Something that bugs me about the Dawn of the Dead remake...

[blind2d]

Yep, agreed. And yeah, Hayek's ugly. But anyway, potato gun is a great idea. Too bad all the survivors in '04 were raving idiots.

[Ragnarr]

Forgive my ignorance in asking, but just how accurate are potato guns? I mean, the Dawn04 characters would certainly havefound the tech on hand from some of the stores in the mall to build potato guns, but unless the weapon was accurate enough to bean a ghoul in the head most of the time, it would just be another unproductive activity like the binocular chess games or the celebrity sniper. Also wondering how mobile an effective potato gun would be. Or would it be more of a mounted weapon system?

[bassman]

Forgive my ignorance in asking, but just how accurate are potato guns? I mean, the Dawn04 characters would certainly havefound the tech on hand from some of the stores in the mall to build potato guns, but unless the weapon was accurate enough to bean a ghoul in the head most of the time, it would just be another unproductive activity like the binocular chess games or the celebrity sniper. Also wondering how mobile an effective potato gun would be. Or would it be more of a mounted weapon system? My potato gun idea wasn't for shooting zombies, but for shooting food across the way to Andy's rooftop.

[Ragnarr]

Ah yes, you did say that. If I'm right about the approximate distance to Andy's Gunshop being 200 - 300 yards, the potato gun capable of shooting food that far would probably kill Andy outright. Death by a high velocity ham sandwich! Oh btw, just got done watching "La Horde". Great work on the frenchy zombies although some of them were ridiculously strong. Subtitles fizzled out like a third of the way into the flick, but I was still able to enjoy it. All the characters were like super fast martial artists which was like "oh geez c'mon now", but the literal HORDE of zombies they had for the film was amazing to see.

[chokeonthem]

I watched this again at the weekend. I really enjoyed it. Doesn't come near the charm and humour of the original but it is an entertaining one. I love the cameos too. How can you not love hearing Savini say "She's a twitcher!"

[Neil]

Find me a mall in the U.S. that has "food stocked for years" -- I doubt you could. Most food in most malls will spoil in a matter of weeks, most of the food in a matter of days if the power is gone. Surely tinned and dried produce would last for years!?

[Ragnarr]

Surely tinned and dried produce would last for years!? Absolutely a very long time for the characters in Dawn78 (4 people) and Dawn04 (11 people initially?). As I stated elsewhere in these forums, shopping malls generally have a least 1 restaurant, normally several. If any of them let you walk back into their kitchen and storage area, you find like a trillion or so boxes of canned and dehydrated foods. If you believe that all restaurants serve ONLY fresh foods, I own a couple of bridges in NYC that I can sell to you cheap. The characters in Dawn78 & Dawn04 could survive in any mall for a very long time if necessary.

[bd2999]

I liked the movie, probably would have more with a different name honestly. It was an action film with horror aspects though. I thought the reason they left was that whats her face went after the dog. Then after that everything sort of fell apart when a-hole character was not at the door and the zombies caught up and got into the mall too. I mean that is the actual reason they left but they would not have had the buses ready beforehand unless they were ready to leave otherwise (why multiple people were not at that door to make sure the one guy was not a tool and walked off I do not understand either because everyone knew he was not dependable). As for initially why they had the idea. I just think, and this is just my opinion from the movie, I would guess that they were just getting itchy being there for to long and feeling shut in. It was the way for them to do something and try and take control. Giving them something to do other than sitting around. Although in the end it did not make a ton of sense anyway because although it has the illusion of giving a chance none of them had knowledge this island was safe or was even out there. The zombies might have gotten in eventually, and I could see them making a run for it if they were running out of food or something, but none of that was covered in the movie. Just seemed to be derived from human stupidity and wonderlust driving the most aggressive personality characters. My main issue with this movie is that Anna is an extremly unlikable character IMO and that there are to many disposable characters that we just do not care about and they are pointless in that they just all die at once towards the end. We do not see them picked off one by one in cool ways, which at least gives them a function. Meh. To me the movie lost alot of steam about part way through honestly.

[Ragnarr]

I think that there would be plenty of things one could do at a mall to shake off any possible feelings of boredom or feeling closed in. The bookstore alone would have years of reading, having access to the mall's generator would allow for dvds & cds, the sports store has all kinds of excersise diversions, OR they could just keep busy reinforcing potential breeches into the mall. Not exactly sure how long their generator would have worked until they ran out of fuel. I agree that the characters should have had a couple of people at that door waiting for the rescure party to return from Andy's gunshop, and I also agree that some (if not all) the characters were shallow and mostly inconsequential to the viewer.

[Wyldwraith]

If you want an irritating decision by the survivors in Dawn '04 how about this, They make it onto the boat (with a horrendously high casualty-rate, but ok), and then set off for the island. On their way there, they encounter a drifting rowboat a good ways out with a still-active zombie head in the cooler onboard. RED FLAG! Given the lethality of even their heavily armed/armored convoy, would anyone's first thought be "Oh, someone stuffed this zombie head in the cooler on the mainland and then rowed out into this huge lake thats taking a long, LONG time to traverse even with a motorboat"? The fact the boat had blood all inside it and no one on board lends credence to the notion that whoever it was in the rowboat had been bitten, turned, and then stupidly fell over the side into the lake. Now, they reach the island around the time the engine conks out due to no more fuel. The island they have pinned all their hopes and lives to, after having just experienced still more casualties amongst their group. Don't you think SOMEONE would've said something along the lines of "Ya know, everywhere we went on the mainland had tons of zombies, and even on this huge lake we've found evidence of at least one boat that had an infected person in it at some point. Maybe we should perform even the most cursory of attempts to determine if this island is infested with zombies? By, I dunno, just yelling for 3-4 minutes before you bring the boat up to the dock? Judging by how fast and thick the horde of zombies that wiped them out was, and how fast they encountered them after getting off the boat (most of the survivors didn't make it off the dock even), SIXTY SECONDS observation after calling out loudly a few times would've undoubtedly revealed the island was just as heavily infested as the mainland. That was a BIG lake. Down here in Florida at least, sizable lakes (lakes 1/20th the size of the one they were on) very, VERY often have MULTIPLE islands out toward the center. The lack of ANY effort to determine if the island was the slightest bit safer than the apocalyptic journey they'd just been on, with so very many deaths of their comrades so fresh in their minds, really aggravates me. I enjoy the montage at the end of the flick for what it is, but my problem with this bit of decision-making isn't "movie logic nitpicking"...I simply can't imagine with those experiences, so much evidence of ongoing danger, and the rowboat raising at LEAST the POSSIBILITY it came FROM, instead of having been headed to the island as they were, that no one in that group thought it might be worthwhile to check out the island from a safe vantage first. HELL, they had at least one pair of binoculars thanks to shotgun-cop. Not like we're talkin about anything convoluted, such as say, re-purposing mall shuttles into armored apocalypse-transports. Just my .02

[Publius]

Absolutely a very long time for the characters in Dawn78 (4 people) and Dawn04 (11 people initially?). As I stated elsewhere in these forums, shopping malls generally have a least 1 restaurant, normally several. If any of them let you walk back into their kitchen and storage area, you find like a trillion or so boxes of canned and dehydrated foods. Aside from the restaurants, the mall nearest me has a Target with several aisles of canned and dry goods. One about half an hour away has a whole stinking Costco in it. Of course that mall is so big it would take a lot of people and time to secure.

[Ragnarr]

I cannot agree with Wyldwraith's "RED FLAG" post more! There's several points during Dawn04 that the viewer can only conclude that these characters were too stupid to survive for any length of time. The first clue was when the characters first entered the mall (throwing the toilet through the window - durp#1). Next was Michael in the sports store exchanging his nice, metal crowbar for a weeney croquet hammer (durp #2). Others would be Andre hiding the fact that his pregnant wife had been bitten (durp #3), Bart armed with a battery powered lamp on his shoulder during the garage scene (durp#4), and the weird shootout between Norma and Andre (durp #5). Then that little dog Chips. Chips was the catalyst for gunshop Andy being killed, the reason Tucker was killed in the sewers after the gunshop rescue, and of course all the rest of the characters being killed after Chips dutifully alerted every zombie on that island that it was dinner time.

[Trin]

But you have to hand it to the dog though. He survived the outbreak, the mall, the gun shop, and finally made it to the island where he called upon the zombies to get rid of the final risks to his wellbeing... the humans.

[Ragnarr]

But you have to hand it to the dog though. He survived the outbreak, the mall, the gun shop, and finally made it to the island where he called upon the zombies to get rid of the final risks to his wellbeing... the humans. (lmao) Holy Crap! You're right! That dog turned out to be the smartest one of the entire group!

[rongravy]

But you have to hand it to the dog though. He survived the outbreak, the mall, the gun shop, and finally made it to the island where he called upon the zombies to get rid of the final risks to his wellbeing... the humans. Wow. I totally never thought of that. My ferret better not try to pull that crap and start dooking at the wrong time or she's toast along with me.