How in the FUCK are these allowed on the roads? I saw one go by me with my own two eyes and it was the BIGGEST thing on a regular old road I’ve ever seen, hands down.

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    The director of MadMax once said that the aesthetic they were going for is something like “Everything is scarce, and because everything is scarce everything is precious”, and that’s reflected in how everything, the cars, the weapons, everyone’s clothes, they’re all very detailed and customized. The machines are priceless and irreplaceable, so if one is damaged they don’t throw it away, they expend as much labor as is needed to get it running again. And once they have it running they customize and adjust everything to be exactly how they want, so when the driver slides in to the seat the machine is like an extension of their body - The clutch handle is just the right distance to naturall fall in to your hand, you’ve added religious symbols and good luck charms, you’ve added decorations so other drivers will know who you are in a fight, you’ve removed all the extra weight and reinforced all the important parts.

    And then you get shit like this, that comes out of a workshop, that you’ve never looked under the hood, that’s just completely impractical and useless, That’s an utterly impersonal “status symbol” that you just wrote a check for and will never really use for anything.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, i think so. Same idea - the technology and industry to make these things is lost. There will never be any more of them, so each one is priceless.

        WH40k used to do it as well, with most space marine armor and weapons being priceless relics hundreds or thousands of years old. Warp-capable spaceships were irreplaceable, Eldar equipment was of great antiquity, the Tech Priests of Mars were hoarding every ancient thing they could get their hands on. Leman Russ tanks might be destroyed, retrieved, and repaired dozens of times. The massive baneblade tanks were truly ancient, and many of the titans are of unknowable antiquity.

        It can make for a neat aesthetic. Battletech used it to good effect to explain why the culture of the Mechwarriors is more like ancient knights than modern total-war oriented soldiers. Risking a mech in combat is a huge commitment, better to impose highly formal rules to minimize the risk to the machines, and with the nice bonus of reducing collateral damage.

      • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Leatherface shredding guitarsolos on a flamethrower is indeed a precious and scarce thing. It’s also just really cool.

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          The Coma the Doof Warrior is such a cool idea. You’ve got your army of religious zealot soldiers in their war-cars. Most fighting is close in, with thrown weapons, crossbows, or melee. It’s not a shooting war, it’s more like ancient cattle raiders or something. So how do you announce your arrival, cow your enemies, and hype up your troops? A gigantic drum truck with a blind, insane guitarist shredding and unleashing fire!

          It’d such a great illustration of how insane the world has become. And, contrary to what many people think, that kind of theatricality and spectacle is done by warlords and irregular armies in the real world. The Liberian civil war is famous for being a nightmare fever dream, with cross dressing soldiers, naked killers, magicians and wizards. Just utterly bizarre and horrifying. Mad Max isn’t really fantasy, it’s just an exaggeration of things that happen in the real world.

          The Doof Warrior also continues the theme of disabled people being included in society without question or remark. He appears to have no eyes, possibly a condition he had at birth. No one gives a shit. He shreds, he’s part of the warband, and the War Boys built him an entire goddamn shrine to metal.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        The warlords are explicitly rich beyond anyone else’s dreams. This is reflected in how they’re portrayed and in the dialogue and plot. The Bullet Farmer has guns. Lots of guns. While everyone else is using crossbows and dart launchers and hand to hand weapons he’s blazing away with machine guns because he’s rich. He’s the guy who makes the bullets. The People Eater is corpulent. He’s the guy who makes the gasoline. He’s the guy who refines the oil. He’s got a cracking plant built in to his giant limousine tanker. And he’s a bean counter - During the whole chase he’s keeping an exact count of all the machines and fuel used up. And Immortan Joe, of course, has the water. He’s got water, he’s got food. And because of that he has a massive fleet of well equipped vehicles with the soldiers to crew them.

        And look at their vehicles. The Giga-Horse, the Bullet Farmers car-tank, the People Eater’s limousine. Rictus Erectus’ monster truck. Even Nux little VWish thingy, it’s his car. He’s modded it to hell and back. He can drive full speed in reverse, or keep going on three tires.

        All the detail is baked in to the film. It’s all there.