Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome them, as Max, still alive in the desert, wanders on to places unknown. "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" was the first "Mad Max" film made without producer Byron Kennedy, who was killed in a helicopter crash in 1983 while location scouting for the film. While the film was in development before Kennedy's death, director George Miller was hesitant to continue without his producing partner. "I was reluctant to go ahead," said Miller. "And then there was a sort of need to – let's do something just to get over the shock and grief of all of that." A title card at
Mad Max 2 Max sequel should be: bigger, faster, louder, but definitely not dumber." Film critic Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, praised its "skillful filmmaking," and called it "a film of pure action, of kinetic energy", which is "one of the most relentlessly aggressive movies ever made". While Ebert pointed out that the film does not develop its "vision of a violent future world ... with characters and dialogue", and uses only the "barest possible bones of a plot", he praised its action sequences. Ebert called the climactic chase sequence "unbelievably well-sustained" and states