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Thread: Why people hate LOTD

  1. #646
    POST MASTER GENERAL darth los's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by clanglee View Post
    My problem with Land is is a juvenile effort compared to GAR's previous dead movies. Crap plot, with holes the size of Pittsburg. Silly characters, and sub par acting. Dawn'04 wasn't a GAR movie, and it was much better constructed than Land. Sad sad sad.
    There's no bigger gar fan than myself. However, i said it before and i'll say it again: imo land is of the quality that if i didn't know better and someone told me that it was a sci-fi channel original movie, i'd believe them. I'd be like " yeah, that sounds about right".
    FEAR IS THE OLDEST TOOL OF POWER. IF WE ARE DISTRACTED BY THE FEAR OF THOSE AROUND US THEN IT KEEPS US FROM SEEING THE ACTIONS OF THOSE ABOVE US.

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  2. #647
    Team Rick MinionZombie's Avatar
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    As for the whole "old timer" thing, it's a bit black & white.

    I came to the series and GAR's films long before Land came along. I've watched the original & best Dawn many-a-time before seeing Land, I love GAR's earlier work with gusto, and yet I still love Land because I see it as a good film.

    So I think the whole "young n old" thing is a bit tar-brush-like to be honest. I'm young, and I thought Yawn04 was f*cking pish.

  3. #648
    through another dimension bassman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post
    As for the whole "old timer" thing, it's a bit black & white.

    I came to the series and GAR's films long before Land came along. I've watched the original & best Dawn many-a-time before seeing Land, I love GAR's earlier work with gusto, and yet I still love Land because I see it as a good film.

    So I think the whole "young n old" thing is a bit tar-brush-like to be honest. I'm young, and I thought Yawn04 was f*cking pish.
    Same here. To say it has to do with age is just stretching. Sounds like they seem to think we saw Land and then came to HPOTD and saw the other films.

    I think MZ agrees with me that it's the least of Romero's Dead films, but it's still a decent flick. Someone earlier said "It wasn't what we were hoping for, or expecting.".....what were you expecting? The first three are all totally different films. Were you expecting Land to be identical to one of them or something?

    Anyway....it's not his best, but it's better than most. And the age argument is just insane.
    Last edited by bassman; 31-Oct-2007 at 12:35 PM.

  4. #649
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    Quote Originally Posted by bassman311 View Post
    Same here. To say it has to do with age is just stretching. Sounds like they seem to think we saw Land and then came to HPOTD and saw the other films.

    I think MZ agrees with me that it's the least of Romero's Dead films, but it's still a decent flick. Someone earlier said "It wasn't what we were hoping for, or expecting.".....what were you expecting? The first three are all totally different films. Were you expecting Land to be identical to one of them or something?

    Anyway....it's not his best, but it's better than most. And the age argument is just insane.
    Once again bassman, you're on my level.

    If I get my brain going long enough to find the dusty old file in the cabinet, I think the reason I ended up coming here was either:

    1) Reading an article in a 1997 issue of SFX magazine on GAR

    or

    2) Watching Day of the Dead (I watched the GAR zed flicks backwards, then Land).

    Saw Dawn on my 15th birthday, so I saw Day when I was somewhere around 14 and a half.

    Land is the least of GAR's zed flicks, but I think it's more because it was 20 years after the last one of the 'trilogy', all of which have had years and years, decades even, of following and cult worship.

    Land busts in 20 years later, into a world of expectations from fans - expectations are death to any movie. I didn't go in expecting anything, and I loved it.

    And you're quite right, all the films are completely different from one another. It's why Day of the Dead flopped in cinemas, people were expecting another Dawn of the Dead - with Land of the Dead they were expecting the same movies all fudged together into one flick, well unsurprisingly that didn't happen because GAR had others things to say and others ways to say them - just like he did with Day, just like he did with Dawn.

    Land may have suffered at the hands of the studio involved, but since when did a GAR film not experience a trouble-free production?

  5. #650
    POST MASTER GENERAL darth los's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bassman311 View Post
    Anyway....it's not his best, but it's better than most.

    I knew we could find common ground on this issue.
    FEAR IS THE OLDEST TOOL OF POWER. IF WE ARE DISTRACTED BY THE FEAR OF THOSE AROUND US THEN IT KEEPS US FROM SEEING THE ACTIONS OF THOSE ABOVE US.

    I DIDN'T KILL NOBODY. I DIDN'T RAPE NOBODY. THAT'S IT. ~ Manny Ramirez commenting on his use of a banned substance.

    "We kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong" ~ Unknown

    "TO DOUBT EVERYTHING OR TO BELIEVE EVERYTHING ARE TWO EQUALLY CONVIENIENT SOLUTIONS: THEY BOTH DISPENSE WITH THE NEED FOR THOUGHT"

    "All i care about is money and the city that I'm from, imma sip until I feel it, Imma smoke it till' it's done, I don't really give fuck and my excuse is that I'm young,and I'm only getting older, sombody shoulda told ya, I'm on one !"

  6. #651
    Chasing Prey clanglee's Avatar
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    Ahhhh, my age argument obviously came off in the wrong way. I am not suggesting that younger people are lesser fans. But When you have waited as long as we have for the next movie to come out, It does effect your expectations. Thing is, I am unable to go into a GAR movie without expectations. I expect good movies from him, not mediocre efforts. Land was a mediocre effort. Granted, better than most Z movies, but by far the worst of GAR's so far. FAR below the level of the others. Now, the age thing. . .I am old and set in my ways. That explains my expectations. I NEVER said my theory holds true for everyone, just an observation that seems to be supported by most of the postings on this thread. Young people are more accepting of new things in general. Anyways, I'm sure I missed a few points, hard to post at work and concentrate, but I'll get back later.

    Quote Originally Posted by Griff View Post
    Yes! Here was my theory on the zombie evolution in LAND:

    "The zombs in LAND (well, those from Big Daddy's hood, at least) seem to have certainly learnt to develop beyond mere eating machines. Like live humans who are able to satiate that basic desire, they're then free to pursue other endevours. Like starting families and living in communities. Or playing the tamborine.

    The other thing to consider, however, is that they also seem very adept at mimicry and the ability to learn upon that. Big Daddy wields a gun because he's seen what it can do. Ultimately, its his influence that spreads across the living dead of Uniontown. You could almost picture Bub, at the end of DAY, wandering out into the dead community with the skills he's developed and becoming the catalyst for a similar situation. This has been hinted at since before Stephen led the brigade up the stairs in DAWN, indeed all the way back to when the dead first gravitated to that one particular farmhouse in NIGHT.

    The evolution of the zombie may be less gradual and more spontaneous than we think. All it takes is that initial impulsion to motivate progress and then the evolutionary process is off and running at an indeterminable rate. A lack of stimuli, on the other hand, could explain why certain zombie groups seem to stagnate - just like primitive cultures that remain unchanged, even after tens of thousands of years. Then they have their first, small taste of 'civilization' and the next thing you know, they're using steel instead of stone and wearing Nike t-shirts that cover up their genitalia.

    In otherwords, the zombie's ability to to develop culturally may have been innate from the very beginning, it just requires a little provocation."

    I found it almost profound how once food had been taken out of the equation (for the dead residents of Uniontown must've gone a very long time without eating since their stores have yet to be raided), the zombies began to re-develop their old pre-death behaviours. Big Daddy is back at the gas station... the band is playing in the gazebo... a couple goes for a leisurely stroll, hand in hand... hell, one zombie is even content enough to just chill out on the park bench.

    Its only when this kind of tranquility is violently torn apart by the supply raiders that Big Daddy throws down his gas pump, picks up a weapon and marches off to war, with those he has enlightened in tow.

    To others with their fleeting consideration and brisk dismissal of the whole thing, its just another plot hole. To me it says alot about Romero's thoughts on revolution, violent revolution and its quest to establish some kinda of civilized order out of chaos.

    To me the LAND vs DAWN04 debate isn't about age, its about perception, or the lack thereof...
    Perception my ass. You may be right, George may have meant all that. But it's still silly. Corpses getting smarter, without stimuli. Corpses, ROTTING corpses. Personally I think you looked a little too deep into the abyss my friend, and came back with an interesting explination. But that interesting theory, while deep, and thoughtful, was still a bunch of crap logically. Dead things could not get smarter, they are rotting, their brains are rotting. I just don't buy it. And zombies went back to their old ways back in the original Dawn too. My main problem with the movie was how one smart zombie was able to make all the other zombies overcome their urges and stupidity to become an effective army. Not buying it. Please don't impune my, or anyone else's perception ability simply because we did not not get the same deep and profound ,but ultimately silly, message from the movie that you did.
    Last edited by clanglee; 01-Nov-2007 at 01:15 AM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
    "When the dead walk, we must stop the killing, or lose the war."

  7. #652
    Dying Griff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by clanglee View Post
    Dead things could not get smarter, they are rotting, their brains are rotting. I just don't buy it.
    If you can't buy it, then leave the store. That's the concept that Romero has been selling since film one and LAND was the next logical step in pushing that agenda. If you don't like it, that's fine, but don't act like LAND let you down if you were never up for where the series was heading in the first place. Its like being pissed off that Luke became a Jedi... its not just the thing that links the films, its also what drives them. If that pisses you off, then maybe you should concede the films were never really made for you all along rather than deduce that the filmmaker doesn't understand his own creation.
    "28 Days Later came out after we started (Dawn 04). Our zombies were running before we knew what their zombies were." - Zack Snyder, LIAR.

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    Rising Trin's Avatar
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    I really don't see where Romero has had any such zombie evolution agenda prior to Land. Looking back to Night, Dawn, and Day and suggesting that he had that agenda in place the whole time is the movie equivalent of Data Fitting - i.e. interpreting the facts to support an already decided upon conclusion.

    If you look at Night, Dawn, and Day without considering Land you'd be hard pressed to suggest any sort of zombie evolution was forthcoming. The zombies in Night, Dawn, and Day all had the same basic intelligence, mimicry skills, and emotions. They didn't evolve from movie to movie. The zombies in Night had learned not to approach the fire just as the ones in Day had learned not to approach the pen doors just as the ones in Land had learned not to approach the electric fences. The zombies in Dawn were mimicking their past life behaviors 3 weeks after the outbreak. This wasn't new zombie behavior 3 years later. And if Bub proved anything it's that no matter how much you train a zombie it's still a monster.

    In my opinion Big Daddy was a huge departure from the established Romero zombie, not the next step.

    I think Romero created the idea of zombies evolving specifically to support his societal and class commentary in Land.

  9. #654
    Team Rick MinionZombie's Avatar
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    Night of the Living Dead - they're all fairly normal, dumb zombies.

    Dawn of the Dead - specific discussion about them using "bludgeons and so forth". The zeds all flock back to the mall they once called their home away from home. The Krishna zombie figures out that Stephen came from that door and figures its way back upstairs to their hideout and attacks Fran.

    Then there's the zombie who grabs the gun from Roger, it knows what it's looking at, even if it can't get it's head completely around the concept. It then makes a reasoned choice at the end when it grabs Peter's gun, dropping Roger's in favour of Peter's rifle.

    When Stephen appears from the elevator as a fellow zombie, they're all ready to pounce on what they think is going to be still a human, but no - he's a zombie - the clawing hands stop sharply and then they all move away - they've recognised their own.

    Day of the Dead - the main one being Bub, he recognises a tooth brush, a book, a razor and music, he even operates the tape player. He is trained to respond with rewards promised after wards. He recognises a gun, operates it, salutes a fellow army officer and then recoils in anger when the salute is not returned. Bub shies away when Rhodes points a gun right at him, but stands up to him when he has a gun of his own, only getting angry and confused when nothing happens - he even figures out for himself it's because there was no clip in the gun.

    Bub, once escaped, discovers his master's body (a human he practically idolises or just respects - such as in the scene where he grabs Logan's arm and then feels that they're not too dissimilar after all), he gets confused, upset, has a zombie-cry and then gets angry - spotting a gun - he goes after Rhodes and gets bloody satisfaction, sarcastically saluting him as Rhodes is split in two.

    Land of the Dead - the next step in zombie evolution, bish-bash-bosh.

  10. #655
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    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post
    Land of the Dead - the next step in zombie evolution, bish-bash-bosh.
    yeah, but there should be a limit to zombie evolution. the points you've made are all quite valid (although you forgot to mention the original cemetary zombie's use of a rock to bust a car window and karen cooper's use of a trowel to kill her mother as some signs of intelligence/thought/reasoning abilities/whatever you call it)...but there's gotta be a limit somewhere, man.

    big daddy's actions are waaay over the top....the scene where he stomps a fellow zed's head in order to put it out of its misery comes to mind, as well as his ability to fire weapons ( i know bub did as well, but bub was sort of an exception, the way i've always seen it), "rally the troops" and lead a living dead revolt, navigating like a living-dead gps system, dragging his instantly clever and obedient brigade of ghouls for miles, marching across a river, then inspiring his comrades to take up any sort of weapons to battle their enemies, then chasing down the guy who just happens to be the arch-villian of the film, then overcome his fear of fire to pick up a flaming propane tank and roll it down to a gas-soaked car and kill kaufman.

    what's gonna happen next for evolution if romero continues this storyline? are we gonna see a zombie working on creating a flux capacitor? what about running for zombie president? fixing zombie social security, zombie homelessness, zombie hunger, etc?

    some people don't like their zombies to have the ability to run, some don't like their zombies having the ability to reason....at least not to the point that big daddy and his cohorts can.

    evolution, schmevolution.

  11. #656
    Dying Griff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trin View Post
    I really don't see where Romero has had any such zombie evolution agenda prior to Land. Looking back to Night, Dawn, and Day and suggesting that he had that agenda in place the whole time is the movie equivalent of Data Fitting - i.e. interpreting the facts to support an already decided upon conclusion.
    Romero's original story, Night of Anubis (written prior to NIGHT), ended with machine gun toting zombies chasing down the last of the living humans (shades of I Am Legend). I'd say its a safe bet that Romero has had the evolution thing in mind for a long, long time.

    I'm not merely "interperating facts to support an already decided upon conclusion". Instead of lazily labelling everything that's slightly peculiar as a bloody "plot hole", I'm exploring why Romero has made certain uncoventional choices and am finding a universal consistancy to them that points towards certain agendas and observations that Romero has most definitely decided to deliberately pursue.

    If you wanna ignore the politics in his work, go ahead, but don't tell us that they're not there.
    Last edited by Griff; 01-Nov-2007 at 02:15 PM.
    "28 Days Later came out after we started (Dawn 04). Our zombies were running before we knew what their zombies were." - Zack Snyder, LIAR.

  12. #657
    Just Married AcesandEights's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Griff View Post
    Instead of lazily labelling everything that's slightly peculiar as a bloody "plot hole", I'm exploring why Romero has made certain uncoventional choices and am finding a universal consistancy to them that points towards certain agendas and observations that Romero has most definitely decided to deliberately pursue.
    Mmmm, that made me feel good when I read it! Good points, all, Grif! I hate the blanket default to "plot hole" and the like for anything that people don't happen to 'get'.

    "Men choose as their prophets those who tell them that their hopes are true." --Lord Dunsany

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    Team Rick MinionZombie's Avatar
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    There's no limit to evolution, otherwise you might as well be a "zombie creationist" *lightning and thunder crashes through the HPOTD forum, spooky music and a Vincent Price cackle* - DUN-DUN-DUUUUUUUN!!!!

    I couldn't be bothered to list all the factors aiding to zombie intelligence, but it just goes to show, as Griff has also been showing eloquently, that the idea of an increasingly smart zombie that learns has been at the centre of Romero's zombie films.

    Heck, Land of the Dead, in it's original idea was going to be about ignoring the problem and treating the zombies like the homeless...it's there in Land, in a slightly different way, but one of the main points in GAR's zed flicks is it shows different stages along the line, the humans fall deeper into the abyss and the zombies get stronger, smarter and greater in number.

    I really struggle to understand why people have such trouble accepting Land considering the previous films in the saga and what they were all about.

    And don't anybody compare that statement above to my hatred of Yawn04, I hate that film because the script is shoddy beyond belief and it's pandering to the sort of no-brained numpties who like watching "Living on the Edge".

    But that's a whole other story, and one that I've explained at GREAT length before...just wanted to add a disclaimer so people don't start manipulating what I'm saying, ya sneaky buggers.

    *additional*

    Aces - indeed, it's one of the things I liked most about Land. It doesn't explain everything to you, nor lay it all out on a silver platter. The story goes beyond what's on screen - the different between plot and story is a prime example for film students here. There's the plot of Land, and then there's the story of Land - the latter which goes beyond the film in both directions and leads to lots of discussions and theories and fan analysis, chat, talk and hypothesis ... Yawn04 just belches out a bunch of flashy edits and sickeningly high-contrast-uber-psycho-colour and it just has it's plot and no proper story ... and the plot is mis-handled.
    Last edited by MinionZombie; 01-Nov-2007 at 03:10 PM.

  14. #659
    through another dimension bassman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post
    it's one of the things I liked most about Land. It doesn't explain everything to you, nor lay it all out on a silver platter. The story goes beyond what's on screen - the different between plot and story is a prime example for film students here.
    Since when have Romero's dead films EVER explained everything? He never does that in any of the films...

    And just as Griff said, his films have always been an evolution. If that's not obvious to the viewer, the viewer needs to read a bit more between the lines.
    Last edited by bassman; 01-Nov-2007 at 03:52 PM.

  15. #660
    Team Rick MinionZombie's Avatar
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    Well indeed, that is the thing with GAR's films, or many of them - especially the dead films. But was just saying that Land is no different, and it isn't bogged down with retarded and time consuming exposition explaining everything to the viewer so they don't have to ask questions ... kind like what Yawn04 does ... but it doesn't have anything to explain in the first place.

    "Dead people biting living people, cool sh*t happens in a flashy way, the end".

    A movie which gets the viewer going, giving them a jumping off point and encourages them to think outside of the 2 hour plot, is a sign of intelligence in my book. It's like eating a lush snack and then finding bits in your teeth to suck on for a few hours afterwards.

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