“ | This ain't onebody's story, it's the story of us all; we got it mouth-to-mouth, so you got to listen it, and 'member, 'cause what you hears today you gotta tell the birthed tomorrow. | ” |
– Savannah Nix |
Savannah Nix is the "Alpha Female" leader of a group of forgotten youths known as The Lost Tribe. She is portrayed by Helen Buday in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
Biography[]
Savannah knows little of the pre-apocalyptic world. What she does know was passed to her in oral tradition and represents a child's point of view. As an elder and leader of a Lost Tribe of children, she listens to her fellow tribesman Slake tell the story each night of how the tribe came to be in their oasis home.
One day while foraging she finds Max Rockatansky, near death after his exile from Bartertown. Believing that he is the prophesied airplane pilot, Captain Walker mentioned in the The Tribe's stories, she takes him back to the oasis. Max disappoints the tribe, saying that he is not their hero and that the civilised world, the mythologised Tomorrow-Morrow Land, of their stories no longer exists.
However, despite Max's hard truths, Savannah remains sceptical of his assertions, and determined to find what lies beyond the oasis, she leaves with several members of the tribe. Max determines to follow them, correctly assuming that they will soon be in serious danger. The children quickly encounter the environmental harshness of the wastelands. But as they fight to survive a pit of quicksand, "Captain Walker" in the form of Max Rockatansky, appears to save the day and hauls them from the sandy death-trap.
At this point the group is closer to Bartertown than they are the oasis. Max decides that they are probably best of seeking shelter in Bartertown, but as he's been previously banished from the town they sneak in via a sewer, coming up in the underworld dungeons where they find the Master being tortured into submission by Auntie Entity and her guards. Max, with Savannah and the others' help, suddenly decides to rescue Master, perhaps to spite the plans of his former tormentors, or perhaps spontaneously deciding that he is the master-mind they need to secure their freedom and help re-establish civilization, to create the Tomorrow-Morrow Land of the children's dreams.
Savannah and few of the Tribe who left survive the ensuing chase, with Max's help, and escape the wasteland along with the Master, due to the unexpected assistance of Jedediah the pilot and his son. Finally, the group does get to 'skyraft' as they call flying. They go on to establish a new tribe in the ruins of Sydney, with Savannah continuing the nightly "tells." In this iteration of the Max story, Savannah is finally revealed as the narrator.