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Comment by cjohnson318 | Hacker News Reader

I didn't really get Fury Road. Why were people spraying silver spray paint in each others' mouths? What was the societal demand that was answered by the heavy metal blitzkrieg of chopped up cars? It was all just a little too much for me. I thought the protagonist was great, it was just all of the extra psychotic flash-bang stuff they added on top that I didn't like.

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The silver spray paint in universe is basically preparing yourself to enter heaven (Valhalla) "all shiny and chrome", implying that being shiny and chrome is a higher state of being than being rusty and covered in dirt, which makes a hell of a lot of sense in universe. This particularly shows up in the difference between the leaders' cars (e.g. Immortan Joe) and the War Boys' cars. The War Boys are essentially on a death clock due to illness, so they act as suicide fighters. The Psychotic flash bang was really effective in communicating the cult of personality that Immortan Joe has cultivated. I really liked it because the world building was incredible IMO.

Mediocre!

"The Psychotic flash bang"?

Just the general vibe of insanity from Immortan Joe's army :) quoting parent comment

I see; your capitalization suggested there was a character named The Psychotic.

> I didn't really get Fury Road. Why were people spraying silver spray paint in each others' mouths?

Solvents get you high. They also kill you, but beggars can't be choosers in the post-apocalypse.

People inhale spray paint in real life if they are desperate enough, or just really stupid.

Oh wow, I didn't know people did that.

Not-really-fun-fact: the association with chrome paint in particular pre-dates the movie.

From 2008: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2442441/

> Sniffing the fumes of aerosol spray paint or "chroming" is the most popular form of inhalant abuse within Australia

Probably not a coincidence given that George Miller is Australian.

I liked how it wasn't explained because the goal is to make you think about those questions. In a post apocalyptic wasteland where valuable resources are scattered far away in an endless desert, wouldn't cars become an almost mythical and religious item? Without the Chrome Cars, everyone would die as they would be unable to travel and get food/water/etc. So is it any surprise that after generations of living like that, they would worship chrome much in the same way primitive cultures worship the sun/rain/water?

I don't think the Mad Max world building is sufficiently deep to stand up to scrutiny. For example, cars are extremely dependent on high industry. Without an advanced chemical industry cars are impossible to build. There is no way cars would be around long in a post apocalyptic wasteland of endless desert.

All the cars are cars that they are maintaining, they have not built any cars from scratch. They find pieces of metal laying about and can put that on cars.

While I have no plans to watch these, I have been very curious how they cover gasoline production. Fracking and cracking aint easy.

Pieces of metal are the easy parts. Rubber, lubricants, fuel are much more difficult.

There weren’t generations between the collapse and the film. Style of the old characters may have started off in “normal” civilization. Given how many cars there are today, how the cars in mad Max tend to be simpler/older cars and how everything is Frankensteined together, the technology seems plausible. Compare to Cuba, where people are still driving around in 60 year old classic American cars.

Also consider how many people live now and their resources and assets, compared to the world of mad Max, where perhaps 1% of the humans remain. It implies a lot of junk.

What? Anyone can make a basic car in a workshop with metalworking tools. Henry Ford made cars. The only advanced chemicals you need are fuel to burn.

Try making a rubber wheel with a lubricated ball bearing in your home workshop.

It reminds me of those bird species that build and decorate elaborate little shrines and then dance around them to attract a mate. If somebody told you about them you'd say it's unbelievably absurd, of course no animal would build itself a little stage with a pile of shells and brightly colored objects to dance around in... and other birds would come over to steal and sabotage. And yet there it is on video, that exact thing.

Weird cult practices are very human and all over the place, from the outside they don't make sense. Especially in warfare, strange psychotic over the top practices are exemplified many times. "This is a practical and reasonable thing to do" doesn't really come into it. Although, to be fair, getting your warriors in an unhinged altered state of mind is a quite effective way to motivate them to do what you want.

You'd probably like the original Mad Max (not Road Warrior) a lot more. I do fwiw.

It's just lore and world building: sick people getting high and also the worship of cars and "so shiny and chrome".

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool

How do you feel about the film Conan the Barbarian?

To answer your questions: drugs and warfare.

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