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  #141  
Old 7th September 2010, 05:25 PM
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SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD was thankfully a much better film than DIARY OF THE DEAD,
I couldn't even sit through the whole of DIARY.
SURVIVAL had some cool new characters, and the film was funny in places too.
The film didn't take itself too seriously, and I liked that about it...
I'm starting to believe that DAY OF THE DEAD had the most likeable characters now.
The survivors in DAWN weren't that likeable really, if you think about that for a bit.
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  #142  
Old 7th September 2010, 05:32 PM
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Originally Posted by Mahoney32 View Post
SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD was thankfully a much better film than DIARY OF THE DEAD,
I couldn't even sit through the whole of DIARY.
SURVIVAL had some cool new characters, and the film was funny in places too.
The film didn't take itself too seriously, and I liked that about it...
I'm starting to believe that DAY OF THE DEAD had the most likeable characters now.
The survivors in DAWN weren't that likeable really, if you think about that for a bit.
Yes I agree.

A lot of people complain about the overacting and the constant fighting in DAY. But I mean, think about it, this group of people is potentially the last outpost in the world, the soldiers are dying left and right because of the scientists' experiments with NO results aside from one crackpot trying to domesticate the creatures, when all the soldiers want is to kill them off and go on to something else, they all want to get out, everything is falling apart around them - tag this with the end of the world and I'd like to see how ANYONE would react.

In DAWN they were clearly driven by greed. They didn't want to leave the mall because it had everything they wanted. It certainly wasn't a safe haven with armies of the dead festering outside, and they had to figure eventually, someone would come snooping around and try to get in. So why not just get what they need and leave? Find another safe place? Well, greed, they didn't want to give up everything they had because they felt like they had everything.

I know this is the point of the characters in the film, to drive the consumerism aspect of it full force, but the characters become less sympathetic for me here. In DAY they are stuck in their situation, there is no alternative to where they are aside from escaping to the world above with no one left but hordes of zombies roaming around.
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  #143  
Old 7th September 2010, 05:44 PM
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Yes I agree.

A lot of people complain about the overacting and the constant fighting in DAY. But I mean, think about it, this group of people is potentially the last outpost in the world, the soldiers are dying left and right because of the scientists' experiments with NO results aside from one crackpot trying to domesticate the creatures, when all the soldiers want is to kill them off and go on to something else, they all want to get out, everything is falling apart around them - tag this with the end of the world and I'd like to see how ANYONE would react.

In DAWN they were clearly driven by greed. They didn't want to leave the mall because it had everything they wanted. It certainly wasn't a safe haven with armies of the dead festering outside, and they had to figure eventually, someone would come snooping around and try to get in. So why not just get what they need and leave? Find another safe place? Well, greed, they didn't want to give up everything they had because they felt like they had everything.

I know this is the point of the characters in the film, to drive the consumerism aspect of it full force, but the characters become less sympathetic for me here. In DAY they are stuck in their situation, there is no alternative to where they are aside from escaping to the world above with no one left but hordes of zombies roaming around.
I think you've nailed it dead on there, impressive!
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  #144  
Old 7th September 2010, 05:49 PM
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I think you've nailed it dead on there, impressive!
Well thank you sir. I'm like a kid in a candy store on this forum, all these threads with SOMETHING I wanna add! It's riveting I tell ya!
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  #145  
Old 7th September 2010, 07:04 PM
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I agree with you on that too...
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  #146  
Old 8th September 2010, 01:45 PM
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Originally Posted by evilzombie20 View Post
Yes I agree.

A lot of people complain about the overacting and the constant fighting in DAY. But I mean, think about it, this group of people is potentially the last outpost in the world, the soldiers are dying left and right because of the scientists' experiments with NO results aside from one crackpot trying to domesticate the creatures, when all the soldiers want is to kill them off and go on to something else, they all want to get out, everything is falling apart around them - tag this with the end of the world and I'd like to see how ANYONE would react.

In DAWN they were clearly driven by greed. They didn't want to leave the mall because it had everything they wanted. It certainly wasn't a safe haven with armies of the dead festering outside, and they had to figure eventually, someone would come snooping around and try to get in. So why not just get what they need and leave? Find another safe place? Well, greed, they didn't want to give up everything they had because they felt like they had everything.

I know this is the point of the characters in the film, to drive the consumerism aspect of it full force, but the characters become less sympathetic for me here. In DAY they are stuck in their situation, there is no alternative to where they are aside from escaping to the world above with no one left but hordes of zombies roaming around.
I disagree - I don't think greed came into it. In fact, I'd say the biker gang was what represented greed in the film. The survivors in DAWN are not driven by greed at all - they revel in the novelty of it for a while, but that's all it is; a novelty. What they're actually desiring is normalcy. They drink, eat, watch TV - trying to create an atmosphere or normality in the fgace of a world gone mad. And isn't that what we all do on a regular basis? When faced with the horrors of the real world we retreat into our safe haven or normality - eating, drinking, working, watching TV.

That's my take on it, anyway.
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  #147  
Old 8th September 2010, 04:00 PM
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I disagree - I don't think greed came into it. In fact, I'd say the biker gang was what represented greed in the film. The survivors in DAWN are not driven by greed at all - they revel in the novelty of it for a while, but that's all it is; a novelty. What they're actually desiring is normalcy. They drink, eat, watch TV - trying to create an atmosphere or normality in the fgace of a world gone mad. And isn't that what we all do on a regular basis? When faced with the horrors of the real world we retreat into our safe haven or normality - eating, drinking, working, watching TV.

That's my take on it, anyway.
Yes but if anything, Stephen CLEARLY represents greed.

Peter's idea of locking up the stores was to show the bikers they can come in, take what they want and leave. They didn't care about them - they just wanted the stuff in the mall. But Stephen didn't want them leaving with anything, so he opened fire. It wasn't a matter of protecting his "home", it was a matter of protecting his stuff.

He didn't care for his safety or for Peter's otherwise, he would have listened and let the bikers take what they want and lock the place back up.
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  #148  
Old 8th September 2010, 05:38 PM
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The characters chose to stay in the mall and fight the bikers, to try and protect their "stuff".
They could have just dropped everything around them, jump into their helicopter and just leave in search of a new sanctuary, leaving the bikers to do whatever the f**k they like...
But they were too greedy and materialistic to do this. This is why half of them died...
They became too greedy and materialistic, and too comfortable, to just drop everything and go. Which is what they should have done.
Hey, maybe they would have hooked up with our heroes from DAY OF THE DEAD, eventually. Let your imaginations run wild on that. Could be fun...
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  #149  
Old 9th September 2010, 01:20 AM
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I don't buy it, that they're driven by greed. Stephen wants normality - as illustrated by the dinner scene. If anything, Stephen is not so much protecting his 'stuff' but protecting his illusion that things could be normal again. The bikers' arrival intrudes on this fantasy and jolts them all back into the real world. You say they could take off in their chopper - but, as Dr Logan astutely pointed out in DAY, where would they go? Where could they run? Think about it, they're still trying to figure out what's going on - wouldn't you also kind of hang out somewhere safe and wait for news reports and try and build a picture of what's going on? Remember, our survivors here don't have the benefit of the knowledge that we, the viewer have. They're confused and bewildered. How far has the plague gone, how far reaching? Is there anywhere truly safe they can go to? Is it a global phenomenon? Just what the hell is it? Each of the survivors has a different coping mechanism, for Stephen it's the comfort of being around familiar things - it's not greed, it's reassurance. He's happy purely at the fact that there's enough resources in the Mall to sustain them for quite some time - again, not greed, but reassurances of safety, of normality. He's angry that the bikers are threatening his safe haven.
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  #150  
Old 9th September 2010, 02:38 AM
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I don't know, I've always interpreted greed as being the killer in this film.

The whole underlined plot was poking at consumerism, how people walk around malls aimlessly like zombies and just go in and buy things they don't need. Spending, spending and spending, until they have nothing or no more arm room to carry their shopping bags.

It just always seemed it wasn't because the place was familiar that they stayed, it certainly wasn't safe with the zombies outside because eventually they had to know they would get in or the supplies would run low.

Fran often said they needed to get out, I believe there's a line in the film something along the lines of "It's so bright and colorful, and wrapped up with a nice bow you can't see it's a prison too" or something to that effect. Stephen isn't staying for the sense of normalcy, he's staying because of the things in the mall, the things they have. His only reasoning to stay when he talks to Fran is all the great stuff they had found in the mall.

Completely obliterate to the fact that Fran is scared out of her whits, his means of calming her is by blinding her with pretty things - not reassuring her she's safe and that the danger is gone.

I know people interpret things in their own way, which is one of the reasons I love message boards since you can see different interpretations and ideas from others. It's a good point to believe they stayed merely because it was "familiar" to them but from my perspective, they stayed because they wanted to.

We don't know how bad things were in the world at that point, obviously not as bad as we think with a gang of renegade bikers running a muck - so there is a good chance the group could have loaded up on supplies and found refuge with other people in a safer installation. Or there's a chance they could not have found anything.

But the fact of the matter is, the mall was not a safe place. Regardless of the biker's presence or not, the doors were made out of glass and despite that it's safety glass - it wouldn't stop the doors from eventually giving way or the zombies to find tools to smash the windows in.

That's just my interpretation of course. The group was driven by greed in a lot of ways and it's easy to understand how it would have happened. Surrounded by everything you could think you need - it would happen to even the most giving person, suddenly things would be "yours" and not "ours". I think it's now part of the human psyche to constantly want more, something better.

I mean look at us, ravaging horror fans begging for now Blu Ray releases of many films when there's nothing wrong with the DVD copies we possess now. They work fine, still play and look pretty damn good on our flat screen TVs. But we still want more - we want something better because we know we can get better. It's not greed to the fullest extent, but it is greedy to have that constant want, to not be content with what we have, to always want more.

I'm no saint, I know I'm going to buy the films that I have on DVD when they come out on Blu Ray - even if it's not much of an upgrade, it's still an upgrade from what I have and that's what makes it so enticing. The upgrade of getting something better. Something that is going to blow whatever I had seen or heard away but the content itself isn't changing, but I'll still buy it.

Even with new films, buying a Blu Ray or a DVD can be greedy in the sense that we complain about things missing. We're so accustomed to packed discs that a DVD with a trailer and a commentary isn't good enough anymore when at one point, it's all we had. Hell there was a time when we didn't have that, we had VHS! But yet we still spent the money, we still craved more, and we keep getting it...over and over again.

Anyways, sorry about the rant, I can get so carried away some times.
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