Hijack time! Did anyone see the second, less happy ending? If so, could someone spoil that for me?
People who laundry-list the factual inaccuracies in movies generally make my eyes roll, but these two are pretty glaring, now that you’ve pointed them out. My hat is tipped to you, Long Road.
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Okay, again, I don’t understand why this is so hard for people to accept, so maybe someone can fill me in. What is so difficult about the concept that zombies don’t attack/eat other zombies? I mean, if there’s a movie about werewolves ravaging the countryside, and the heroes get caught by a pack of them, would you wonder why the werewolves don’t kill one another? It’s just standard lore, and again, what’s more terrifying? Being attacked by a single zombie, or a swarm of zombies? Imagine Night of the Living Dead if all the zombies sat outside the house and just attacked one another while the non-zombies just sat inside, pulled up some chairs and popcorn and watched. I admit, “the infected” are a bit different from your traditional zombies, but that’s what they are, and I don’t see why so many people have issues with the fact they work together in groups and not alone. For that matter, the kid was the only one that was seen on it’s own in the entire film. There’s always at least two infected hanging out together except for this one scene. I just don’t see what the big deal is.
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It made sense for the story’s sake. What good would it have done for the plot had the officer and Jim been infected at that point in time? I think that little bit was more used to help demonstrate that, although these zombies are still alive, their body’s have gone through enough of a change that, despite rather harsh injury (I first assumed he was vomiting up blood because he was pulling on the chain so hard and damaged his throat), they’re still dangerous and don’t go down easy.
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If the stench permiated the city, you wouldn’t be able to pinpoint any specific location, for the most part. Jim did have a rather serious reaction upon entering the church, which was the only real place bodies were piled up. Miller made a good point about the infected probably dragging off the bodies of the dead for food, and that’s why you never see any carcasses. Note, there were none in the tunnel in all that wreckage, either (although, I do recall there being a few corpses seen here and there at one point, but it may have been in one of the deleted scenes, so…).
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Before Jim tells everyone about the plane, the officer he’s tied up with goes on a looooong spiel about this. The virus did not leave England. The world essentially quarantined it for their own protection. There’s pretty much no way the virus could have gotten off the island unless blood/viral samples were taken, and it doesn’t really seem like that happened. Basically, the British media fed people false information about outbreaks in other countries so noone would try to flee to them, then all transmissions were killed (most likely from Britain’s end) so everyone would think the virus spread and would try to hold up where they were. The rest of the world just went about their business and let England sort itself out. “Rage” never left England.
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I thought that the virus NOT attacking itself was just “normal” virus behavior. Attacking itself would diminish its spread.
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Yes. Odd.
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You just have to forgive plausibility for the sake of getting into the mood of the movie. At that point, we don’t know what happened, and by the time we figure it out, its a completely different movie. So that criticism is kind of monday morning quarterbacking, I think.
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I think you missed some essential information.
I noticed that little soundbite last time I watched it as well, but I don’t think that was said by the kid himself…I recall there being a lot of other background noise in this scene as well, more to highten the tension, and I believe that was just part of it as well. I’ll watch that scene again this afternoon, but to my knowledge, the kid really didn’t do anything but hack and try to bite Jim’s foot.
And someone asked bout the alternate ending, so I’ll go ahead and spoil that for you. In all honesty, it’s more like two endings…after they break out threw the gates, you see the two girls wheeling Jim into a hospital. They try to keep him breathing and alive, but eventually he dies. When asked “What do we do now?”, Selena toughens up, responds “We move on,” and the two girls grab their guns and walk out the hospital down a long corridor towards an unsuspecting future (as the doors close, the screen goes to black, and this would be a prime place to end it). The scene them picks up with Selena in the house, sewing up a bunch of sheets and talking to a rooster, and then everything pretty much happens just like the original ending with the plane and “Hello”. Eh, it’s alright. Lots of people had issues with the fact Jim lived in the original ending, but I didn’t mind…it helped the movie end with a bit of a happier note instead of the traditional “Everyone’s going to die” ending that zombie movies generally have, and I appreciated that.
Also, I’m one of those people who kinda likes the fact that there wasn’t a “Here’s a breakdown of exactly how the virus works” moments in the film. We shouldn’t know exactly what goes on, because the characters don’t know what’s going on. They know that there’s some sort of virus that makes you turn into a moster, if you get bitten or clawed or ingest any blood, you’ll get infected fast, and that if you see one, run…do they really need to know more? And would the average person in this scenario actually know anymore than that? I don’t think they would, so I feel the explaination of how the virus works, as lacking as it was, was just about perfect for the sake of the film.
Spoiler warning.Bear with me as I can’t recall character names. The injured man, rather than drifting in and out of consciousness at a cottage and recovering, is taken to a hospital by the two women. They scavenge for medical supplies while he fades to unconsciousness, and attempt to perform CPR to no avail. He dies. They look at each other, pick up the gun, and walk out of the hospital.
Or, what Elvis said. Rassin’ frassin’ jibber-jabber…
El Elvis Rojo, you don’t seem to want to accept that the movie is imperfect in any way! Hell, I bet even Citizen Kane has its inconsistencies. Are you related to the producers or something? 
No, I admit the movie had it’s inconsistancies. But I’ve always been a big fan of zombie films and find this to be one of the best serious ones produced since Dawn of the Dead. There are a lot of key aspects to zombie films that this movie held to, such as mood. I guess I just have a more active imagination than most that I can push my suspension of disbelief a little farther.
It’s just a lot of nitpicks in movies just take away from the fact that, if you didn’t put those little things in there, the movie wouldn’t have been nearly as good. I mean, what if Jim was walking around a city full of corpses? Sure, it’s creepy, but it doesn’t have nearly the same “WTF is going on here” mentality than watching a man wander around a completely vacant city that’s usually bustling with people. And I don’t know why everyone wants every little thing explained to them, either. I mean, I admit, I think about these things as well and postulate my own ideas, and have my own questions, but that’s half the fun! If everything were explained and force fed to you, there’d be no mystery, and again, that’s one of the key aspects of this genre…the not knowing.
For example, I’m another one of those people that liked the last third of the movie. I liked watching the soldiers get torn apart by the infected, but I didn’t quite understand why that one soldier had no bullets? I mean, these guys were constantly walking around with their guns cocked and loaded and ready for anything…yet he’s just huddled up in a bedroom somewhere. And I still have no explaination as to how Jim knew the trap doors were in the house…but honestly, niether of those really matter, do they?
I admit the movie has its flaws, but I don’t see any of them as being that detrimental or destructive to the impact of the film.
Spoilers about alternate ending:
Just to add the final scene…
The final scene plays out the same, except the man is not with them in the cottage (he’s dead, remember?). The lady and the girl make the signal for the jet flying overhead.
Yeah, I get what you’re saying. And I’m with you as far as how superior the movie is- I think it’s usurped The Ring for me as favorite horror/suspense flick of the past 10 years.
All I wanted to say is, THANK GOD I got some answers DARLINGS!!! You guys really helped helped this gal with what appeared to be a blazing inconsistency… i enjoyed everyone’s responses… thanks for all your insights, now I can finally, err… rest?
It’s not a big deal. It’s simple a fact that it did not make sense unless you invent some sort of out of movie explanation such as genetic alteration. I can understand in the Living Dead movies because they were after human flesh but this one was a bigger stretch since they were out to kill people, not eat them. Again, it’s not a big deal.
It makes more sense if you consider it as a movie mistake. The director of the movie put them that close and then did not use the means of infection he has used two other times in the same movie. Again, it will all make sense if you invent some out of movie explanation for it but based on what happened in the movie, it does not make sense.
I quoted this and was about to give it some analysis but now I realized it’s all out of movie speculation. Anything I say to refute it will have just as little basis in fact. So granted, the zombies dragged off million of people, none of them smelled and the(at least) thousands of zombies practiced proper sanitation so their poop from eating million of people did not stink.
Agreed that the virus was contained in England. The officer is saying “There must be someplace…”. he is not stating this as facts. He is saying what he believes to be the case. All of the comments about Britian cutting its own broadcasts and spreading false reports really have no basis from anything in the movie so there is no point discussing that. I could just as easily say that space aliens put up a shield around Britian to stop people from leaving or radio and tv broadcasts from entering.
How are people saying Jim didn’t smell decay in London? I don’t remember any part of the scene with him saying “Mmmm smells lovely round here!”. I assume that there was a bit of a pong from various corpses in hallways and alleys etc.
As for the chained infected not attacking yer man, for me that drove home the point of them not being totally mindless, made it more chilling. This guy knew that infecting the soldier wasn’t going to get him unchained, would in fact most likely only have the effect of emptying the house. I saw it as him biding his time… Brrr, scary…
I never really understood the point of nitpicking this movie, it’s a fun, bloody, flick. It isn’t the stuff of highbrow analysis, it’s just great craic to watch.
But there was an “in movie” description of genetic alteration…rather simply, people’s eyes. If that’s not enough proof for you right there that the infected go through a physical change as well as mental, what more of an explaination do you need other than a scientist saying “Well, here’s how the virus works…”?
Again, I think there is a “in movie” explaination here. Iteki had a good postulation, but also notice what the infected guy does immediately after the officer leaves he and Jim alone…he plays sympathetic. He gets this “please, it hurts, I’m really not all that bad, help a guy out” look on his face, and Jim almost falls for it. Here’s some proof that, although insanely aggressive, the infected aren’t completely mindless and have some understanding of their surroundings.
Iteki tackled the third comment pretty well here. I admit, I really didn’t think of sanitation, but again…did we really need to see a city full of shit? The empty city shots worked, why the big deal? And again, I don’t remember Jim sitting around commenting on how pleasant the city smelled, so who’s to say it didn’t reek?
Yes, except that, in a real life situation, it’s more probable that the rest of the world would quarantine Britain than it is for aliens to come down and solve the world’s problems for them. And you’re right, there is no real explaination given aside from the officer’s report, and the shot of the plane Jim sees while lying on the ground, or the plane at the end to establish that the virus stuck to England, but again, that’s part of what helps the audience get feel empathetic with the characters in the film…they don’t know, so why should the audience? At the end of the film, you know that the disease didn’t spread and cause this kind of chaos all over the world, so what does it really matter?
Man, just like Miller accused me of trying to make this movie nothing but pristine, it seems too many other people just want it to be crap. Shame, because it’s a damn good film.