Furiosa: A Mad Max saga is the fifth film in the universe imagined by George Miller, started in 1979. Should we worry about a clear chronology? No. No more than the filmmaker, in fact.
In 1979, the first film Mad Max spell. More than 40 years later, George Miller still hasn’t given up. Even if we had to wait decades before discovering the “reboot” Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), after an initial trilogy produced over a rather short period of time (six years). Furiosa: A Mad Max sagain cinemas since May 22, is a prologue to Fury Roadwhich brings ever more confusion to a possible coherence within the saga.
The fact is that George Miller had to rethink a lot of things between the initial trilogy (which had a relatively well-established timeline) and Mad Max: Fury Road. The replacement of Mel Gibson by Tom Hardy in the title role is the perfect symbol of this. And the 30 years which separate the third and fourth films have overhauled the narrative fabric of the universe (the moment when the nuclear bombs were dropped in particular). If you like to puzzle your mind, we recommend this attempt at clarification.
George Miller doesn’t care about chronological consistency in his Mad Max films
As the first trailer indicates, Furiosa: A Mad Max saga takes place 45 years after what we can call the apocalypse. In the original trilogy, it would have happened between films 2 and 3. Mad Max: Fury Road, he places it rather between films 1 and 2. Which means that Max would have already experienced a lot by the time he meets Furiosa. He should therefore be much older. Moreover, originally, Mad Max: Fury Road should have been a direct sequel to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, always with Mel Gibson. Major production problems and the actor’s reputation delayed everything. George Miller then opted for a sort of reboot, with a redesigned timeline.
Furiosa: A Mad Max saga doesn’t really help to see things more clearly. But you don’t really have to worry about it. On the occasion of a press conference organized at the time for Mad Max: Fury Road (via Polygon), George Miller was quite transparent on the subject: “ The films have no strict chronology. The film [Fury Road] probably takes place after Beyond Thunderdome, but it’s simply an episode in Max’s life. It’s a segment, and we revisit this universe. I never wrote this story, or even the other stories, with a chronological connection in mind. »
George Miller doesn’t really want to bother with perfect consistency. The character of Max is also the observation of this choice which allows us to free ourselves from certain limits: he is more the incarnation of a “solitary hero” who could be anyone, than a central character with a past to be respected at all costs. We can also furtively see his silhouette in Furiosa: A Mad Max saga. Another element which proves that consistency is not essential for George Miller: the filmmaker did not hesitate to hire the same actor for two different roles, with a character whose fate we do not know at all.
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