After that, he began a folk hero and stories about him were told about him throughout the apocalypse. My theory is that the Max from the first movie actually did exist before the apocalypse. It should again take several generations for things like these to be talked about almost with religious significance at least. Things like cities and VHS were talked about almost in terms of ancient oral history. By Thunder Doom, knowledge of the past was not only hazy, it had passed to the status of legend. It seems more likely that by the Road Warrior happened, The apocalypse was already a generation prior at least. Given that if Max was around before the apocalypse, The Feral Kid would have grown up around adults who learned all about WWII from history classes, and could have accurately explained it. By the time the Feral Kid is an adult, people have already forgotten the cause of World War II, which caused the fuel shortage. The way the previous society is referenced changes a lot as well. This is basically the equivalent the fall of Rome, the dark ages, and Renaissance all existing in the span of one life. It's impossible to say for sure how long it takes society to heal after entirely collapsing, but realistically, for society to fall as far as it did from Mad Max 1, to Mad Max 2, and then rebuild itself as much as it did in Beyond Thunder Dome, it should take several lifetimes at least. By Thunder Dome, civilizations are forming with basic laws, power structures, and older technologies are being rediscovered. By Road Warrior, society has completely collapsed for long enough that people have even began to form small, fairly primitive tribes. There's still a formalized government and some economy left, but Max and the other officers are basically the only thing standing in the way of chaos.

The first film was on the fringes of a societal collapse. Even looking at the first three movies, Max should be much older than he is in Beyond Thunder Doom. I'm a big fan of the Mad Max film series, but one thing always puzzled me, especially after Fury Road what exactly is the timeline? My theory is that Mad Max is a folk hero of sorts whose stories endure and gets retold and changes throughout the apocalypse, similar to people like Robin hood and King Arthur who may or may not have existed and whose stories change a great deal with the attitudes and culture of the time.įirstly, the world seems to progress too much in one person's lifetime, especially with Fury Road.

Mad max fury road explained