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 concept of the hero", stating that this attempt "makes the film joyless", "sappy", and "sentimental". The film's depiction of a post-apocalyptic future was widely copied by other filmmakers and in science fiction novels, to the point that its gritty "junkyard society of the future look...is almost taken for granted in the modern science-fiction action film." "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" says that "Mad Max 2", "with all its comic-strip energy and vividness...is exploitation cinema at its most inventive." Richard Scheib called "Mad Max 2" "one of the few occasions where a sequel makes a dramatic improvement in quality over its