GAR Intelligent Zombies - Bub vs. Big Daddy

[Trencher]

Sometimes I suspect that Romero meant that the zombie plauge is a punishement from god and that big daddy is an avenging angel. He knows that Kaufman is evil for instance and when Kaufman dies Big Daddy decides that justice has been done and leaves with his followers.

[Philly_SWAT]

Well. Rules are meant to be broken, and it's up to Romero, not us, whenever he wants to break those rules. Infact, maybe the rules were just rewritten for Land. I disagree. As art is personal, it is up to us to decide if the rules were broken or not, or if they even ever existed in the first place

[Danny]

I disagree. As art is personal, it is up to us to decide if the rules were broken or not, or if they even ever existed in the first place while i can agree that it can be seen that way, from a behind the camera point of view i think, whilst your audience can turn anything into anything, in fact my media studies teacher, who to be blunt was a twat, would see racism in a blackman holding a kids hand in a movie. Subtext and meanings, signifiers and signs are all in the eye of the beholder -BUT, more often than not you can say that this may be that, or that actually means this and its simply just that the filmmaker is telling his or her story, a story in a world of their own creation. a world in which they and only they govern the rules. you can dislike a choice, you can boycott the series because of it, hell, even try to unexplain it in a hands on your ears "nee-ner, nee-ner, not listening!" way but in the end the story is up to one person. the writer.

[Philly_SWAT]

while i can agree that it can be seen that way, from a behind the camera point of view i think, whilst your audience can turn anything into anything, in fact my media studies teacher, who to be blunt was a twat, would see racism in a blackman holding a kids hand in a movie. Subtext and meanings, signifiers and signs are all in the eye of the beholder -BUT, more often than not you can say that this may be that, or that actually means this and its simply just that the filmmaker is telling his or her story, a story in a world of their own creation. a world in which they and only they govern the rules. you can dislike a choice, you can boycott the series because of it, hell, even try to unexplain it in a hands on your ears "nee-ner, nee-ner, not listening!" way but in the end the story is up to one person. the writer. My comment was more of a sarcastic dig at EvilNed than a serious topic of debate Can't blame you for not recognizing that, it was an argument that is quite a few months ago...perhaps even last year, I can't remember.

[Danny]

My comment was more of a sarcastic dig at EvilNed than a serious topic of debate Can't blame you for not recognizing that, it was an argument that is quite a few months ago...perhaps even last year, I can't remember. thats what i hate about the internet, text just doesn't carry sarcasm ever.

[MoonSylver]

thats what i hate about the internet, text just doesn't carry sarcasm ever. That's cuz you're not using a disclaimer:

[archivesofthede]

I had thought to post something and forgot what it was after I saw your sig Moon.

[krakenslayer]

I had thought to post something and forgot what it was after I saw your sig Moon. I know, I always scroll quickly past Moon's posts in case my girlfriend sees it and starts slagging me off for looking at porn.

[MoonSylver]

I know, I always scroll quickly past Moon's posts in case my girlfriend sees it and starts slagging me off for looking at porn. I'm calling bullshit. You've stared at banana girl so long she's burned into your retina's don't deny it. Besides, with posts of such high caliber as mine how COULD ANYONE scroll past them? You don't even NEED banana girl as a reason to stare at them for hours...

[krakenslayer]

I'm calling bullshit. You've stared at banana girl so long she's burned into your retina's don't deny it. Besides, with posts of such high caliber as mine how COULD ANYONE scroll past them? You don't even NEED banana girl as a reason to stare at them for hours... Haha! Touche! Don't worry, I DO read your posts, but if she's in the room I scroll carefully to the top of the sig and no further. 'course, when she's not there...

[Philly_SWAT]

Funny, I was thinking "I wonder what interesting and thought provoking line of reasoning about zombies revived this 4 month dead thread", and all it is is guys thinking of oral!

[rongravy]

Although in a fight I think BD would win as it all stands, I know I'd root for Bub. I liked him alot more, and his "change" seemed alot more natural and believable. Like someone said earlier, BD just seemed wrong. That/he was the only thing I really didn't like about Land. He seemed so out of place and unexplainable. I realise the whole situation was unexplainable, but he just didn't fit in at all with how the movies were progressing. I think he could've been played better, and thought out a little more. I also like what someone said about Bub being the master puppeteer by getting the mad doctor to deliver vittles by hand just by jumping through a few little flaming hoops. Fake brush your teeth, jam to some tunes, pretend to shave... Hand over the meat buddeh. That's right, puppet... So, in hand to hand definitely BD. He had alot more coordination and didn't seem as woobly as Bud. He's also one giant, bad mutha... shut yo mouth! Give them both a gun and it's a crapshoot. Bud was an Army man so he might have a chance here. Either way, I'm still rooting for Bud, he had heart and you can't help but love the guy. BD was just lame. Team BUD all the way!!!

[deadpunk]

A few weeks back we nudged up against the topic of Bub vs. Big Daddy. Since then I have been giving a lot of thought to intelligent zombies in GAR movies. I have another hypothesis to throw into the mix. I think a lot of us work from the assumption that Bub was just any old zombie pulled from the pen and trained by Dr. Logan to behave. And that makes him fundamentally different from Big Daddy because he was merely trained while Big Daddy was independently intelligent. Well, what if Bub wasn't just any old zombie? What if Logan had tried to train dozens or even hundreds of zombies prior to Bub, and Bub was the ONLY zombie he'd ever succeeded in training? It stands to reason he would've tried to train others. And it stands to reason he failed since we only have Bub. So it may be that Bub was very much like Big Daddy and all Logan did was identify it. First of all, the entire OP on this thread has to be one of the most well thought-out posts I have ever read. Fucking wow. Anyway... I had never considered where Bub came from. In retrospect, your line of reasoning makes sense in conjunction with a Big Daddy character. I mean, Bub, zombie or no, doesn't look like the sharpest fucking tool in the shed, in the first place. If Frankenstien had his choice of zombies to experiment on, surely on looks he would single out someone that looked different than the guy that changed my oil last week. And that being said, I think you can add another common denominator to why they were alike; They were both clearly blue collar guys. Big Daddy was pumping gas when we met him, probably lifting cars in the bay when he wasn't filling tanks. What did Bub do? I'm looking at Bub, we're in Florida...I'm putting my money on pumping gas, cutting grass, or wrestling alligators. Clearly not overly bright guys, both probably played High School football and were already exposed to mild/heavy brain damage. But seriously, what if Bub was a mechanic? I know you're average car jockey isn't usually the smartest guy you know, but imagine if, as a species, we had to re-evolve from a state where our minds had been wiped out. It would be the guys that worked with tools that might be the first to grab the concept of a 'basic tool' (which zombies use frequently in GAR's films). In the original Night, Ben rolls up and leaves the headlights on. (Which, by the way, since he was trying to score gas, why was he willing to risk killing the battery?) The zombies quickly grasp rocks and take out the headlights. Barbara's initial attacker takes out the car window with a rock. Etc, etc... Anything that can use a basic tool is not functioning on pure motorized instinct. The titles of the movies clearly suggest that the movies are stages of the ongoing story. But, I think it is fair to say that most of us view those stages in how we are adapting to the zombies. But, if you look at those stages from a zombie's POV and you can find enough evidence the Romero was always leaning towards zombie re-evolving into something more than mass eating machines. My personal theory is thus: In Night the zombies have first hit the scene and answer their natural urge to feed. The first 30 minutes of Dawn continue along this path until it's pretty obvious that we've lost the fight and most of us have become chow. In Dawn, it is clearly stated that survivors believe the zombies are arriving at the mall because it is a place they know. Day is the mixed message. Here we get our first exposure to a more intelligent zombie, but the zombies aren't driven to the compound because it was a place they knew. So they must still be functioning mainly to feed at this point... Everything following Dawn though, illustrates that zombies out number us now. When the food runs out, what happens next? Big Daddy. Everytime that bell rings, this poor slob runs out and gears up to go. But, there is no car to fill up. Something is supposed to happen next. Big Daddy is presented with a problem that Pavlov's dog could have shown empathy for. The fucking bell rang, where's the car?!If you can accept that the very first zombie George Romero ever shows you is capable of grasping the concept of basic tools (smashing a car window with a rock), then you have to accept that a zombie has always been a species with problem-solving capabilities. With all the food gone, Big Daddy was a non-sleeping, walking corpse with the ability to resolve problems and nothing but time to do it with. As far as his lack of appetite goes...I don't think Romero has ever convinced me that each and every zombie is constantly hungry. You can clearly see zombies in all of his movies that are more obsessed with 'shiny things' than with the humans around them. I Setting the slightly awkward depiction of Big Daddy aside (who, basically, was just badly-acted)... My initial distaste for the Big Daddy character came from the actor. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't what I imagined at all... Funny, I was thinking "I wonder what interesting and thought provoking line of reasoning about zombies revived this 4 month dead thread", and all it is is guys thinking of oral! First of all, that is always a valid reason to revive...anything Second, I'm glad someone did, because I missed it he first round and obviously had some small opinions to be aired

[Trin]

I was just like Philly. Hey, this thread got a revive!! Oh, Oral... *shrugs* But then we get a great post by Deadpunk! Tons of interesting angles in there! So much to think about!! It does make a certain sense that a laborer would acclimate to being a zombie faster and perhaps better than a scholar. Laborers already have a talent for turning off the brain and doing mindless tasks repetitively. You also point out a couple things I hadn't considered. Like not all zombies wanting to feed. Thinking back there are some examples of that prior to Big Daddy. Or that the zombies literally have nothing better to do than learn. We like to argue that given no need for sleep or food they are the perfect machine to break down a barricade. But for the same reasons they are also the perfect machine to learn. The recent Night discussions have proven that not all zombies (or groups of zombies) act the same. Like the opening scene in Day where the zombies are all indoors seemingly sendentary. Compared with the Uniontown zombies who are moving around and being somewhat social. It could be that the groups were different. Or it could be temperature, time of year, progression into the outbreak, etc. We really don't know why they're different. Wrap it all together and I think we can make one rather pointed statement. Zombies are not all created equal. And there is a precedent for one zombie to act quite differently from the rest. So Big Daddy may seem odd and out of place, but is he really out of line with the prior movies? I think that's arguable. To the point of Romero having always leaned towards re-evolving the zombies, I think this is one area where the unfilmed Day script can be part of the discussion. Romero *did* intend to make the zombies in Day more intelligent than Bub turned out. If anything, the unfilmed Day script (though I hate, hate, hate it) would've bridged the gap between Dawn and Land more cleanly than what we ended up with. If that had been filmed as written then when Land comes along Big Daddy is not a stretch at all. Again, nice post Deadpunk! Oh, and Moon... I just wish she'd take a bite of that stupid banana already.

[rongravy]

But seriously, what if Bub was a mechanic? Wasn't Bub in the military? I'd have to watch it again, but I know he at least had a military background when he saluted old Pruneface. I remember them mentioning it. I still think Bub's the coolest. He looked like shit in the movie but who knows what he looked like beforehand? He might've been quite the handsome intellectual devil. Ok, maybe that's pushing it...