Mad Max: Fury Road

Because they live in one! Have you seen their wildlife?!

 

I really enjoyed Mad Max: Fury Road, but the plot is idiotic, all of the characters are underdeveloped, Charlize Theron is asexual in the movie (which is a waste of her stunning beauty!), and the movie isn't as good as the first 2 Mad Max movies.

That is pretty funny. The closest scares that I have had with Australia's wildlife were:

1. When I was a kid sitting on some concrete pipes in an undeveloped plot of land in Adelaide (or was it a playground? I can't remember), a friend shouted to me "LOOK OUT!". I looked down and saw a big redback spider stationary about 2 or 3 inches away from my hand (that was resting on the concrete pipe). If that spider had bitten me, I could have died if I didn't receive anti-venom from hospital in time.

2. One day when I was at university, I decided to take a stroll around the university grounds. I walked about only 60 yards away from the university grounds, where I was checking out some natural scrubland. I suddenly heard a noise coming from directly behind me. I wheeled around, only to see a brown snake that had snuck up to about 60 or 90 feet behind me (it had followed my scent trail and obviously realized that I was not suitable prey for it to attack) bolting directly away from me as fast as it could wriggle. If that snake had bitten me, I could have died if I didn't receive anti-venom from hospital in time.

3. One hot summer day when I was walking along the bitumen footpath on the way from the train station through paddocks to university, I heard and then saw a black snake hissing in the dry, tall grass about only 1 yard away from the footpath that I was walking on. That made me jump.

4. When I was very young, my brother and I were playing in the backyard of our house in a country town. We discovered a black snake in our backyard. I went inside the house and told my mother. She came outside with a shovel in her hands and beat that snake to death!

To be honest, I would be MUCH more scared living in America! The things that scare the bejesus out of me in America are:
1. Citizens can legally walk around wielding guns, and they're not afraid to use them.
2. Cougars ambush people walking in woods.
3. Grizzly bears and black bears can outrun people in the wild.
4. If you get bitten by a rattle snake, then you can die if you don't receive anti-venom from hospital in time.

I'm quite partial to the French Black & White post-apocalyptic movie The Last Battle that was released in 1983:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085426/

 

Gazra- here in America our Black Widow Spiders- closely related to your Red Back, I believe- are not quite as venomous. Usually you would be in a "world of hurt" and severe pain without anti-venom, but not die, unless you were a child or elderly.

Same thing with Rattlesnakes, expect they don't actually hurt as bad as the spider.

People CAN carry guns, but usually don't. 99% of the time if you see a gun, it's on a cop. Or a hunter with a rifle. And they use them for hunting game, not people. There are gangs, yes, but I would assume there are those in every major city in the world.


Black bears, cougars, and Grizzlies normally want nothing to do with you, unless you provoke them or come too close to their young. Sometimes this does happen accidentally. But the main reason you would not have to worry about those is, they are exceedingly rare and you would KNOW that you are in a area where they are. We actually mark that kind of thing or you would have to be deep, deep into the woods, in which case you would probably have the aforementioned hunter's rifles.

I stand by my assessment of your deadly- bring about the apocalypse- land. Case in point: irukandji jellyfish- tiniest thing and so deadly. And apparently everywhere! I will stay in my safe America

 

I just wanted to reiterate on the gun carrying myth that is believed by many folks that don't call America home. We can and do carry concealed weapons, but only after going through a very in depth back ground check and graduating a concealed weapon course, unless you're prior military.

The law is very clear on when and under what circumstance a person can draw and fire their weapon.

Unfortunately most of what is seen on TV and the news is completely one sided and geared toward creating the fear felt by many who do not know of the strict regulations governing the carrying of a weapon and the use of deadly force.

 

I always thought Guy Pearce was an excellent actor. He did a good job in one the "The Time Machine" movies. I will check it out and I, personally, am not a Twilight hater, so if a person can act, hooray, it makes for a better movie!

 

I forgot to mention that the movie Mad Max: Fury Road has exciting nonstop action from start to finish.

The only reason why people don't die from bites from redback spiders any more is because they receive antivenom.

I'm glad that I don't live in Sydney because funnel web spiders truly are the stuff of nightmares!

I watched an episode of the superb documentary series I Shouldn't Be Alive in which an American man stuck his hand into a pile of rocks in a desert, where he was promptly bitten by a rattle snake. He walked back to a house, where he collapsed on the floor and spend the next few days drifitng in and out of consciousness as his body was slowly disintegrating from the rattle snake venom. He was lucky that somebody found him in time, whereupon he received anti-venom which allowed him to make a full recovery.

I think that it was in an episode of the series I Shouldn't Be Alive that I learned that an American man was walking in the woods when a mountain lion leaped on him from behind and mauled him. The guy managed to fight off the mountain lion, but he was badly injured and only just managed to make it back to safety.

I watched a documentary many years ago where American police detectives were trying to figure out how a woman (who was driving over a bridge) was shot dead by a bullet that entered the rear of her head at an angle. The detectives eventually determined that a fisherman (who was in his boat on the river) had accidentally discharged his gun, and the bullet ricocheted off the flat river water and struck the woman in her car by a fluke!

After watching Michael Moore's superb documentary Bowling for Columbine, which stated that over 9000 people are murdered by guns in America every year (which is a horrifying statistic!), I wouldn't feel safe walking around the streets of America.

I saw on the news that a young Australian guy (who had been drafted into an American baseball team) was jogging along the sidewalk in an American city when some young black guys drove by in a car and shot him dead for a laugh because they were bored.

An American gun instructor died when he was shot by a 9 year old girl who lost control of the submachine gun that she was firing at a firing range. The madness has to stop!

It is pretty disgusting that American politicians don't change America's gun laws after all of the shooting massacres at American schools. The shooting massacre where some psycho shot a lot of 4 or 5 year old children dead at a school was the lowest point in human history!

The way that American hero Chris Kyle died pretty much sums up the problem with America's gun laws. Abraham Lincoln (the greatest politician in world history!) suffered the same cruel fate.

I was impressed with Guy Pearce's performances in the movies The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Time Machine. Thank you for recommending The Rover - I'll have to check that movie out.

My favourite American post-apocalyptic movie (that doesn't involve zombies or apes or aliens or time travel) is the 1985 movie Def-Con 4:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087130/

It's possible that China could start World War 3 over a dispute over possession of islands in the South China Sea with neighbouring countries Japan, etc. China continues to construct artificial land masses in the South China Sea, including runways.

I feel the same fear now about China as I did about Russia during the Cold War when I was young. I hope that you have your nuclear fallout bunker ready.

 

The only issue I have with anything you said Gaz, is the Michael Moore thing. Yes it was a great "Documentary" but he is an extremist- skewing the facts to serve his agenda.

And there are plenty on the far right, too, doing the same.

Chris Kyle would have argued with you about the gun control, you know? He was at a range teaching the idiot who killed him.

That whole 2nd amendment thing here in the U.S. we take seriously. The right to bear arms.

Many amendments to our Constitution have been overturned with other amendments, but I really don't see that one ever being touched.

As one saying goes " A government that doesn't understand the right of the populace to bear arms is the reason that the populace needs to bear arms" :mrhappy: