Highlights
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Mad Max
movies are like Zelda games – legends about a mythical figure with unclear timelines. -
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
is the first time the series has a clear link between the two films. - Plenty of questions remain unanswered, paving the way for further expansions in this era of
Mad Max
.
There is no real timeline in the Mad Max movies. Viewers can think of the films like the games in The Legend of Zelda series. They are legends in an overall franchise that talks about Max as this mythical figure, like campfire stories, in which the audience can wonder if these things happened to him or if they are just legends.
Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga are the only two movies with a clear, direct connection to one another. Will there be a third, making this a trilogy? If so, will some of the questions be answered from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga?
Spoilers ahead for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga!
6 What Happened To Dementus’ Family?
That Stuffed Teddy Bear Belongs To Someone
Dementus is one of the wildest characters in the movie but he has a reason. He tells Furiosa that he lost his family a long time ago which would understandably turn anyone’s mind into mush. He’s seemingly not into revenge though, unless revenge is against society itself, and he wants to drag everyone under.
Even though he has many opportunities to explain what happened to his family, he never does. It could have been a raider, or it could have been a disease that was not preventable. Maybe Dementus even did something that led to their deaths. Either way, these are questions left hanging for the audience to ponder, as it’s clear Dementus cares for his family due to his connection to the stuffed bear toy he keeps on his person at all times.
5 Is Dementus Alive?
A Tree Growing There Can’t Be Healthy
There is another aspect of Dementus that is left unanswered. Throughout the movie, Furiosa plays with the seed of a peach, something her mother asked her to plant at the Green Place when she finds her way home before tragically and heroically sacrificing herself so Furiosa could escape. Furiosa keeps this peach seed in her hair for safekeeping, hoping she can plant it in The Green Place eventually. The big twist at the end of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is that she plants the peach, only instead of the ground, it was inside Dementus.
Time passes, and the tree’s first fruit grows the night before the events of Mad Max: Fury Road, with said tree growing out of a withered and tongueless Dementus’ lower torso. Is Dementus still alive at this point or is he dead by the time the credits roll? It’s a real Mimir situation from Greek Mythology and more notably from the God of War series where the god Zeus trapped him within a tree for punishment.
4 What Happened To The Green Place?
The Fall Of The Many Mothers
The Green Place is hinted at in Mad Max: Fury Road. It’s the goal Furiosa promises to take the wives of Immortan Joe to, but in a sad twist of fate, they all find out it has been destroyed. All that’s left is an oasis and a few of The Many Mothers that still roam the wasteland. In Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, viewers finally get to see what The Green Place looks like and it’s gorgeous.
It’s also surrounded by huge cliff walls which is not something illustrated in Mad Max: Fury Road, meaning that something catastrophic must have happened. Even in this prequel, they still never managed to explain how The Green Place fell. It’s perhaps a mystery for yet another prequel or interquel from within George Miller’s mind.
3 Immortan Joe Forgetting About Furiosa
Why Didn’t He Look For Her?
This is one of the strangest things left unanswered in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Rectus tries to steal Immortan Joe’s child bride, Furiosa, in the middle of the night to defile her. He has a creepy doll collection so viewers can only imagine what he planned to do with Furiosa. Thankfully, she escapes and that’s the end of that chapter as Furiosa disguises herself as a mute mechanic for an unknown amount of time within The Citadel.
Immortan Joe is never shown to be concerned about her disappearance. Even when she reappears as an adult by Praetorian Jack’s side, Immortan Joe never says anything. Furiosa was supposed to be one of his brides eventually, making this absence of action weird considering how concerned he was for Furiosa when she belonged to Dementus. Immortan Joe, overall, has a low-key presence in the film unlike Mad Max: Fury Road.
2 Praetorian Jack’s Origins
Where Did He Come From?
There are a lot of new characters introduced in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga that never appeared in Mad Max: Fury Road. One of the more interesting characters is Praetorian Jack who Immortan Joe claims to be his best driver. Given the skills he displays onscreen, Praetorian Jack is indeed a fancy driver for someone piloting a large tanker truck in a post-apocalyptic world.
Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t spend much time developing him as a singular character and instead focuses on how he helped Furiosa turn into the badass femme fatale as seen in Mad Max: Fury Road. Was he raised in The Citadel? Did he come from outside as a prisoner at first? These are all great questions worth bringing up, especially since he tells Furiosa that his parents were soldiers.
1 How Long Has The Citadel Been Standing?
There Have Been Many Wars, And The Citadel Remains The Victor
The Citadel is presented as a paradise in both Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. It has strong defense since the only way to enter the halls of The Citadel is through cranes operated from above. The Citadel then is an apt name given that is almost impenetrable by outside forces.
How did it come to be though? Did Immortan Joe create it himself or did he steal it from engineers? Was The Citadel kind of like The Green Place before he arrived? Even though he is a villain in the Mad Max franchise, pure and simple, many viewers would probably be interested to see how Immortan Joe rose to power and how The Citadel and the surrounding fortresses in the wasteland were created.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is in theaters now.
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