I’m with you. Unless there was a way to get a controlled fire at the back end of the swarm, I’d be against using fire, mainly for the reason that the only line of defense between us and the zombies is a few plates of glass. Shatterproof as they may be, they’d still melt against the preasure of a dozzen burning zombies and there goes our security.
Of course, they could drop enough heavy shit down on the close ones to prevent the glass from getting exposed, but then you just create a stairway for the zombies to get up, so that’s really not a good idea either, I guess.
I am inclined to agree about incendiaries. Blowing stuff up really strikes me as a baaad idea, particularly considering the lack of safeties inherent in homemade explosives. Depending on what you’re working with, you can blast yourself to confetti even when you know what you’re doing.
One thing I wondered about in BOTH versions was why they didn’t do something about those windows. If there was nothing but clear glass or plastic between me and a seething horde of howling zombies, I’d get a case of spray paint and hose down the freakin’ windows. If the zombies can’t see me, they’ll eventually get tired of pounding on the windows, and this strikes me as a good thing.
I’d probably want to leave a few clear spots, though, perhaps with a piece of paper taped up so I could lift it and peek out occasionally. But in this version, at one point, we see the teenage girl graffiti’ing a whole stairwell. Man, I’d be doing that on the windows, POSTHASTE!!!
I would agree for the most part about the incindiaries. But, for instance, if they could have catapaulted one of the propane tanks into the middle of the crowd, or near the back of the crowd, they could have dispatched a massive amount of critters. I don’t think a flaming zombie’s (band name!) natural instinct would be to run towards the mall, but every precaution should be made to keep them away.
Speaking of exploding propane tanks, how unrealistic was the one near the end of the movie?!? All the zombies die, but the guy halfway out of the bus and pretty damned close to the explosion is fine? WTF?
See, a molotov is a lot better idea than the propane tank. Even the small one made such a huge shock wave of a blast, I’m pretty sure that would have blown out the windows/glass doors. I know they were shatterproof glass, but still, an explosion able to create a ripple effect to knock over every zombie in a hundred yard radius probably has enough umph to put those out as well.
As for the final propane tank, I just found it funny that one a tenth of its size made such a huge explosion, yet that giant one just blew up the truck.
I just watched a PBS special on the Donner Party the other day. For those who don’t know, the Donner Party was a group of people in the early 19th century who were trying to reach California from the east coast of the US. They took an uncharted route and got caught in a major blizzard in the mountains. Many of the people resorted to cannibalism to survive, and even that didn’t occur until some people were dying of starvation and malnutrition. But even then, not every member of that wagon train ate human flesh, even though they endured months of starvation.
I think it would be even more difficult to convince someone to cannibalize the zombies, knowing they are diseased and rotting, and not knowing what the results were of that.
Here is how to defeat the zombies in the vicinity of the mall: simply wait until winter. Since the zombies generate no body heat and it gets colder than a freezer in Wisconsin, they will eventually become as stiff as a frozen ham. When that happens, go out to the parking lot and bash some heads before they thaw out. No ammo required. That is a good opportunity to restock the food and ammo. Could use the snowplow to clean up the parking lot and seal off the chainlink fence around the mall. Or could probably move on to a better place, but better stay up north where it is cold.
That girl who went to Andy’s gun store to get the dog made no sense at all. Especially, since she must have seen that the dog was safe from the zombies even when walking among them. That gives me another great idea: could a person in a gorilla suit safely walk among the zombies?
One more question. When the police officer’s arm got injured by the zombie when fighting in the fountain, how did that injury occur? It must not have been a bite, but it looked too deep to be a fingernail scratch.
The girl had just lost her entire family. I think she formed an emotional attachment with the dog as a replacement for the family she lost. Having the dog trapped in another building was just as bad to her as it would be for one of us to have a sister or brother trapped in the building.
Ken’s arm was injured when the zombie and him fell into the fountain. His arm struck some sort of metal object set into the wall of the fountain.
I must say, chai tastes way better going in through the mouth than it does coming out through the nose. :eek:
I’m surprised nobody has touched on this much, because it’s exactly what I assumed the source of the rapid infection to be. I thought two major clues were the mysterious helicoptor that ignored their huge technicolor signs for help, and the fact that an island had somehow become overrun by zombies. From this it could possibly be surmised that some sort of worldwide governmental conspiracy mumbo jumbo sorta thing was afoot.
Though in the process of typing up this reply it occurs to me that they might not have found an island at all - perhaps they merely reached the other side of the lake, and not the isolated little isle they’d been hoping for.
Everyone in the survivor group, and the one sympathetic guard seem to have figured out how to tell the difference between a ghoul and a living person. Every ghoul in the movie immediately attacks any living person, howling as they do it. Ving had figured out a quick, easy test.
In addition, C. J. seems more concerned that the survivors might loot the stores than that they would turn into zombies.
From the moment he realizes that she’s infected, he actively hides her from Anna and everyone else. If he believed there was any chance to save his wife or child, and he didn’t involve the only trained medical professional available to help him, he’s behaving like an idiot.
Andy likely has hundreds, if not thousands of bullets.
It’s heavily fortified enough to keep out the enemy. The zombies can’t get through the glass. But you’ve got me on the other point. I’ve never been trapped in a mall by hoards of flesh-eating zombies. If I were I might not acting rationally. I might even do some foolish thing like abandon a safe place. If I were to do so, I would be acting like an idiot.
No, it was established that “We don’t know” the cause. A method of trasmission, yes (bites), but not the initial cause or the agent that carries the infection. Lycanthropy and vampirism are also transmitted through bites, but the agent there is supernatural. We have no reason to beleive that the initial cause of infection in DOTD wasn’t also supernatural. Given that the zombies seem to be violating a bunch of basic rules of biology, a supernatural source for the affliction isn’t really far fetched.
That is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why they were behaving like idiots. But it doesn’t alter the stupidity of the behavior itself. I realize that people often act foolishly under stress, and I’m not arguing that every action every person takes in a movie should be rational and logical. I just find it a lot less interesting when so much of the conflict stems from stupid behavior.
Apply a little Holmesian logic to the spread of the affliction. Eliminate the impossible, and what you have left is what must be true.
The infection seems to have spread worldwide in less than a day. This would be impossible if it were a viral infection originating in a single individual. Therefore this isn’t what happened. The only way for zombie hoardes to have appeared everywhere so quickly is if there were multiple carriers that manifested the affliction in each affected area more or less simultanously. Highly unlikely? Of course, but no matter how unlikely, it beats the impossible single source theory.
By the way, it may not have been clear in my post, but I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I just think it could have been much better if so many of the crises hadn’t be precipitated by people doing stupid things.
Such as driving at break-neck speeds, zig-zagging through debris, in top-heavy vehicles, even when there were no zombies around.
Which is why I was talking about the difference between who is and is not infected with zombieitis rather than the difference between zombies and the living.
A point I addressed explicitly.
Once more for the slackwitted among us: he knew there was no chance to save Luda, and he knew that if the others found out she was infected they would kill her and the baby. By not telling them, he has a chance to save the baby.
We did. If a disease spreads only by bite, then it must be viral or bacterial and contained in the saliva (and probably other bodily fluids, not that anyone would have sex with a zombie). Eliminate this possibility, and you’re left only with the fact that the film is badly-plotted crap.
[QUOTE=Evil Death]
We did. If a disease spreads only by bite, then it must be viral or bacterial and contained in the saliva…
[QUOTE]
I’m guessing it has to be other bodily fluids instead of saliva, because I’m pretty damn sure Daddy was kissing Mommy after she was infected, and he never became a zombie himself. Sure, she wasn’t a zombie at the time, but she was still infected with whatever it was that caused it, so it’s just as likely that if an infected person bit a non-infected person, they’d become infected as well.
Maybe we’re just not supposed to think about that…
[QUOTE=Evil Death]
We did. If a disease spreads only by bite, then it must be viral or bacterial and contained in the saliva…
Could be the contagion is blood-borne. Saliva won’t spread the infection unless it comes in contact with blood. Farfetched, sure, but there are real infections that work the same way.
Could also be that introduction of the pathogen through the mouth subjects it to assorted defenses the mouth HAS against such pathogens (i.e., digestive enzymes) that break it down enough so that it’s useless. Therefore, a bite would be the only effective way to infect.
Then again, that tiny bite Luda had successfully killed her. One is inclined to wonder about a pathogen so pathetic that your saliva can kill it, but so vicious that it can multiply unchecked in the blood, even through a tiny cut…
…which brings us back to “supernatural” again. Although that business about how only bite victims rise from the dead is DAMN frustrating, if they’re going to take THAT tack…
C. J. has no problem with the two security guards standing beside him, even after at least one other guard had become a zombie. He doesn’t seem concerned that they might suddenly turn, and he pulls an “I told you so” about the other guard getting caught by the zombies. He seems to have figured out that the danger is posed by the zombies themselves, and that avoiding them is how one avoids becoming one.
And given that he goes quickly from “One of you might be a zombie” to “I don’t want you looting the stores”, as his reason for holding them hostage, I have difficulty believing that he’s entirely sincere about reason number 1. When Ana appears on the roof, he isn’t concerned that she might zombie out and attack him, he’s upset that she took some clothes from one of the stores.
Actually, a point you said nothing about in your reply to my post.
Did you actually read what I wrote before you resorted to name-calling? Let me quote it for you here:
If he believed there was any chance to save his wife or child, and he didn’t involve the only trained medical professional available to help him, he’s behaving like an idiot.
Notice the bolded part referring to the baby? We know exactly what the others did with the one other infected person who hadn’t turned, and it would be reasonable to assume that this is what would have been done with Luda and the baby. Quarantine them until they die and turn, and kill them immediately afterwards. If Mekhi was hoping that the baby would be normal, the smart thing to do would be to have the only available nurse on hand to care for it.
I’m not claiming that his behavior is implausible under the circumstances, only that it was stupid. People do stupid things under stressful condtions, and Mekhi here was in the mother of all stressful situations. I understand why he behaves as he does, but I still think it’s irrational and foolish.
My point is that way too much of the movie’s conflict hinges on one character after another behaving foolishly, creating a new crisis. The situation was such that it should have been possible to develop crises that didn’t depend require a character to freak out and do something stupid. The situation with the Matt Frewer character is a good example of this.
It isn’t established anywhere in the movie that this is a disease, or that it’s spread by a pathogen, or that the cause is in any way biological, or that there was as single original carrier. Those are assumptions you and others are making, and applying them to the movie. That the movie doesn’t support those assumptions might mean that your assumptions are wrong.
If this affliciton is some kind of disease, then to have spread worldwide in a day would require that infected people, if only one or two in each place, would have to manifest the disease more or less simultaneously in various places all around the world. Is there a way this could occur? Sure. A planned release in each of several dozen population centers would do the trick.
No this isn’t likely in the least, but given the impossible things we must accept for these zombies to exist in the first place, unlikely is a walk in the park.
Or possibly the cause isn’t biological. There is some evidence to support this. People drained of blood to the point that they die get up and walk around without need of food, water, or rest. This would seem to indicate to me that the cause might be supernatural. On the scale of realism, zombies are quite a bit closer to the end that contains werewolves and vampires than the real world. My theory is that the cause is supernatural, and as with vampirism and lycanthropy, the bite itself is what spreads the disease, not some pathogen associated with the bite. Or perhaps it’s some kind of supernatural pathogen.
My point is that the movie does not tell us what causes it, actually makes a point of saying the cause is unknown. Any cause we assign is speculation on our part. If the movie doesn’t support our speculation, and I’m sure someone will be along soon to tell me why my theory of supernatural cause is unsound, the fault lies not in the movie, but in the explanation we are trying to force on it.
I agree that there were plot problems, which was the point of my initial post. Despite those, I still enjoyed the movie.
Exactly - and he cannot be sure that anyone who was outside had managed to avoid the zombies. We know CJ and the other two were staying on the upper mall because when CJ sees zombie Ben he says he’d warned Ben about going to the lower mall - which means CJ must know there are zombies in the mall, and given that the zombie in the sports shop was also a guard it’s not an unreasonable assumption that he knows that people who come into contact with zombies become zombies themselves after a time, but does not yet know why.
“Last but not least, he also knows that the food supplies in the mall will last longer if there’s just the three of them.”
How did you think they were going to get food out of the stores without looting them? Answers on a postcard, please.
How could he know that she wouldn’t tell?
I sort of agree, but to criticise the film because the characters behave in a realistic manner makes you look like a grade A dumbfuck. As I said before, slag off the girl running after a dog she had seen with her own eyes to be perfectly safe because that is stupid and bad writing, but when someone’s behaviour is consistent with the scenario you have no good cause for complaint. If you don’t want to see farmers from Idaho cutting off a woman’s ear, don’t watch a Vietnam movie. If you don’t want to see people panicking, don’t watch a horror movie.
Oh, fuck off, will you? You told us to apply Holmesian logic, to examine the evidence and determine what can and cannot be possible. We did so, and drew a single consistent explanation. You then turn around and say “No, you’re wrong, it’s something impossible that you eliminated.” Make your damned mind up, already.
The old man using the chainsaw to cut zombies off the side of the bus…then he slips and cuts into the girl. He panics…and holds down the gas button and continues to chop her up for a good five seconds or so.
Kind of reminiscient of the belief that the elderly will get confused behind the wheel and hit the gas instead of the brakes…therefore causing an accident.
But it is unreasonable at this point for him to assume that people become zombies themselves “after a time”. He hasn’t seen anyone gradually transformed by a bite; that doesn’t happen until later on in the movie. The only evidence he has at this point is that there are two groups, humans and zombies, and that the second group hasn’t been using the elevators to come up to the second level. Ergo, the reasonable deduction here is that this group of people are safe.
But let’s assume that he has seen someone turned by a bite, but it occurred before we met him. We know the process from watching Matt Frewer and Luda later on. They don’t become dangerous until after they’ve turned all gray, and mottled, died, and returned to life. None of the people in the elevator is a zombie, and none is in the process of turning into one. C. J.'s behavior is at best, paranoia, and at worst, stupidity.
I would hardly call that “explicitly” addressing my point. C. J.'s is concerned with looting in general, not the food specifically, thus his comment to Ana on the roof when she appears wearing regular clothes, and his insistence that the mess in Metropolis be cleaned up.
That he seems to take the possibility that someone might take some clothes or mess up a store as seriously as the possibility that one of the group might be a zombie shows that he either is being disingenuous about the latter possibility or he’s not very bright. I think it’s a bit of both.
The reasonable assumption is that she would tell, which misses my point entirely. As a group, they had decided on how to deal with the infected, as evidenced by how they dealt with Matt Frewer. The reasonable deduction would be that Luda and the baby would be dealt with in the same manner. This indicates to me that he had decided ahead of time to protect them even if they were to become zombies. He has no reason to think that a healthy born child would be in any danger from the group.
I think the girl’s behavior is consistent with the scenario. As is Mekhi’s, and C. J.'s. My criticism wasn’t that their behavior was out of character. It was, and I’ve been quite clear about this, that taken as a whole, far too much of the movie hinges on stupid behavior. Relying on somebody doing something stupid to create a new crisis to advance the plot is simplistic and lazy writing. This is a criticism of the plotting as a whole, not with the characterization of any particular character.
The explanation that the cause is a virus that came from a single original carrier isn’t consistent with what we are presented with in the movie (the worldwide contamination occurs too quickly). What’s more, this has been pointed out by the same people who are proposing that explanation in the first place.
Despite your rephrasing and distorting my words and then attributing them to me in a quote that appears nowhere in anything I’ve posted, I didn’t say that. If you meant to paraphrase me, you’ve done a poor job of it, and claiming those were my actual words is just plain dishonest. (By the way, rephrasing your opponents’ arguments to make them easier to refute is a rhetorical fallacy called a Straw Man, and it’s generally considered to be in poor taste in a reasoned debate, as is the name-calling and direct insults you’ve resorted to).
What I actually said was, “Those are assumptions you and others are making, and applying them to the movie. That the movie doesn’t support those assumptions might mean that your assumptions are wrong.”
I then proposed three different theories that might explain how the infection is spread, and suggest that someone will likely discredit those, but I did not insist, as you seem to imply, that any of these was the actual explanation.
I paraphrase myself further down, “If the movie doesn’t support our speculation, and I’m sure someone will be along soon to tell me why my theory of supernatural cause is unsound, the fault lies not in the movie, but in the explanation we are trying to force on it.”
We are explicitly told that the cause is unknown. People then try to insist that A: It’s a virus, and B: It can’t be a virus. As the movie never claims any cause, the problem here is not with the movie, but with assumption A.
I can see however, where your confusion might lie. I do say, “No this isn’t likely in the least, but given the impossible things we must accept for these zombies to exist in the first place, unlikely is a walk in the park.” Here, when I say ‘impossible’, I mean “impossible in the real world”. When I said to apply Holmsian logic to the movie, I meant to do so within the context of movie, and eliminate that which is impossible in the universe presented in the movie.
