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Witness!

This week's blog may be short on ponies, but it is chuck-full of Wasteland. And the most bombastic, adrenaline-surging Wasteland yet to grace film! How could I not talk about this movie?

Mad Max: Fury Road is amazing! The entire movie is one long, violent car chase orgy across a desert wasteland populated by raiders and mutants. Fury Road doesn't waste much time with story or characterization -- you don't go to a movie like this for Shakespeare -- but it does manage a few moments of surprising poignancy. And virtually every other moment is a post-apocalyptic romp with some of the most incredible vehicles and wasteland aesthetics to grace theaters in many years.

Below is just one of the raider vehicles in the film. Each vehicle in the film is unique, rust-and-death eye candy. The emphasis on the car chase bleeds into every other aspect of the world, with War Boys gleefully grabbing their steering wheels from a monument-like collection the way some stories might have characters grabbing guns from an armory.

Okay, sure, it's ludicrously over-the-top on every level, you could waste time poking holes in the logic (but why would you want to?), and the movie is the most aggressively orange-and-teal creation out of Hollywood since Jupiter Ascending. But the absurdity only makes Mad Max: Fury Road a more powerful ride; and this time the color grading benefits the aesthetic of the film.

Serious, just look at that. It is utterly ridiculous... and utterly awesome. How could any post-apocalyptic fan not want to see this movie?

And after having seen this in the film, I have to take a moment to admire the concept. While taken to a pure-fantasy extreme, this vehicle is grounded in the history of fife and drum corps. There is a believable core here -- with The Morale Officer Orb, I even postulated Ministry of Morale ponies who played similar roles in the war.

With the big bad's war drums truck riding center in the action, this is the first movie where I could actually imagine the characters hearing the same soundtrack we, the audience, were.

The world and the protagonist make nods towards their connection to the previous Mad Max films, but only enough to justify the title. The movie is more of a spiritual successor to the amazing chase in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome than it is an actual continuation of the plots or characters of the original films.

Everything is iconic. The central villain is less of a character than he is the symbolic ideal of a wasteland big bad. Rarified, with all the extraneous material and characterization removed. I could draw parallels between him and pretty much any apocalyptic big bad ever (including Red Eye, particularly with regards to creating a civilization from the wasteland, but in a horrific manner).

Obviously, I highly recommend this film to any fan of the post-apocalyptic genre.

Could I see Mad Max: Fury Road being inspiration for action sequences, if not the impetus for an entire side story, in the Equestrian Wasteland? Sure! High-energy, vehicle-related combat sequences are not new to the Equestrian Wasteland. Fallout: Equestria had its train fight. Heroes had a high-adrenaline race through a gorge infested with tainted quarry eels. Even The Hooves of Fate had a high-speed escape scene. And with The Motorwagon Orb, I offered up the existence of motorized vehicles based on the design for the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. Sure, for canon compliance, gasoline would have to be traded for magic, steam or even zebra alchemical superfuels. But why not? It would certainly make for an exciting tale.

Next week, I plan to explore the possible role of a fan favorite in the Fallout: Equestria universe: