"I need peace. To find peace I must reach the Plains of Silence. To reach them I need a machine as good as the Black on Black... or better."
Max Rockatansky (aka "Mad Max", "The Road Warrior" and "Raggedy Man") is the titular protagonist of the Mad Max series.
Description[ | ]
"Max, a loner, on the run from himself and his past.
Somewhere in the death throes of human civilization, he lost his family to senseless violence. Ever since, he has been moving. Living day to day, just surviving, while a cacophony of distorted memories, sounds and visions haunt him.
Max would have stopped long ago, stopped fighting, stopped breathing but his body will not allow him to rest. His survival training is part of muscle memory now. His confused mind has constructed a mythical place which he refers to as the Plains of Silence. There he is convinced he will find peace, an extinguishing of the anguish, and a silencing of the voices of past ghosts.
Max clings to his old car, the Interceptor, or "Black on Black". It is an extension of him, essential to survive the Wasteland. When the Interceptor is taken, everything changes but as always Max keeps moving and finds a way to survive."
Film Description[ | ]
Max Rockatansky (known by his nickname Mad Max, and sometimes referred to as The Road Warrior, Raggedy Man and The Man with No Name) is a title character and the protagonist of the Mad Max franchise. He appears in the films Mad Max, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Max was created by director George Miller and producer Byron Kennedy, and was played by actor Mel Gibson. In the 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road, Mad Max was played by Tom Hardy.
Max's family, Sprog Rockatansky and Jessie Rockatansky, were murdered by marauders.
Physical Appearance from history[ | ]
Max Rockatansky is a 5ft 9 ½ (176.5 cm), Caucasian male, with a strong and lean build. In Mad Max, he is 23 years old in the year 1997; in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, he is 26 years old in the year 1999; and in Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome, he is 40 years old in the year 2014; and in Mad Max: Fury Road, his age is retconed to 36 even though the film takes place 46 years after Beyond Thunderdome in the year of 2060.
In the first film, he wore his leather patrol uniform, which eventually started to wear out from being in the wasteland for the past 15 years and it became his protective armor. In the third film, his hair is past his shoulders and has a blond patch over one temple, and all his clothes are mismatched.
Equipment[ | ]
During the first two films, Max makes use of a "Pursuit Special", though he drives a different vehicle (an MFP Interceptor) earlier in the first film. Between the second and third films, after the destruction of the Pursuit Special, Max acquires a camel-drawn wagon. In the third film, Max makes use of a heavily modified Ford F-150, which is later taken by Aunty's men, and which he uses in the climactic scene to help the children escape.
He is clad in black leather riding clothes which consist of a heavy duty jacket (after the events of the first film, he cuts off the right sleeve and added a football shoulder pad), trousers, gloves and engineer boots. In Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, his clothes show signs of damage and repairs. He wears a cowboy boot in his left foot, an engineer boot with patched sole in the other foot and doesn't wear gloves, at the beginning of the movie he dons a turban and cloak to shield himself from desert sandstorms and also wears a black cotton tunic with long sleeves under his jacket. All of this clothing gives him basic protection against light melee weapons and threats.
Max is armed with a Smith & Wesson Model 28 revolver (which he never uses, or even draws) during his time with the Main Force Patrol, though after the deaths of Jesse and Sprog, he favours a sawed-off Savage/Stevens 311A shotgun. In Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, he wears a Sam Browne leather belt with shoulder strap, he carries a crescent wrench, a British Army knife, a lockpick, fire brigade tools, Binoculars, his aforementioned sawed-off shotgun and a Mark II combat knife in one of his boots. He gains several more weapons during the course of his time in the wasteland until they are confiscated upon his arrival in Bartertown.
In the third film, Max wears two belts. One of them has ammunition shoulder straps attached to it and is an old British police belt. Hanging below the British belt is another belt with a pocket and bullet loops and is connected to a black leather holster. He is shown to have a plethora of weapons and some tools hidden on his person, including his shotgun, a Mauser C96, a Webley revolver, a Smith & Wesson Model 29 revolver, a crossbow, a collection of knives, and a geiger counter all of which are confiscated. He has one hidden weapon, referred to in the novelization as his "Livesaver", being a small knife carefully concealed in the handle of a flyswatter. He also carries a naval bosun whistle, which he later uses in his fight with Blaster during the Thunderdome challenge.
Abilities[ | ]
Max's most apparent Skill is combative driving. At the time of Mad Max, he was considered the "top pursuit man" in the MFP. He can easily pursue or evade gangs in the wasteland, whether overrunning another vehicle at high speed or ramming vehicles off the road. This skill is apparent with trucks as well as automobiles. He drives a tractor-trailer truck after sustaining serious injuries in the second film. He can also shoot accurately with one hand while driving with the other.
Max displays fast reflexes in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior by grabbing a snake before it can bite him. This leads Auntie Entity to choose him to kill Master Blaster in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, as he was the only one to survive her "audition".
Max also displays a fair amount of mechanical and electronics ability, performing minor repairs on his own vehicle and rigging it to explode should someone tamper with his fuel tanks.
Rockatansky is a survivalist in the wasteland and can tolerate discomfort and pain in achieving a goal. But unlike many movie protagonists, Max is susceptible to realistic and sometimes permanent injury. His left knee is blown out by a gunshot towards the end of the first film. He walks with a slight limp with the help of a leg brace in the second film. He also wears a bandage on the knee in the third film. An injury to his left eye as a result of the crash of the Pursuit Special in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is evident years later in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.