So what was the original ending Voice over?

[levcore]

I recall blackmocco saying at the Fury Road test screening that originally there was more voice over from Max, particularly wrapping up the movie at the end. I would love to kinow what that dialogue was, would be great to know all the original voice over parts before some of it was removed/ refined.

[blackmocco]

I'm paraphrasing, of course, but essentially it has Max explaining that he belongs out in the Wasteland, he's a Road Warrior, blahblahblah. All this playing over Max looking up at Furiosa from the crowd at the end. It's really badly written. Pretentious and embarrassing. Thank fuck they removed it. It is NOT something you need added to some special edition of the movie, trust me.

[Taipan]

Yeah and you'd think that 'my world is fire and blood' was pretentious.

Do you remember the opening monologue, blackmocco? Did they originally use the lines from the trailer:
"Everybody's gone out of their minds, you're not the only one Max" ?

[MWFV8]

Wow, reading through the Test Screening and Preview Screening threads is fascinating.

[tehCal]

The narration we got is bad enough. So pretentious and unlike Max's character.

[blackmocco]

Yeah and you'd think that 'my world is fire and blood' was pretentious.

Do you remember the opening monologue, blackmocco? Did they originally use the lines from the trailer:
"Everybody's gone out of their minds, you're not the only one Max" ?

The Black and Chrome version of Fury Road proves to me that the narration was completely unnecessary. That opening shot of Max standing beside the Interceptor is chilling with nothing but silence and then the whispers of the people he couldn't save. Also, a nice lead-in to the next two hours of non-stop energy.

Can't say I remember the specifics, Taipan. Been a good year and a half now. I remember it being more wordy and longer. Horrible really. Not much a fan of it in there now as it is but at least they pared down to the bare minimum.

As said before, I'd have preferred a different character to have handled the narration. One of the Five Wives would have been perfect and it would have kept FR as a spoken myth, like the previous two. Still, minor nitpicks. If that's the worst I have to complain about we did good.

[levcore]

Thanks for the information blackmocco, very interesting. I totally agree it would have been awesome if one of the five wives had done the narration, from far in the future.

[johnentwistlespout]

I wonder when the Max Voice over was decided upon and for what reasons. The comics are voiced by the Historymen and it's clear from the original Fury Road 'word burgers' press release that this concept was being used in the film too. The voiceover annoys me less and less but totally agree that no voiceover or a non-max mythical one would have been far better.

[tehCal]

I hated the voiceover in the new one. It was one of the few weaker elements. Would have much preferred the History Men voiceover, as it would have hearkened back to the Feral Kid's voiceover from MM2, which was fantastic.

[MWFV8]

Given that Max has typically been portrayed as someone so emotionally traumatised they are just a facade of humanity, it does seem very strange to open with him giving a voice over. It's similar to the PTSD flashes - the whole point with Max is we DON'T know what's going on inside his head.

Personally I would have preferred a VO from Furiosa, something which firmly establishes that this journey man had a profound effect on her life, and go some way to showing her discontent with Immortan Joe boiling over. This would have shared her motivation to flee and place Max as the key protagonist. An example of this being done well would be Terminator 2 with Sarah Connor talking about the state of the world and the appearance of the Terminator.

However, the chosen VO does do a very good job of setting up a contemporary comic book feel. It could easy have been any generic superhero staring over a city.