28 Days Later--British Fools

[Cosmoline]

[some spoilers]


Just watched the zombie flick "28 Days Later" on DVD. I was more disturbed by the attitudes of the main characters towards firearms than by the zombies. The unexpressed but constant theme running through the film was that firearms are so evil that it's a bad idea to use them even when toxic zombies are on the loose. The zombies in the movie are contageous. VERY contageous. One drop of their blood in your eye, mouth, nose, or open wound and you're done for. So what do the main characters use to kill them? Clubs and swords, of course! The bad guys of the film are a unit of British soldiers, all armed with assault rifles. The main character at SEVERAL POINTS has the chance to get iron or actually has a firearm, but at each point he ends up discarding the firearm and using his hands or a club. In the end we see the entire bunch of protaganists without firearms--although they could have had their pick of the latest military hardware.

I worry that this goes beyond ordinary stupidity of horror movie characters (ie, don't look in the basement!). There was something deeper and more disturbing at work here. Bad guys have firearms, good guys use swords. Am I making too much of this?

 

[M58]

Stupid film.
Sorry I rented it.
Also, made military into rapist???:banghead:

 

[JimJD]

Wow, that's really dumb of them.
I have'nt seen the film yet.
Funny though, I had a nightmare a couple of weeks ago that was very, very "zombie movie".
Had a chance to use firearms in it. Used them I did! Scared the pee out of me though!(Zombies, not the guns).
Anyway, back to the flick...
Yeah, I agree.
It seems the U.K. is getting worse and worse with the whole "anti" thing.
On another forum I go to about movies and entertainment, there's a guy who is a "Mike Moore parrot". He tried to slam the U.S.A. and firearms every chance he got.
Happily, myself and others have shown him he is quite wrong on the subject.
I've also known many Irish and English nationals who live here in the states. Most of them have a very uninformed view and opinion on the whole subject. Must be some form of brain-washing...
The only one I've met and known who does'nt have his head in the sand, was a friend of my father's. He was S.A.S. . He knows and understands firearms.

 

[citizen]

The film had an interesting, though previously tried premise.
(Think Day of the Triffids, or when Charlie Heston battled the night mutants, etc.)
It would have NO basis for production without it's basic premise flaw; no firearms. Which is why it was filmed in London, I suspect. ENTIRE civilian population was disarmed, and the ONLY organized survivors were a renegade platoon????????????Visually pleasing film, though.

 

[c_yeager]

I thought that the ending was a complete cop-out too. The whole tone of the movie for the first 1.5 hours is completely discarded in the final reel. Even taken as just a piece of entertainment it needed work.

 

[Geech]

I thought that the ending was a complete cop-out too. The whole tone of the movie for the first 1.5 hours is completely discarded in the final reel. Even taken as just a piece of entertainment it needed work.

Which ending? The American ending or the real ending? Maybe both?

Anyway, as for firearms they did take one at the end. I don't recall exactly which shot it is, but near the end of the movie, the American ending, you can see a rifle leaning up against a wall. Before that, I don't really think the protaganists had very many chances to get guns. Remember, this is England.

 

[citizen]

BTW, I happened to watch it after dinner at a friend's and it was on DVD.
There were MANY features provided after the movie, including ALTERNATE ENDINGS. Those, more than the tightly controlled script, revealed just how weak the entire script actually was and it's narrow tailoring. Too bad......
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.Jeez; it seems like people are anticipating my worthless posts....

 

[c_yeager]

The ending that you saw in US theaters is in fact the REAL ending. It was the same ending that was on the British release. The alternate ending is just that, an alternate. I have the british release of this movie (released on DVD before it even hit the theaters here), trust me, it is EXACTLY the same feel good nonsense.

 

[clarkg1124]

I saw this flick some time ago,and IIRC their problem was lack of ammo?They were on a training mission(with blanks),and only one guy had a few rounds of live ammo.
Stupid premise,stupid movie,stupid me for watching.
Clark

 

[WhoKnowsWho]

In the end we see the entire bunch of protaganists without firearms--although they could have had their pick of the latest military hardware

Remember that guy in the room when Jim went ou the window in the end.

"I haven't got any bullets!"

And it was easier for them to use hand to hand wepons, considering none of them had probably ever handled a firearm ever. It made sense to me. That's one thing my friend asked when we watched it. I am glad they didn't make normal Jim into Rambo Jim, mowing down people with a SA-80 or something.

"Why doesn't anybody have guns?"

I laughed and had to explain it to him...

 

[Sean Smith]

Besides, they were SA-80s, they probably didn't work anyway... very realistic.

 

[Black92LX]

was that firearms are so evil that it's a bad idea to use them even when toxic zombies are on the loose

not so sure that was the theme that i took from it. afterall they would have been dead with out the snipers that came from the bushes. there is no doubt that guns were a vital part of the movie, or it would have ended right there at the check point.

and also the girls would have been raped to no end if Jim wouldn't have shot thru the chains of the captured soldier that was infected. there would have been no other way for Jim to let him loose. so once again a gun was needed.



but that's just my .02 cents

 

[Cosmoline]

SA-80's! Of course. That explains it. I probably would have used a club, too

 

[Camel]

Are you insinuating that an SA80 isnt a club? Ive heard they make fine blunt weapons.

 

[OF]

I thought the bit about how a small military unit would degenerate in a band of murdering rapists in less than a month of isolation was the most awful plot line in that movie.

- Gabe

 

[TheeBadOne]

or when Charlie Heston battled the night mutants

The Omega Man ruled! A much better picture.

 

[2nd Amendment]

My wife came dragging the thing out at the rental store the other nite. I told her how the plot line went. She put it back without comment.

 

[Balog]

Good Lord! For a supposedly marginally gun related movie, this sure generates a lot of talk on here. This is what, the fifth thread made about this movie?!?!

 

[HankB]

Saw the movie. Was disappointed for the reasons already mentioned.

Hmmm . . . with "rage" virus sweeping across London, killing off virtually the entire population . . . where were the millions of bodies?

This looked more like what a high school film class might turn out if you gave them some money, rather than a professionally written, directed, and acted film.

 

[gunsmith]

I liked the film alot

is this rotten tomatoes?
Anyway,peta types cause plauge to spread all over creation,sounds plausible to me.

 

[morganm01]

Who else here thought that at the very end when the jet circled back around to see the "Hello" sign , that it was going to drop a big hit of napalm on them!

 

[Razor]

Who else here thought that at the very end when the jet circled back around to see the "Hello" sign , that it was going to drop a big hit of napalm on them!

Now that would of been a great ending!

 

[JimJD]

What type of jet was it?

 

[Cosmoline]

I think the reason this gets so much attention is because in many ways it can be seen as an anti-gun response to "Omega Man." But maybe we're all reading too much into it.

All I know is, when the zombie virus hits ALaska I'm not gonna use no sword or club!

 

[MAKOwner]

Yes, this movie sucked for the reasons listed, main one being they went to great pains to have it in a area devoid of guns for the most part. It's just about as bad as that stupid Alien3 movie where they come up with a prison planet so there are no weapons. LAME, LAME, LAME. Big fat copout by the writers. Even if there are no guns, the best the survivors can come up with are melee weapons? I'll be damned if I don't go out of my way to come up with some of weapon to use against these guys other than bare hands or a bat. For crying out loud, the "survivors" wouldn't survive more than an encounter or two with zombies doing this extremely messy hand to hand crap. Just too easy to get infected...

The Dawn of the Dead remake coming out before too much longer should spank this politically correct POS all over the place. Unless of course they manage to screw up the remake, the original sure was cool although dated now...