, Premium Podcast

madmaxpremium

In preparation for the upcoming release of Mad Max: Fury Road, we went back to the Australian wasteland to revisit George Miller’s original Mad Max trilogy which so completely defined the post-apocalyptic genre. We also decided to include a bonus discussion about another post-apocalyptic film that was heavily influenced by Mad Max: Kevin Costner’s Waterworld. Topics addressed on this month’s premium podcast include the cinematography of Dean Semler, the amazing stuntwork in all of the films, the Mad Max timeline and Kevin Costner’s hairline. So do the Mad Max films leave too many gaps in plot and logic? Is Waterworld pushing a liberal agenda? Would shoulder pads and bondage gear really be the fashion of the future? Three men enter and one podcast leaves… download this month’s premium podcast below.

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This series of premium podcasts was created to help support the regular weekly Film Junk Podcast. Head on over to Bandcamp and download full episodes for a minimum donation of just $1. As always, let us know if you experience any technical difficulties or if you have any other suggestions for future specials. Thanks for your support!



  • “Three men enter and one podcast leaves… ” This made me smile.

  • devolutionary

    Finally a premium I’ve been looking forward to whole-heartedly this year! Thanks again for the proficiency of delivering so much podcasting crack to us week in and week out!

  • Sam

    Great premium once again guys! Though Frank was nitpicky for a completely random and innocuous moment, though overall agreed about the first Mad Max in general.

    Since I always toss these out, here’s another random premium suggest:

    How about a Troma/Lloyd Kaufman premium?

    – Toxic Avenger
    – Class Of Nuke’Em High
    – Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD
    – Tromeo & Juliet
    – Terror Firmer
    – Poultrygeist

    Gives me excuse to finally watch a lot of these, and seems like it’s kind of a new direction of something you guys haven’t really touched on with the premiums. And other than Jay, I’m not sure how familiar Frank and Sean are with Troma, so I would be kinda curious.

  • devolutionary

    Interesting and potentially very funny premise. Haven’t seen a few of those but I’d add Father’s Day or Cannibal! The Musical to the list (Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s first film).

  • Deven Science

    Lot’s of Film Junk goodness dropping into my phone this week!

  • devolutionary

    Jay: “It’s like losing your virginity…you still lost it even if you don’t remember.”
    Guess we know where he stands with born-again Christians then.

  • Colin

    And some rape victims

  • Booth

    This was my most anticipated premium until I saw some of the Letterboxd ratings this week. Now I fear that listening to this podcast will do my head in.

    Only in Frank’s myopic world would Waterworld* rate higher than Mad Max.

    *In all my years of moviegoing, I’ve only fallen asleep twice: once when seeing Waterworld at the drive-in and another trying to watch the whole damn thing in a theater.

  • pcch7

    I’m very happy you mentioned the “Ah what the fuck captain, what use is he?” line. Probably the best moment in the franchise. Had a bit of a crush on Savannah when I was a young feral child. Didn’t see Mad Max or The Road Warrior until way later though.

    As for Franks confusion in the opening car chase in the first one. I always thought the reason Nightrider says it’s over and whatnot is because he pussied out in the chicken race and knows he’s gonna be beat.

  • Samb

    It wasn’t the rental market (which was in its infancy in 1980-81) so much as HBO and The Movie Channel that turned the North American market on to Mad Max. Each month those channels would find some inexpensive genre flicks to license, and then would show them three times a day. A lot of these offerings were shit, but once in a while something would hit — Mad Max was one of those. It got huge word-of-mouth among my teenage friends and me at the time, and so by the time The Road Warrior came around, we were well primed. I agree about the continuity problems, but it was visceral and exotic and the cars were cool, and that’s what we mainly responded to. There wasn’t much else like it at the time. The revenue figures Sean quoted don’t make sense to me, either, because The Road Warrior was an event movie, and I don’t even remember the domestic release of MM.

  • Tommy

    Sean, you didn’t see Max’s baby early in the film in his home, playing with his gun?

  • Sean

    I do remember that now that you mention it. Still, there is a long stretch on that road trip where Sprog doesn’t appear.

  • Tommy

    I always assumed it was Brian May from Queen doing the soundtrack. Anyone else learn it wasn’t from this premium?

  • Sean

    I also wondered this initially but alas there are two different Brian Mays.

  • schizopolis

    I got so used to the American dubbed version of Mad Max as a kid on cable. Except for the voice actor for Max, all the other voices were so over the top and cartoonish. Didn’t see the original Aussie track until the mid 90s in some dingy underground theater in nyc that showed an old print. After the DVD, I think it took me another 10+ years to get the American dub voices out of my head. It’s still distracts me sometimes when I’m watching.

  • LordAwesome

    You have to be a special kind of idiot to find Mad Max confusing. Christ on a bike Frank!

  • Kyle Grimes

    Congrats on winning hypocrite of the year Sean. Everything you bashed Prometheus for you gave a pass for in Mad Max! (Unanswered questions, plot gaps, confusion, etc.)

  • Sean

    Totally different movies though. The action in Mad Max is the focus and makes up for everything. Prometheus is trying to be deep and philosophical but it leaves out half of the details.

  • pcch7

    Lol, I tend to agree though

  • Kenneth Serenyi

    I think we *don’t* see the collision involving Max’s kid twice – once in Mad Max, and again in the beginning flashback of the Road Warrior (at least on my HDDVD). I seem to remember part of the delay and higher costs of Waterworld were because Costner tried to go back to some of his scenes and CG his hairline.

  • Kenneth Serenyi

    The Box Office for ‘The Road Warrior’ could have been impacted by the vastly superior (in my opinion) ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ in the same year. Raiders has a better executed truck chase sequence and of course a fantastic score by John Williams.

  • Stefan Mitander

    Great premium as always! Thanx!
    It must be mentioned however, that there is no thruth to the claim that Mad Max was banned in Sweden until 2005. Sweden has been keen to censor and ban stuff, especially in the 80s, but I don’t think Mad Max was ever banned. It was no problem renting it on VHS in the mid 80:s anyway =)

  • Sean

    I thought that seemed a bit crazy. But it’s on Wikipedia so it must be true!

  • Boz

    Mad Max..brilliant. Mad Max 2….very good. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome..terrible.
    harhar Lord…cut them some slack, they need to watch our flix with subtitles.

  • Well it is true. The whole trilogy was banned from being shown in public until 2005, but you could rent them and they have been shown on tv.

  • filmstache

    Just like there are two George Millers, I’m glad I didn’t drop money on The Neverending Story part II before I figured that out