www.madmaxmovies.com

Max battles god, penguins and aliens. You heard it here, first.

I think the reality is that beloved franchises can only remain in a vacuum either online or in the memories of the fans. So when it comes time for a modern-day sequel, the effort will invariably fail to be just like the originals.

The reason directors like Lucas, Spielberg, and Miller became so popular in the late 70s and early 80s is because they were willing to push the envelope. They were on the cutting edge and didn't limit themselves to filmmaking techniques or technology from the 1940s. Yet that's exactly what fans expect them to do for any sequels: "Forget the mentality and ambition that put you on the map and just make a film from 30 years ago."

For all the outrage over cgi in the last Indiana Jones movie, that's exactly what Spielberg tried to do. He didn't really update the series for modern audiences and turned in another lighthearted adventure with little in the way of character development or plot. Marion was as useless as Sallah in Last Crusade. The villains were as stereotypical as in Temple of Doom. The comedy was as broad as ever, while the MacGuffin was equally silly. It just didn't work as well with today's audiences. (I remember one critic complaining because the ending was little more than an anticlimax with a fancy f/x sequence. I can't be the only one to see the irony in that.)

So yes, I'd be surprised if Miller intended to make a modern version of Mad Max without employing some modern techniques. I'd also be surprised if he merely wanted to repeat the same choices he made three decades ago. After all, we're talking about a style of filmmaking that isn't that common anymore. This is one reason why Spielberg had so much trouble finding enough soundstage room for Indy 4, and had to book studios all over the place. The old adage "they don't make `em like they used to" is literally quite true.

biolumen wrote:Uh-oh.

Miller pointed to what he called "the most advanced motion-capture studio in the world" at the vast CarriageWorks precinct in the inner city suburb of Eveleigh, a new studio reportedly set up under a deal in which Miller's production company leases the premises from the NSW government for a year.

Motion-capture technology enables people's movements to be filmed then fused onto computer-generated characters to enhance their real-life naturalism.

Miller, who came to prominence as the director of Mad Max three decades ago, will also use the studio to work on his planned fourth instalment in the franchise, Fury Road.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainmen ... 45772.html

This article in ENCORE mentions The Carrigeworks Studio as the primary mo-cap space for HAPPY FEET 2.
As we all know serves as the studio base for FURY ROAD but drawing a conclusion to that being motion captured is not how I read it...

http://www.encoremagazine.com.au/govern ... miller-738

Australian industry was complacent for 20 years: Miller

George Miller announced the beginning of production for Happy Feet 2 in Sydney, adding that NSW and Australia have been ‘lazy’ but that situation is changing, particularly with the state’s production attraction activities and the opening of a new state-of-the-art motion capture facility at CarriageWorks in Sydney.

Miller said that what New Zealand – and Wellington in particular – have achieved should be an inspiration for Australia.

Happy Feet 2 will use technologies similar to those employed by James Cameron in Avatar, allowing Miller to visualise actors as their penguin counterparts in real time, moving in a virtual environment, instead of seeing them with their motion capture suits in front of a green screen.

“The film industry is moving to that intersection of technology and art, that’s where Avatar is showing us the road, that’s where the guys in New Zealand are showing us the way, and there’s no reason why we can’t have that in this country. It’s happening; now we have the most advanced motion capture studio in the world at CarriageWorks, it’s huge.”

The director said he did not foresee any scheduling conflicts between Happy Feet and the upcoming Mad Max sequel Fury Road, and admitted that he has no certainty about repeating the success of the first penguin film – which earned U$384.3m worldwide.

The difference between Miller and Spielbery/Lucas is that they sold themselves out. It's about money for them and not art. As far as Miller goes, I haven't seen any of his recent work but I can say that the guy is not a sellout. Haven't you seen the press video? He says that what made the Mad Max films so memorable were the stunts. He says they are going to do practical stunts as well as ones never before been done. Plus James Cameron proved he still has the movie magic. Why Not Miller. This film isn't about money but art and what the fans want.

Bad cop wrote:The difference between Miller and Spielbery/Lucas is that they sold themselves out. It's about money for them and not art.

I don't know if I'd say that. Lucas had the chance to drag Star Wars out practically indefinitely after The Empire Strikes Back, but decided against it and made Return of the Jedi instead of milking it out for another 3 or so episodes (the mythical, vaguely planned "Sequel Trilogy"). I think you -could- consider that a case of art winning out over money. And crap, if it was just about money he wouldn't have made the Prequel Trilogy himself but instead would've chucked it off to whoever-else (for better or worse, not getting into that) while he sat on a beach somewhere eating hundred dollar hamburgers and ogling island girls.

Bad cop wrote:As far as Miller goes, I haven't seen any of his recent work but I can say that the guy is not a sellout.

Totally agree, he's pretty fantastic. Really his only recent work is Happy Feet, then Babe 2 eight years before that. Both wonderful. Unless you have an aversion to family-friendly talking animals Actually, come to think of it, at some point some nutty mohawked "fanboy" must have called Miller a sellout for making Babe 2. And Happy Feet. And Witches of Eastwick. They'd be wrong, of course. Even though he did Eastwick "for-hire", as I recall, his horrible experience with that picture basically proves he's about as far from a "hack" as you can get.

Bad cop wrote:Haven't you seen the press video? He says that what made the Mad Max films so memorable were the stunts. He says they are going to do practical stunts as well as ones never before been done. Plus James Cameron proved he still has the movie magic. Why Not Miller.

Miller's talk of stunts has me both thrilled and worried. Thrilled because it of course sounds awesome, I want to see these (physical, "flesh and blood" *) vehicles doing some wacky stuff. Worried because, honestly, stunts aren't what comes to mind when I think of Max, not right off the bat anyway. If Fury Road is 95 minutes of cars leaping across the screen and bikers being tossed of their cycles in 3D without a trace of the humanity and goofy whimsy of the original films I'm going to be a tad bit miffed. I think that fear comes mostly from places like this forum (no offense to anyone), where -some- members seem to be concerned more with the vehicles and how they're crashed-up: we've all seen people give Thunderdome a hard time for not featuring enough smashy-smashy. Anyway, If Happy Feet's any indication Miller's got heart and imagination to spare.

Bad cop wrote:This film isn't about money but art and what the fans want.

I think some would argue that just doing "what the fans want" is a form of selling out. A filmmaker's primary concern has gotta be his own desires, then the audience's. Hopefully they come to an intersection...and slam into eachother, gas tanks igniting, debris flying.

* Though I think we should all get used to the idea that Fury Road is going to feature some amount of CGI. Like Mad Mel said, it's silly to expect Miller to -not- use modern techniques. Of course there's going to be physical stunts and actual cars, but take that Holden from the press conference for example: it might have a "digital double" on a hard drive somewhere, waiting to be utilized in a "stunt" that's way too dangerous for anyone to actually attempt.

MasterOgami wrote:

Bad cop wrote:The difference between Miller and Spielbery/Lucas is that they sold themselves out. It's about money for them and not art.

I don't know if I'd say that. Lucas had the chance to drag Star Wars out practically indefinitely after The Empire Strikes Back, but decided against it and made Return of the Jedi instead of milking it out for another 3 or so episodes (the mythical, vaguely planned "Sequel Trilogy"). I think you -could- consider that a case of art winning out over money. And crap, if it was just about money he wouldn't have made the Prequel Trilogy himself but instead would've chucked it off to whoever-else (for better or worse, not getting into that) while he sat on a beach somewhere eating hundred dollar hamburgers and ogling island girls.

From what I've read the poor sequels to StarWars were down to the extreme level of control Lucas had and a sycophantic team too afraid to give him critical feedback. A lot of people believe the original movies were so good because he actually had less control over the whole production. This is supported when you look at his own original concepts for the first movies.

So it may not be about making money over art, just a case of him not being the artist people think he is.

The question is, was it Miller who made MadMax so brilliant, the crew that supported him or both? How about people like Byron Kennedy who had significant impact on those films?

I'd have to say that the PETROL HEAD in me misses Byron Kennedy.

MWFV8 wrote:

MasterOgami wrote: The question is, was it Miller who made MadMax so brilliant, the crew that supported him or both? How about people like Byron Kennedy who had significant impact on those films?

I believe he was. Medical training, seeing road victims, yes sir. But as far as Lucas goes, if it wasn't for people who told him what's best he'd turn Star Wars into Teletubbies with swords. So much for his genius. I think Miller will follow his petrol fueled heart and do all of us a favor by making an awesome movie. Whatever the circuimstances, everyone deserves that and that's his obligation. Just sayin' !

MWFV8 wrote:From what I've read the poor sequels to StarWars were down to the extreme level of control Lucas had and a sycophantic team too afraid to give him critical feedback. A lot of people believe the original movies were so good because he actually had less control over the whole production. This is supported when you look at his own original concepts for the first movies.

Ben Burtt never seemed to be afraid to voice his concerns, he was apparently the most vocal contributor during the making of The Phantom Menace. He's actually the only one I can think of. Lucas shoots down one of his ideas in the behind the scenes bonus features of the Attack of the Clones disc and you can totally sense his frustration. In Lucas' defense, Burtt's idea wasn't entirely appropriate for a Star Wars film. Anyway that frustration had to be a key component of him moving over (more or less) to Pixar, where he'll be able to control his own projects. It kinda seemed like Burtt was done with only supervising sound design and was ready to strike out on his own.

Kinda got off the point there. What I was getting at was that Lucas still went through his tradition of showing the work to pals like Spielberg, De Palma, Howard, etc. and getting feedback from them. Some thing's he'd change, and some (well, most) things he wouldn't.

As for his amount of control. I think it could be argued that The Empire Strikes Back is the only one where he really had to share it with anyone else ("and that's the best one bla bla"). Lucas was more or less Selznick-ing the thing (sorta-kinda like when Miller let Ogilvie handle large sections of Thunderdome. It was still Miller's baby, regardless of how Kennedy's death had affected him) but that sort of backfired for Lucas when he hired Kershner, who had ideas of his own, to direct. I won't kneel at the altar of Kersnher though, I mean, I know he didn't -write- RoboCop 2, but...

Anyway, Lucas' original concepts? You can literally watch his early concepts and drafts evolve into what became the original Star Wars. Its not like he had someone overlording it and telling him what to jettison and what to keep.

MWFV8 wrote:So it may not be about making money over art, just a case of him not being the artist people think he is.

I think that's fair enough. He does what he wants, for better or worse. I think he actually said something to that effect when he was on The Daily Show last month.

Anyway I don't want to derail this thread, its just that as a Star Wars and (gasp) Lucas fan it can sometimes be difficult to just keep quiet.

MWFV8 wrote:The question is, was it Miller who made MadMax so brilliant, the crew that supported him or both? How about people like Byron Kennedy who had significant impact on those films?

Based on Miller's work on pictures like Babe 2 and Happy Feet, I'd say he's largely responsible for whatever the strange magic is that makes Mad Max so special. For a "musical penguin cartoon", Happy Feet's got a good mix of soul and action. He did have Terry Hayes working with him on 2 and 3 (making him the only writer, aside from Miller, to work on more than one), and he surely added something to the mix. I don't know how much creative influence Kennedy had (though in addition to producing, he did co-write the first film, so probably a lot), but the dedication at the end of 3 always moved me, even when I was too young to know or understand who he was.

Branching off from what MasterOgami said previously, I posit that we should have a thread somewhere concerned entirely with Miller's "animal fable" films - including the first Babe, which is more Miller's film than Noonan's, I don't think anyone will argue.