Mad Max: Fury Road had a big message of human objectifying, and appraising false gods in desperate times. So what does the fraise "Who Killed The World" actually mean. Does this fraise sum up the character Immortan Joe, or is there bigger subtext to be analyzed?
Good topic, I also wondered the same when I saw the quote and immediately thought of the government and politics. – melaniek9 years ago
I believe it means that everyone is complicit in the destruction of the old world. I say believe since the film doesn't delve too deeply into that line and makes it more esoteric than it should of been. I suppose it's one of those lines like, "Who watches the Watchmen?" – Reggie "Rusty" Farrakhan9 years ago
It's not just about Joe. It's about everybody like him, who tries to impose their views about women, masculinity, etc, on the world, and in doing so, triggered the nuclear war in the backstory. – Winter9 years ago
It would probably help to watch every Mad Max film to be able to write this topic, seeing as Fury Road is the fourth movie in the series. There's most likely a lot of insight into the universe when you know everything else about the world and its lore. – Wolfstar969 years ago
In a time where every other new show or movie is a reboot or adaption of a recent, popular book or movie, is there any originality left? Would audiences prefer to see an extended story of newer characters and places or would they prefer the risk of having their favourite book turned into a movie where the actors are not who they pictured or important plots are left out. Which one is better?
It is true that we could use more variety with original film. However, It is harder to sell a movie from scratch, then it is just adapted something, or to make a sequel. For adaptations, the movie executives will see how popular a book or story was with major audiences. For sequels, they check how well the movie did money wise. You could talk about what a director needs to do in order to persuade movie studios to have their original films made. – Aaron Hatch9 years ago
I agree with Aaron. The arguments for a specific movie needs to be pitched. Most out there are simply adaptations/sequels. This can be a running problem because eventually, people will just stop watching and Hollywood would be in a pickle where they'll have to start taking risks and studios would end up out of business. If this continues on this path, it will not mean anything good for the industry. – SpectreWriter9 years ago
Although many people complain about the lack of originality in films, I think the problem is that people are too afraid to risk finances, time and effort on an original idea that has potential to flop. If you adapt a book, there's already an existing fan base so you're guaranteed for someone to watch your movie when it's released. There's a Youtube video called 'Screeenwriter Max Landis - Explain Things to Me' that's helpful, as an LA-based screenwriter talks about these problems. – YsabelGo9 years ago
Discuss the pros and cons of a work showing disregard for a well-known or basic scientific fact. The most notorious offender is Michael Bay's "Armageddon", in which an asteroid can supposedly be split apart and sent flying by anything less than 100 billion megatons of TNT. More recently, Luc Besson's "Lucy" centers on the false premise that humans only use 10% of our brains.
To start off fairly pedantically, there are, of course, several genres that negate/change/disregard the rules of science. There's obviously sci-fi, but you've got things like horror and it's sub-genres, fantasy, superhero/comic book films, films that exploit magic realism (inluding black magic realism films like Trainspotting). From a writing perspective you'll have to be careful of that and pedants, like myself, nitpicking at that specific point.
But in other films I believe it depends on what type of film it is. If it is trying to be authentic/realistic it should stick to scientific facts and rules. However the main objective of a film should be to entertain, if that means science should suffer a little because of this I, for one, have no qualms with that. – Jamie9 years ago
To be quite honest, society wouldn't be where it is today if authors and artist didn't write about or create things that "defied science." These are entertainment mediums, and are not presented in a way that is meant to be factual. The only area I see this being a problem would be if something was presented as scientific fact, like in a documentary capacity.
For the most part it has to be okay for authors and creators to write and create without regards for natural law.
– G Anderson Lake9 years ago
It depends in what way science is defied. Armageddon doesn't defy science as much as it simply proposes a way to get rid of an Asteroid. Jurassic World does the same. But defying an established fact, like having a human fly without any explanation as to how he is defying gravity doesn't work well. – SpectreWriter9 years ago
A little bending of the facts of science is alright as long as you know how to pull it off and how large a fact it is your bending. It's alright to disregard reality sometimes, as literature and entertainment would be quite boring if they were entirely realistic, but when your story is completely based on something completely scientifically false, like in "Lucy", it becomes a much harder task to write a compelling story as it is becomes more difficult to relate to the characters and plot with such an astounding lack of foundation in realism. There comes a point where even suspension of disbelief isn't enough to save a story. – dreamingair9 years ago
It is more important to train people/audiences to recognize what falls into the realm of fiction and how it (fiction) can often take licenses that should not be taken seriously. – T. Palomino2 years ago
If I said to you that I'm thinking of a particularly amusing death scene from the first Jurassic Park movie, what would you immediately think of? I suspect that you will think of the hilariously undignified death of the lawyer, who left the children and hid in a portapotty, just to have the T-Rex knock off the portapotty and eat him in one bite. The makers of the movie reserved that spectacular death for a reason. First off, the character was a lawyer (at a different point in the film, Hammond specifically said he hated) and he also left the children in the SUV when the T-Rex came close. Abandoning children is a societal no-no. So now we have the new movie. Jurassic World. Who had the particularly gruesome dinosaur death? I propose that the particular death was reserved for (SPOILER) the secretary who was watching the children. Dragged off by the flying dinosaurs, just to get dropped off in the water, where she nearly drowned and was brutalized by the flying dinosaurs (now underwater!) before being eaten by the huge water dinosaur. Yikes!
If you accept my position (gruesome deaths are a way of punishing characters), then I ask you this: Why her? Why was her death so brutal? Perhaps it was how much she focused on her cellphone. Perhaps it's because she lost the kids (same as the lawyer). Or just maybe it is because she is a working woman and (like Aunt Claire) she is punished for wanting a career over her own children.
What are your thoughts? I'd love to see this written up!
I think it was more the case of bad film making. I imagine the script meant to give the impression she was callous and possibly incompetent, but on screen she seemed harried and a bit over her head. Being Claire's personal assistant meant she does a lot of bitch work for her boss. The fact Claire asks her to take care of the kids so she doesn't have to and can wash her hands of the issue makes Zara (the assistant), more pitiful and sympathetic while Claire comes off less likable. Don't forget Zara's also getting married soon, that information is revealed in the call she was on when the kids ditch her. (The script probably meant to make her seem self-centered, but the film just makes her seem like a struggling young professional) Throw in the fact the kids aren't that likable, the older brother's a tool and the younger one is a weirdo, and you end up asking what has Zara done to deserve her lot in film? Well nothing worse then anybody else and for that she gets the worst death on screen. Worse than the actual bad guys. I imagine the filmmakers thought her death would be funny in a Loony Toons sort of way, but it just comes off as cruel. (The lawyer getting eaten in JP was funny) Really, Claire is more justified in getting that death. (Since it's more or less her fault the I. Rex escapes) So long story short, Zara died because the film makers got lazy/incompetent with transporting her character from page onto screen. – rj2n9 years ago
Or as one my professors is fond of saying, never attribute to malice what could be explained just as well by ignorance or indifference. – rj2n9 years ago
Rj2n, Ha ha, do you just follow me around to disagree with me publicly? Ha ha. Just kidding. – Jeffrey MacCormack9 years ago
I agree many characters in one genre don't carry over because of this nature idea of how many people an audience can differentiate from and/or budget. Sunday blockbusters tend to have less of an ensemble I've noticed recently. – fchery9 years ago
Is there still the opportunity to break new ground in film, or are we now in the age of "recycling". With the countless release of sequels, and the overflow of generic movie genres and motifs, is it now time to be concerned that creativity and uniqueness is dying out in the film industry?
Everything has been done before, that is just a simple fact of life. Any form of entertainment has taken elements from something that has come before it whether it be themes, ideals, character tropes, etc. I think the problem with the film industry is that it is, like everything, a business. Open expression, creativity, uniqueness are things that unfortunately do not sell on a large scale. Big budget film production companies want to invest in certainties, not possibilities. I think that is why project funding websites like Kickstarter have been so successful. It allows the public to directly decide what it is they want to be made. And it will vary for everyone. Is creativity dying out of the film industry? I don't think so, not yet. The indie film scene is proof of that. But I think even when looking at big budget productions, there is still a huge amount of creativity and uniqueness that squeezes through. Mad Max: Fury Road is the most recent example in my eyes because George Miller was able to keep his vision intact throughout the production. Did the movie take close to 20 years to finally get made? Yeah it did, but when Warner Bros. finally greenlit the project, Miller was able to make the film he wanted, they trusted him to a far extent, and that in itself is very rare in Hollywood. – Jonssona9 years ago
I think your topic is way too vague to draw any conclusions from. It is one thing to say "We see the same old stuff every year" and it is another thing to prove it. For this topic to work, you have to narrow your area of focus from "all of film" to "blockbusters" or "genre film". With a title like that, you are begging for people to come loaded with examples proving you wrong. – CLuciantonio9 years ago
We cannot be original but we can be creative. I do believe that some areas of entertaining are simply recycling without being creative in the process. Perhaps the industry is afraid of trying something new? Who wants to lose money? Perhaps artists aren't being bold or brave enough? How can we alter the cycle? Many artists have created their own platform. For the industry to produce a strong, "new" film, one has to exist. So perhaps its on the artist to take the step forward and create an opportunity for change. – yase9 years ago
Writing about this topic without taking a look to all the debate about originality in fiction that has been around for decades would be like adding another brick to the Great Wall of China. – T. Palomino2 years ago
There's been a lot of chatter recently about the portrayal of sexual violence in media, particularly with Game of Thrones' graphic scenes, and with the important but purely implicit sexual violence in Mad Max: Fury Road. Rape gets used for shock value, or to make something more "edgy", as well as a motivator or background story angst for female characters, but that can be incredibly cheap storytelling at times, not to mention harmful. It would be interesting to see a comparison of implicit versus explicit sexual violence, its uses in various media, and where it's useful versus where it's just gratuitous.
Good point. It also seems like it can be superadded to an existing work. If we take Game of Thrones for example, there is no denying that Martin uses sex quite often as part of his text but when it gets adapted to the screen it seems like the sex becomes more graphic and can be added where there was none before. I think this is a timely topic and one that can be taken in a lot of directions – DClarke9 years ago
In the case of "useful" explicit rape, the first scene that comes to mind is the rape scene in Straw Dogs (1971). It's an incredibly complicated moment--so much so that when a director wanted to remake the movie, one of his primary objectives was to flatten the rape scene to a single, formulaic note because the ambiguity of the first was, for him, beyond comprehension, and he just wanted audiences to see a woman suffer (ugh). The original is *not* a failing, though; the whole movie is intentionally wrought in difficult ambiguities, and the rape scene is no different. Simply put, a woman who returns to her hometown with her mild-mannered husband knows exactly how dangerous her ex is, but toys with him until he forces himself upon her; at first she is deeply upset by his violence, but mid-coitus the ex lovers have a very weird, difficult moment of reunion, just before the ex's coworker introduces himself with a gun and demands his turn. It's a painful scene to watch, with so many different emotions playing out over our victim's face, and it's made worse by the fact that the raped woman refuses to tell her husband what's happened after. Nonetheless, there is a *wealth* of discourse that emerges from Peckinpah's approach, which does NOT treat the act in an alluring light. On a different note, Almodovar has a rape in Kika that... actually manages to be comedy, because it makes such a striking mockery of the rapist, a porn star who seems to have a compulsion to copulate not unlike a dog rutting against a human leg. At first the rape scene is wrenching, but as it keeps going on to absurd lengths (because the rapist cannot seem to finish), the raped protagonist reclaims a measure of agency in a most surprising--and again, comedic--way. Good luck with this article! – MLClark9 years ago
With Game of Thrones the most recent rape scene, being that of Sansa's, was not actually very graphic. The camera panned over to Theon and our reaction of the rape was moulded by Theon's reaction. I think there is a lot of confusion in this area that needs to be discussed. I see a lot of arguments that rape shouldn't be shown because it's a disgusting, violent horrible act, which it is, but that's also the right reaction to have; of we had a reaction totally opposite to that, that's when we need to look at sexual violence in media. south Park has, on several occasions, stated that it's only ok to have a discourse for everything or nothing at all (and with regards to South Park that would be it's ok to make fun of/to satirise anything). – Jamie9 years ago
100% behind this proposal. I think it needs to be done for the sake of victims of sexual assault, many of whom feel alienated by the sensationalistic attitudes towards sex in mainstream cinema. – Luke Stephenson9 years ago
With the release of films such as Ip Man, Braveheart, The Social Network, and Imitation Game, more and more famous heroes of the past and present are getting the Hollywood treatment, and are made to seem beyond the realm of fantastic in most cases. What kind of effect does this have on the reputation of historical characters, and does exaggeration only add to the enjoyment of a film, or does it detract from the greatness of reality?
Biographical adaptations made interesting for cultural consumption extends beyond recent films. Consider the reputation of Antonio Salieri in Amadeus or Thomas Edison in Edison, The Man. If we had to dig deeper into the past, how about Richard III, from Shakespeare? (Or really just about anybody Shakespeare based on an actual person). If one were to pursue this good refinements would be asking, if these distortions are governed by narrative (cooler story), political (patronage issues), or technical/logistical (Can't film/stage certain scenes) motives? – rj2n9 years ago
Maybe, instead of focusing on the effects movies "based" on historical events have on society, it would be a more interesting idea to point out that society is generally poorly trained to distinguish fact from fiction. – T. Palomino2 years ago
What did the films, E.T., Blade Runner, Wrath of Khan, Tron, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, John Carpenter's The Thing, Poltergeist, The Secret of the NIMH, Dark Crystal, and Conan the Barbarian all have in common? They all had their US premiers during summer of 1982. This article would look at why 1982 as coincidence, or convergence became a legendary year in science fiction.
Special effects! I really think the 1980's were a kind of sweet spot for practical Hollywood effects. It was the last decade in which most filmmakers absolutely HAD to rely on their wits and cinematography skills instead of shipping the footage to a CGI studio. – Simon9 years ago
It's a neat idea, but most of the films mentioned above, the special effects were not handled by the directors or their main production crews. Rather the footage came from special effects firms that were contracted to produce them. ILM for example did Poltergeist, Wrath of Khan, E.T., Dark Crystal, and even a small segment of Conan. Rob Bottin with help from Stan Winston oversaw all the effects for The Thing and four different firms worked on Tron's effects. If anything the historical evidence suggests the 80s was the decade when visual effects really changed from being under the purview of the main filmmakers and moved into the purview of externally contracted firms. – rj2n9 years ago
Based on that, maybe the sweet spot existed because the directors let technically-minded effects people work on the effects and those people had to be creative with their methods (e.g. animal training, animatronics, puppetry) instead of just being good at programming and graphic design. – Simon9 years ago
Considering CGI was only first used in 1982 (Tron, Wrath of Khan), this is necessarily true. But I think focusing on just special effects doesn't explain why 1982 is so great. Star Trek, the Motion Picture had much more extensive effects work then Wrath of Khan and is generally considered the inferior film. Also most of the great effects work of the 90s utilized all these techniques at much more mature level. (e.g. Jurassic Park, Terminator 2) – rj2n9 years ago
