Why ‘Mad Max’ Could be a Major Oscars Contender

An ex-general of some war, probably having something to do with the water wars they mention in the opening narration, has set himself up as the god-king of his personal kingdom, using his access to water as leverage for control. Because the people beneath him are diseased, malformed, and cancer-ridden from the nuclear fallout of the past wars, they are unable to rise up to defy him. The young men, afflicted with lymphoma and facing shortened life-spans, are conscripted into his army of suicidal paint-huffers. Service to their god-king gives them a sense of purpose, and the promise of an after-life allows them to see a future beyond their rapidly-approaching death. With their salvaged cars-turned-machines of war, they extend the reach of his burgeoning empire across the wastes, forming allegiances with those who have managed to restore the ancient practices of oil refinement and ammunition manufacturing. Using his water he provides precious greens to his allies, and he herds the fertile women of his realm like dairy cows, producing nutrient-rich breast milk by the gallon.

The god-king desires an heir, a healthy heir fit to rule over the kingdom he has created. He judges his two sons, one malformed and the other slow, as unfit. He and his army scour the wasteland for healthy girls to bear him healthy babies, and he kidnaps five "perfect specimens" to keep as wives and breeders. High in his stone tower he keeps them locked, pampered and provided-for, but they resent him all the same. They resent him for owning them, and treating their bodies as his personal baby factories. Eventually one, the god-king's favorite, rises up in defiance. She cuts up her face to spite him, and she rallies the others to join her in rejecting the Immortan. But in order to escape, they need help from the inside.

One high-ranking soldier under the god-king's command was also taken as a young girl, perhaps to possibly also bear him children. She did not, but she did rise through the ranks of his army. She was strong, capable, resourceful, intelligent, and ruthless. She committed many atrocities to earn then god-king's favor. She thought this was the way her life now had to be, until the favorite wife approached her with words of escape and betrayal. An opportunity to return to an old life, and to atone for her sins. She grew disgusted with the god-king, and when making a routine supply run to the allies across the Wasteland, she would help the wives escape to the home from which she was taken--a place of peace and green.

When her intentions are discovered, the god-king mobilized his armies against her. As they attack the war rig she drives, she spots a strange man chained to the front of a car with a muzzle on his face. She did not know, nor did she ever learn, that he had his own sins to atone for. When one of the suicidal soldiers stows away on her rig, she never would have expected that there he would find a purpose greater than service to his divine ruler. And when setting out on this journey, she certainly never would have expected to set in motion the events that would topple this god-king's empire and raise the curtain of tyranny from this little slice of the wasteland. Through her desire to repent and her selfless sacrifice, a dead world devoid of humanity regains some of what it has lost.


Yep, no story here.

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