Crow Fishers are a tribe of stilt walking humans inhabiting The Green Place.
Crow Fishers walking through the remains of The Green Place
Appearances on screen
Crow Fishers or Sky Fisherman, unofficially called 'Bog Walkers' or 'Stilt Walkers' are a mysterious group of people seen walking across the bog in what eventually turned out to be the abandoned Green Place. The presence of said entities is not explained in the movie in any way and their time on screen is very short, but long enough to baffle the main heroes of the movie and audiences alike.
Character creation
1999 electro-board story outline mentioning the Crow Fishers aka 'Stiltsons'
The concept of stilt walking people in the night bog was present in the original drafts of Mad Max: Fury Road, the earliest dating back to 1999 electro-board story outline. In that brief outline the scene with the Crow Fishers was simply described as 'Crows'. They were supposed to be 'sky fishing'. Their presence in the movie was way more prominent in early drafts, but unfortunately their time on screen was reduced to bare minimum in the final cut. Early reports from test screenings mentioned, however that there were scenes of the Crow Fishers seen hunting for crows with help of kites and fishing nets, so there definitely are more scenes filmed with them.
Backstory
Crow Fisher close up
While the presence of Crow Fishers is not explained by the movie in any way at all, George Miller finally explained in November 2015 issue of Empire Magazine Australasia[1] that:
| “ | They are the Vuvalini who stayed behind | ” |
– George Miller | ||
Miller added:
| “ | As the Green Place became a toxic quagmire, the most efficient way to get across it was on stilts from tree to tree. Their clothes are made of crow feathers and netting. | ” |
– George Miller | ||
According to production designer - Colin Gibson, the Crow Fishers are a remnant of the Vuvalini system. In order to keep the matriarchy safe, the Vuvalini would banish the boy-children to the outer swamps of The Green Place. When boys reached puberty they would be visited by the Vuvalini only for sperm milking and the odd ritual of family. As such they survived by stilt-walking the ooze and fishing for crows on the muddy mangroves between The Green Place and the desert.[2]
Trivia
- A couple of backstories tied Crow Fishers to The Roto-Raiders, a tribe of people flying on strange single rotor machines present in early drafts of the script.[3].