Here it comes.. through a Jasin Boland still.
The Mad Max publicity department, aka the Flying Miller God Machine, launched the first trailer at Comic-Con, the American fan-fest which is a bit like Christmas in Jerusalem. Warner Bros showcased it in a massive installation. with 465 feet of screens, all 20 feet high.
Click for full screen, put on headphones and brace yourself.
There is a small secret which Warner Bros shared on the longer version for the Comic-Con audience but is hiding from the outside world.
That cute two headed lizard which scuttles toward Max in the beginning? He eats it. Raw. On the spot.
Jasin Boland shot the production stills, and has been there for the duration. He gets a strange overview of the whole process – unobtrusive, utterly focused, hunting for the key images to encapsulate the film.
He also specialises in major action films, and is pretty hard to impress. But he is thrilled about Fury Road. ‘The images are epic,’ he said on the phone.’ The film is going to be massive – they don’t make them like this any more. It is possible it will re-invigorate the live action action film, and bring them back.”
His point is that the effects here are based on real shots, often with the real actors safely tucked in harnesses. Ironically, it is pioneering a return to real effects because the safety gear can be erased in post.
Boland is an articulate man but his brain goes runny over Fury Road.
‘George Miller and John Searle [cinematographer], those guys are unbelievable.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘It’s just the way they think.I wish I could talk freely about it and this time next year, I can. But just go and have a look at the images already on the net, and you will see what I am talking about.
‘What goes on in George’s head to come up with these amazing ideas, and Colin Gibson the designer, I am almost speechless but it is mind-boggling. It is epic, that is the only thing I can think of.’
He is pretty committed to that point of view – he shared it with Garry Maddox at the SMH as well, and that version was repeated on Indiewire, which is also enticed – ‘And so the Comic-Con teaser trailer has arrived, and it indeed looks epic and intense. The film has instantly become the most anticipated blockbuster of 2015. Game changing even? Too early to tell, but we’re certainly excited.’
There’s plenty of fansites who are giggling with pleasure over this already, and the high-traction gang is making high octane noises as well.
Slashfilm covered the Comic-Con presentation, its little chest heaving with delight. ‘…it is staggeringly huge .. there’s nothing simple about the footage we saw. It may not have much dialogue, and it really is a car chase… but saying it is “just” a car chase is to wildly undersell what Miller has made. This trailer featured what appears to the the ultimate car chase, starting with the DNA of The Road Warrior, but then opening up into incredible vistas and blasts of action that go far beyond what Miller has put on screen in the past. It was incredible to see.’
IGN details the way Warners are blasting it forwards, with Fire Blood Oil as the tagline, a video message from Charlize Theron, a highlight reel incorporating the previous trilogy, and George himself: ‘Miller introduced the footage to Fury Road, and it looks crazy and extreme and over-the-top and awesome and terrifying. It’s unlike any other Mad Max film, featuring the classic jalopy car chases in the desert that made the series so famous but also huge CGI spectacles of sand storms and tornadoes and guys getting sucked into both while burning alive.’
It also runs a Vodcast discussion which warms up very nicely, and takes us into the dark mind of the intelligent fan.
Gizmodo laid out a long quote from Miller: ‘“The movie is a chase,” he said. “It’s very hard when people are chasing across the wasteland to write that in words; it’s much easier to do that in pictures. Because it’s almost a continued chase, you have to connect one shot to the other. The obvious way to do that was with storyboards [which is what they did first], then put words in later. I worked with three really fine storyboard artists and graphic novelists. We sat in a big room and instead of writing it down, we’d say, ‘So this guy throws a thunderstick at a car and there’s an explosion.’ You can write that, but exactly where the thunderstick is, where the car is, and the explosion, it’s very hard to get those dimensions, so we would draw it. We ended up with 3,500 panels, which almost becomes the equivalent to the number of shots in the movie.”’
Film School Rejects fills that out to be Ten Things We Learnt.. ‘5. “I didn’t want to tell the film with a lot of dialogue. It’s a world where people say very little. We basically have one extended chase where you discover the backstory of the characters along the way. A post-apocalyptic world allows you to make it very, very element. I like to call it a Western on wheels.”’
The comments are fun as well.
MTV is a short, sharp publicist’s dream: ‘It couldn’t have lasted more than four or five minutes, but it felt like it went on for an eternity. My jaw was on the ground the entire time it played. My heart was thumping out of my chest with each explosion, with each bone-crunching punch, with each death-stare delivered by Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron. There aren’t enough words to do the insanity justice — it’s the kind of madness you have to see to believe.’
The US trades are happy too. Deadline reports that the clip ‘drew some of the biggest cheers of the weekend’. Hollywood Reporter was at Comic-Con: ‘While fan excitement was at a fever pitch for Batman v. Superman, the footage at the Fury Road presentation was among the most audacious shown at this year’s Con and had fans rapt in silence.’
It goes on to report a crackly exchange between Miller and panel moderator Chris Hardwick. ‘
Moderator Chris Hardwick put Miller on the spot when he joked about Gibson’s fall from Hollywood grace in recent years. “Who knew that Mel would turn into Mad Max at one point,” he said.
Miller was speechless. Then he tackled the topic diplomatically.
“They have that eternal tension,” Miller said, referring to Gibson’s charisma. ” On one hand they are entirely lovable and accessible. And on the other there is that element of danger … It applies to every charismatic person.”‘
Wired did Comic-Con in bloggy detail. Angela Watercutter is in the same bubble of joy, but thinks for herself: ‘—there’s something about the teaser for Mad Max: Fury Road that I can’t shake. Maybe it’s the massive size of Hall H and the fact that the footage was wrapped around the room on giant screens, but George Miller’s reboot of the world he first built in 1979 just looks incredible… It’s hard to explain, probably for good reason, but suffice to say Mad Max: Fury Road—if nothing else—looks like a beautiful adrenaline shot straight to the heart. ‘
Domestically, the papers are positive too, though Michael Idato, an honest snout, reported the release as the second biggest at Comic-Con. News.com.au manages to use its tabloid skills for good rather than evil, and waxes positive. The Guardian, after reporting alleged environmental damage to the Namibian Desert last year, has a meditation on Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.
The links keep growing as the trailer spreads. This is surely the splashiest debut for any Australian film since … forever for true genre. Australia and The Great Gatsby commanded attention, but without that sense of excitement. We are seeing crossover already, Even Time – not a skerrick of fanzine in its dark mainstream American heart – links to the clip.
