Max Rockatansky

Maximillian "Max" Rockatansky (also known as Mad Max) is the titular main protagonist of the post-apocalyptic film series. Like all people in the world after the Nuclear Holocaust, Max went insane and has little qualms about killing to survive. However, he is not without loyalties to the people he cares about, such as Imperator Furiosa. 
In Mad Max, , and , he was played by , who also played Martin Riggs in , Graham Hess in Signs, William Wallace in Braveheart, Thomas Craven in Edge of Darkness, John Smith in Pocahontas and Rocky Rhodes in Chicken Run. In , he was portrayed by , who also played Venom in the titular films of Sony's Spider-Man Universe and Tommy Conlon in Warrior. In Furiosa, he was played by Jacob Tomuri.
==Biography==
===Mad Max===
Before the apocalypse, Max was the top patrol officer out of all of Australia's Main Force Patrol police service: never failing to keep the highways of Northern and Western Australia safe from the road gangs that literally owned the Eastern and Southern portions of Australia down to the last inch, due to the government collapse during the resource crisis in the early 1970's which in Mad Max's universe continued well into the 80's and eventually would lead to World War 3.
Max's debut is in the first Mad Max film. Here, Max is caught in a brutal cop vs gang war about a year before the unavoidable apocalypse...He is ordered by his partner, Jim Goose, to continue the pursuit of a road gang member called The Nightrider, who had killed two MFP officers and stolen their Pursuit Special (the fastest car in the world at the time in Max's world) and one of the two the MFP own; all other MFP officers in the chase have been put out of action (with Charlie being crippled). During the car chase, Nightrider emotionally breaks down, crying as his girlfriend asks him 'what is wrong, baby?" to which he responds "It's all gone--no matter what we do, it'll all die!" He says this after he learns that Max Rockatansky is the one chasing him and not just some random officer. Max earned his nickname "Mad Max" for a reason—he takes no survivors back to the Halls of Justice police station. Being the best MFP officer, Max is only called in as a last resort to take down a road gang member who MUST die, no matter the cost.
During the car chase, Max rams the Nightrider's car—forcing it to ram into a fuel tanker that had broken down a few kilometers away, killing both the Nightrider and his girlfriend instantly in a fiery explosion—during this Max rush's out of his car with an intense look, both a mixture of sadistic enjoyment, and self-horror and disgust.
After this, Max goes back to his home, where is wife Jess Rocatansky draws him a bath for the first time in two days and snuggles up with him on the couch after as they watch their toddler son, Sprog Rockatansky (Sprog is Australian slang for Infantry Soldier—possibly hinting at a military background for Max who possibly chose the name); during this, the news is playing and Jess asks who the Nightrider was when he is shown on the news, to which Max says he doesn't know, "Just another glory rider, I guess..." After that, Max goes to bed early, leaving Jessie with a disappointed look on her face, knowing her husband is becoming a cold and merciless cop and quite possibly a monster.
The following morning, Max is eating a quick breakfast (toast) as Jess has a upset look on her face; it was Max's day off, and yet he was being called into the office by his partner, Jim Goose or "The Goose" as Max and Jess call him—during this, Sprog is playing with Max's revolver sidearm, but Max soon takes it away on his way out of the house, after justifying his actions to Jess who says that she is "Crazy about you [Max]" in her own version of sign language. (in real sign language, especially Australian sign language, "Crazy about you" is done completely different then what she does in the film).
Upon arrival at the Halls of Justice, Max learns he is being given the last of the V8 interceptors in all of Australia. This prompts Max into what Goose calls a "Coma!" as he listens to the engine charge up. Max tests the engine, then turns it off and asks in pure shock how Barry the mechanic could even get him this. Barry tells Max that he "Got [a] piece from and [a] piece from there..." Max looks absolutely shocked but then smiles happily and asks, in pure glee and ecstasy, "when can we take her for a ride?!" as the three celebrate Max's new car—we learn that Max has been contemplating quitting the force—except the Police Chief Fifi Macafee, a man with a ruthless attitude towards criminals himself, says he wants to give people back their heroes as Max has become a living legend in Australia for being the best cop on the force. Essentially, Fifi tempted Max with the V8 interceptor.
Dialogue reveals that the reason behind Max's desire to leave the MFP is his worrying that he is becoming no better than the criminals he pursues, and that Fifi, with reluctant support from Commissioner Labatouche, created the V8 as a bribe to keep him in place.
===Road Warrior===
Approximately three years after the events of Mad Max, we find Max surviving the wastelands in solitude with the sole companionship of a dog he picked up along the way. By this time we are led to believe that all major cities and urban centers have fully fallen as Australia, serving as a microcosm of the world, has become a complete dystopia. As such Max's Pursuit Special has become his home as we watch him scavenge the wastes of the Outback for water, oil, and petrol as his daily ritual of survival. One day Max happens upon a mysterious-looking craft, a Gyrocopter, sitting desolate alongside the road. As Max investigates the lonely gyro, presumably for petrol and anything else at all useful, he is surprised to be ambushed from below as a man called the Gyro Captain cleverly emerges from a depression in the ground.
This decoy-ploy worked momentarily as it seemed the Gyro Captain had outwitted Max and was about to steal his car and belongings. That was until Max's pet, "Dog," jumped the Gyro Captain, giving Max the advantage. In order to preserve his life, the Gyro Captain told Max that he knew of a place where he could get all the petrol he wanted, explaining that there was a little compound refining it straight from the ground. The Gyro Captain led him to the wasteland plains, where Max discovered the besieged group of settlers and life changed drastically again for him. With a fortress constructed out of an old oil refinery, these civilized people were constantly terrorized by a tribe of heavy metal barbarians, led by The Humungus, self-proclaimed "Lord" of the barbarians trying to overrun the wayward compound.
As Max and the Gyro Captain staked-out the refinery, they witnessed several vehicles leaving the compound in an effort to escape the horde of Humungus. All of the vehicles were destroyed quickly and abruptly. Max and the Gyro Captain witnessed the occupants of one vehicle beaten, the woman raped, and the man shot with steel arrows. Max wastes no time in pouncing upon this event, seizing it as an opportunity to gain trust, entry, and especially fuel from the refinery's occupants by rescuing the injured refugees. Unfortunately, Max was able to rescue only the man, Nathan, who had been shot with arrows. Max and Nathan made a deal that if Max saved his life and returned him to the refinery, Max could fuel up and get supplies. However, upon Max's delivering the refugee to the compound, Nathan died before he could convey the pact to the settlers' leader, Pappagallo, revealing thus, "If you had a contract, it was with him. And it died with him."
Having no bargain, the compound dwellers, suspicious of Max, treated him as a spy and an enemy to the point of handcuffing him to a piping. Whilst he was there, Max witnesses a confrontation between Humungus and the compound dwellers, wherein Humungus attempted to reason and bargain with them, telling them that if they walked away from the refinery no one would be killed. Of course, Pappagallo refused to believe those words, but there was internal strife among them, with some wanting to take Humungus up on his offer. Again, seeing an opportunity, Max told the compound dwellers, "Two days ago I saw a vehicle that could haul that tanker. You wanna get out of here? You talk to me." Thus, Max made a bargain to go for the tanker in exchange for all the fuel he could carry as well as some supplies.
Under cover of darkness, Max trekked across the wild outback occupied by the barbarians, at one point using a distraction by the Feral Kid to make it safely. Eventually, he got to the truck and drove it back to the compound. However, Wez, and a few of his cohorts attacked the truck and infiltrated the compound. The refinery dwellers, led by Pappagallo and the Warrior Woman, fought back, repelling Wez and his fellow barbarians, but Pappagallo was injured during the skirmish.
Max in the tanker, spearheaded the escape, along with those able-bodied men and women from the compound to serve as warrior-escorts of sorts. The horde of Humungus gave chase after the tanker in a thrilling and savage rolling thunder of a battle which saw the deaths of many of the main characters from both sides to include Pappagallo, Humungus, Wez, and Warrior Woman, not to mention nearly killing Max as well. At the conclusion of this savage "road war" the tanker was wrecked and, as Max learned, proved to have been filled with dirt rather than fuel—when Max sees this, he and the Gyro Captain smirk at each other, with causes Max to almost laugh. The daring blockade run had all been an elaborate decoy to allow the rest of the refinery dwellers to escape, having hidden the precious fuel in their vehicles, wherein, presumably, they could find a new refuge and begin the task of rebuilding society.
===Beyond Thunderdome===
Max crosses the desert  in a camel-drawn V8 wagon when he is attacked by a Transavia PL-12 Airtuk piloted by a man named Jedediah and his son. They steal his vehicle and belongings, and Max continues on foot, following their trail to the only developed location with power for miles, a community named 'Bartertown.' Initially refused entry because he has nothing to trade, Max is brought before the founder and ruler of Bartertown, the ruthless Aunty Entity. She offers to resupply his vehicle and equipment if he completes a task for her. Aunty explains that Bartertown’s electrical supply depends on a crude methane refinery powered by pig feces. The refinery is run by a dwarf called Master and his giant bodyguard Blaster. "Master Blaster" holds an uneasy truce with Aunty for control of Bartertown; however, Master has begun to challenge Aunty's leadership. Aunty instructs Max to provoke a confrontation with Blaster.
According to Bartertown law, conflicts are resolved by a duel to the death in a gladiatorial arena called Thunderdome. Max enters the subterranean Underworld refinery area to size up Master Blaster and befriends Pig Killer.
Accusing Master of the theft of his vehicle, Max provokes him into demanding justice for the insult by entering Blaster into a Thunderdome duel with Max. Blaster dominates the duel until Max is able to use his bosun's whistle to gain the upper hand. Poised to kill Blaster, he refrains after discovering that Blaster has down syndrome and has an intellectual disability. Max refuses to kill Blaster and confronts Aunty for deceiving him, thus exposing her plot. Master, previously unaware of this arrangement to kill Blaster, is furious and vows to shut down the refinery and, by extension, Bartertown. Aunty has Blaster killed, Master imprisoned, and Max exiled. He is bound on a horse and sent off in a random direction through the wasteland. When his mount perishes in a sinkhole, Max frees himself and presses on. Near death, Max is found by a desert dweller named Savannah Nix, who hauls him back to her home, "Planet Erf", a primitive community of children and teenagers who live in an oasis.
The children, descended from survivors of a crashed Boeing 747, were left by their parents who went to find civilization. They believe Max to be the flight captain, G. L. Walker, returned to fix the airplane and fly them to civilization. Max denies this and insists that they remain in the relative safety of the oasis, knowing that the only "civilization" within reach is Bartertown. Some of the children, led by Savannah, leave anyway, determined to find the prophesied "Tomorrow-morrow Land." Max stops them by force, but another tribe member, Scrooloose, sets them free during the night and leaves with them.
Their leader, Slake M'Thirst, asks Max to go after them, and he agrees, taking a few of the children with him to help. They find Savannah's group in danger but are unable to save one of the children from a sinkhole. With no supplies left, they are forced to head for Bartertown. The group sneak in via an underground entrance, and, with Pig Killer's help, free Master and escape in a train-truck, destroying Bartertown's methane refinery in the process. Aunty leads the Imperial Guards in pursuit chasing in their postmodern vehicles, catching up to the train. Max's group slows them down while Scrooloose hijacks one of the pursuing vehicles. The group comes across Jedediah and his son, and Max coerces Jedediah into helping his group escape with their aeroplane. Max uses his vehicle to clear a path through Aunty's men, allowing the aeroplane to take off and escape, leaving him at Aunty's mercy. Aunty spares his life, having come to respect him, and departs to presumably make good on her vow to rebuild Bartertown. Max, still alive in the desert, wanders on to places unknown.
===Furiosa===
Dementus had captured Praetors Jack and Furiosa, having his men drag him in circle, while keeping her chained by her left arm to the back of his modified monster truck. Furiosa managed to escape by ripping off her left arm, and recovered her motorbike to flee from the Biker Horde. Furiosa's bike broke down, however, forcing her to walk back to the Citadel.
In the region of the Citadel, but still far away, Furiosa collapsed. From a cliff high above, Max was contemplating alone when he saw her fall. Max drove Furiosa towards the direction she was heading, leaving her at the closest settlement, which was the Citadel. Though, due to not knowing the realities of the Cult of the V8, he unwittingly left her in danger, as some people that live in the shadows of the Citadel use bodies to propagate maggots for food. Fortunately, however, Furiosa regained consciousness and was able to escape.
While inadvertently endangering Furiosa, Max had ultimately helped her reach her destination, therefore she was able to deliver the information that would undermine Dementus' schemes for conquest.
===Fury Road===
In the aftermath of a global nuclear war, former cop now drifter "Mad" Max Rockatansky is captured by tyrannical war-lord Immortan Joe's henchmen known as the War Boys. At his citadel, his long hair and beard are shaven off and he is processed as a universal blood for a sick War Boy named Nux. Max breaks free temporarily and tries to escape. As he tries to escape, his mind is plagued with visions of the people he failed to protect, especially a little girl named "Glory the Child." Trying to hop on a crane to get out, he his recaptured.
Meanwhile, Imperator Furiosa, Immortan Joe's best lieutenant, mutinies against Joe by taking his wives to take them to a safe haven called the "Green Place" while on an annual run "Bullet Farm" and "Gas Town." Seeing Furiosa's betrayal, Immortan Joe calls in his War Boys to stop Furiosa and take back his wives. Despite in his ailing condition, Nux goes with the War Boys, but only on the condition that his blood bag, Max, goes with him.
Max and Furiosa fight off the pursuing bikers as Joe's car breaks through the blockade. Joe catches up with the War Rig, allowing Nux to board with the intent of attacking Furiosa again; he fails, to the disappointment of Joe. As the Rig escapes, Angharad falls off trying to help Max and is fatally run over by Joe's car. Furiosa explains to Max that they are escaping to the "Green Place", an idyllic land she remembers from her childhood. Capable finds Nux hiding in the Rig, and consoles him as he laments his failure. That night, the Rig gets stuck in mud. Furiosa and Max slow Joe's forces with mines, but Joe's ally, the Bullet Farmer, continues pursuit. Nux helps Max free the Rig while Furiosa shoots and blinds the Bullet Farmer. Max leaves to confront the Bullet Farmer and his men, returning with guns and ammunition and covered in blood.
They drive the War Rig overnight through swampland and desert, coming across a naked woman the next day. Max suspects a trap, though Furiosa approaches the woman and states her history and clan affiliation. The woman summons her clan, the Vuvalini, who recognise Furiosa as one of their own who was kidnapped as a child. Furiosa is devastated to learn that the swampland they passed was indeed the Green Place, now uninhabitable. The group then plans to ride across immense salt flats in the hope of finding a new home. Max chooses to stay behind, but after seeing visions of the child he failed to save, he convinces them to return to the undefended Citadel, which has ample water and greenery, and to trap Joe and his army in the bikers' canyon.
The group heads back towards the Citadel and engage Joe's forces in a running battle, in which a number of the Vuvalini and many of Joe's forces are killed and Furiosa seriously wounded. Joe positions his car in front of the War Rig to slow it, while Max fights Joe's large adult son, Rictus Erectus. Joe captures Toast, who manages to distract him long enough for Furiosa to kill him. Nux sacrifices himself by wrecking the Rig, killing Rictus and blocking the canyon, allowing the group to escape in Joe's car. Max transfuses his blood to Furiosa, saving her life.
At the Citadel, the people rejoice upon learning of Joe's death. Furiosa, the wives and the Vuvalini are cheered by the crowd and welcomed by the remaining War Boys. Max shares a glance with Furiosa before leaving.
==Personality==
Mad was originally a strong-willed, committed law enforcer, with such fearlessness that he could terrify road criminals. He would be relentless in the pursuit, but should a perpetrator end up dead, he would be disgusted and upset. 
Max was also very soft and kind to his friends and family, being supportive and playful with them. Yet as losses began, his sense of self weakened. The deranged gang leader. the Toecutter, seeking to avenge his blood brother, the Nightrider, took his gang on a hunt to find the one responsible. Their first victim being the mutilation of Max's best friend, Goose, which shocked him, with his friend's burned and broken state being so horrifying that Max went into denial that it was even him. Toecutter learns Max caused the death of the Nightrider, thus knows who to target now; the gang locates Max's wife, Jessie, and son, Sprog, with the gang chasing them on motorbikes, running them over; the infant dies, while Jessie is left comatose and expected to shortly pass. Max is broken by grief and rage; he hunts down the Toecutter's gang, killing a few of them, but then they catch him in a trap, shooting out his knee and running over his arm. Max manages to kill another member of the gang, then reaches his vehicle to chase down Toecutter; he pushes the maniac into the path of truck, which kills the gang leader. However, there was one member left, Johnny the Boy. Max finds Johnny, scavenging from a car crash he had caused; Max handcuffs his ankle to the wreck, then creates a crude time-delay fuse using leaking petroleum and Johnny's lighter. Max tosses him a hacksaw, noting he could either cut the cuffs, but time would run out, or he must cut his own ankle to break free. Max drives away, in the background an explosion, indicating Johnny's death; despite his family avenged, Max felt nothing.
Due to suffering such horrific loss already, when the nuclear apocalypse happened, Max wasn't disturbed, rather accepting it as inevitable due to the evil he had witnessed in mankind. While he no longer had a reason to live, he still drove around the wasteland for resources. Max had some humanity left, as his desire for companionship motivated him to adopt a dog, yet he didn't name it, perhaps out of irrelevance due to no other dogs being around or a fear of attachment; even so, he was kind and attentive to the dog; he also drove the Interceptor, the vehicle he drove as an officer of the law, which may simply be a practical decision, yet may also be a hint of his sentimentality. While originally averse to killing, his only hesitation was only when he lacked ammunition.
Max was paranoid of other survivors, which was rational in the destroyed world, as most tended to be raiders. He encountered the Gyro Captain, finding his eccentricities irritating, but didn't kill him. Circumstance drove them to be in an old oil refinery, which was shelter to a commune of settlers. A Feral Child was aggressive to Max, but Max played a small music box (he had salvaged), which delighted the boy; Max gave the music box to him that gave the Feral Child a desire to bond with him, wanting a father figure, although Max refused due to his prior loss. The commune aims to travel to a fabled northern paradise, full of food and water, which they are currently lacking. Yet their path is blocked by an army of raiders, let by the violent, yet charismatic Lord Humungus. The settlers plan to send two groups, one with the oil and one without, and they try to recruit Max into their small party of fighters, however, he refuses, due to not believing in the northern paradise, plus thinking confrontation with the raiders is hopeless. They threaten to keep his car and gear, but the leader permits Max to leave, not wanting to replicate the savagery of the raiders.
Max drives to the horizon, but he is ambushed by a group of raiders, which flips and destroys his Interceptor, then they kill his dog. Left with nothing yet again, Max limps back to the refinery. He accepts the offer to drive the oil rig through raider territory. The Feral Child sneaks aboard the truck's cabin to Max's annoyance, but he allows it. The rig has a small group of the settlers who are able to fight; the Gyro Captain drops bombs on the raiders from above. The raiders assault is continuous, Max refuses to be deterred. Each of his defenders die, until only him and the child are left, but the only raiders left involved in the pursuit are the psychotic Wez and Lord Humungus himself. To retrieve Max's last shotgun shell, the child crawls through the broken windscreen on to the hood; as he reaches the shell, Wez emerges from the front of the vehicle, grabbing the child's arm, making both of them scream. Max drives directly into Humungus' vehicle, killing the raider leader and Wez, flipping the rig. Luckily, the Feral Child survives, as does Max. The oil rig leaks not oil, but dirt, causing Max to realise he had been sent as the decoy; rather than be angry, he was amused at the deception. The Gyro Captain takes the Feral Child to the other group of settlers, who managed to slip through thanks to the diversion. Max refuses to join them, seemingly wanting isolation.
Max was forcibly placed into the Thunderdome by order of Aunty Entity, with his combat skills and history of battle allowing him to defeat his opponent. He is roped into a plan a bunch of children have to reach paradise, which he doesn't believe will work. On a modified truck ride using train tracks, Aunty sends her forces to stop them, however, they ultimately succeed. Max is left behind, but Aunty spares him due to being impressed by his abilities.
During the struggle against Immortan Joe from the Citadel, Max was outraged about his car being stolen, but apathetic to the suffering that Joe causes in his rule. Despite Max's selfish and obstinate nature, he is willing to help Joe's fleeing "wives" and their protector, Furiosa. While refusing to connect with the group out of his past trauma and experiencing betrayal, he eventually bonds with Furiosa, the wives, and a formerly adversarial warboy, Hux. Recruiting remnants of Furiosa's tribe, the Vulvatini, they enter a vicious battle against Joe's army, and they are able to defeat them, with Furiosa killing the tyrant himself. Furiosa and the wives overthrow Joe's hierarchy at the Citadel, providing plentiful water for the desperate citizens. While bonding with Furiosa, Max once again parted ways, seeking the solitude of the wasteland.
Max's prevailing trait seems to be his grief, as he gives a refusal to join any group, clan, or family structure, as the loss of his family and friends devastated him so deeply that he became unable to risk himself to heartache again. Upon being confronted by sights of violence after the apocalypse, he seems indifferent, although he seems to be visibly disturbed whenever witnessing violence against women, which is likely a combination of his own remaining morality and trauma from the loss of his wife. Max always rejects invitations or demands that he help a seemingly helpless plan to escape oppression or reach salvation, yet he still always relents to aiding the request; despite his despair and nihilism, his original self that sought to protect the innocent and stop criminals remains within him, and it eventually resurfaces, whether it be due to desperation, lack of options, or a feeling to do the right thing. Yet despite managing to create new connections, he will part ways once the struggle that united them ends, seeming to seek solitude out of possible reasons such as solitude preventing him from experiencing further loss, and/or want to be punished due to the failure to save his original family.
==Skills and Abilities==
* Master Driving Skills
* Extremely High Pain Tolerance
* Expert Hand-to-Hand Combatant
* Expert Short to Medium Range Marksman
* Expert Bladed Weapon Wielder
* Expert Lock Pick
* Improvised Weaponry and Torture
* Exceptional Intuition
* Daring and Imaginative Strategist
* Exceptional Intimidation Tactics
* Resilient and Ideal Physical Health (known as a "Full-Life")
** O- Blood Type, Universal Donor
===Equipment===
* Interceptor V8: His pursuit vehicle when he was in the MFP. When one is destroyed, he is able to locate and restore a replacement.
** Booby Trapped tank: He left a booby trap that should someone try to take its fuel without deactivated, the car will explode.
* Sawn-off Shotgun
===Weakness===
* PTSD: Due to his losses and pain, he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, which can manifest via intense emotional or psychological triggers. While he is able to control his grief well for the most part, sharp pain and distress can momentarily disable him from effectiveness in battle, thereby making him a liability until he refocuses.
==Quotes==
==Trivia==
*Mel Gibson didn't go to the audition for the original Mad Max to read for a part, he actually went along with his sister, who was auditioning. But because he had been in a bar fight the night before, and his head looked like "a black and blue pumpkin" (his words), he was told he could come back and audition in three week's time because, "we need freaks!" He did return in three weeks' time, wasn't recognized (because his injuries had healed well), and was asked to read for a part.
*Mel Gibson got the part of Max Rockatansky while still a drama student. He was paid $10,000.
*Because he was relatively unknown in the U.S., trailers and previews for Mad Max and The Road Warrior did not feature Mel Gibson, instead focusing on the car crashes and action scenes.
*Max only has sixteen lines of dialogue in The Road Warrior, and two of them were: "I only came for the gasoline."
*The Road Warrior was Mel Gibson's favorite Mad Max film.
*Max's eyes are different in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, the pupil in his left eye is permanently dilated. This is a nod to The Road Warrior, suggesting that the crash of the Pursuit Special has left him permanently blind in one eye.
*Max's name is only spoken once in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Just after he meets Master Blaster in underworld. Master says "Who you?", Max replies "Me Max".
*In Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, when Max is giving up his weapons in Bartertown, he gives up Wez's wrist crossbow from The Road Warrior, which he probably retrieved after Wez was killed by a truck.
*The whistle that Max uses to temporarily disable Blaster is a sailor's Boatswain's pipe still used on navy ships today.
*A scene was filmed but cut from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, featured Max having a nightmare about his wife Jesse and his son Sprog and he wakes up and he starts crying and begins to realize that he has become like the motorcycle gang that murdered his family. The deleted scene was in the novelization by Joan D. Vinge but the footage of the deleted scene is missing.
*Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome was intended to be the final chapter of the Mad Max franchise, with Mel Gibson bowing out of the role of Max, and ending with Max regaining his humanity and walking away into the sunset.
*It's unclear why Auntie Entity didn't kill Max at the end of the Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
*Mad Max: Fury Road was originally intended to star Mel Gibson as Max back in 2003, but because director George Miller ran into problems with shooting locations, and Gibson's interest in The Passion of the Christ.
*Before Tom Hardy was cast as Max Rockatansky, Jeremy Renner, Michael Biehn, Channing Tatum, Sam Worthingon, James Frecheville and Eric Bana were all considered. The late Heath Ledger nearly got the part before his death in 2008.
*According to Tom Hardy, he had lunch with Mel Gibson to discuss him taking over the iconic role of Max Rockatansky. Gibson told him that he was fine with it, and gave Hardy his blessing.
*Tom Hardy suffered a broken nose during filming when Charlize Theron accidentally elbowed him. She was wearing a green arm cast at the time, which was used so the graphics artists could digitally remove Furiosa's arm.
*The paracord bracelet that Max wears in Mad Max: Fury Road, belongs to Tom Hardy.
*Mad Max: Fury Road, was the first Mad Max film where Max is credited by his full name, Max Rockatansky.
*Max Rockatansky later inspired Captain Falcon, the main protagonist of the F-Zero video game franchise.
*Despite Max being known for being an expert driver, in Beyond Thunderdome he never drives a car.
*Mad Max and Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior were dubbed by American actors because the US audiences couldn't understand the Australian accents.
*Max never directly kills a main antagonist:
**Mad Max, he pushes the Toecutter in the path of a truck, but the truck kills him, rather than Max's own car.
**Mad Max 2: Road Warrior, Lord Humungus triggers his torque that causes such speed that he is unable to steer away from the rig coming from the other direction. While Max is driving the rig, Humungus essentially kills himself by ramming into a head-on collision.
**Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome, Aunty Entity survives the events of the film.
**Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Max only has a cameo role to escort the unconscious Furiosa to the Citadel. The main antagonist, Dementus, survived, although is left in a state worse than death as living fertilizer.
**Mad Max: Fury Road, Immortan Joe is killed by Furiosa.
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