Trivia
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Spoilers (2)
In one scene, Max eats a can of "Dinki-Di" dog food. "Dinki-Di" is Australian slang for "genuine, real."
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Renamed "The Road Warrior" for North American distribution because at the time, the original Mad Max had only been released there on a limited basis, so calling it Mad Max 2 would have confused viewers.
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The logo on the tank truck is "7 Sisters Oil", reference to a conspiracy theory, popular before OPEC-conspiracy theories took over, that Standard Oil and six other companies controlled the world oil market and bought up and suppressed 200-MPG carburetor and so on to keep oil prices up.
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Reasons for Max's strange & mismatched outfit: Right arm of jacket missing - arm was run over by a bike in Mad Max and medics would have cut the sleeve off rather than pull it over a damaged limb. Squeaky leg brace - kneecap shot through in the previous movie. Harness with spanners and stuff dangling off it - for running repairs on the V8. First two fingers of each driving glove missing - easier insertion/ retrieval of shotgun shells from his sawed-off shotgun.
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Because he was relatively unknown in the US, the trailers did not feature Mel Gibson, but instead focused on the chases and action scenes.
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Director/Co-Writer George Miller was given the rights to this and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome to get him to step aside as the director of Contact.
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Only two original Interceptors were used in the Mad Max movies. The one that was used in Mad Max was modified and reused in all of the interior and close up car shots in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior: the Road Warrior. After filming was over, this Interceptor was bought and restored by Bob Forsenko and is currently on display in the "Cars of the Stars Motor Museum" in England. Another car was built for the chase scenes in the second movie but that one was destroyed when the script required it to be pushed off the road and blown up. The wreckage used to be viewable at Broken Hill, Australia but due to thefts it can't be found there any longer. The Planet Hollywood Interceptor is a replica and was never used in any of the films.
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After Mad Max was finished, all of the cars were supposed to be destroyed, including the black interceptor. But someone thought the interceptor was too good to lose, so they saved it from the crusher. This was before the film was even released. When was in its planning stage, someone found out the interceptor had somehow survived, so they tracked it down, and bought it back.
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The black Interceptor driven by Mel Gibson is a 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe, a car exclusive to Australia. A limited number of these cars were exported by Ford to New Zealand and the United Kingdom, but never to North America. Since only 949 of that particular model Falcon were ever produced, they have become highly sought after by car collectors on six continents; there are over 100 of them that have been brought over to the United States so far, primarily by importing/replica car companies like www.madmaxcars.com (The largest importer and builder of mad max replicas in the USA) along with several Interceptor replicas assembled from "non-GT" & "GT" Falcon coupes.
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The dog used in the film, named simply "Dog", was obtained from a local dog pound and trained to perform in the film. Because the sound of the engines upset him (and in one incident, caused him to relieve himself in the car), he was fitted with special earplugs. After filming was complete, he was adopted by one of the camera operators.
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Like George Lucas with Star Wars, screenwriters Terry Hayes, George Miller and Brian Hannant were inspired by both Akira Kurosawa's samurai films and Joseph Campbell's book "The Hero With a Thousand Faces."
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Contributing to the cost of production was the most expensive set ever constructed for an Australian film: the desert compound built in the desert of Broken Hill, New South Wales. The production also boasted the largest explosion ever created for an Australian film, which destroyed that very set.
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Both Mad Max 2 & 3 contain quotes from former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (1972 - 1975). These are the lines "We"re going to either crash, or crash through" from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and "One day cock of the walk, next a feather duster" from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
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The picture of the nude woman on the vertical stabilizer of the gyro is Karen Price, Playboy's January, 1981 centerfold. (She is most noticeable when Max first approaches the machine while the Gyro Captain is hiding under the sand.)
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According to trivia book "Movie Mavericks" by Jon Sandys, one of the more spectacular stunts in the film was actually a serious accident. One of the motorcycle-riding raiders hits a car, flies off the bike, smashes his legs against the car, and cartwheels through the air towards the camera. This was a real, genuine accident: the stuntman was supposed to just fly over the car WITHOUT hitting it. But the near-fatal incident looked so dramatic that it was kept in the movie. The stuntman broke his leg badly, but survived. (If you look at the stuntman's body frame-by-frame through his cartwheels, you can see that one of his legs is bending at a slightly unnatural angle around the knee...ouch.)
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The budget for the film was approximately ten times larger than the one for its predecessor.
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A piece of narration opens the film over a montage of images summarizing what happened to the planet. This was not used for the Australian version.
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George Miller also met with John Seale as a potential cinematographer before giving the job to Dean Semler.
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Because it was filmed out in the outback, the production team would have to wait 2-3 days before they could get to see the dailies.
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Dean Semler returned to the same locations in Broken Hill, New South Wales, 6 years later to shoot Russell Mulcahy's Razorback.
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Although it might not look it, the location was actually extremely cold. Mel Gibson would spend his time in between takes huddled under blankets despite being kitted out in a leather outfit, while the marauders suffered in particular with their costumes which deliberately exposed their buttocks.
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When the gyrocopter flies off carrying 2 people, one of them is a dummy as 2 real people would have been too heavy for the machine to carry.
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The costume department assembled the costumes by raiding - amongst others - junk shops, second hand clothing stores, sporting outlets and S&M shops.
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One of the factors which led to using the location was the prediction by rainfall charts that there would be virtually no rainfall during the shoot. But during the shoot, it did rain - the first time there had been rain in over four years. Production was shut down for over a week.
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Humongous' pistol case contains an ornamental skull & crossbones; it appears to be a Totenkopf or "Death's Head" design, an infamous emblem of the Nazi S.S.
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According to cinematographer Dean Semler, the camera rig used to get medium close ups of Max driving required him and an ac to stand on a small platform mounted to the driver's side of the car. They found out during one sequence that they miscalculated the lift, because whenever they went up or down a hill the platform would actually scrape the ground, sending out a shower of sparks. (Initially alarming all involved, they just shrugged and kept shooting without cutting.)
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The tanker roll stunt at the end of the chase was deemed so dangerous that the stunt driver was not allowed to eat any food 12 hours before they shot in the likely event that he could be rushed into surgery.
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The set for the refinery compound was blown up on 22 July 1981. The shot of marauders in the compound just before the explosion was filmed soon after dawn, with a waning gibbous moon visible in one scene.
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The film that convinced Steven Spielberg that George Miller would be a great choice to direct Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, the fourth (and arguably the best) story in Twilight Zone: The Movie.
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On the Blu-Ray release, the credits refer to the film by it's original title, "Mad Max 2" rather than the American title "The Road Warrior", which had been used on most DVD releases.
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Mel Gibson only had 16 lines of dialogue in the entire film, and two of them were: "I only came for the gasoline."
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Spoilers
Most of the final action sequences (including Pappagallo's death by trident machete, Wez's final attempt to kill the Feral Kid, then the collision between Max's truck and Humungus' hot rod) were filmed on 24 July 1981. The collision caused more damage to the truck than expected, so the truck's turnover (scheduled for the same day) had to be postponed. The truck was repaired, then crashed the following day.
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Emil Minty never says a word. He just growls. Its not until the end that we learn the film's narrator is actually The Feral Kid all grown up.
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