This summers critically acclaimed Mad Max Fury Road excited a lot of discussion regards Tom Hardys performance as the franchises anchor and main character, and while many praised his performance within the role, the nature of is role has been target for criticism and speculation. Some have criticized the movies narrative for sidelining Hardys performance of the character in favor of Charlize Theron's Furiosa. While the narrative does favor Furiosa's story arc over that of Max, Hardy's presence as Max does grow throughout the movie.
Others have speculated that Hardy's rendition of Max, previously portrayed by Hollywood legend Mel Gibson, may not be the same character played by the aforementioned Australian movie star. When Fury Road hit theatres this summer some fans speculated, with a certain degree of plausibility, that Hardy's Max may instead be a grown up portrayal of the character known as the Feral Kid, last seen in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, previously portrayed by Emil Minty. Some fans argue the following points in favor of the theory...
- The music box found by one of Immortan Joes wives while travelling aboard the War Rig bears a striking resembleance to a similar music box of which Mel Gibson's Mad Max gives to the Feral Kid in the second movie.
- Throughout Fury Road, Max rarely speaks, mostly communicates through grunts and is portrayed as more aggressve thatn Gibson's former portrayal of the character, and more akin to Minty's portrayal of the Feral Kid in the aforementioned 1981 sequel.
- In Fury Road Hardy's Max eventually introduces himself as "Max. My name is Max. That's my name." Due to the Hardy's performance during this line of dialogue, some fans speculate it could be the first time the character has labelled themselves as such.
Recently IGN had the honor of sitting down and discussing, at great length, details about this summers epic movie with the movies director, George Miller. IGN put the details of the Feral Kid theory to the Australian director, whom while acknowledging the fans interpretation of Hardy's performance, was quick to set the record straight...
"That’s great… No, unfortunately but that’s a great idea. Only because at the end of Mad Max 2, it turns out the narrator is the Feral Kid as an old man, and he says, ‘He only lives now in my memories.’”
“Oh that’s really interesting. It sounds strange coming from the person whose brain these stories come out of... You know what’s really interesting is that in a way these are allegories, and in many ways the story is in the eye of the beholder.
"There are resonances we see: there is always a dominance hierarchy with a tyrannical leader, like Immortal Joe; there’s always a struggle for resources; the few controlling the many. And all those sort of things. You interpret the story according to the way you see the world. That’s what we do n songs, in poetry – that famous story in of some guy who figured out what Freddie Mercury and the guys were doing with Bohemian Rhapsody; he had this theory, and Freddie Mercury said, ‘If you see it, dear – it’s there’.
“And I think that’s [the Fury Road fan theory] a reasonable interpretation, but not in my mind.”
That puts that fan theory to rest then! We wonder, what does George Miller think of the other popular fan theory that speculates that Immortan Joe is in actuality Toecutter from the 1979 original?
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