28 Days Later... (non-spoiler review, and then subsequently a lot of spoilers)

[dravot]

Just got back from seeing the movie.

I liked it a lot. Yeah, there were a couple of dumb decisions being made, but overall I thought it was quite entertaining.

Dumbest thing: the tunnel. Frickin' duh.

The gas station thing was dumb, but IMO made sense. He was testing himself, and the world around him.

I give it two zombie-gnawed-on thumbs up.

 

[Mark Chance]

...trapped in a country overrun with crazy-ass sprinting zombies.

I'm waiting for the movie with crazy ass-sprinting zombies.

Fear-Addled Survivor: "How can their butt cheeks move so fast! It's...it's inhuman!"

 

[Morrus]

For some reason, British people called pharmacists "Chemists", so he might really have been a pharmacist to begin with. (Or perhaps the person who adapted the movie didn't know that...)

Yeah, pharmacists are chemists. Which is why the chemist is "somehow" a pharmacist as well, as Dwarf so neatly put it.

 

[WayneLigon]

I loved the movie, and I can forgive them pretty much anything they did.

..., is it just me and my friends that entertain a fairly Nietzschean/Darwinian mindset at times? I mean, we constantly go over best plans in given situations, go over tactics and choices given many apocalyptic situations.

Yeah, it is just you. Or, well, some of us. Gamers, that is! Most people never even conceive such things can happen to them, and won't live through it except by luck. And thinking/planning for such a thing is far different from training for it, which is far different from it actually living through it. In such situations, even people who prepare for such things more often than not find themselves just as overwhelmed as those who sat around and watched Eastenders.

In other words, no, it's not lazy writing or 'stupidity' you see in a lot (but not all; some ARE stupidly written) of these films (save in those where it's an ironic point): it's the fact that the brain doesn't deal well with having the mat jerked out from under it.

A good illustration: Jason X; the girl at the shuttle controls. All she has to do is wait for five minutes and everything would be perfectly fine. However, she's terrified. All she wants to do is Get Away and Live.

1. People do not behave well, or rationally, under stress. Having your entire world torn out from under you in less than a month counts as stress.

2. I think we can agree that the military commander was a freaking looney toon and most of his men were just as crazy as he was.

Just because they have slightly more weapons and have had (maybe, depending on their specialty) a couple weeks training in dealing with tactical situations doesn't mean they're any more effective at dealing with the situation they've found themselves in.

They haven't trained for the situation, are cut off from their chain of command and support structure, don't have the massive infrastructure below them they're used to... they can't even cook for themselves. They're just waiting for things to end.

 

[Kai Lord]

A good illustration: Jason X; the girl at the shuttle controls. All she has to do is wait for five minutes and everything would be perfectly fine. However, she's terrified. All she wants to do is Get Away and Live.

Slight highjack, would you mind explaining what happened in the Jason X scene referenced above?

 

[Mark Chance]

And thinking/planning for such a thing is far different from training for it, which is far different from it actually living through it. In such situations, even people who prepare for such things more often than not find themselves just as overwhelmed as those who sat around and watched Eastenders.

Quite right. The idea that a group of, say, gamers gets together every weekend and "plans" for an extinction-level event, and is therefore somehow prepared for said event is laughable.

Talk to anyone who's ever been in actual combat. Training can and does make a difference, but it does not make a necessary difference.

Macho Gamer Dude: "Man, if that ever happened to me, I'd just, you know, pow! zammo! ka-boom!, dude."

 

[WayneLigon]

Slight highjack, would you mind explaining what happened in the Jason X scene referenced above?

From what I remember (which may not be correct): The shuttle is attached to the ship by a docking arm, or some other constraint. It's a simple procedure to release the ship, and she has plenty of time to do so, but in her fear-addled state (she's in total screaming hysterics) she basically guns the engines and tries to leave without doing this thing. She destroys the shuttle, kills herself, and gets rid of the last way off the main ship for the others.

End hijack.

 

[WayneLigon]

Quite right. The idea that a group of, say, gamers gets together every weekend and "plans" for an extinction-level event, and is therefore somehow prepared for said event is laughable.

I remember a great What's New cartoon from a long-ago Dragon about how roleplaying prepares you for challenges in RL: the guy flattening his mugger with a briefcase and saying 'Hmmpf, they're letting anyone into the Thieve's Guild these days' was particularly funny.

You can legitimately prepare for such things as earthquakes, floods, even nuclear attack. Psychopathic zombie-ish diseases are off anyone's scale.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Quite right. The idea that a group of, say, gamers gets together every weekend and "plans" for an extinction-level event, and is therefore somehow prepared for said event is laughable.

Talk to anyone who's ever been in actual combat. Training can and does make a difference, but it does not make a necessary difference.

Macho Gamer Dude: "Man, if that ever happened to me, I'd just, you know, pow! zammo! ka-boom!, dude."

Hey, don't you remember in the X-Files episode Jose Chung's "From Outer Space" , the guy who says "Well, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage."

I just got back from seeing 28 Days Later, and I liked it quite a bit. Yeas, there were some stupid decisions, and some very unrealistic scenes, but overall I thought it was quite well done. I realy like good horror films, and this is one of the few over the last few years that I have seen that were not just an excuse to kill pretty teenagers in totally unrealistic ways. Some thought went into the look and feel of the film, and as far as I'm concerned, it worked. I got my moneys worth, and thats all that matters in the end.

 

[Mallus]

Horror films I *DID* like? The list is short, but yes, I do think it can be done.

ALIENS - No contest, aside from the money grubbing corporate guy that tries to screw them, they generally made smart decisions.

Night of the Living Dead - I think that's what it's called, been a while. It's the one with the redhead who played the telepath Lita on Babylon 5. Some people made stupid mistakes... then they died. The smart and armed ones survived.

And as for the "their just people, they'd go for the scotch and choclate" angle, is it just me and my friends that entertain a fairly Nietzschean/Darwinian mindset at times? I mean, we constantly go over best plans in given situations, go over tactics and choices given many apocalyptic situations. It's probably caused by the same thing that makes mee watch fight club every few months...

Aliens is a great film, but I'd hestitate to label it horror. It really belongs in the genre war movie, specifically guerilla combat war movie. The biggest threat isn't the aliens, its the totally green lieutenant whose inexperience places the soldiers in a situation which nullifies their obvious material advantages. Horror naratives don't usually feature such well armed victims --they could have nuked them from orbit, remember? Aliens has far more in common w/a Vietnam movie, or even Black Hawk Down, than it does a pure horror film, such as Alien.

I never saw the remake of Night of the Living Dead, but the original 60's film is a classic.

And on the subject of Nietzsche... sure, my friends talk a mean game at the bar or at the gaming table... we're virtual ubermen. That doesn't translate into thinking that we'd function quite so optimally in real life and death situations, under such extraordinary pressure. None of us are Navy SEALS or SWAT team members.

Oh, and Fight Club also rocks. But what makes it so great is how it contradicts its stated message... I mean, it features Brad Pitt dressed in Versace as an anti-consumerism terrorist? Without those credit card companies, how the hell did he afford those clothes??