Mad Max: Fury Road is going down as an instant classic thanks to its amazing special effects, stunt work, talented acting, of course, its many Oscars. But for all its praise, fans haven’t even seen the movie as it was intended; director George Miller said he originally wanted the movie to be in black and white. Now the monochromatic edition, Black & Chrome is coming to certain theaters November 1, but you don’t even have to wait that long—you can watch right now on Amazon.
Miller explained his reasoning for the monochrome film in a Q&A with filmmaker Edgar Wright:
One thing I’ve noticed is that the default position for everyone is to de-saturate post-apocalyptic movies. There’s only two ways to go, make them black and white—the best version of this movie is black and white, but people reserve that for art movies now. The other version is to really go all-out on the color. The usual teal and orange thing? That’s all the colors we had to work with. The desert’s orange and the sky is teal, and we either could de-saturate it, or crank it up, to differentiate the movie. Plus, it can get really tiring watching this dull, de-saturated color, unless you go all the way out and make it black and white.
Previously, a fan took up the task of creating a completely de-saturated version of the film, with minimal sound effects and no dialogue. The video has since been taken down, but you can now stream the official version or buy the Mad Max High Octane Collection on either DVD or Blu-ray on December 6.
If you can’t quite picture the full black and chrome treatment, watch this video that shows the versions side by side.
[h/t Konbini]
October 28, 2016 – 6:30am