It is hard to separate nostalgia from any rational opinions I have about this movie, since it came out when I was a randy and uninformed 15 years old. That said it had really interesting characters, a plot which I could follow and I especially liked the village of kids from the crashed plane. It had a Lord of the Flies vibe, but with a counter-narrative to the doom and gloom theme that humans will revert to barbarism, but also not an idealized, utopian vision of what would happen. Even Bartertown had an element of social commentary. It seemed to be offering different versions of how people would organize themselves if we wiped away current civilization and social structures. Which one is better? It does not directly make a judgement, but in some sense Max is fighting for what feel "right" to him in order to redeem himself for not being able to save his family and all the terrible things he has done in the wake of the disaster to survive. Honestly Thunderdome is one of my favorite movies.