Jesse Pasternack explains how the new Mad Max prequel Furiosa enriches and informs its predecessor Mad Max: Fury Road.
When I finished watching Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) for the first time, I had a lot of thoughts. I marveled at the scale and inventiveness of its worldbuilding, the intensity of its action sequences, and the high quality of its performances. But I’ll never forget my first thought: “I can’t wait to watch Fury Road again.”
That’s not to say that Furiosa is a mere prelude for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). Both films (Furiosa is a prequel to Fury Road) can be appreciated on their own. But when viewed as a double feature with Furiosa going first, Fury Road acquires greater impact. In addition, viewing them together makes the story of Fury Road’s most famous character — Imperator Furiosa — even more devastating and satisfying.
Furiosa takes place after an apocalyptic event has wreaked havoc across what used to be Australia. One of the few safe places left is the Green Place of Many Mothers, where a young girl named Furiosa (played by Alyla Browne as a child and Anya Taylor-Joy as an adult) lives. Raiders steal her from her family, which sends her on a decades-long journey to get revenge for the murder of her mother and return home. Fury Road picks up shortly after the events of that film, with an older Furiosa (Charlize Theron) setting off to find her childhood home with the fugitive wives of her former boss Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme in Furiosa and Hugh Keays-Byrne in Fury Road) and former cop Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy).
Charlize Theron and Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa
Much of Furiosa’s backstory (particularly her relationship with the Green Place of Many Mothers) is described through dialogue in Fury Road. But it is more powerful to see Furiosa get taken from there as a child rather than just hearing about it. That sequence, and the visual beauty of Furiosa’s birthplace, helps you understand her desire to get back there in a more visceral way. In addition, it also makes the ultimate revelation of what happened to it in Fury Road even more heartbreaking.
Furiosa also expertly sets up a key central conflict in Fury Road. While much of that latter film involves her running from or fighting Immortan Joe, here they are allies who are bound together by a shared hatred of a warlord named Dementus (a delightfully unhinged Chris Hemsworth). While director/co-writer George Miller shows how Immortan Joe came to trust her and give her the title of “imperator,” he also economically details Furiosa’s disgust with his treatment of his wives in a single brief scene which also helps you understand why she would come to betray him. It also makes her final confrontation with him in Fury Road even more satisfying by detailing how long it has taken for it to happen.
There seem to be few ways to improve the legacy of Fury Road, which grossed hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide and won six Academy Awards. But Furiosa somehow manages to make this great film even greater by deepening one of its most fascinating characters and making her story more rewarding to watch by allowing us to see how far she has come from her scarred childhood. Together, these two films tell a story that can only be described as epic.
Mad Max: Fury Road will be screened in 3D at IU Cinema on August 23 at 7pm.