Roderick

in-movie question about Shaun

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Something bothers me about Shaun of the Dead. So I'd like to discuss it with you folks, since we're all Shaun fans here.

If you've seen the movie, you know how everything in the movie fits. There are no scenes that are there just for yucks, everything comes back in one way or another, proving to be an asset to the plot, stearing it forward, rather than just adding erratic entertainment value. This goes very far in Shaun, providing for a very tight experience. Whole camera-movements become semiotic recurring plotdevices, such as the elaborate one where Shaun goes out of the house, walks accross the street, goes into the store to buy his breakfast, etc. So what I'm saying is: everything in the movie is there for a reason.

Which makes the thing I want to bring forward all the more troubling. Because there's one scene that just doesn't fit. It's there, well obviously for a purpose, but it doesn't aid the plot, it doesn't return to explain itself, and more disturbingly, it promises something and doesn't deliver.

I'm talking about the scene where Shaun and Ed are sitting in the Winchester after Shaun has been dumped by Liz. Shaun is down in the dumps and Ed tries to cheer him up. He then turns to descibe all the wonderful, off-beat characters sitting in the pub. involving suspenseful cameramovements and well-chosen desciptions, the movie seems to be introducing those people. At this point the movie tells you that these people will later on come back to form a group of zombie-hunters together with Shaun. Why else would there be such elaborate introductions, in a movie where every scene and minute tidbit has a purpose? Alas, as it turns out later, the movie seems to forget about this whole scene, and we never see those people again. This can be expected from a movie like Austin Powers, which doesn't mind using stuff like this for pure comedic value. But in Shaun, it's just wrong. I would have liked seeing the old drunk lady and the stark pale hunter again. It made for the only (small) disappointment of the movie, a fault generated completely by itself.

So it really puts you on the wrong foot, all the more nagging because everything else is so carefully designed. What did you think? Did you notice this at all?

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I noticed that as well, but you could always look at like this: Shaun and Ed were totally piss drunk at the time, and probably forgot all about it, and so did the movie. Perhaps!

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Thanks to the wonder of commentary tracks, all is revealed:

Ed's actually laying out the entire plot in that bit.

tomorrow morning lets have a bloody mary (reference to mary the girl in the garden)

lets grab a bite at the kingz head (reference to philip being a bitten at his house)

grab a couple at the little princess' (picking people up at liz's)

then we'll stagger back to the winchester (acting like fake zombies)

and we're back at the bar for shots (the bit with the gun right before the end)

then on the commentary they say "if you didn't hate us before you hate us now."

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I'm pretty sure that's not what he's referring to...

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It isn't ^_^

I think I already got the gist when Ed said that bit, even without commentary track. Damn this movie is good.

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One of the guys in the bar appears later when he's being torn apart by zombies. Someone asks if they're close to the Winchester yet, and when Shaun sees the guy from the bar (with the cowboy boots) he says "we're close".

The other ones don't serve a purpose though, you're right.

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Ah whoops sad I was like one line of dialogue too early. I was at least still in the right scene. Chris's answer about drunkedness making it irrellevent is the best.

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One of the guys in the bar appears later when he's being torn apart by zombies. Someone asks if they're close to the Winchester yet, and when Shaun sees the guy from the bar (with the cowboy boots) he says "we're close".

The other ones don't serve a purpose though, you're right.

I finally got the DVD and now I can finally talk about the movie! Yay! :naughty:

I saw it with some sort of pop up ads, and they said that the man, "Snakeyes" I think, was a womanizer, so it was appropiate end that he got torn apart women...

Maybe the deleted scened and extras will provide more info? :erm:

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I think marek got it, it's how shaun knows that they're close to the pub. He sees zombies eating someone and then notices his boots.

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It might also be there to establish the shittyness of The Winchester. Liz keeps alluding to that all the time however it seems like a fun place in the opening scene. In this later scene you see all these characters who are made out to be really colorful by Ed but are in fact really sad and boring, which is representative of the pub itself.

There, it has a function now.

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Does no one remember in the end when they're hiding in the bartender's area that the pr0n star is the one who opens the gate?

That everyone fights the owner of the pub with pool sticks?

That the wife of the pub owner also attacks them?

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Does no one remember in the end when they're hiding in the bartender's area that the pr0n star is the one who opens the gate?

That everyone fights the owner of the pub with pool sticks?

That the wife of the pub owner also attacks them?

Oooh! I didn't recognize the "pr0n" star...

But now I wonder...

-Would the "pretend you are a zombie" thing work in other movies?

-How can you get eaten alive by zombies? If you are getting eaten, you are getting bitten, and you'll eventually die.... And turn into zombie... And zombie don't eat zombies... Right? :erm:

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In the original Dawn of the Dead, it was all about warm human flesh. You wouldn't be able to stagger around and fool a zombie; he'd feel you were alive. And it also reasons that a zombie could theoretically eat a whole man. He will be dead at that point (I don't know the incubationtime for a zombie), but it will take some time before the flesh turns cold. And as long as it's warm, I guess the zombie will eat it.

But I think it'll differ from film to film, and in the end it doesn't really matter ;)

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In the original Dawn of the Dead, it was all about warm human flesh. You wouldn't be able to stagger around and fool a zombie; he'd feel you were alive. And it also reasons that a zombie could theoretically eat a whole man. He will be dead at that point (I don't know the incubationtime for a zombie), but it will take some time before the flesh turns cold. And as long as it's warm, I guess the zombie will eat it.

But I think it'll differ from film to film, and in the end it doesn't really matter ;)

Oh, right... You have to remember that horror movie physics aren't the same as ours... :mock:

I think the incubation time differ from movie to movie too...

But still, zombie ARE dead men, right?

I've always wondered...

-I know this would make a boring film but why not simply wait till they rot? In Dawn of the Dead (2003), you can see that some zombies are starting to rot at the end of the movie, so maybe you could just wait till they rot?

That is, unless they turn into undead skeletons....

-Zombies have HUMAN teeth and they don't have claws... They shouldn't be able to bite you if you had enough clothing.... Right?

It would be a funny scene to see a guy with 5 sweaters and a anorak swimming in a sea of zombies... :deranged:

And it would explain why they've never made a movie with zomibes that takes place in the North Pole or Syberia....

-Remembering the scene in Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, where Ash cuts his hand off, I thought of something....

Has there ever been a movie where when someone got bitten the victim would just chop the bitten part off? Would it work? :erm:

I'll stop rambling about horror movies... For now.... :innocent:

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Well, I dunno anyone who would chop his own limb off, and most people in this movie got bit in the neck, I think the only semi-main char. that got bit in the hand was Shaun's mom and Pete.

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I'm guessing it would work if you'd chop of the infected part before it would reach other parts. The theory is that you don't become a zombie because you get bitten. You die because you're bitten, and then whatever mysterious voodoo is running amock in the world changes your corpse into a zombie.

As for the biting part: we see zombies getting extraordinary strenght in some movies. This strength would also be in the jaw, making it possible for zombies to rip through anything. Besides, zombies don't bite, they tear your flesh off.

Damn I'm having fun discussing zombie-lore.

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I'm guessing it would work if you'd chop of the infected part before it would reach other parts. The theory is that you don't become a zombie because you get bitten. You die because you're bitten, and then whatever mysterious voodoo is running amock in the world changes your corpse into a zombie.

As for the biting part: we see zombies getting extraordinary strenght in some movies. This strength would also be in the jaw, making it possible for zombies to rip through anything. Besides, zombies don't bite, they tear your flesh off.

Damn I'm having fun discussing zombie-lore.

That's the thing with zombie-lore, it changes from movie to movie...

There are usually slow and stupid, but sometimes they are fast, some can talk, and some even have a little brains left...

My theory is this one:

Ever heard of the Komodo Dragon? It's a huge lizard with a deadly bit, because it's saliva has so many germs it infects the bite and causes it to rot/gangreen...

Well, I always thought that the zombie bite was similar to this, it infects you, kills you and you become one of them...

Hmm, they must have more strength to tear flesh because we've got omnivore teeth, not carnivore, and there is no way a normal human could do that...

Continueing the zomibe-lore talk, I've never actually seen a "necromancy" zombie, it's usually a virus, or toxic waste (I'm not even sure what escuse they gave in Dawn of the Dead)...

In Evil Dead they are Deadites dead people posseded by evil demons, they are not exactly zombies....

The only time I've ever seen ALL the dead return to life was in Reaper Man but that was because Death was doing his job... :mock:

But then again, I've stated before that Spain isn't the best place for a Horror/B-movie fan, I haven't seen that many zombie movies to start with:

-Night of the Living Dead 30th Anniversary

-The Crazies (they we're zombies, right?)

-Dawn of the Dead (78 and 2003 version)

-Dellamorte Dellamore (aka Cemetery Man, Of Death and Love)

-Return of the Living Dead

-Braindead aka Dead Alive

-Shaun of the Dead

-Resident Evil

-Beyond Reanimator

There are other they really don't classify, like Pet Sementary, Rute 666, Evil Dead, and others....

Then there is Una de Zombis a spanish zombie comedy from last year...

The movie is pretty silly, but the zombies are exactly the same as they were when they lived, excpet they don't feel pain....

There is this this scene which is quite noteworhty:

-Zombie A: "Who killed you?"

-Zombie B: "Wasn't it you, you bastard!"

-Zombie A: "I don't remember killing you! But I'm sorry anyway"

-Zombie B: "Don't worry! Being a zombie rocks!"

:nuts:

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Speaking of ZOMBIES, for an animation-assignment on school I'm modelling zombies in Maya (you may have read it in the Captain August-rant already), and I thought it appropriate to put a little something of it here. The making of Fat Zombie:

animation.gif

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I wonder if fat zombies eat themselves? :mock:

I just remembered some theory about the brain eating variety of zombies....

Brains produce endomorphine, a drug to calm pain apparently, and zombies eat the brain because being dead hurts! (DUH!)

So zombies are just junkies!

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I just finished reading the first in a line of graphic novels by something-something Kirkman (creator of the infamous Battle Pope) called "The Walking Dead". It's a zombieromp in the best traditions of Dawn of the Dead: not just feisty bloody fun, but also satirical and reflecting on the way we live. It seems to roll up everything from every zombiefilm and use it. Full of things that'll remind you of this or that movie, but it still manages to have its own (small) identity.

Oh yeah, my point being: in this particular zombietale, zombies identify each other by their smell. Not warm human flesh. The protagonists rub themselves in with dead zombieblood to safely traverse into the infested dead cities.

Yeah it was a pretty nice thing to read :)

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Something that's bothered me more and more during the last decade is the gradual warping of the definition of the word zombie. When I was a kid, a 'zombie' was someone who had most definately died (and usually rotted), then later risen/been made to rise from the dead by some unholy event/curse/spell. They could go on a rampage, be risen as a servant, or just hang around or haunt a particular place. Short of beheading, they were also practically impossible to kill. Nowadays however, a zombie seems to mean someone's who's contracted something contagious which has driven them mad, and made them go on a murderous rampage.

Please feel free to correct me here, but I think the Resident Evil series was one of the initial, and most influential culprits. If I remember correctly, the 'T-virus' didn't even have to kill someone to turn them into a zombie, someone could just catch it and gradually turn into a zombie in stages, without ever actually dying at any point. I think I remember a diary account in the first game of someone who had contracted the disease, whose entries gradually changed from standard journal entires to such gems as "hungry. itchy. want raw meat...' or something like that anyway. In '28 days later', the victims transformed into so-called zombies in a matter of seconds, and most definately look warm-blooded. Call me old-fashioned, but I'm not happy about this alternative, modern definition. Anyone else agree?

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