Trivia: The logo on the tank truck is "7 Sisters Oil", reference to a conspiracy theory, popular before OPEC-conspiracy theories took over, that Standard Oil and six other companies controlled the world oil market and bought up and suppressed 200-MPG carburetor and so on to keep oil prices up. Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(oil_companies)
Trivia: You might have to look close, but the Gyro Captain's copter is completely covered with pornographic pictures. It took many viewings for me to notice this. Apparently he's very sexually motivated, as later in the movie he complains that the only thing he really misses from the old world is lingerie, and the only reason he joins the escapees in the end is because he wants to be with the cute blond girl.
Trivia: One of the more spectacular stunts in the film was a terrible accident. When one of the raiders is on a motorcycle, he hits a car, flies off the bike, hits his legs on the car and starts cartwheeling through the air. This was a real accident, the intended stunt was to just have the stunt man fly over the top the car without hitting it. Instead the stuntman hit his legs on it, but it just looked so spectacular that they kept it in the movie. The stuntman broke his leg badly, but survived.
Trivia: Because he was relatively unknown in the United States, Mel Gibson wasn't featured in the film's trailers.
Trivia: In the 1990s, the title was taken by WWF tag team the Legion of Doom as another name for their team; the pair also modeled their trademark spiked shoulderpads after the film.
Trivia: When The Humungous opens his gun case, you can see a skull and crossbones insignia that looks just like a Nazi "Totenkopf" badge that SS soldiers wore on their cap. There's also a photo in the case that appears to be a family picture, with the father in a Nazi outfit (perhaps Humungous' father, or even he himself).
Trivia: It was renamed "The Road Warrior" for North American distribution because "Mad Max" had been released on a limited basis, and calling it "Mad Max 2" would have confused moviegoers.
Trivia: For some reason the filmmakers thought it would be fitting for Max to have a dog. They "interviewed" over a hundred dogs, and were not satisfied by any of them, so they scrapped the idea. Just by chance, the director was at a friend's farm and met the dog who's in the movie, the dog was so intelligent and willing to follow commands he just had to have him. Unfortunately, on the first day of shooting the dog started behaving very strangely and wouldn't listen to commands. They almost scrapped the dog idea again, until one of the crewmen found out that the sound of roaring engines was what was bothering the dog. They plugged his ears with cotton, which you can see if you look close in some shots, and the dog began behaving again.
Trivia: Early on in the writing process, a twist was planned that would have revealed that The Humungus was actually Max's old friend and partner Jim Goose from the original film. Eventually, director/co-writer George Miller decided to drop this twist from the film, but also decided to leave some subtle hints suggesting that they might be the same person. (Including the fact that The Humungus' face appears to be burned beneath his mask, mirroring how Goose was burned alive, and the fact that his gang seems to be using old, modified police equipment, which would make sense as Goose was an officer).
Trivia: After Mad Max the interceptor was sold, thinking the film would not be a hit. After its worldwide success the film company had to buy it back for Mad Max 2 and convert it to the road warrior car - they only had one driving car for the film, and used a body shell for the crash and explosion scene.
Trivia: Mel Gibson only has 16 lines of dialogue in the entire film.
Trivia: The 7 sisters sign on the side of the oil tanker is a term used until the 70s to refer to the 7 members of the oil cartel which dominated production until it shifted to OPEC. They were the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP), Gulf Oil (now Chevron), Royal Dutch Shell, Standard Oil Company of California (now Chevron), Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (now ExxonMobil), Standard Oil Company of New York (now ExxonMobil), and Texaco (now Chevron).
Trivia: After Max reloads his gun, the gyro captain asks "How do I know that one's not a dud" to which Max responds "Let's find out." As they walk to the Gyro-copter and the captain is ranting on, Mel Gibson tries to holster his shotgun but fails. He quickly tries again with no luck and finally gives up and just carries the gun in frustration.
Answer: Maybe the Judeo-Christian bible "The meek shall inherit the earth" (Matt 5:5). Not much of a stretch that someone in that environment would change meek to vermin.
Nikki