Now that I think about it, I have the exact same criticism for this film that I did for the reamake of Dawn: They traded the social criticism and psychological horror for more action-horror. And I thought the new Dawn did the horror-action better.
I think there’s a very good film in there, somewhere. The government has fallen, so teh rich and powerful carve out personal feudal states with the labor of other survivors, and entrench themselves in modern palaces, Masque of the Red Death style. Meanwhile, the Dead, always clawing at the gates but now long dismissed as a trivial nuisance, rise again as an even greater threat than ever.
But they didn’t spend nearly enough time on the new post-zombie society. Alas. It could’ve been a great zombie movie, but it’s only a good one.
If I may be so bold as to put in my interpretation.
I’m thinking the zombies weren’t supposed to be the disinfranchised of America but of the Third world. The way I see it is that the city is America and the outside threat is the third world. There are other cities they refer to and they may represent other Western Nations If I read Romero correctly.
The City is devided into its haves and Have nots. The haves represent the wealthy of the United States, the have nots it’s poor. To keep its poor from storming Fiddler’s Green they give them two things: Vices and fear. The Vices are obvious and were said, Drugs alcohol, gambling and sex. The fear is the outside world. Hoppers character and the fat cats in the Green pay for the protection and get to tell the street folk that even though their lot seems piss poor at leat the are being kept safe from the threat outside.
In the end I think George was talking about more than just a class struggle. I’m thinking this is his take of America during the War on Terror (Including the raids outside to supply the city)
My gf is the zombie fan, so I was just along for the ride. What I wasn’t clear on was just how long this zombie world was supposed to have been around for. If things have been that way for, say, the past 30 years, there wouldn’t be any organized softball leagues recently. So what was up with softball-girl zombie?
Not 30 years. In Romeros world even though each movie is 10 to 20 years apart it is all happening within a certain time frame. Dawn is only a few days past Night. Day is perhaps months after Dawn. I’d say Land is roughly a year from Day.
This was my take on it as well, although it gets a bit muddled when you realize that the fireworks were suppossed to represent mass media. I got a chuckle out of how explicit he was able to make “Eat the Rich”.
How much time should they have spent? I think the point was very well and very concisely made. After all, it IS a horror film, not a Michael Moore documentary! More than one post has leveled the criticism that Romero sacrificed “social commentary” for “action-horror”; and yet, in the same posts, you explain this selfsame “social commentary” pretty much the way Romero intended it. It sounds to me like he did his job quite effectively–he planted the seeds of that commentary and left it up to us to interpret it. An “action-horror” film that sparks intellectual and sociological discussion! What a concept! Still think he failed on that level? I’m not sure about the “third world” analogy, though. In our society, we may try to keep the Third World locked out, but we make attempts (albeit futile) to improve their lot in life; there’s none of that in this story. Interesting thought, though. As far as an assessmant of the film as a whole, let me just give this example: when I saw Episode 3: ROTS, I enjoyed it very much. But a couple of hours later, it was like eating a Chinese meal–I couldn’t remember half of it. I still have entire SCENES from LotD running through my head! Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I’m heading out the door to see it again! Carry on.
Yes. Because I just pulled all that “Red Death” stuff out of my ass. He hinted at it. There were seeds there, I wanted an actual tree. Most of the film’s running time should have been spent developing the post-zombie society. Why does money still matter? What do the poor do? How did this city come into being? Why hasn’t the surrounding towns been picked clean of canned goods and fuel yet?
You can go this far into detail in a zombie action film. Romero’s done it twice. Boyle did it in 28 Days Later. This felt empty. Big Daddy had the most developed character arc and motivations, for pete’s sake!
And if you gut out Romero’s usual thoughtfullness, you’re left with simple zombie action. Well, it worked, and I still enjoyed the film at that level. But new Dawn and 28DL worked better for pure scares and adrenaline, and 28DL had better social/psychological commentary too.
Man, I find saying that I liked the Dawn of the Dead remake more than an authentic Romero film immensely depressing, for some reason.
Wow. I saw this yesterday and it was the worse move I think I have seen since “Ishtar”.
Such a shame too since I have enjoyed all the other films in this series. I just think the whole “zombie learning” was so stupid that I couldn’t ignore the other stupid holes in the movie.
The movie might have been passable without the silly smart zombie thing. They didnt need that to make the movie work. Zombies eat people, they would go to where the people are eventually.
And how many freakin scenes do we need to see where some slow shambling zombie trips and falls while trying to eat a hero? Yet, when the zombie needs to bite a secondary character they are fast and viscous? I know it happens in all zombie movies, but I felt like they rammed it down my throat in this one.
To answer your questions (just MHO, you understand):[ol]
[li]Money will always matter to some segmnts of society, The rich and privileged (and those who want to be) will always be loath to give up their status (or potential to reach that status). Remember, in “Dawn”, when Ken Foree and Scott Reininger open the bank drawer and take the money? “You never know!”[/li][li]Some of the poor serve the rich; in any case, the poor exist, hopefully finding some diversion to dull the pain of that poverty.[/li][li]The city came into being the same way the mall did in “Dawn”, although obviously with a lot more organized effort (not to mention loss of life).[/li][li]This argument I’ll concede. The fact that there are still supplies did bother me. How about this: there are a limited number of survivors to conduct the raids, limited times when the raids can be conducted, and many smaller cities in the surrounding area. The supplies will probably run out eventually, but haven’t yet. BTW, this raises another analogy: the finite amount of non-renewable resources.[/li][/ol]
I think he was supposed to. The zombies are evolving; the humans are devolving (or at least static). Somewhere along the line, the two groups will meet in the middle, which is where the story arc should logically go.
Just saw it. Liked it a lot; Big Daddy was a great idea. I do wish that a) it had all been filmed in Pittsburgh, and b) the movie had been about two hours, instead of 90 minutes; would have allowed more exploration of the world the characters lived in. (Probably because of pressure by the money people; maybe there’ll be a longer Director’s Cut DVD.)
I’m having a bit of trouble seeing that. Dennis Hopper is so concerned about money that he’ll kill, kill, kill to get it - when he’s going to go live in an isolated bunker somewhere? There are no banks, no fedral reserve, no factories making plastic goods and automobiles. After the amount of time that’s passed sine Dawn, surely someone as smart as Hopper’s character would figure out that money doesn’t - can’t! - talk anymore.
For that matter, I’d really like to see how the economy in the city worked. It just does not compute for me. Who’d they pay millions of dollars for fixing up Dead Reckoning to?
I agree with Cheese Monster on this one…it was the one part of the movie that I didn’t care for. Paper money is (arguably) only worth something because it is backed by a gold reserve. If there was no government to control that reserve, or society to make that gold important enough to be reserved, then paper money would have no value. Perhaps if it had been established that the money at this point was being used to back up a food/supplies reserve, it would make more sense…but even then, what’s to stop anyone from heading to an abandoned city with some dynamite and guns, opening a bank vault there, then taking that money and flooding the market, devaluing it?
Otherwise, I liked the movie. I just thought the money-as-character-motivation thing was off.
Regarding the money issue, isn’t having currency backed by gold only a slightly more arbitrary decision for society? I don’t know if he’s making a point there, but it’s not out of the realm.
Actually, we haven’t been on the gold standard for something like 20 years. I believe we went off it when private ownership of gold was re-legalized.Anyhoo, obviously, Hopper’s character is not entirely rational. To him, money in any form still equals power. In addition, it’s HIS–his character would die before letting anyone else get their hands on it, which he, of course, does; in addition, the money is destroyed.Perhaps this is Romero’s answer–of course it’s useless. Hopper’s character, blinded by greed, never gets that.
Perhaps the money represents the “devolving” of the humans.
Why they money?
“They don’t know why, they just remember. Remember they want to be here.”
I think it is supposed to look stupid. In a world that has totally gone to the toilet there are some people still cling to the old ideals. Money = wealth =power. The fact that few people argue against it validates the stupidity.
Money is only valuable as long as people assign value to it. There is no sign of barter in that society instead people still earn and pay for things.
To us it looks stupid. But in their minds it is maintaining the past.
Also remember the themes running throughout the series. People are unable to face the real situation and instead fight each other over the stupid things.
“This isn’t the Republicans versus the Democrats, where we’re in a hole economically or… or we’re in another war. This is more crucial than that. This is down to the line, folks, this is down to the line. There can be no more divisions among the living!”
And yet they continued. The fight over the Television in NoLD.
The scroll of the emergancy shelters is kept on the air to keep the ratings up even though many of the shelters are gone in DotD
The bandito raider and the Blood pressure tester in Dawn of the dead. He is killed because he sees testing the novelty of the item as more important than his personal safety. He could have easily escaped
In Day it is the continual study for a cure long after they have been isolated from the people who gave them the mission. It is obvious these people are no longer the ideal scientists and Military sent into the mine. It is also obvious they will never accomplish a damned thing but they continue the pointless routine.
The fact these folks still valued dollar bills in LoD is no real suprise.
In Romero’s universe, mankind is becoming extinct due to its own pettiness. Because they deserve it.
Not much useful to add, but Orlando has a very popular Irish pub and restaurant called Fiddler’s Green. My zombie-loving friend didn’t know this place existed, and just about freaked out when we drove by it tonight.
I thought Simon Baker was great. I thought the zombies were great. It disappointed me that they are now just really slow apes. But when I think back on the things I actually liked inthe movie… It all has to do directly with the zombies.
Everything else was sub par bordering on shitty.
I hated Burny McGumpenstein. I thought if ever a character needed to be acrificed half way through it was this guy.
There was no point to the Matador Guy, Samoan Sam and the other girl.
Actually none of the women in this movie served any purpose except for baseball Zombie.
You know it’s rough when you have to have that evil midget as some sort of crime lord.
There IS a really good movie in there somewhere. In fact if what essentially happened in the last 30 minutes happened in the first 30… I’d be pretty into it.
