I will explain this better.
At the very end of "Mad Max 2", we see Max kinda regained a bit of humanity, but he has not fully recovered yet from his deep trauma.
On the other hand, apart from the Defenders/Refinery and Lord Humungus/Dogs of War, we don't know what type of "civilizations" are developing or have already developed in the Wasteland elsewhere.
So my alternate, funny/weird theory is this:
"Fury Road" is a distant follow-up to "Mad Max 2", and "Thunderdome" never happened.
In regards:
1- Max "lost" his tiny blonde streak along the way (maybe he cut it and it never grew up anymore) and let his hair grow up like you can see at the VERY beginning of "Fury Road". Long, prophet-like hair. No white streaks. Long beard.
2- He retained the knee cap, as you can see by yourself.
3- In Thunderdome there's no trace of Interceptors. We can assume in the Fury Road "line", some Interceptors survived the apocalypse anyway and someone just painted one in black. Fine.
4- Max's eye is not dilated like in Thunderdome. Well, at the very end of "Mad Max 2" you can see his eye pupil is not dilated anyway, so in the Fury Road "line" we can pretend he never "lost" it.
5- The TIMELINE. We don't know if the apocalypse happened before or after Mad Max 1. Right? Well, in the Fury Road "line" we can assume the apocalypse happened long BEFORE Mad Max 1, and by the time Mad Max 1 occurred the last remnants of civilization were still going on, but gradually dying/petering out.
Since the War Boys tattoed on Max: "Day 12405" (33.9 years), we can assume the nuclear Exchange happened long before Mad Max 1 in the Fury Road "line".
6- Summing it up:
2015- Max Rockatansky is born.
2027- the Oil/Water Wars start. WW3. 33 years before "Fury Road".
2030- Nuclear exchange.
2032- Immortan Joe starts developing the Citadel in the Wasteland.
2037- Mad Max 1. Set in Sun City. Max is 22 years old.
2038- The last coastal cities collapse forever.
2045- The Road Warrior/Mad Max 2. Max is 30 years old.
2045/2060- Max lives various experiences and develops PTSD.
2060- Fury Road. Max is 45 years old.
7- The post-apocalyptic world depicted by Bartertown doesn't match with the post-apocalyptic world depicted by "Fury Road" at all. PLUS, by the time the Thunderdome ending was rolling out, civilization was experiencing some type of "rebirth"/renaissance through Savannah Nix and his new community: "HOME".
8- This would explain why Max was totally crazy/insane in "Fury Road", while in Thunderdome he had no PTSD and looked almost fully recovered from a mental standpoint.
9- No more Gyro/Jedediah debate.
