Being a huge fan of the lore in Mad Max: Fury Road, I could appreciate the underlying messages concerning gender hierarchies and preservation, but I admit I expected the older films to be pure entertainment with outrageous cars and wild shoot-em-up scenes. For what I thought would be a solely adrenaline-rush film, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome tackled large overarching systemic problems inherent in society from the dawn of civilization. Civilization itself is the main target of Mad Max: Beyond Thuderdome as it lambastes man’s systems of control and capability for self-destruction.

The post-apocalyptic civilizations present in the movie are the base-instinct driven Bartertown and the pious youth of the oasis. Bartertown for its part is a slum laid in filth where man live beside beast as they are ruled over by resource controlling elites who keep the inhabitants preoccupied with pleasures to the senses. Even the name of the town reveals man’s first intent after bringing himself to ruin, to once again begin reconstructing the market to gather resources that support their self-indulging life styles. As a stark juxtaposition, the only other civilization to develop is that of lost boys who live off the oasis. The band of innocent youth are meant to be portrayed as untouched by knowledge and greed filled desires that drive Bartertown, and instead devoting their lives to a belief-system which revolves around “the knowing” and a promise of great technological treasures. The setting immediately invites analogies of Hell and Eden, as man with all his knowledge of machinery and harnessing methane must live in a brutal, unclean hole while the children who have yet to been enlightened by “the knowing” live in perpetual youth in harmony with the Earth. Avoiding any further reading into Biblical-lessons that an interpretation of this story with the Moses-like Mad Max could invite, I believe the depicted communities exemplifies the film’s critiques of control systems and harmful tendencies.

Both groups show a part of our world to reveal underlying influences on our lives. In the community of the children, they build elaborate myths founded on their idealistic interpretation of Viewmaster images. These legends are purported as fact when Max fulfills their prognostication, creating the foundation for a civilization similar to many modern systems in belief and values.  Bartertown portrays the less moralistic side to our society, exposing our lust for self-indulgence. The largest and most important example demonstrating this is the Thunderdome. The rules that govern the Thunderdome are barbaric, nonsensical, and base, yet serve as the only system of order to control the population. It’s the only set of rules all participants in this community agree to since it fills their need for viewing violence and perpetuating the persistent rule of “might makes right.” Bartertown and Thunderdome draw comparison to our world through their economic system and technology, but reveal the unpleasant side of our civilization. In the same way that religious lies control the community of children, the world of adults is controlled by elites who satiate our ignoble needs. Adults are given a code of law written by Aunty Entity and promoted  by hidden figures interested in distracting society. These figures present themselves as the announcer who represents secretive interests at play controlling our attention while working against us. His allegiance to secret societies is exposed as he bares the masonic square and compass while coaxing denizens to have faith in the entrapping system. Mad Max 3 serves to warn viewers how the systems that dictate our actions are man-made constructs vulnerable to lies and abuse.

In the world of Mad Max there still exists hope when the children, though they were convinced into staying ignorant and confined to the oasis, finally make it to their promised land to start a new society with passing settlers. To prosper as humans, the goal is then to go beyond the Thunderdome, to in some spiritual sense go beyond the systems that control us and avoid the self-destructiveness invited by the corrupting nature of man.