Why Furiosa Is A Great Prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road
Let's breakdown why Furiosa is a perfect prequel that deepens and expands the experience of Mad Max: Fury Road.
It was always inevitable that Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga would be compared to Mad Max: Fury Road – in fact, it's really been THE main talking point since the Furiosa spinoff was first announced. However, Furiosa was never going to be Fury Road – nor was it ever endeavoring to do so. With the Mad Max Saga labeling, series creator/director George Miller made it clear he was going to do something he'd never done before in the franchise: explain more of the lore and history of The Wasteland.
The best metaphor for comparison is that Mad Max: Fury Road is a focused short story, while Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is an entire novel. Fury Road left so much of its "storytelling" up to implication and inference, from the scope of Immortan Joe's dystopian empire to the deep history between the ruthless warlord and "Imperator" Furiosa, leading to the battle-hardened War Rig driver fleeing with Joe's harem of "wives" in her company. Along the way of that mad chase, we got brushstrokes of a larger world and history – brushstrokes that Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga had to spread into an entire mosaic.
Why Furiosa Is A Great Prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road
Prequels are a challenging storytelling format for an obvious reason: the audience already knows the ultimate destination of the story, and the likely outcome for most of the major characters. The only real victories that a prequel can achieve are 1) Successfully depicting or deepening understanding of formative events and character arcs relevant to the original work. 2) A revelation that the actual events that occurred before the original work weren't the same as history later remembered them.
With Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, George Miller arguably achieves both goals of a good prequel. While some fans are calling the film overly long and convoluted, that criticism is being raised in comparison to Fury Road's leaner, meaner, storyline and focus. However, given where Fury Road leaves things (SPOILERS) with Furiosa replacing Immortan Joe as empress of The Citadel, any Mad Max: Fury Road sequel would have to address just what Furiosa's rule looks like, and what the significance of it is. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga has now done all the work necessary for a Fury Road sequel to pick up and tell a much more streamlined and focused war story, with the gangs, key locations, and history all well established.
One of the biggest "reveals" in Furiosa was Tom Burke as "Praetorian Jack," the military commander and War Rig driver of Immortan Joe before Furiosa's reign. Some viewers criticized Jack's inclusion as a thinly veiled echo of Tom Hardy's Max in Fury Road; however, Furiosa and Jack's arc both revealed how the young girl learned to be a hardened Road Warrior and driver, and why she later recognizes something in Max Rockatansky and vibes with him, rather than killing him. It was the kind of twist that we didn't expect to see in Furiosa, but one that certainly deepens our understanding of Fury Road.
On the whole, Furiosa's most significant accomplishment is that it successfully deepens the experience of Mad Max: Fury Road in just about every meaningful way possible. Furiosa's mission; her tragic return to The Green Place; her chemistry with Max, and just how much of a full-circle turn it was for her to go from being an enslaved pet of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and Immortan Joe, to ruling The Citadel.
Finally, it should be noted that Miller's accomplishment is even greater because viewing order doesn't matter: you can watch Furiosa first and get all the background needed to make Fury Road an even deeper and exciting follow-up, or watch Fury Road and then get the more expansive background via Furiosa. And if a third Furiosa film rounds out her Trilogy, George Miller's Wasteland Saga will effectively become a true anthology series, wherein one character gets focus (Max) before handing off the baton to a new character (Furiosa).
Prequels are not in danger of being retired anytime soon. But while Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga may not be as "pure" a cinematic experience as Mad Max: Fury Road, it shouldn't be forgotten as being one of the best prequels we've seen.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is currently playing in theaters and IMAX.
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