Ok where do I start…well first, I was completely taken by surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie. I don’t go to the movies often and I rarely see theatre movies twice but I left the first time pumped up and starry-eyed.
Apart from being an extremely visually-appealing adrenaline rush with an amazing soundtrack and stunts:
Appreciation and utilisation of weapons and supplies, rather than taking them for granted.
The movie requires you to think about the logic of the world; rather than spoon-feed you explanation for why things are as they are, it gives you just enough to get the gist of it and then leaves you to come up with theories.
The most moving scene in the movie was an act of compassion and healing, not one of violence.
“Strength” wasn’t measured by how masculine a character was. Furiosa wasn’t gruff and emotionless and didn’t use any gender slurs against the Sisters (I don’t like calling them Wives) or try to distance herself from femininity.
5 of the main characters were escaped sex slaves and there wasn’t a single rapey flashback to “prove” how shitty their lives had been. They weren’t defined by their past experiences. (this is why I hate the comics with all my heart, it goes against all of this).
The women’s pain wasn’t used to fuel a male character’s pain/story arc. They were all unique and utilised what skills or resources they have, despite some of them being unused to surviving in such a world.
No forced hetero relationships in your face (I argue that Capable and Nux share a platonic bond but not a romantic one, because she’s the first person to treat him with softness and care and forgiveness like that, and he’s the first guy apart from Max to treat her as a person and not as an object. That mutual respect is really important especially in a world with such a strong gender divide).
Death mattered and it could happen to anybody. Everyone was equally mortal but therefore treated equally. Women weren’t kept alive just to show ‘look we have a girl in the cast’ or as a rare/precious commodity, nor were they killed for the sake of it. As for the violence in general, yeah there was fighting but very little blood shown onscreen (for which I was grateful). And those who did die? It was sad but what they did mattered, and they didn’t die in vain.
It was really visually appealing and there was always SO MUCH to look at, and so little time to do it because it was so fast paced. Which made me appreciate what I got to see.
Max isn’t rewarded for his help, and he leaves without expecting one.
Also, Furiosa *swoons*
Even like this I don’t feel like I can do this movie justice in words.
If I see one more thing about Mad Max not having a plot…
It did. It really did. It had one of the most human and fundamental plots there is.
Hero leaves home. Hero returns. See Odysseus for the most famous example of this.
That’s it. That George Miller didn’t clutter that up with endless subplots and fart jokes doesn’t mean it didn’t have a plot. It means he understands plot and story arc better then most of the people in Hollywood today.
And if you’re reading this thinking, “but Max didn’t leave home…” then slap yourself. The Hero was Imperator Furiosa. Even Max understood that.
From my other blog which is becoming the place I stash all things post-apocalyptic.
It had the. simplest. plot. But that’s why it was so much better than all the other action movies where twists and subplots and halfplots and ‘this makes no sense but it will look cool’ types of scenes are crammed in until there’s no room left for any logical and meaningful development.
augh, yes!! And right up there in the ‘slap yourself’ category, insert ‘there was no character development.’ HONESTLY, did I see a different movie or something? There were character arcs all over the damn place! An astonishing amount of change was packed into about a 3 day story line.
What of Cheedo’s change from a grief-stricken desire to return to the safe and familiar, to using her previously-known rep. to trick her former captors and give Furiosa a chance to get to the villain?
What of Nux discovering a completely different meaning of victory, of what it means to be human, of what it means to offer one’s self as a sacrifice?
What of Max starting at ‘feral and without words’ and going to ‘I have the chance to help change the destiny of these people with the right quiet words at the right thoughtful time’? Not to mention his transition from victim of bodily theft to without-a-second-thought giver of his blood?
What of Splendid’s full flowering into a warrior right before our very eyes?
What of the Vulvalini’s decision to change their destiny from one of gradual extinction to deliberate sacrifice on the pyre of enabling the rebirth of their hard-held valuing of a life lived in freedom and abundance?
What of Furiosa’s transition from angry running-scared vengeance ‘He stole what was most precious to me, I will steal what is most precious to him’ – to ‘I will join with my sisters and brothers to re-make a broken society into a whole one.’
DAMN, people, I’ve seen epic SAGAS that didn’t have this much character development!
I sat up straight in my seat. It was at once so entirely Steve, and also so important for validating the twins’ growth, choices and journey (which was the thing I went into the movie expecting to hate, and actually really enjoyed).
But this is so Steve, who hates bullies no matter where they come from, to be able to look at these enemies, these scrappy violent kids, and try to understand what they’re fighting for. When he respects people, it has nothing to do with how reputable they are, the stories told about them, their age, propriety, their allegiance. Are they fighting for people? Are they hurting people, and do they have a reason?
Maria Hill makes some snide comments about the twins volunteering. “Gee,” says Steve, in one of his few properly dry, cutting wit moments. “What kind of kid lets a German scientist experiment on them? In order to help defend their country? Gee, just what kind of idiot?“
“You were at war,” Hill protests.
“So are they.”
(And I swooned).
2. Natasha and Steve being the two to lead and train the team (WHICH–BY THE WAY–WHAT A BEAUTIFUL LINE UP) at the end of the film. Natasha and Steve is one of the friendships I am most invested in. (Clint/Nat is another. Bruce/Nat another. Hm. Let me rephrase: I am invested in Natasha having friendships.)
But also! What a good pair for guiding a crew of new Avengers. They have different but powerful types of empathy and social comprehension. They fight differently, but both (at least originally) are used to fighting at a disadvantage– this is not Thor trying to teach a mortal to ‘just hit things really hard, it’ll be fine.’
And, most importantly: they have a strong mutual respect and camaraderie. I want a miniseries of just Steve and Nat teaching the new Avengers crew.
Sam fan-boying over Rhodey, and Falcon and War Machine having flying competitions. Vision slowly falling for Wanda’s decisive heroism. Wanda mourning, and growing, and finding a new family in these brave, eclectic souls.
Everyone calling Steve ‘grandpa.’
Natasha popping out of weird corners of the base to startle them, at any time of night, because they need to learn to be aware. “Constant vigilance!” (She discovered Harry Potter at a late age, but it stuck). (The first time she does it to Wanda, they destroy a corridor. “Oh, well, it’s Stark’s dime. Good roundhouse kick, by the way.”)
3. When did Thor and Steve go out into a secluded part of the New Mexican desert to see what happens when they hit their Immovable Object v. Unstoppable Force magic items together? Because I’m A+ completely on board with this. (I also need a MCU short film, please please please.)
writing fanfic like “am i getting the dynamics of this friendship right?” “would this character actually say this?” “what is the proper ratio of kindness to sass?” “am i falling prey to overused fanfic personality shortcuts or is this a canon trait?” “am i overthinking this so much that i will grind to a standstill out of sheer terror?”
Am I wet? Am I on my period? Did I pee my pants?- next on wtf is going on down there.
I’m so glad this is a universal wondering among vagina-owners
and also, why do sometimes think i must be bleeding or something really bad and run to the toilet and then hardly nothing has happened, and other times i think “i’m fine” and then later realise there’s blood everywhere?
The whole time we’re kids, people are always telling us to “grow up”, when what they really mean, I think, is “calm down” or “stop having fun” or “you can’t have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat”.
I’m an actual, fully-functional, 100% real grown-up, and this weekend, it meant that I spent all day yesterday reading comic books, and then stayed up waypast my…
I was cruising through the net, following the cold trail of one of the periodic “Is or is not Fanfic the Ultimate Literary Evil?” arguments that crop up regularly, and I’m now bursting to make a point that I never see made by fic defenders.
We’re all familiar with the normal defenses of fic: it’s done out of love, it’s training, it’s for fun. Those are all good and valid defenses!
But they miss something. They damn with faint praise. Because the thing is, when you commit this particular Ultimate Literary Evil you’ve now told a story. And stories are powerful. The fact that it wasn’t in an original world or with original characters doesn’t necessarily make it less powerful to any given reader.
I would never have made this argument a few years ago. A few years ago I hadn’t received messages from people who were deeply touched by something I wrote in fanfic. So what if it’s only two or three or four people, and I used someone else’s world and characters? For those two or three or four people, I wrote something fucking important. You cannot tell me that isn’t a valid use of my time and expect me to feel chastened. I don’t buy it. I won’t feel ashamed. I will laugh when you call something that touches other people ‘literary masturbation.’ Apparently you’re not too up on your sex terminology.
Someone could argue that if I’d managed the same thing with original characters in an original world, it could’ve touched more people. They might be right! On the other hand, it might never have been accepted for publication, or found a market if self published, and more importantly I would never have written it because I didn’t realize I could write. The story wouldn’t have happened. Instead, thanks to fanfic being a thing, it did. And for two or three or four people it mattered. When we talk about defending fanfic, can we occasionally talk about that?
I once had an active serviceman who told me that my FF7 and FF8 fic helped get him through the war. That’ll humble you. People have told me my fanfic helped get them through long nights, through grief, through hard times. It was a solace to people who needed solace. And because it was fanfic, it was easier to reach the people who needed it. They knew those people already. That world was dear to them already. They were being comforted by friends, not strangers.
Stories are like swords. Even if you’ve borrowed the sword, even if you didn’t forge it yourself from ore and fire, it’s still your body and your skill that makes use of it. It can still draw blood, it can strike down things that attack you, it can still defend something you hold dear. Don’t get me wrong, a sword you’ve made yourself is powerful. You know it down to its very molecules, are intimate with its heft and its reach. It is part of your own arm. But that can make you hesitate to use it sometimes, if you’re afraid that swinging it too recklessly will notch the blade. Is it strong enough, you think. Will it stand this? I worked so hard to make it. A blade you snatched up because you needed a weapon in your hand is not prey to such fears. You will use it to beat against your foes until it either saves you or it shatters.
But whether you made that sword yourself or picked it up from someone who fell on the field, the fight you fight with it is always yours.
Literary critics who sneer at fanfic are so infuriatingly shortsighted, because they all totally ignore how their precious literature, as in individual stories that are created, disseminated, and protected as commercial products, are a totally modern industrial capitalist thing and honestly not how humans have ever done it before like a couple centuries ago. Plus like, who benefits most from literature? Same dudes who benefit most from capitalism: the people in power, the people with privilege. There’s a reason literary canon is composed of fucking white straight dudes who write about white straight dudes fucking.
Fanfiction is a modern expression of the oral tradition—for the rest of us, by the rest of us, about the rest of us—and I think that’s fucking wonderful and speaks to a need that absolutely isn’t being met by the publishing industry. The need to come together as a close community, I think, and take the characters of our mythology and tell them getting drunk and married and tricked and left behind and sent to war and comforted and found again and learning the lessons that every generation learns over and over. It’s wonderful. I love it. I’m always going to love it.
Some badass arguments for the next time somebody pooh-poohs on fanworks in your vicinity.
