GAR Intelligent Zombies - Bub vs. Big Daddy

[bassman]

As I stated above, my personal opinion is that Flyboy wasn't that special. But if you really want to go down this path you might consider Cholo in the same light. I know there's some debate over exactly at what point he became a zombie, but if you subscribe to the theory he was a zombie fairly soon after his shot/bite episode, then you have to admit he somehow managed to get from outside the Green all the way into Kaufman's garage without anyone capping him. That's pretty remarkable. I don't see why this is really an issue. It seems pretty obvious to me that he's on his last living leg when he enters the garage, Kaufman shoots him, he lies against the pillar for a moment, dies, then he returns as a zombie. The entire walk to the green he was still alive, although probably very ill like Roger was. One similarity between Bub and Big Daddy that hasn't really been explored is this. They both had a "wake-up" call from humans displaying cruelty. But Bub was already advanced before he finds Logan dead. We don't really see Big Daddy do anything out of the ordinary until the masacre at Uniontown. Did BD just "snap" into this new reality, or was he brewing a plan the whole time he was hanging out in the gas station? Even further....how is it that the other zombies quickly jump at his "command"?

[BillyRay]

Please excuse a meta-sidetrack on the topic at hand... In Land, the character of Big Daddy seems to me a subversion of the "Cool-Headed Brother with a Plan" (a la Ben, Peter, John) from the first three films. The twist is, this time, he's a zombie. Does anybody know if this was intentional on Mr Romero's part??

[Trin]

I don't see why this is really an issue. It seems pretty obvious to me that he's on his last living leg when he enters the garage, Kaufman shoots him, he lies against the pillar for a moment, dies, then he returns as a zombie. The entire walk to the green he was still alive, although probably very ill like Roger was. Yeah, that's the debate. My personal opinion is that he was already a zombie when he entered the garage. I believe there was a pretty long thread about this at one point. I watched the scene several times and I really couldn't come to any definitive conclusion. Was Shane dead at the end riding on the horse? Or just resting slumped over? I don't know. But Bub was already advanced before he finds Logan dead. Yeah, you're right on that. I was just thinking that Bub went bucka-wow homicidal as a result of human cruelty. We don't really see Big Daddy do anything out of the ordinary until the masacre at Uniontown. Did BD just "snap" into this new reality, or was he brewing a plan the whole time he was hanging out in the gas station? Even further....how is it that the other zombies quickly jump at his "command"? Hmmm... Big Daddy does motion to the other zombies and put them on alert in the first scene when Riley and crew are scoping the area. That's before he ever sees a scavenger. Communicating with other zombies is one of the largest (and perhaps most unsettling) differences between Big Daddy and other zombies.

[Philly_SWAT]

Please excuse a meta-sidetrack on the topic at hand... In Land, the character of Big Daddy seems to me a subversion of the "Cool-Headed Brother with a Plan" (a la Ben, Peter, John) from the first three films. The twist is, this time, he's a zombie. Does anybody know if this was intentional on Mr Romero's part?? Hmmm....dont know whether this was intentional or not. My guess would be not, however, it is a pretty interesting idea BillyRay.

[Trin]

Didn't we talk about this idea at some point? (Like there's an idea we haven't beaten to death) I thought at some point we equated Big Daddy with the new style Romero hero, but this time he was working for the other side. Did anyone ever want to see Big Daddy get killed? I mean, aside from the stupid moaning. As a zombie character wasn't there some level of rooting for him?

[deadpunk]

Didn't we talk about this idea at some point? (Like there's an idea we haven't beaten to death) Someone remember that for the best quote of 2010. I thought at some point we equated Big Daddy with the new style Romero hero, but this time he was working for the other side. Did anyone ever want to see Big Daddy get killed? I mean, aside from the stupid moaning. As a zombie character wasn't there some level of rooting for him? I'll tell you, in a long rambling way, why Big Daddy couldn't die: By the time a "Land" world had evolved, killing zombies had to be the most impersonal thing ever. That was always my problem surrounding Land, not intelligent zombies. In order to have survived that long, you had to have killed at least one zombie. Outside the people living in the Green, every survivor has to have reached a point where they are mentally prepared to meet a zombie at any point. Yet... Kaufman can't handle Cholo? How did this guy rise to the top and control everything and not be able to take out a lone zombie? Seriously? You know this guy had taken out at least a few living people, yet he gets taken out by a solitary zed? Big Daddy was the main protaganist. In order for his death to have any significant meaning, it would have involved another incredibly unbeleivable scene featuring Riley and Big Daddy going mano a mano. It's not like they're fighting ninjas, ya know. By a "Land" setting, going one-on-one with a zombie has to be as scary as boxing a nun. A really old nun. Big Dady was smart, sure. But, I still know fat guys that could outrun him. So...a dramatic death scene is out. And, since you can't kill the bad guy until the end, and I've just sat and watched zombies die by the truckload, any empathy I'm supposed to have developed for Big Daddy isn't really going to translate. So, trying to make his death poignant is out... Really, Big Daddy had to live. Not much else would have made sense.

[Trin]

...every survivor has to have reached a point where they are mentally prepared to meet a zombie at any point. Yet... Kaufman can't handle Cholo? Wow. That's actually a point of irritation with Land that is new to me. I actually have something new to bitch about. Especially considering that he easily dispatched his board of directors minion earlier. Thank you sir. To the point of Big Daddy not being able to die in the end. What if some random wonk capped him as he walked away ala Ben in Night. That might've been a nice little wrapping up of the series.

[deadpunk]

Wow. That's actually a point of irritation with Land that is new to me. I actually have something new to bitch about. Especially considering that he easily dispatched his board of directors minion earlier. Thank you sir. I like to think of what I do as; Brightening the world's day, one post at a time. To the point of Big Daddy not being able to die in the end. What if some random wonk capped him as he walked away ala Ben in Night. That might've been a nice little wrapping up of the series. I feel that ending only worked because the audience had developed such an empathy for Ben. I think Romero wanted the audience to develop an empathy for Big Daddy, but that he missed the mark. More than a little. Land struggled with that concept to the point it felt like a guilt trip.

[bassman]

How did this guy rise to the top and control everything and not be able to take out a lone zombie? Seriously? You know this guy had taken out at least a few living people, yet he gets taken out by a solitary zed? Ummm.....they both get taken out by an exploding car.

[Trin]

I think the point is: "Oh, look, nosey board of director's guy" ... blam "Oh, look, gas station zombie" ... blam "Oh, look, former trash guy zombie who tried to ransom my city" ... blam This probably falls under the broader category of "post-apocalypse survivors who cannot shoot a zombie to the head" along with ALL of the military. But, you know, Kaufman was like "the man." The idea that he rose to power like this without the ability to cope with a couple stray zombies is kinda lame.

[Wyldwraith]

Problems with empathy for Big Daddy IMO, 1) His undead Martin Luther King Jr. march on Selma/Fiddler's Green lost all sense of the scavengers getting their comeuppance when, upon infiltrating the Green, BDs horde simply goes hog wild slaughtering the lower class of Fiddler's Green before ever getting near the apartment building of the elite. 2) The many, MANY issues and irritations that have been oft-discussed concerning BD organizing and directing the zombie march under and across the river. 3) The previous poster's point about Kaufman somehow having risen to the top rung of the social ladder, while being as helpless in the face of the lone Cholo-zombie as Barbara in the original Night when confronted by her undead brother. 4) The oft-discussed problems/complaints with the super-upgrade in zombie stealth and planning capabilities, that culminate with the absolutely infuriating instance of GAR bludgeoning us with his "They're Us" message one more time when Riley inexplicably makes the idiotic decision to spare BD and his remaining troops "Because they're looking for a home". This was a huge issue for me, as I couldn't say I felt anything but outrage and that Riley is a pro-zombie traitor to his own kind when he witnesses zombies corner and devour dozens of the Green's inhabitants against the fence and STILL thinks it a good idea to spare those monsters that slaughtered so many of the vanishingly small number of remaining humans. One button pressed and Big Daddy & Co. are a semi-wet stain on the wrecked causeway. 5) The obvious contradiction of feeling for the plight of killing & eating machines. No matter how hard I try I can find nothing sympathetic about zombies. The plight of infected/dying humans who know they're doomed, yes. Empty vessels with a few half-degenerated neurons and ganglia occasionally that now and again fire/activate and reveal a brief bare-bones echo of their former living behavior. If anything, my disgust and desire to destroy such creatures would only increase if I saw one or more behaving in a way that indicated a memory fragment was dictating their current behavior. I could go on, and on, and ON in this vein, but I would only be pummeling a dead horse into glue. To me, zombies are undead caricatures of the living that profane, devalue and exist as shambling mockeries of what the human experience is and can be. Whatever faint familiarity or recognition "they" were once like us, I just can't get away from the omnipresent truth that their current condition makes everything that came before worse than meaningless. Thoughts along the lines of GAR's "They're Us" message would be the #2 killer of survivors (stupidity/not thinking being 1st). I mean, in an apocalyptic situation the first necessary casualty for *successful* survivors would be the social mores, and habits formed from living so long in the relative plenty of the 1st world. Agonizing over one's beloved mother becoming a zombie misses the point. A child that REALLY loved their deceased & reanimated parent would suck it up and do what was necessary to stop the physical shell of the loved one from doing things that would be a betrayal of the life that person had lived. We so often see the agonizing of survivors confronting how having to fight against a deceased loved one makes them feel that we forget that at the end of the day if that grown-up child remains caught up in how the confrontation makes THEM feel that they've completely disregarded what their late loved one would've wanted. Self-centered emotional reactions are the worst of us. NOT something to be enshrined as GAR seems to believe. Just my .02 your mileage may vary.

[Trin]

But you're just a zombie hanging in the park with your buds making some music, holding hands with your gal on a stroll through the wasteland, watching some fireworks, and here comes a bunch of hooligans gunning down whole families and taking all your booze. How can you not feel for the big guy? But seriously, I don't think you can get mad at the zombies for going bucka-wow on the layman. They didn't know anything about the social structure in the Green. Kaufman wasn't in the group that attacked Uniontown. By all appearances Kaufman was not associated with the attackers. It's amazing they went after him at all if they were discriminating. They really just seemed to go for the tower and anything between. I hate the river thing as much as you do. We can sob in our beers together over that bohica. I like Riley. I want to believe he did no wrong cause he was cool. So in my mind I've decided that Riley didn't pull the trigger because he was concerned for the wellbeing of the causeway. And when we later see him driving off it's because he did not destroy the causeway. And he drove over the causeway, and the remaining zombies, on his way out. I imagine little bits of zombie on the wheels of DR.

[SRP76]

5) The obvious contradiction of feeling for the plight of killing & eating machines. No matter how hard I try I can find nothing sympathetic about zombies. Exactly right. Are we supposed to feel sorry for the shark in Jaws? No. So there's no reason to start blubbering when a zombie gets beheaded.

[BillyRay]

Exactly right. Are we supposed to feel sorry for the shark in Jaws? No. So there's no reason to start blubbering when a zombie gets beheaded. I think you'd feel different if you were a zombie...

[Phenia Films]

Big Daddy is lame.. Bub was fantastic but nobody like #1 Ghoul Mr Hinzman