Tear Jerker / Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

• Dr Dealgood's preamble to the Thunderdome fight goes from being darkly funny to sad within a single sentence. Here is a stylish master of ceremonies for a barbaric bloodsport, delivering a rousing speech that's laden with poignancy at the same time.
  "Listen on! This is the truth of it. Fighting leads to killing, and killing gets to warring. And that was damn near the death of us all. Look at us now! Busted up, and everyone talking about hard rain! But we've learned, by the dust of them all! Bartertown learned. Now, when men get to fighting, it happens here! And it finishes here! Two men enter; one man leaves."
• The death of Little Finn in the sinkhole, with Savannah screaming and sobbing, "Oh, NO! NO!"
• Savannah Nix's end speech.
  And we lights the city, not just for him, but for all of them that are still out there. 'Cause we knows there come a night, when they sees the distant light, and they'll be comin' home.
  • Immediately following that speech is a Dedication that reads, "...for Byron".
• Related to the above, the scene where Max plows into Aunty's convoy to allow Jedediah's plane to escape. This is particularly poignant thanks to the music, and driven home by Master's sad expression as he salutes him, alongside the looks from Jed and the rest.
• The death of Blaster. Despite being a power-hungry slavedriver, Master's affection for Blaster was genuine. In addition, Blaster had little understanding about what was going on around him, and Master apologizes to him for getting him involved.
  Master: No, no! Look at his face! He's got the mind of a child. It's not his fault. (to Blaster) Blaster, I'm sorry.
• The kids were more or less abandoned by the adults. It's even implied that they were lied to when they were told the adults would return.
  Savannah. And from the Nothing they looked back. And Captain Walker hollered, "Wait, one of us will come."
  Children. Wait! One of us will come!
  • Depends on the reason for leaving. The stated excuse is that the adults missed all their pre-apocalypse amenities, but given the nature of the plane's crash and a one-off line early in the film, the parents may have been irradiated.
  • The adults didn't just miss high-tech civilization, they wanted their kids to have its advantages and a chance at a better life.
  • All the adults didn't leave, either. Some of them stayed behind to take care of the kids but died off, as evidenced by the human bones the kids keep in their shrines.
• Two deleted scenes involved Max comforting a dying Ghekko while facing Bartertown and telling him that they have reached Tomorrowmorrow Land, and another involved Max dreaming of his late wife Jessie and crying. The former scene was shown in the music video for "We Don't Need Another Hero" while both are shown in the novelization.
• When the Novelization diverges from the film, it's mostly in an Adaptational Angst Upgrade manner.
  • Over the years, three groups of children from the oasis tribe went out into the desert looking for Captain Walker. None of them came back, and one of them was Slake's mother.
  • In the film, Pig Killer says that he killed a pig (which got him condemned to hard labor) to feed his kids. In the book he says he was "trying" to feed his family, implying that he didn't get the meat to them and his ordeal was All for Nothing.
  • Aunty Entity has some We Used to Be Friends reflections about Master, recalling how they built Bartertown together before his ego and growing hedonism became a threat to everything she built.
  • Little Finn is explicitly identified as Savannah's son, causing her to be even more distraught when he dies after following her into the desert.
  • Gekko is Anna's boyfriend, which is what motivates her to go into the desert after Savannah's group. He dies anyway from exposure to the elements, to her grief.
  • The Collector (who is characterized as having Undying Loyalty to Aunty Entity) is crushed by a burning building after the methane plant explodes and dies as his leader cradles him.
  • Aunty Entity's pursuit of Master is more distraught and desperate, and it's explicitly said that she won't be able to rebuild Bartertown without him (while the film hints she might have a chance). Watching him escape spells doom for the settlement that, Vice City or not, was still a piece of civilization that she's built. She also wonders if Max's triumph over her is because he was able to follow the spirit of the rules that she wrote better than she could, and then leaves with her army, hoping that they can start over somewhere else.