Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome installments of the "Mad Max" series, "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" has influenced popular culture in various regards. The term "thunderdome" is now used in various contexts in which its meaning is similar to the sense in which it appears in the film. That is, a contest where the loser suffers a great hardship, though it has also come to mean, more generically, the state of the world following a nuclear apocalypse, or any place where chaos is the norm. Filmmaker Chris Weitz has cited the film as an influence. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (also known as
Mad Max: Fury Road before". These elements contrast this film with the male-centered hero in the previous Mad Max films. According to Mandalita De Barco of NPR, Theron's character, "Furiosa has a shaved head and a fierce leather outfit. And with a mechanical arm she jerry-rigged from salvaged tools, Furiosa is a sharpshooting powerhouse who can also handle an 18-wheel war rig charging through the desert." She is "a female road warrior." Throughout the film, Furiosa "is a character exactly equal to Max." Director Miller describes Furiosa and Max as "protagonist/antagonist". Kyle Smith of the "New York Post" said that the title character, Mad