The oil black machine roars down a remote Outback road. Rusted and dusted, it’s as disheveled as the man inside, his leg fitted with a metal brace mirroring the Weiand 6-71 supercharger welded onto the engine block. It’s modded with two fuel tanks and eight exhaust ports and rigged to blow. A man who’s lost everything lost to a world that destroyed itself. He’s driven only to drive…and his ride is a Pursuit Special. The last of the V8 Interceptors.
The “Pursuit Special” was actually a 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe with a Cleveland 351 V8 engine. The car was manufactured only in Australia, with 211,971 made in total, and modded by Ray Beckerley at Graf-X International with the help of Ford designer Peter Arcadipane, who fitted the Concorde nose; Errol Platt installed the roof and tail spoilers. This was all in preparation for a measly little weekender film made by a part-time EMT, costing $300,000. No one expected Mad Max (1979) to launch a global franchise.
In hindsight, Mad Max watches more like a prequel than the film that started the franchise. Grossing $8.7 million worldwide, Mad Max capitalized on the Ozploitation movement that started in 1971, hinging on those big car moments and stunt action to garner audience favor. The smashing success leads to a budget of TEN TIMES the original to create Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981). To that date, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior was the most expensive Australian production ever made, churning a gross of $23.6 million worldwide.
And what was it that made Mad Max a global icon? A relatively unknown actor who wasn’t even marketed to audiences around the globe at the time (marketing favored stunts and explosions to the man who would later become Mel freaking Gibson) would launch an entire industry of post-apocalypse lore. What would Fallout be without Max Rockatansky? Or the Wasteland Weekend festival? Or a mainstream understanding of dystopian futures where gasoline becomes a more precious resource than water?
The film took inspiration from A Boy and His Dog (1975) for its post-apocalypse landscape and, due to the cult following of the film, established The Road Warrior as a template for many dystopian films to follow. Writer/director George Miller also saw elements of Shane (1953) in Max’s relationship with the feral boy whose intro/outro narration serves to establish the impact of the film’s tagline “Just one man can make a difference.”
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However, Miller was mostly triggered by the 1970s oil crisis. He takes a hard look at what the world would be like if the scarcity of such a resource continued. Coveting gasoline takes center stage, making the vehicles a centerpiece of the story—especially when you consider a car like Max’s, which runs on average a measly 13 miles per gallon.
And while these inspirations can be seen as creating the world of Max, The Road Warrior shines in how it builds the character of Max as an antihero. His arc in Mad Max 2 has been compared to a cowboy with his horse and a ronin with his sword: a lone wanderer with his car whose only purpose is to survive. What makes the antihero, and how did George Miller achieve this to build the legend of Mad Max?
In any story, there are truly only two hero character arcs. The first is a character who believes in what we’ll call “the lie.” This could be the lie of his family or the lie of his own personality. In Max’s case in ‘79, this was the lie that he could do good in the world. Even as he quits his job, the lie catches up with him, and his arc comes in understanding that the lie is just that, a lie. When he walks into the police garage, fading into the darkness and emerging in the V8 Interceptor, he accepts the truth: the world is a wasteland of thieves and murderers, and he aims to act upon it. And while this arc is traditional hero’s journey-type stuff, it can be infinitely less interesting than the second.
The second is the arc Max takes in The Road Warrior. He begins the film understanding the truth: that the cruelty of the world is inescapable and that one must only live to survive it. But he lives with doubt: the doubt that he has chosen the wrong truth. Thus, through the course of the narrative, he becomes an agent of change for himself and the world around him.
He meets The Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence), who introduces him to the settled community under siege by a gang of raiders. When the opportunity to take advantage of their oil wealth presents itself, he enters the community with a man he attempts to save, making a deal for fuel in exchange for his help. When the man dies, the agreement dies with him, and Max uses his knowledge of the road to broker a new deal: a rig to carry their oil tanker in exchange for fueling his ride. All these bargains are made with his understanding that his own survival is all that matters.
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This feat he achieves, but he sees the carnage brought upon the community for just a small piece of their plan to survive. Favoring to go on his own over watching more people perish for “the lie” (as he’s seen before), he takes his fuel and bolts. But Wes (Vernon Wells) and the other raiders, slighted by his aiding of their prey, target Max’s escape – ending in a fiery confrontation with Max left for dead. He knows that his understanding of the truth – that he must survive alone in the new world – can save others. Max returns to the community as an agent of change and offers to drive the tanker.
The ensuing chase is action-packed craziness: long and escalating with death and fire, crashes and explosions. We see the comeuppance of The Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) and his gang of raiders. We see warriors of the community fight for their freedom. We see the confirmation of Max’s doubts about the world. After seemingly failing in his mission to get the tanker safe passage to paradise, we see Max smile for the only time in Mad Max 2. As the sand runs through his fingers, he understands that his understanding of the truth was, in fact, the real lie, and there is hope for goodness in the world again.
I want to attest that this could only happen. Max’s arc could only truly be complete when he blew up the Last of the V8 Interceptors—a car that was synonymous with his isolation. He accepted the car when he recognized that his belief that goodness could be found in the world was a lie. When the car blew up, it released the shackles of that understanding, allowing him to accept the balance: that goodness and freedom, community and love, can survive if fought for.
And he shows us all this with only 16 lines of dialogue in the entire film.
Max becomes a mythical figure, a man talked about in whispers as a hero of the wasteland. And it is this arc that perpetuates our psyches 40 years later. It’s a hopeful message that permeates the bleak landscape in which it takes place. Yes, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior may be a carsploitation spectacle of epic proportions, but it’s also the story of a man who seeks nothing in the world and, by letting go of his past, embraces a new future.
So we ask ourselves, on this Christmas Eve night, what is the truth you claim but have doubts about? What do you cling to as a source of identity or truth in your world that could hold you back from truly embracing your inner hero? Max had to blow up a car to achieve this understanding. What will you blow up to become a more complete version of yourself?
Think about that for the next seven days. And with that, I will wish you all a Happy New Year.
