Synopsis:

Furiosa's Full Journey; comprised of the two films Furiosa & Mad Max Fury Road

Intentions:

My intention was to create a single film that could tell the story of Furiosa, as a self-contained fan-edit that could stand on it's own, regardless of whether the viewer had seen the originals.

Change List:

TLDR Changes; I cut out the Green Place reveal at the outset. Trimmed down Dementus' screentime & goofiness. Increased pacing of Furiosa portion. Reworked ending of Furiosa into an "end of Act II" moment. Cut out Max's intro. Cut out Max's perspective throughout Fury Road portion. ------------ Detailed Changes; -- Removed zoom into to location from orbit. This change is about maintaining the mystery of the world, since we don't know exactly where it takes place. -- Completely cut out Green Place & initial kidnapping scene. Not showing Furiosa's home leaves it more of an ethereal, mythic location, rather than a place we know. -- Removed most of the sequences involving the "History Man". It's very cool, but I feel it's a concept where the less you reveal/explain the better. This also completely removes his narration from the Furiosa portion. -- Kept the "Chapter" inserts. However, I moved them around a bit in the film, added one, & renamed them to better fit the new sections they covered. I did reuse 2 of the original chapter titles, though. -- Reworked Chapter lengths: approx. Chapter 1, 20 min; Chapter 2, 30 min; Chapter 3, 20 min; Chapter 4, 50 min; Chapter 5, 60 min; Chapter 6, 20 min. -- Movie now opens with Furiosa on the bike, having been kidnapped. This creates a sense of mystery. Who is this girl? Who is kidnapping her? Why? In addition, there's some great worldbuilding in that sequence (like how they steal their comrade's gas/equipment without caring after he dies). Mystery, action, and worldbuilding asap to engage the viewer. -- Made minor trims to a lot of scenes with Dementus. Hemsworth gives a great performance, but I felt the ratio of ruthless & goofy was a bit off, so I pulled back the goofy a bit. He still has the sense of humor & is a bit ridiculous, but now they are flashes rather than the bulk of his persona. Also, this means more % of screentime goes to Furiosa, proportionally. -- Made lots of minor trims/reworks to the various action sequences to speed them up. Specifically, in Furiosa there are a lot of long-takes which are fun & really ground the geography of the action, but they slow down the pacing and I felt I could be trimmed while maintaining readability & picking up the pace. In Fury Road, most of the trims were for character (see below) or just to get the runtime down to a reasonable "extended edition" length. -- Moved the fantastic introduction of Immortan Joe sequence (putting on armor, shortened speech, then turning on & cutting off the water) up into the Furiosa portion just before Dementus learns of the Citadel. -- Added the text card "The Citadel, The First Fortress of The Wasteland" to match the cards we get for Gastown & Bullet Farm later in the film. -- Completely reworked the finale of Furiosa. Dementus now learns who Furiosa is at the start of the interrogation, rather than midway through. This makes his rants about how his own traumatic past, how they are the same, and his generally hopeless philosophy hit harder. It also removes him having a seizure, which I felt hurt the momentum of the scene. -- Completely removed the "mythos" of the various ways of how Furiosa killed Dementus. Instead she kills him the same way he killed her mother. This bookends his story within Furiosa's life, as well as shows her resignation to the life he created for her. She gives up on herself and it's not until she has someone else to fight for (Joe's wives -- who "begged her to take them") that she attempts to escape again. -- Completely removed Max's capture scene & pre-title attempted escape. Now the Fury Road portion begins with Furiosa loading the wives into the truck, then cut right to the send-off ceremony. -- Continuing with cutting Max's intro, I trimmed away about as much of Max as I could in the entirety of Fury Road. It, surprisingly, wasn't all that hard. A vast majority of the changes simply consisted of removing the quick shot of Max's reaction to things happening around him. This re-orients the perspective of the film off of Max. It also makes Max seem much more of a (dangerous) mystery, just like he would be to Furiosa when they meet. We only learn to trust Max as Furiosa does. -- Trimmed away a lot of Nox's reactions early in Fury Road portion as well, mostly in relation to his interactions with Max. By shifting the perspective away from Max in Fury Road, it naturally settles on Furiosa, but also increases Nox's presence later in the story. While I trimmed Max's reactions/perspective throughout, I only did so with Nox near the beginning. By the mid-point of the Fury Road portion, the story is about Furiosa first, Nox second, and Max is a supporting character. -- Color graded (day-for-night) for the scene where Max proposes they go back to the Citadel. Since I cut out Max's entire plot arc, this segment needed to be re-worked. Instead of Max watching them leave then catching up, the group was preparing to leave the same night as previous scene when Max proposes the new plan. -- Did some minor color-correction to Furiosa to better blend with the harsher & more saturated Fury Road.