We had ten people collapse with exhaustion, and twelve cars collapsed too." After such an experience, the 90 degrees-plus heat in Bartertown seems almost like paradise to everyone! But out in 146 degrees, you can't do that because you'd last three minutes and you'd be dead. Normally, in a cool temperature, you pad yourself with wet suits and all sorts of things until you're so well protected that you won't get hurt. It's got an effect on the way you pad yourself. The cars were out, working shot after shot, and so were the drivers! It inevitably puts a load that normally wouldn't exist. "The first day we worked there," comments Page, "we had eighteen open vehicles, and the people wore black leather and vinyl uniforms, with most of their skin bare. People lucky enough to stay in the shade of the tents still had to suffer a temperature of 117 degrees. Some days, the temperature was measured at as much as 146 degrees Fahrenheit. The Coober Pedy location was used for most of the car stunts, which were carried out in broad daylight. Any desert that won't even support flies (Australian flies can lay claim to being the world's most pernicious, enduring and aggressive!) is pretty bad!" Of it, Grant Page, stunt coordinator on the film, says, "It is one of the most notoriously desolate places on Earth. According to the Australians, it is the opal capital of the world. Coober Pedy is a mining town located at the edge of the Great Stony Desert. The cast and crew of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome has just returned from five harrowing weeks on location in Coober Pedy. The first day on the Bartertown set is only slightly short of being as crazy as the future it portrays. Yet, sitting in the middle of this desolate quarry, surrounded by over three hundred extras, all dressed in post-apocalyptic clothes, not to mention the numerous goats, chickens, pigs and camels wandering about, it is easy to project oneself into the future, and imagine what life in Max's world might be like. Bartertown sits in the center of the Homebush State Brickworks, the oldest brick factory in Sydney, Australia. This is the world of Max, once known as the Road Warrior.Ĭut back to reality. A future where one lone man becomes the agent of change. A bleak future where a nuclear war has forever changed our civilization. Somewhere in the wastelands on the edge of hope. Although Max fails to perform this task and ultimately ends up bringing about the destruction of Bartertown, Aunty spares Max just before they go their separate ways.(First publication, STARLOG #95, June, 1985 reprinted in SCIENCE FICTION FILMMAKING IN THE 1980s, McFarland, 1995.)ĭateline: Bartertown. After Max enters Aunty’s elevated penthouse palace, Aunty offers to resupply Max if he will kill Blaster, the dim-witted bodyguard of Master, a wily dwarf who controls Bartertown’s makeshift refinery. Intelligent and reasoned, Aunty, who constructed Bartertown out of old-world scraps, is nonetheless capable of absolute ruthlessness when it comes to maintaining her grip on Bartertown and furthering her overarching goal of transforming the apocalyptic landscape back into at least a semblance of its former glory.Īunty takes an immediate liking to Max, who arrives in Bartertown after losing his precious vehicle. Wearing a glossy and over-sized, platinum-blonde wig, a flashy chain-mail dress, and large shoulder pads, Turner, as Aunty Entity, looks like an Amazonian goddess and certainly represents a clear contrast with Max’s trademark leathery imprimatur.Īunty Entity rules over Bartertown, a mine-turned-trading post deeply embedded within the post-apocalyptic area of Australia known as the Wasteland. Turner’s first live appearance in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is certainly memorable. Sure enough, she was the only person we ever asked.” Everyone time we talked about Aunty Entity, as we were writing, we would say: ‘Oh, someone like Tina Turner.’ She was the only person we could think of. In this Mad Max wasteland, anyone who survives, let alone becomes a dominant force, has had to survive a lot of things that would normally diminish a person. I knew where the music came from, where her power came from. “When we made Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, I knew her music like everyone else, but it was her persona that drew me to her, particularly for the role of Aunty Entity. Of Turner’s casting as Aunty Entity and what Turner brought to the character, Miller wrote: Meanwhile, around the time of the album’s release, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome director George Miller was looking for an actress to play Aunty Entity, and Miller was only interested in Turner for the role as Miller and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome co-writer Terry Hayes had developed the character specifically with Turner in mind.Īfter Turner died on May 24, 2023, at the age of eighty-three, Miller penned a poignant remembrance of Turner in the newspaper The Guardian.
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