From: sdt8s@poe.acc.Virginia.EDU (Steve Tilson)
Subject: Re: MAD MAX...best of the series
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 17:45:08 GMT

sbooth@lonestar.utsa.edu  writes:
> 
> I'm curious about when the films took place.
> 
> MMII takes place after the nuclear war-that was explained in the opening
> montage, and the war was talked about directly in MMIII, but did MMI take
> place before, during, or after the war??  Or was the war strictly bewteen
> MMI and II??
> 
> Simon
> 

Seems to me that society was undergoing the changes in MMI that
led to the wasteland in MMII. In the opening monologue in Road
Warrior, the narrator indicates that a war has already
occurred, and that the breakdown of society evident in Mad Max
(I) is a result of that war. Thus, MMI happened *after* at
least one war.

There may well have been further fighting, if neither side had
resorted to nuclear weapons during the first war. In the
opening montage of Road Warrior, there is nothing to indicate
that the war the narrator speaks of was nuclear--all the combat
footage it showed was of World War II or Korean War vintage.
Furthermore, because there seemed to be a still
relatively-intact society after the war (albeit a short-lived
one), it is very likely that any nuclear exchange was very
limited--say, five or ten warheads. (Of course, if what we have
been told about the nuclear war-fighting strategies of the US
and USSR is true, such a limited exchange seems very unlikely.)

So: there's a conventional war between "two mighty warrior
tribes" (at the time, Miller et al were probably thinking of
the superpowers) that "touched off a blaze that engulfed them
all." The conventional war between the first two countries
spread quickly, possibly as a result of a dire threat to world
oil supplies (thus the war was probably in the middle east,
something like Desert Storm, maybe?) and involved other
countries. Social upheaval followed, for no apparent
reason--unless nuclear weapons were involved, in which case
just the fear of imminent annihilation may have led to the
widespread looting and crime that characterized the world of
Mad Max. And a nuclear exchange between a NATO-like coalition
and a power-mad dictator with a nuke would most likely be
limited.

There isn't much in MMII to contradict this. The wasteland, if
we go by the opening narration, is a place apart from the
civilization we see in MMI (Max "wandered out into the
wasteland," and it was in "this blighted place that he learned
to live again"). It's desolate, it's weird, it's extremely
violent--but it could well be a somewhat localized phenomenon.

By MMIII: Beyond Thunderdome, however, it's clear that a
massive nuclear exchange has taken place. The level of
available technology and energy sources has been greatly
reduced, Sydney is in ruins, and everyone from Bartertown to
the children's tribe talks about the Apocalypse (or
"pockyclips"). So I think that after the initial war, somewhere
between MMI and MMII or MII and MMIII, there was a more general
nuclear war, possibly related to the earlier conventional war,
possibly not. It's fairly clear, though, that this exchange
occurred at *least* four or five years before the events in
Beyond Thunderdome, and possibly even longer (the youngest of
the children, who looks to be about two or three, could well
have been the child of one of the original children abandoned
by Captain Walker and his passengers/crew).

So:
1. Conventional war leads to societal breakdown (MMI, MMII)
2. Probably sometime after the events in MMII, there's a more
general nuclear war. 
3. Four or five years later, society has been reduced even
further to the level seen in Beyond Thunderdome.

Sorry to have rambled...let the flames begin.

Steve
--
Language is a virus from Outer Space.      |-----------------------------|
And hearing your name                      | Steve Tilson                |
Is better                                  | sdt8s@poe.acc.virginia.edu  |
Than seeing your face.   (Laurie Anderson) |-----------------------------|
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