Why "Furiosa" Could Use an Extended Director's Cut
Plus: The Tinted Version, Use of AI, how it reframes 'Fury Road,' etc.
I’ve now seen Furiosa (dir. George Miller) twice in theaters. Each viewing, in addition to the various news, thinkpieces, and behind-the-scenes articles about the belated prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), has given me a lot of things to think and write about. Now that it’s out on digital video, I wish to share my many disparate thoughts, impressions and insights about the film, which refuses to get out of my head.
Among other things, I want to discuss the possibility that Furiosa could receive up to three alternate versions, including a director’s cut, how the film reframes and enriches the experience of watching Fury Road, how it promotes the use of AI in filmmaking, and Charlize Theron’s secret cameo, which I suspected but couldn’t confirm until now.
ContentsTinted Black-and-White Version
First of all, I want to talk about the potential for Furiosa to get multiple alternate versions on video. The only version that has been confirmed thus far is a re-colored edition called “Tinted Black-and-Chrome,” which director George Miller first revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz, stating:
“We’ve done it already. It’s the last thing I did on this film and I call it “Tinted Black and Chrome….” I’m still trying to demystify why the black and white for me has something more elemental to it. I still can’t put my finger on it.”
Given that Miller had previously expressed his preference for the “Black and Chrome” version of Fury Road, which removed all color from it except black-and-white, it seemed natural to expect that a b/w version of Furiosa would follow as well.* Now, what is not actually elaborated on here is why it’s called “Tinted Black-and-Chrome.”
*Fury Road: Black and Chrome looks amazing by the way and is a good example of how well high contrast cinematography can look sans color. It is one of the few B/W versions of colored films that I highly recommend seeing.
What does Miller mean when he refers to the edition being tinted? Well, tinting was a process of manually adding color elements to black-and-white footage, effectively colorizing them to a limited extent. According to historian Fritzi Kramer, this was a highly widespread process in the time of silent cinema and even lingered into the time of the early talkies. In that sense, relatively few films from the first 30 years of film history were actually intended to be shown in ‘pure’ black-and-white.*
*For instance, an entire film could play with a blue tint designating select scenes set at night.
What all this suggests is that the B/W version of Furiosa will actually incorporate select color elements. I believe that Miller already hinted at how this version would look like in the second trailer for Furiosa, which opens with a beautiful image entirely in black-and-white with the exception of a red peach before transitioning to the familiar colorful graphic palette the film is known for.
When I was in theaters, I was surprised that this moment was not retained in the actual release, which remained in color from beginning to end.
I eagerly anticipate this version of the film, as I think the potential images will be gorgeous in their own distinct way. The theatrical version is already a visual marvel with its graphic, overly saturated colors. But there definitely IS something about playing with the contrast between color and the lack of it.
Consider, for instance, titles like Rumble Fish (1983, dir. Francis Ford Coppola) and Sin City (2005, dir. Robert Rodriguez). Here, the select use of color in otherwise b/w frames makes individual instances or elements formally stand out, effectively directing audiences to pay attention to specific parts of the frame. I believe this will make for a very different viewing experience from the standard Furiosa release.*
*In particular, I can’t wait to see the moment where Dementus assumes his ‘Red Dementus’ form in Tinted Black and Chrome. It’s a sequence where color directly plays a role within the text itself, so it constitutes a perfect opportunity to really play with tinting.
The question, of course, is when exactly the Tinted B/W Version will be released. At the moment, the only information we have is that it will first show up in a Mad Max Film Box Set that is slated to come out at some unspecified point later this year.
I have little doubt that a standalone release for those of us that don’t wish to double dip will happen but likely not until next year, as the studio will almost certainly want to milk the new box set for all its worth by using the new version as a selling point.
Furthermore, there’s a good chance that purchasers of the film’s standard Apple TV video version will have received a copy of the Tinted B/W Version in the future.
Itunes has a history of updating its earlier video releases with new transfers and supplements over time, as demonstrated by the free B/W version add-ons of Johnny Mnemonic and Fury Road. Hence, I’ll probably purchase the Apple video version now and then wait until the Tinted B/W Version is added to it.
Update 08/07/24In a pleasant turn of events, Furiosa: Black and Chrome Edition is getting a stand-alone digital home video release on August 13, 2024, much earlier than I had anticipated. Looks like Apple though will not be adding the new version to its previous release, as there is a standalone purchase option now available on the its interface.
In addition to that, there is a 3-minute trailer that confirms my earlier speculation about the new version combining black-and-white with select color elements. The peaches appear as red, while leaves in the Green Place fittingly retain a greenish hue.
The Director’s Cut(s)?
Now, I’m going to discuss two other versions that are at this stage only hypothetical. Their existence can be inferred, but there is no guarantee that they will actually exist.
The first is an extended director’s cut of Furiosa that will presumably reincorporate deleted footage that never made it into the theatrical release. The possibility of this version being made comes courtesy of a May 27 Facebook conversation by actor Nathan Jones, who portrayed Rictus, the elder son of Immortan Joe.
Responding to a fan, who wished the film was longer, Jones raised the possibility that George Miller might release a longer version as he had a lot of ‘fantastic footage.’
Now, this could all just be wishful thinking on Jones’ part, as Miller has given thus far no indication that he desired to release a longer cut of the film.* In an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Miller claims that the film was “pretty tightly shot” and implies there weren’t really a lot of deleted scenes, though he had to lose certain moments that he loved. (Notably though, he plays coy with how much footage was left on the cutting room floor and never clarifies how long its first cut was.)
*Not to mention, Miller has never released a director’s cut before. Unless perhaps one counts the original Australian dialogue version of Mad Max and the recolored Fury Road.
That said, it’s quite evident that, given the film’s massive scope and 2.5-hour duration, that a sizable amount of footage must’ve been removed in post-production. And I definitely think the film should have been longer and that an extended cut could improve on the theatrical. For although Furiosa is very well edited as a whole, it nonetheless has one place where it feels like something substantial is missing.
Specifically, I’m talking about the gap between the end of Chapter 3 (“The Stowaway”) where Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) takes Furiosa under his wing and the beginning of Chapter 4 (“Homeward”) where we see her covering her forehead in grease, symbolizing her rise to the rank of Praetorian.
Now, the movie is broken up into individual chapters, and there tend to be gaps of time in-between them. But up to this point, none of them skipped over what seem to be substantial plot points. In this case, however, there is a LOT of stuff glossed over.
In effect, the film leads us to assume that Jack vouched for Furiosa after she had helped save the rig and defeat the Octoboss’ gang, explaining her value to Immortan Joe and convincing him to assign her the rank of Praetorian.
The problem is that the film had earlier established that Furiosa was taken in as a little girl by Joe with the intention of being groomed into a future wife. She had escaped by cutting off her hair and disguising herself (though notably not as a war boy, as some like to assume, a point I’ll get back to later).
And, as Fury Road made clear, Joe is REALLY, REALLY obsessed with his wives, viewing them as his prized possessions. So, it is safe to assume that Joe would be able to put two and two together upon seeing the now-teenage Furiosa, with her full-length hair and healthy body, and would almost certainly wish to reclaim her as his bride. It logically follows that Jack would then need to make a really strong case for why Furiosa would be more valuable to Joe as a Praetorian than a wife.
Jack, it is implied, definitely holds some sway in the Immortan’s hierarchy but he is nonetheless lower rank than an imperator. So, what exactly did he do to convince Joe to let Furiosa also be promoted to Praetorian? Or was there, perhaps, something else Furiosa had to have done to prove her worth to Joe?
Quite simply, given what was established previously, Furiosa’s ascension to Praetorian feels rushed and I wouldn’t be surprised if an entire subplot that answered these questions was filmed yet left on the cutting room floor. So, should a director’s cut indeed materialize, this is definitely a part of the film that could be extended with additional footage. The same goes for the film’s ending, in that we never actually see the pivotal event Furiosa was building to – her ascension to the rank of Imperator.
Much like her promotion to Praetorian, this major event conspicuously happens off-screen, which makes me think odds are pretty good that it was indeed filmed but ultimately cut, perhaps to shorten the running time or to better emphasize the final scene in the movie, where Furiosa hides the Five Wives on her new war rig.*
*Since publishing this, I have been notified by Drew McWeeny, who had read the Furiosa script, that my speculations here about possible cut material were incorrect. Per the script draft he had read, the timeline gap between Chapters 3 and 4 remains the same as in the film, and there is no sequence showing her becoming Imperator.
However, I have found evidence that some of the gaps in regard to the Joe/Furiosa relationship were addressed in earlier drafts of both Furiosa and Fury Road. Originally, Furiosa was a former wife of Immortan Joe, who turned out to be barren and was kicked out of his harem before being sold off to a Praetorian, who taught her the ways of road war. Joe thus found a new use for her when it turned out she could not bear his children. Evidently, at some point, Miller decided to remove the sexual exploitation of the character by Joe from the story.
Assuming Miller indeed releases a director’s cut of Furiosa, it is pretty much a given that he will release it in both color and “Tinted Black and Chrome” editions.
What this means is that could potentially get as many as three alternate versions of the film on video in the future. Of course, at the moment, the latter two versions are only speculative. But if there is enough audience demand - and I certainly hope there will be - then they could become a reality in the future.
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Reframing Fury Road
I’ve briefly mentioned this in an earlier post, but one of the most fascinating things about Furiosa for me is how it reframes and recontextualizes the events of Fury Road, which often just plunged the viewer into its narrative with little to no handholding, urging us to infer and catch up. Some people don’t seem happy about this, feeling that Furiosa needlessly over-explains aspects that Fury only hinted at.
I don’t agree with this viewpoint. On the contrary, I find that the new information not only doesn’t overexplain things but that it also adds crucial context that enhances the events of Fury Road, particularly when it comes to the emotional stakes of the picture.
Fury Road initially introduces Furiosa (Charlize Theron) as a kind-of mystery. From the moment she appears onscreen with her tattoo on the back, we know she’s an important character and that she works for Immortan Joe, but we know little else.
We don’t know her actual motives, goals, or drives, and it takes a little time for the film to establish what she is actually doing and why after she takes the war rig off its actual course. There are all of these gradual reveals that happen as the big chase progresses, with the emotional stakes slowly coming into focus, allowing the audience to realize that Furiosa is the film’s actual main character.
By contrast, if you watch Furiosa and Fury Road in chronological order, the film’s emotional stakes and Furiosa’s position in the narrative are pretty much clear from the outset. We know a lot more about Furiosa, what she wants and why. We’re aware the Wives are hidden on that rig long before Max learns of it.
The mysteries surrounding Furiosa’s actions are thus replaced with much greater emotional clarity. We may know more than, say, Max does at a given point in time, but that makes what we see on-screen more identifiable and empathetic.
In particular, I find that the concept of the “Green Place of Many Mothers” is much enriched by the prequel. In Fury Road, the Green Place is mentioned several times, and established as a home Furiosa is desperate to return to. But it is never actually seen, never made tangible to the audience. Because viewers don’t have a real sense of what the Green Place means to Furiosa emotionally, the reveal that it’s long gone and replaced by poisoned swampland doesn’t resonate as strongly as intended.
Furiosa, by contrast, provides a true sense of what exactly its main character has lost and what she is fighting to get back to. Though its actual appearance is limited only to the opening chapter, it’s clearly established that the Green Place was a kind-of Eden in the Wasteland, a place of beauty and abundance, filled with water, trees, and the potential for a (mostly) peaceful life outside the horror and savagery of the desert.
Its emotional importance is made all the more palpable by the relationship between Furiosa and her mother Mary. Returning to the Green Place, we come to understand, isn’t just about going home, it’s about keeping the promise she made to her mother shortly before her death.* When you watch Fury Road with all this in mind, the moment where Furiosa realizes her home is gone, causing her to fall on her knees and yell in despair hits SO… MUCH… HARDER.
Because now you can truly sense her pain and sorrow. Because you recognize that after everything she’s been through, she can’t keep her promise after all. With the added emotional development and narrative context of Furiosa, that reveal in Fury Road is far more successful in translating its main character’s devastation.
And this in turn strengthens the power of the ending, which sees Furiosa finally triumph and essentially build a new Green Place in the Citadel.
Now look, I normally am all for it when movies avoid prologues or extensive setups, and just jump right into the main plot, trusting viewers to catch up. But in this case, I’d make an exception. The two pictures work so well together that you could watch them as one big movie separated into two parts, with the first constituting the first two deliberate acts leading up to a climactic third.*
* Obviously, the films are not structured in that way but the point stands.
In the specific context of Fury Road, Furiosa’s final homecoming feels like a fitting end to the relatively simple, stripped down chase story the film has been telling. In the larger context of Furiosa though, it feels like the conclusion of a grander, deeper, more narratively and thematically complex journey.
Quite simply, Furiosa feels less like a prequel than a necessary preamble, without which what comes after feels, if not incomplete, then somewhat lesser.
Making the Case for AI
This might sound baffling but I think Furiosa makes a good case for the adoption and usage of AI in Hollywood filmmaking. What am I talking about?
Well, watch this video with Anya-Taylor Joy, which reveals that child Furiosa actor’s Alyla Browne’s appearance was digitally altered via AI to incorporate Joy’s facial features and vice versa, helping to sell the illusion that they are indeed portraying the same character over the course of her life. Per Joy:
“So, George Miller had the idea… very very early on…. He wanted the transition from both actors playing her to be seamless and so I did two days of like the craziest things you could ever possibly imagine and they mixed our faces together and at the beginning of the movie, it’s 35 percent and then by the time I pick her up, it’s gone up to 80 percent.”
Additional information is available in recently published BTS articles on the film, such as the one by Indiewire, which interviews VFX supervisor Andrew Jackson.
Here’s a relevant quote:
“CG was also required for some nifty facial animation… This consisted of seamlessly blending Taylor-Joy’s eyes with Browne’s with the use of AI. This was handled by Rising Sun Pictures using machine learning software. “We wanted to make Alyla’s eye shape more similar to the way that Anya might have looked when she was that age,” Jackson said. “We replaced a patch of her face, depending on the shot. In some of the closeup stuff, there’s quite a significant component that’s been modified. We also modified the look of Alyla to be slightly older towards the end.””
Jackson corroborates that, in turn, Taylor-Joy’s eyes were modified to look like those of Browne during her initial appearances to “smooth the transition.”
Jackson goes into more detail in this longer deep-dive article on the film’s VFX, where he specifies that their work was not completely automatic and required compositing to pull off. In effect, he makes clear that machine learning technology can be a great boon for filmmakers but it doesn’t replace them.
Reading these pieces only strengthened my belief that Furiosa got a lot of undeserved flack for ‘bad CGI.” Sure, the film is indeed heavier on CG than its predecessor - I’m not sure exactly how it compares in the number of VFX shots at the moment, but it is confirmed to have a larger number of digital elements - yet, none of that detracts from how beautiful its imagery is and how technically astounding some of its sequences are.
For every digital effect that one can point out as distracting or unconvincing, there are hundreds more that are completely imperceptible. The altered facial appearances of the actresses are a case in point: nobody following the movie’s release initially noticed any FX work on Alyla Browne’s and Joy’s faces, attesting to the fact that the DVFX here are so seamless, so natural-looking, that you’d never really know they were there.*
*Given all this, you’d think people would laud the film more for the FX they don’t notice than critique it for the FX they do notice.
Furiosa thus clearly demonstrates that AI and/or machine learning can be a very useful tool for enhancing the illusion of reality we see onscreen. Not only can it help create good VFX, it can do so without attracting attention to itself. In effect then, the film makes a good case for the adoption of AI into filmmaking.
Now, I’m not saying that I am all for the use of AI and CGI to resurrect dead people onscreen or anything. That’s a whole other concern. But I am excited about what it can bring to the table in the future.
And let me tell you: the perception you might get from reading the mainstream press and social media is that AI is getting a huge, huge pushback, especially in the film industry. But dig a bit deeper and you might discover that actually many filmmakers are already employing AI or beginning to adopt it, especially in post-production.*
*Anybody interested in this subject should read , which delves into how AI is an emergent technology opening up new possibilities in filmmaking in particular and creative expression in general at a time when the traditional ways of doing things in the media industry are shutting down or coming apart.
In that sense, Furiosa might be slightly ahead of its time, a movie that in embracing AI helps envision a future where machine learning does not ruin cinema but renews it.
Not a War Boy
This is just a little peeve of mine but I need to debunk a popular misconception about a certain plot point in the film. Relatively early into the movie, after being sold to Immortan Joe, child Furiosa cuts off her hair and runs away. She vanishes for several years before reappearing as a teenager now played by Anya Taylor-Joy.
A bunch of people apparently think that Furiosa disguised herself as one of Immortan Joe’s War Boys when she went into hiding, and a reviewer or two even cites this as a plot hole in their critique of the picture. Here’s the thing: kid Furiosa does NOT disguise herself as a War Boy when she runs away.
Rather, she disguises herself as one of the many homeless, mud-covered refugees that live at the bottom of The Citadel, who are apparently referred to as the “Wretched.”
I admit I myself was a little confused when I first saw the film as the exact details of her escape plan are never explicitly spelled out for the viewer. But the information we need to make sense of it is all there: War Boys all wear white paint, looking like ghosts or skeletons, whereas Furiosa covers her face in mud or grease.
Furthermore, the next time we see her, she is in line with a bunch of different Wretched seeking to work on cars for the Citadel. As established in Fury Road, Joe’s henchmen regularly pluck potentially useful people from the crowds of refugees and then bring them to the citadel as they need manpower.
Presumably then, Furiosa spent several years living as a Wretched at the bottom of the Citadel, hoping to literally 'work her way up' so she could eventually steal a vehicle to escape the Citadel. Her trying to live among the War Boys wouldn’t make any sense as she’d have to mostly wear white paint and walk around without a shirt as a kid, which would easily give away her identity. There is thus no plot hole here.
On a side note, I’m pretty sure the War Boys were an instance of Miller repurposing the design of the Scrooloose kid from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
Theron’s Secret Cameo
Finally, I want to share something almost nobody has discovered yet.
The very first time I saw Furiosa on the big screen, I noticed something interesting about the final scene of the film before the credits. Here, we see Furiosa lead the 5 Wives of Immortan Joe to secretly hide inside the War Rig, which will allow Furiosa to smuggle them out of the Citadel, leading right into the events of Fury Road.
The way the scene was shot and lit, I couldn’t really see Furiosa’s face all that well. But I got the distinct impression that she was being played here not by Anya-Taylor Joy, but rather once more by Charlize Theron. Her frame was a little different, and her face was covered in shadow, which, if indeed Theron was playing her, could’ve been a means to obscure the obvious differences between the two actresses.
My second screening did nothing to refute my suspicion. But again, I could not confirm it either, as the shot of Furiosa’s face was too brief for me to draw definitive conclusions. However, the film is now out on video. I got my digital copy and took a photo with my phone, allowing me to bump up the brightness.
Now, there is no doubt about it: Theron indeed reprises her role as Furiosa for a few seconds in the pre-credit tag scene! This is fitting, given that the sequence plays like a scene right out of Fury Road. In fact, the first time I saw it, I wondered if it was repurposed from Fury, only to realize later that it never actually appeared in that film.*
*This means the scene is either a new scene filmed specifically for Furiosa or perhaps deleted footage from Fury Road that only now has been unveiled. I am inclined to think it’s the former, given that the 5 Wives here are really only shown from the back and are obscured with hoods, indicating that they are played by stand-ins rather than the original actresses. (The one exception might be Riley Keough, who turns to the camera briefly, though I’m not sure it’s her.)
EDIT: According to storyboard artist Mark Sexton, this was indeed a deleted scene from Fury Road. A version of this scene even appeared in a 2002 script draft for Fury.
What’s interesting is that, for all the writing that has appeared about the film during its brief theatrical window, nobody discovered this cameo. Perhaps, this is due to the fact that Theron remains ultimately uncredited, in contrast to Tom Hardy’s Fury Road stand-in Jacob Tomuri, who shows up in one scene as the Mad Max.
In any case, I feel quite happy to have called this secret cameo way back in May. So, don’t believe anyone who claims that Theron only appears in the end credit sequence!*
*Speaking of the credits, I really didn’t like the Fury Road insert shots. They are not only unnecessary, but also give away too much of the original film’s plot, diminishing the experience of unfamiliar viewers. Here’s hoping we someday get a version with these cut.
But what about you?Would you like to see a longer cut of Furiosa?
Do you also think the plot point of her promotion to Praetorian was strangely glossed over? Do you think the new movie enhances or diminishes Fury Road? What’s your take on the film’s VFX and the use of AI? And did you notice the Theron Cameo? Please,
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While I could care less about this universe, I admire your passion and perception of it and all films. I learn so much from your insight, musings, and research.
I've read the FURIOSA script, which is a really wild mix of artwork and prose, and none of the things you speculate about were in the script. Miller always intended for there to be a five year jump forward, and there was no material about her becoming an Imperator at the end of the film.