Mad Max 2 ending.

[Taipan]

Is it just me or the final shot of Max standing next to the Lone Wolf machine looks like pulled directly from the early version of the script?

That shot always bothered me, why would Max go all those miles back to that vehicle? The man could barely walk after he crashed that tanker. Did Gyro give him a lift? Not a whole lot of it made sense.
Until you read the early/original version of the script where it says Max chased Wez down in The Lone Wolf Machine, shot him in the head and Wez's vehicle (Humunguses vehicle that is) rolled to a stop next to
a salt bush.

Now, look at that final shot of Max standing next to The Lone Wolf, there's even that salt bush and what appears to be some smoking machine behind it.
The same shot (reversed) appears in color in the intro for the movie.
So I guess.... that's the only scene from the early script that was actually filmed and somehow awkwardly used?
Hell yeah it is.

Thoughts?

[DetritusMaximus]

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Max had to go somewhere and the Lone Wolf would probably be closer than anything in the desert, although there really wasn't a tremendous amount of distance between the Lone Wolf and the crash. Gyro might have given him a lift, but remember EVERYONE was either dead or in the caravan headed the other way. So, logic would dictate that they (Max, Gyro, Kid) found the machine and used it to catch up to the caravan so the Kid and Gyro could join them. That final shot could have been near any wreckage from that chase (collecting what they could for the journey to that 'bridge' 200 miles away?). The burning vehicle could have been the tanker burning (obviously not burning the last time we saw it) or that black and white cop car that got firebombed.Or the compound still smouldering in the distance.

[roadwarriormfp]

I remember reading/ hearing that there was some add-libbing in the film and that it was "fluid". The story was being written as they shot the film.
As for shots being reused, in the opening montage you see a scene from MM1 which didnt make the cut, when he is down by a dry creek with the dead tree tending to his kneecap....you see him briefly for a few seconds with shotgun in hand next to the tree.

[mahenoguy]

I often wondered why the maurauders that stop at the top of the hill after the tanker roll-over turned and take off the other way . With their leader and Wez obviously dead , To scavenge the remains of the chase would be their only real option . As the tanker did a U-turn towards the end of the chase , most of the debris would be back in the direction the truck was heading . I think the lone wolf was one of the only vehicles not damaged in chase so it would be a obvious choice to carry Max , Kid and Captain to the caravan by dusk . I'll have to watch again but I think a couple of bikes stop with the poor Papagallo as he stops , but the Lone wolf has truck tanks ( obvious only half full after powering 2 blown V8's on a half hour chase ) but still the bike's would'nt be able to completely empty the tanks and given distance travelled back towards where Papagallo was killed, the tanker wreck wouldn't be too far from the lone wolf .

[kickherintheguts]

I can certainly believe the film crew made up some of the story as they went along. Maybe they were going to stick with the original script where Wez gets shot in the eye but then it became too technical, too expensive, too time consuming. So, they ended the movie by simply having another head on crash just like in MM1 and later, MM3. Cheap, exciting, relatively easy to shoot, and climatic. With the voice over and fade away a perfect ending that lives now, only in my memory.

[Taipan]

I'd have to agree with you kickherintheguts. All those crazy stunts and sequences in the original script were too difficult to shoot, not to mention very and I mean VERY dangerous for Emil Minty (a kid being hung upside down from a car at a high speed chase? Show me a parent who'd agree to that). Not to mention gory i.e. bear claw's ripped off arm. That's a solid R in my book, even by 81's standards.
So they went the easy way, and it worked perfectly.
I guess they filmed that Lone Wolf shot first though. Got it on film before they started changing the script on the fly.

Not sure about you guys, but I'll stick to my guns and say that the shot of Max standing next to the Lone Wolf machine is the only shot taken from the original script ending, filmed and used in the movie.

I hope Miller spills some beans when they'll start re-releasing the original trilogy when FR comes out.

[RW-777]

From what I recall Miller said he started writing the script on Christmas eve 1980. They shot the movie in sequence to the script as written. But then simplified
the story after having shot everything, so there is an extra 28 minutes of footage they had to excise, apparently because they ended up with more of Wez in
the movie than Max. So there might be a case for an alternate version. You only have to read the online version of the script to realise this.

http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/madmax2.txt

[kennerado]

This goes back to the rumour of the original cut being screened once in Sydney then Warner/Village Roadshow demanding it be cut down because it was TOO violent in their opinion.

[Taipan]

We can only hope we get that missing 28 minutes back in some release.

[Daz]

I can certainly believe the film crew made up some of the story as they went along. Maybe they were going to stick with the original script where Wez gets shot in the eye but then it became too technical, too expensive, too time consuming. So, they ended the movie by simply having another head on crash just like in MM1 and later, MM3. Cheap, exciting, relatively easy to shoot, and climatic. With the voice over and fade away a perfect ending that lives now, only in my memory.

My money is on that the conclusion to MM4 is a head on crash.

Any takers?