George Miller On Feminism, CGI And Technology In Mad Max: Fury Road


Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the biggest films in the world right now. Creator and legendary Aussie filmmaker George Miller sat down with The Feed to talk about the new film, its feminist undertones and the technology behind the project.

On Feminism…

Men’s rights activists are calling for people to boycott Mad Max: Fury Road and its “feminist agenda”. Men’s rights blogs have said that Fury Road is not a “real action movie”, adding that “men…are going to be duped by explosions…into seeing what is guaranteed tobe nothing more than feminist propaganda,” according to The Mary Sue. (ugh)

Miller said that women are central to the story, and the plot absolutely needed a woman to be the new road warrior.

“The very first notion came to me while I was crossing a street and I pushed it away. That was to have a long chase movie and have the thing that people were fighting over be humans: five wives.

“Once you have the five wives, the only healthy creatures in the wasteland capable of breeding an heir for Immortan Joe…the architecture builds and they have to escape. They need a road warrior if you like, and that had to be female. You can’t have a male stealing the property of another male, so there was a warrior woman, and that was Furiosa,” he said.

On CGI…

Miller shyed away from CGI in Fury Road, and said in the interview that he wanted to make the film an “analogue” story. One where all the cars were completely real and nothing disobeyed the laws of physics.

“It would be too hard to do it digitally and still make it convincing,” he added.

On Tech…

Finally, Miller was asked about his old “partner in crime”, Byron Kennedy. Kennedy, the producer of the original Mad Max films, was Miller’s long time partner, but he died tragically in a helicopter crash before Beyond The Thunderdome was released.

Miller was asked that if Kennedy was still alive what he would think about Fury Road. The question saw Miller take a moment of silence during the interview to think about a question he’d never been asked before. After a quick minute, Miller said Byron was a geek, and he’d want to know about all the tech they were using on the new film.

“I think he would have been amazed by the technology. He was a real…we didn’t call them geeks in those days but he really loved the newest thing in technology. He never saw the digital realm. He never saw so much. He never saw a cell phone. I think he would have been amazed about what we were able to achieve.”

More – Mad Max: Fury Road: Australian Review