10 Biggest Mad Max Lore Reveals From Furiosa

Warning: This list contains spoilers for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

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Summary

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
showcases the trade agreement between The Citadel, Gastown, and the Bullet Farm in the Wasteland.
Furiosa’s backstory includes a mentor character who prepared her for her leadership role.
The prequel movie also reveals more about the Green Place and the Many Mothers, as well as vehicle construction in the Wasteland.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga discreetly builds upon the lore of the Mad Max franchise’s world primarily through the introduction of new characters. The prequel follows Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy/Alyla Browne) through her childhood and her rise to becoming an Imperator before her impromptu alliance with Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) in Mad Max: Fury Road. The on-screen depiction of Furiosa’s childhood as well as her interactions with those who helped and threatened her over the years reveals some finer details about the politics and culture of the Wasteland.

Mad Max is among the movie franchises with completely broken canon, making it difficult to discern a continuity in the world-building. However, in the broadest sense, Mad Max is set in post-apocalyptic Australia, where, following a nuclear war, society has devolved into anarchy and certain powerful figures have emerged based on their control over vital supplies such as food, water, weaponry, and gasoline. Furiosa continues to add to this setting by showcasing new locations within the Wasteland, the conflicts between the leaders of certain supply centers, the different roles people play in this hierarchy, and more.

10 Furiosa Showcases The Agreement Between The Citadel, Gastown, & The Bullet Farm

Furiosa’s plot revolves around the trade agreement between three key locations in the Wasteland.

Control over supplies has always been a major factor in the events of the Mad Max saga, primarily who possesses gasoline to fuel the vehicles which are vital to all conflicts. Fury Road emphasizes how control over the Citadel’s supply of fresh water is just as monumental. Fury Road also implies a three-way alliance between the Citadel, Gastown, and the Bullet Farm. It shows how this alliance extends to combative aid, as Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) calls upon Gastown and the Bullet Farm to help recapture Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and his missing “wives.”

Furiosa elaborates upon the dynamics between these three locations. Typically, they exchange the ingredients for life and power that each one produces. However, there have also been brutal conflicts for control over one or more of these locations. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) deposes and murders the ruler of Gastown to cement his place in the trifecta in Furiosa, before making a move to take the other two. This plot point adds to the Mad Max lore by reminding everyone that nothing is stable and there will always be conflict over supplies in this setting.

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9 Furiosa’s Backstory Includes A Mentor Character

Furiosa inherited her position in Immortan Joe’s regime from her mentor.

Fury Road introduces Furiosa as a fully formed, admired Imperator who has served Immortan Joe’s reign for an unknown time before helping the wives escape. Furiosa explains how she achieved this position, as well as clarifying that there was someone who came before her as the typical leader of the convoys sent from the Citadel. Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) is another respected figure under Joe’s rule, who takes Furiosa under his wing after she impresses him during a fight and teaches her everything he knows.

This is an interesting reveal concerning Furiosa’s character; previously the only things that were known about her history were that she was kidnapped as a child and somehow became “Imperator Furiosa.” It also shows more about the power dynamics within the Citadel, where one can only rise to become a leader if someone already in power vouches for them. Furiosa managed to impress Jack and others around her with her skills and grit, enabling her to become someone with relative freedom in this harsh society.

8 Furiosa Reveals More About The Green Place & The Many Mothers

The Green Place and Furiosa’s mother appear on-screen in Furiosa.

In Fury Road, the Green Place is an impossible dream that the main characters are fighting to reach.

Furiosa also reveals a lot more information about Furiosa’s childhood in the “Green Place,” the home of a predominantly female community known as the “Many Mothers.” In Fury Road, the Green Place is an impossible dream that the main characters are fighting to reach. It is not even surprising to find out that it no longer exists, characterizing the location as an insubstantial concept in a hopeless world. Furiosa reunites with the remaining Many Mothers and finds out that the Green Place succumbed to pollution in Fury Road, just before the final act.

However, Furiosa implicitly verifies that the Green Place did once exist because it is shown on-screen when young Furiosa is kidnapped by a gang of bikers. This also prologue reveals more about the Many Mothers as a noble warrior culture. For example, Furiosa’s mother Mary Jabassa (Charlee Fraser) pursues the kidnappers on her own and merely remarks “good girl” when she sees Furiosa making escape attempts from a distance. The Many Mothers also have unique greetings, gestures of affection, and wear a kind of uniform (blue garments), illustrating how they have created their own way of life in the Wasteland.

7 The War Boys & Furiosa Build A War Rig From Other Vehicles

Furiosa details how people construct their dramatic vehicles in the Wasteland.

Obviously, factories that produce cars and other vehicles no longer exist in Mad Max’s world. Theoretically, most of the cars would be outdated if it has been several decades since the nuclear fallout. However, the overall population has become much more technologically savvy in Mad Max, constructing dramatic, punk rock-inspired vehicles for transportation and road warfare out of whatever scrap metal they can find.

Furiosa prompts the audience to think about how these vehicles come to be more than any of its predecessors with an extended sequence of Furiosa, the War Boys, and Immortan Joe’s (recast as Lachy Hulme) mechanics constructing a new war rig. It is even said beforehand that they will be using what they have on hand — many run-down, older cars — to create an unprecedented war vehicle. The subsequent scenes that show this war rig in action reinforce the ingenuity that is necessary to survive in this setting.

6 Furiosa Alludes To Other People Like Max Rockatansky

Praetorian Jack’s parents fulfilled a similar role as Max in the first Mad Max.

The introduction of Jack’s character includes references to his own backstory, which has interesting implications for the overall series. Jack tells Furiosa that in the wake of nuclear war, his parents tried to maintain order, implying that they were soldiers or law enforcers. Notably, Max (originally played by Mel Gibson) is a cop trying to maintain some sense of law and order in the first Mad Max movie, before his family’s death leads him to travel alone and focus on his own survival. There are several notable parallels between Jack and the titular Mad Max, but this conversation actually draws parallels between Jack and Max’s son.

Jack’s characterization gives an idea of what Sprog could have become if he had survived past childhood. The older Mad Max movies imply that the apocalypse only happened recently, and the main characters are those who have adapted quickly to survive the conflict. In Fury Road and Furiosa, it has been decades and the main characters grew up in this setting, framing the legacy sequels as next-generation stories. Jack’s character is particularly interesting in Mad Max’s lore because he represents people who strive to fight for a noble cause amid anarchy and violence.

5 Dementus Is Still Held In The Citadel

Furiosa’s bizarre ending plays into the mythos of Furiosa and the Citadel.

In Furiosa’s ending, Furiosa acts against Dementus’ words that there is no hope and the only way to survive is through rage when she does not kill him to avenge her mother and Jack’s deaths. Instead, she plants the peach seed that her mother gave to her before her death so that it grows out of Dementus’ torso; he is therefore still alive within the Citadel, pinned to the ground by the tree’s roots. The action is still painful revenge against Dementus, but also symbolizes Furiosa choosing life and sustaining her mother’s legacy over death.

It is a shockingly bizarre narrative beat that demonstrates a dark alternative means to support agriculture when much of the country is too polluted to sustain crops. It also adds to the lore of the Citadel; despite Furiosa later rebelling against Immortan Joe’s rule, the Citadel is where she grew up, learned to drive, and interred one of her greatest enemies. Dementus’ age in this final scene suggests that some time has passed since Furiosa, and he is still alive when she, the Many Mothers, and the wives take control of the Citadel in Fury Road.

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4 Characters Like Immortan Joe & Dementus Have Political Advisors

There are other ways to have power in the Wasteland besides being a road warrior.

The warlords and gang leaders of the Mad Max world, such as Immortan Joe and Dementus, frankly don’t seem like they would listen to reason and always opt for fighting to the death. However, in Furiosa, both are surrounded by characters who never participate in the intense freeway battles. While at first glance, the ability to fight would seem like an essential quality to rise to power in the Wasteland, these side characters have managed to do the same with intellectual gifts.

These people apparently serve Immortan Joe and Dementus by offering advice, proposing strategies, keeping historical records, etc. It is a startling detail that reveals the world has not completely descended into anarchy and there is still a place, albeit a small one, for intellectualism. Even Furiosa becomes an advisor to Immortan Joe; when she returns from the battle at the Bullet Farm having lost her arm and still recovering, she tells Joe that they need to defend the Citadel, and he listens to her.

3 Furiosa Reveals More About The Living Conditions Of Immortan Joe’s Wives

The wives in Fury Road have to give birth to sons in order to survive.

Some of them, like Cheedo, view their life as relatively comfortable and are desperate to hold onto it.

Fury Road establishes the basics of Immortan Joe’s wives’ lives, in that they are imprisoned women who are supposed to provide him with sons. They accept Furiosa’s offer of delivering them to safety to escape these conditions. At one point, Cheedo (Courtney Eaton) says they should go back because being pursued will only lead to their deaths and Joe will forgive them for fleeing. Furiosa then reveals more details about these women’s lives. While there are only five wives in Fury Road, Furiosa briefly stays with many more when she is a child.

There is a scene in Furiosa where one of the women gives birth to a non-viable child,immediately after which she insists that she can still give Immortan Joe a son and pleads to let her stay in the Citadel. This reveals that the wives live under circumstances very similar to The Handmaid’s Tale, where their security is dependent upon their ability to have children, which is very difficult due to extreme pollution causing fatal birth defects. Some of them, like Cheedo, view their life as relatively comfortable and are desperate to hold onto it.

2 Furiosa Shows A 40-Day War For The Citadel

At the time of Fury Road, there was recently a war for the Citadel in the Wasteland’s history.

Accompanied by narration about various wars that left their mark on human history, the lead-up to the final act of Furiosa includes a montage of an ongoing battle between the War Boys and Dementus’ biker gang for the Citadel, which lasts 40 days. This follows Dementus taking Gastown by force years earlier and the Bullet Farm much more recently in the movie’s timeline. Dementus’ ultimate goal is to become the absolute ruler of the Wasteland by having a monopoly on all three major sources of essential supplies.

The framing of this scene suggests that the event is a majorly important moment in this world’s history, even though it is not referenced in Fury Road. The conflict only ends when Furiosa recovers from her injuries and ventures out to allegedly kill Dementus herself. While it is not mentioned in any previous Mad Max movies due to the event having not been conceptualized by the writers yet, it would be interesting to see how this historical moment affects the characters’ lives in Mad Max 5 and beyond.

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1 Furiosa Is A Legendary Figure In The Wasteland

The Mad Max prequel imbues Furiosa’s character with even more mystery.

While the audience knows for sure what happened to Dementus after his final confrontation with Furiosa, the movie states that there are rumors of alternative versions of events. Some believe that Furiosa simply shot Dementus, while others suggest she killed him by copying the more brutal ways her mother and Jack were killed. The most important takeaway is that Furiosa has become a near-mythical figure in the Wasteland, famous for her skills as a road warrior and her mercilessness.

This reputation enables her to continue to do things on her own terms after the events of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. At the beginning of Fury Road, Immortan Joe even makes a show of praising Furiosa before she leaves on another standard delivery to Gastown. The first prequel in the Mad Max franchise not only shows her tragic backstory, thereby detailing her motivations, but also how she came to be revered and feared in her world.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
R
Adventure
Sci-Fi
Action

A prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa is an action-adventure film that tells the origin story of the headstrong and fearless Furiosa. Set shortly after the beginning of the “end of the world,” Furiosa is kidnapped and brought before a powerful warlord, now forced to work for him. To find her way back home, Furiosa will adapt to the new harsh and arid world as she grows into the Furiosa she becomes known to be.

Director George Miller Release Date May 24, 2024 Studio(s) Warner Bros. Pictures Writers George Miller , Nick Lathouris Cast Chris Hemsworth , Anya Taylor-Joy Runtime 148 minutes Franchise(s) Mad Max Sequel(s) Mad Max: Fury Road

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