Well it is now 12:40am here. Thank you for saving me the time and writing how I feel. 

The first movie is so under rated because people except it to be like Mad Max 2 (after seeing Mad Max 2 lol), however like you said it sets the scene for a world that is beginning to fall apart.

Because it's dumb, cheesy, boring, tonally-inconsistent (it's like they tried to mesh two different movies together and it doesn't work at all) and filled with plot holes (killing Blaster WAS part of the deal, Down Syndrome or no). There's only one chase in the whole movie that we don't get until the end and even when it finally comes, there's no stakes. It's not just what they didn't show, literally everything was dumbed down to appeal to kids, and it completely drags the film down. When you have kids cutting down a pole with a hanging Guard in a Mad Max movie, you know something's wrong. Even the exploding car shot during the chase scene was cheesily dumbed down for kids.

And of course, it was dragged down even further by the ridiculously stupid ending, which was, in and of itself a gaping plot hole. Why the fuck didn't they kill Max after chasing him through the desert and losing many Guards in the process? 

It's not just a bad Mad Max movie, but bad movie, period.

As someone who voted Fury Road, it certainly wasn't because it's the only one I've seen, in fact I grew up with the original trilogy and like them a lot.

I didn't find Max to be window dressing at all in Fury Road, as well as being an active participant in virtually every key sequence, his intervention not only saved Furiosa but led the group to retake the settlement and defeat the villain, instead of fleeing across a salt lake and likely all dying in the middle of nowhere and letting evil ultimately triumph.

The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2) is by far the best.  It's one of the best action movies I've ever seen.  The post apocalyptic world is fully realized.  They did all of these amazing stunts that people don't even try anymore.  There are so many weird and cool characters here.  I just love every aspect of it.  All of the others pale in comparison to the Road Warrior.

However, if I rank the others it would look something like this.

2) Mad Max - The storytelling is great here as is the characterization of Max.  It just didn't have the budget that Mad Max 2 did.  It's psychologically a great movie to watch, but doesn't visually communicate the dystopian world as well because of lack of budget.

3) Beyond Thunderdome - This movie is interesting, but the storytelling here is somewhat disjointed.  When he gets to the "Lost Boys" it kind of feels like I'm now watching a whole new movie unrelated to the first part.  Also the world changed too much in too little span of time.  It's starting to feel kind of like a fantasy world instead of a post apocalyptic version of our world.

4) Fury Road - This movie sucks.  It looks cool, but it's actually pointless.  Also, it feels like a full blown fantasy world now.  They might as well have thrown elves and hobbits into this.  It doesn't feel like a post apocalyptic world at all now.  It feels like Tolkien in the desert.  This movie is a high budget, steaming pile of trash with good action sequences.

Fury Road>>>>>>>>>>>>>Beyond Thunderdome AKA Thunderdick.

Not only is it a bad Mad Max movie, it fails as an action movie. At least I actually cared about what was going on in Fury Road and it knew what it wanted to be.

For those who liked Fury Road

Original Karate Kid or the remake Karate Kid (which really should have been called Wushu Kid)?

The Road Warrior for me. It had just enough action and stakes to thrill me. It's doesn't exactly have the most depth regarding its characters but Max's arch during the movie was pretty good.

I liked Fury Road and if I were to pick the most gorgeous movie along with the best effects out of the 4 then I would pick this one but the plot didn't click with me. The whole thing about reaching the goal and realizing they were wrong just to go back where they came from seemed kinda stupid to me.

Yes. Movies are audiovisual media. Show and don't tell. 

Fury Road is a masterpiece. 

Mad Max 2 is the closest second. 

Now that I've slept on this, I can say more specifically why this movie is trash.  I'm a big believer in Aristotle's method of evaluating drama.  He says there are 6 elements and he ranks them in order of importance.  How well does Fury Road do when evaluating these elements?

1) Plot    X
2) Character   X
3) Theme     X
4) Dialogue    X
5) Music    X
6) Spectacle   DING! DING! DING!!

Fury Road does one thing really well, the least important thing, and tosses out everything else you'd normally want in a movie.  It's the action movie equivalent of a porno.  If a person went into this movie just wanting car chases and explosions, then I can see why they'd be happy.  I went in thinking it was part 4 of an ongoing story about a guy that went crazy because he lost everything he cared about in a post apocalyptic world.  I was extremely unsatisfied with this movie to say the least.