What the thread title says. USA is going to show the first 10 minutes of the new Dawn of the Dead remake tonight–unedited and uncut–during Final Destination, which airs from 8-10:30 PM ET. Supposedly, the clip will show at 10, but I’m taking no chances, I’m watching the whole thing.
So fire up the Tivo or the VCR and watch flesh-eating zombie mayhem run amok!
I will be checking it out tonight also.
I find myself awaiting this film opening with both anticipation and trepidation. I am a huge fan of Romero’s zombie films and want to see a modern version of my favorite in the series - Dawn of the Dead. Yet, I am really worried that it’ll get a slick MTV music video treatment and really split from the theme of the original movie.
I commented in a previous thread about DotD remake that they’ve already committed cardinal sin # 1: No George Romero based zombie story shall take place in any geographic location other than Western Pennsylvania, specifically Pittsburgh. Zombies in Wisconson? C’mon now… Wisconsin is already full of zombies in real life. 
MeanJoe - Who grew up 1/2 mile from the Monroeville Mall, the shooting location for the original Dawn of the Dead and spent many a days in his youth ice skating, getting hot dogs at the Pup-A-Go-Go, and playing video games in the arcade. I remember after the original movie came out, walking through the mall with my friends and pointing out the spot where Roger was buried in the movie. Ah, youth!
MeanJoe
But there are no zombies in Ohio because no one there has a brain worth eating.
yes, i know the romero zombies don’t eat brains
Right, those are Dan O’Bannon zombies…
Everybody’s TiVo had a little yellow star message about the uncut first 10 minutes during FD. However, I’ll bet they cheat and show ten 1 minute clips through out the whole movie!
Ha! Gotcha!!!
(Yeah, I’ll probably watch the whole thing too.)
A bump for stragglers. If we have to watch Final Destination in order to catch the DotD clip, couldn’t USA have inserted a nude scene with Seann William Scott?
I’m watching Final Destination right now. Good thing I like Devon Sawa so this isn’t so bad. I’m just getting a little impatient for the zombies.
I have a bad feeling about the new DOTD but I’ll most likely see it anyway because I’ve got a thing for zombie flicks. I’ve got the original Night and Day, but I haven’t been able to find Dawn. Makes me sad.
Dawn was just re-released on DVD last week, Best Buy had it for 11.99 when I bought mine last Wednesday. It is wide-screen, new commentary with Romero and Savini, and a few other minor do-dads. It is a pretty good re-master to boot! Supposedly, there will be an additional “special edition” released around September with both versions of the movie (theatrical & directors), deleted scenes, etc.
Reading this, I got a little excited because I had about 45 minutes before it aired.
Then I realized I live in TX, so 10:00 the poster’s time probably meant 9:00 my time, so I’ve already missed it.
So, who saw it, and what do you think?
I’d have to watch the original to see if this is anything like it, but from the looks of things, it seems like what happened during the 28 days leading up to 28 Days Later, only this looks like a shitty Hollywood zombie movie.
It was AWESOME! It starts out great, with Sarah Polley as a nurse coming off her shift and totally missing the significance of a bite victim in ICU. . .
Damn, that was great! I am SO there on Friday!
In spite of my reservations I have to admit this looked very cool.
Interesting that the dead change very quickly and are much stronger and more mobile than in the original. I liked the initial “hints” of incidents occuring but there is no connection: bite victim in ICU, ambulance racing off on a call after a drop-off with a clearly exhausted EMT saying “it is starting early…” or some such thing, etc.
I’m gonna be there Friday for certain.
MeanJoe
Oh, so they ARE faster changing and more mobile than the original? Thanks for confirming my suspicions. I’ll just sit at home and watch 28 Days Later on Friday. 
Well I’ll be having the zombie apocolypse nightmare tonight. That’s for damn sure.
I’ll also be seeing this movie in the theater just to torture myself a little bit more. Not to mention now that I know the original DOTD is out on DVD I’ll be buying that.
Zombies galore!
clears throat
They’re coming to get you Otto…
MeanJoe
Well, I just saw it. Have to admit, that was pretty damned effective, showing the characters having their last normal day before the world turns into a nightmare. Apparently the process of rising as a zombie has become very rapid; The nurse’s husband must have risen seconds after his heart stopped beating from loss of blood. It would have been nice if they could have shown her neighbor getting up shortly after being hit by the ambulance.
And also, the newly-risen zombies are far faster and stronger than in the earlier movies. Logically, that would mean things would break down far more rapidly than in the original movie; a much greater loss of life – and increase in zombie population – on the first day. I’ve always thought the Romero zombie scenario was fairly survivable, if one could keep from giving in to shock; with these frisky zombies, I don’t know.
I hope they try to capture what made the Romero movies true horror, not action-thrillers.
I thought it was pretty good. But, I’m going to have wait to hear if the flick is at least as gory as the original before I see it. Zombie flicks need buckets of gore, dammit!
The remake can’t possibly be as gross as the original. The original was released unrated. The remake won’t be. They might go as far as an NC-17, though.
I, too, had misgivings about the interval between time of clinical death and reactivation as a zombie. The original made much more sense, in my opinion.
Not sure about “stronger.” The originals were no stronger than ordinary people, although much slower.
What chilled me wasn’t the zombies. What chilled me was the overview of the countryside, as our heroine drove through it… as we pull back to reveal an aerial view of the entire suburb… occasional houses aflame… plumes of smoke here and there in the distance… a car roars through an intersection, bounces off a truck, spins out, while the truck ploughs into a building and explodes, almost as an afterthought…
…a total overview of What’s Happening In This Ugly New World, all in one scene, in a few seconds. Yup, civilization’s screwed, boys and girls. Watch the hell out…
Yeah, maybe it’s reminiscent of 28 Days Later, but the first ten minutes are creepy as all hell. Yeah, I’ll go see it on Friday.
The only thing I didn’t like was where they inserted it… RIGHT after the climax of Final Destination, but before the postclimactic playout and end credits. What the hell was all that about?
Actually, even though I liked the sneak-peak tonight on USA, I am starting to mentally form another significant reservation to this remake. Even though I just posted about the quicker conversion and stronger/faster elements ala 28 Days Later as being cool, the Romero lover in me is starting to protest this change.
For me, the key thing about zombies that make them so frightening is the menace of a slow moving, closing threat. It is almost a claustrophobic fear, as we’ve seen in each Romero movie - the zombies get closer and closer and increase exponentially in numbers until the (presumed) end result is that there is no longer any place to escape. Even the original DotD leaves us wondering how much longer will they survive. They escaped the mall but where can they go? One can only hold out for so long against overwhelming numbers. Was that to be their last civilized refuge before they too inevitably succumb? In addition, the slow-moving zombie, at least superficially, gives the impression that you can escape/evade them. In NotLD, to paraphrase, a line is mentioned that “we can make it, just run right past them…” Of course, with significant time the zombie population will exceed any avenue of escape but at least initially there is some hope of survival. It is truly a slow, suffocating threat.
Anyway, I think I am going to have to work to detach my affinity to the Romero movies and take this movie much as I did 28 Days Later - that is, as a reinterpretation of the genre. Else, I think I’m going to go into it expecting the worse and likely taint my viewing.
Mm… “reinterpretation” is probably a good word to use, here.
The whole point of the first NOTLD – the original, AND the remake – was that the dead were slow, stupid… but relentless. And numerous. But with some brains, teamwork, and modern technology, the people in the house could have beat them.
They failed. They couldn’t pull it together. They did not hang together, and therefore all hung separately. Ultimately, the message was this: “The enemy was us, all along.” The original and the remake both handled this differently and interestingly, and the remake is well worth watching, although the original’s black and white desperation is better, I think.
*Dawn Of The Dead * – the original – also plays with this theme pretty heavily. The survivors in the mall DO pull together, and successfully reclaim an entire shopping mall from the zombies…
…whereupon they have a fine, consumerist vacation, taking whatever they like… until they become bored… and worse, succumb to ennui. Their lives have no direction or purpose any more. All the “stuff” in the world isn’t enough. It’s almost a relief when the bikers attack… which brings us back to the fact that the living are far more dangerous than the dead. The enemy is us, all right, all over again. But so is success. And consumerism. And materialism, and the idea that if we just have enough stuff, and we’re safe, everything will be peachy.
It was a good movie.
This remake, on the other hand, doesn’t carry the baggage of the original. It’s not intended as a sequel to anything (although it could be considered a sequel to the 1990 NOTLD remake, and I understand some of the stars of the original DOTD have cameos).
We know that the “zombies” are now as fast and strong as normal humans, and with all the mindless, aggressive hunger (and immunity to pain) that their slower predecessors had. Plainly, these critters are going to be MUCH more dangerous. And they still have the same advantage as the old ones: one bite from a corpse equals a death sentence. Eesh!
So… is this going to work? Are the underlying themes going to come together? Or is this going to be a slightly faster-paced, better-budgeted, more American-flavored version of one of the swarm of gawdawful Italian zombie gutmunchers?
No tellin’, yet. But even if it bites (pun purely intentional), we’ll always have Romero’s originals. And I understand he’s working on a fourth one, even as we speak… and if this is true, and if this remake is successful, then certainly he won’t want for funding…