The Road Warrior

There’s the original ‘Mad Max’ and then ‘The Road Warrior,’ which is a total masterpiece of action filmmaking. It’s so lean and mean, without a lot of dialogue. It’s really awesome.

Kevin Reynolds and Kevin Costner conceived Waterworld as Mad Max on water. George Miller's The Road Warrior, the post-apocalyptic scavenger society, the makeshift vehicles, the tribal hierarchy of survival, the lone wanderer who won't commit, became the exact architectural template. Reynolds cited this in production notes. The difference: Miller's desert becomes Reynolds's ocean, but the savage economics, the barbarism with its own honor code, the reluctant hero trapped in a world he didn't choose, these are Miller wholesale.