Big Daddy is too damn smart

[otisbenny]

Ok, why is Big Daddy soooo much more intelligent than the other zombies? In DOTD, Bub was conditioned to "behave" and to not crave human flesh. He learned through that and flickers of memory to fire a gun, enjoy music and even display sarcasm when he salutes Rhodes at the end.
So where did Big Daddy gain his "knowledge"? He shows no desire to feed on the living. He ignores the 'sky flowers' while the others are mesmerized by them. He communicates with the others through grunts and body language. He basically commands an army. He even kills through the use of an explosive device. WTF??!! He's basically a regular mute guy with a slighly low IQ. Whatever he was in his past life may play a role, but unless he had someone like Logan to help unlock his brain, he should be pretty much like all the others.
In the Land commentary, GAR says that Big Daddy is about where Bub left off, but he seems more advanced to me. And if so, who taught him? Did he just rise from the dead with an intellegance level the other Zombies lack?
Land would be so much better if this were explained in the movie.

[ProfessorChaos]

i rationalize this with the fact that big daddy in his former life, was an dolt like carl from slingblade or forrest gump, maybe even a rain man idiot savant. being undead isn't too far from the level of intellect he possessed in the first place, so he just started figuring stuff out...and with no one around to remind him of how dumb he really was, he just took the ball and ran with it.

this is the only thing i can come up with. big daddy's level of comprehension and awareness are the worst thing about this movie. if they'd explained it somehow, perhaps i'd like the film better overall.

[sandrock74]

I've heard the dreaded word "evolution" thrown around in reference to the zombies in Land in general and to Big Daddy in particular. I have often argued the point that zombies CANNOT evolve, because they are dead! Something dead cannot evolve.

To evolve, something must be living, with evrything in it working and things like genes and DNA come into play. Something dead, including zombies, have nothing working inside (except some primordial part of their brain...we think). The skin is literally rotting off their bones as they shuffle about aimlessly. If locked into a room and never released, they will rot away into a skeleton.

It just bugs me when people use the words "zombies" and "evolve" in the same sentence. I actually like ProfessorChaos' theory from any that I have heard. For Big Daddy specifically, that makes a lot of sense...but it wouldn't explain the rest of the zombie horde.

My head is hurting again...:annoyed:

[otisbenny]

Interesting theory, ProfessorChaos, but it still doesn't explain why he doesn't crave human flesh. Maybe he and Bub sat down for coffee and had a chat..."Ok, Big Daddy, here's what you gotta do..."

[AcesandEights]

It all has to do with the character's backstory, where he came from.

Otis "Oat" Washington was the product of a single parent home. His father, an itinerant beet farmer, had abandoned his pregnant mother who was a school teacher in a small town situated just outside a large, regional city.

Growing up with the doting, yet strict attention of his mother, Otis found there was never a question he had that his mother couldn't answer for him, by way of a trip to the local library Once at the library, young Otis was often left to read and write a short a synopsis for his mother answering the question he earlier asked. Otis soon learned to not ask so many questions, but that didn't seem to save him from the library, as his mother often dropped him off there when she went to local church functions, as Ms. Washington had a bit of a weakness for the bingo.

Young Oat excelled at math and English, showed great facility in physical education and was good with his hands. He had a bit of a disconnect when it came to the physical sciences, but he managed to pass all the required classes for graduation and, aside from a few minor childish escapades, had kept his nose clean while in school.

All in all, it looked like young Mr. Washington was on a path to future, if somewhat modest, success, but his story does not end there.

In his senior year of high school, Otis' mother started seeing, socially, a certain Mr. Reginald Cooper, whom she had met at the local bingo matches, of which she was so fond. Upon bringing Mr. Cooper home for dinner one night, to meet her son, Ms. Washington was shocked to see how cool her son reacted towards her new beau. Otis was, in fact, quite upset and in a cold rage over the matter. Jealous and confused over his 'Daddy' issues, Otis started to drift from his mother and by the time he was graduating and Reginald Cooper was announcing his engagement to his mother, Otis decided that getting away from home, by just about any means, would be best for all.

Upon his enlistment, Oat was shocked at the natural ease with which he took to the regimented lifestyle. Otis breezed through basic training and reveled in the camaraderie he had built with his peers. It turns out he was going to be stationed in the motor pool, taking care of vehicles. That was alright with Oat. He didn't mind working with machines, though the mindless nature of some of the tasks, such as gassing up the different fleets of vehicles, irked him a bit at first.

After some time in and continuing to excel in the army lifestyle, Otis had eventually gained the rank of Warrant Officer and he was now planning and organizing unit-level maintenance of all sorts of vehicles. It was shortly after this that Otis was moved to an active, combat theater in one of those brushfire wars so popular at the time with the Joint Chiefs and the incumbent administration at the White House. So out of his country and in a combat zone for the first time, Warrant Officer Washington was now to know true loss for the first time in his life.

It was one thing to feel the hollow, after-the-fact loss of a parent he never knew, or the loss of home that he had felt after fleeing his mom's house but seeing the blood washed from the vehicles his crew serviced and refit, and knowing some of the guys getting cut to pieces and dieing in some pointless, politically motivated combat was completely different.

All this bloodshed, however, paled in comparison to that one day when a recovery convoy he and some of his crew were a part of was ambushed en route to a sight marked for equipment salvage. The area was supposed to have been secured some time ago. Pacified. But it wasn't. The convoy broke down into a stagnant trail of the dead and dying, punctuated by the few survivors desperately trying to repel the the ambushers coming down the hill at them in waves, tossing grenades, throwing mortar fire and spraying the remains of the convoy vehicles with automatic and sniper fire.

That's when the worst of it happened. Corporal Lance, 'Lucie' Aronofsky had his head all but taken off his shoulders by shrapnel and two of Otis' squad, privates both, had been wounded by fire. But the worst of it was Private Martinez. She was a cute, fresh-faced kid from Appaloosa, but when that phosphorous grenade went off and lit her up like a howling, melting Christmas tree, Otis almost died from shock, right on the spot. Otis didn't even think anyone used phosphorous grenades anymore, assumed they were against the Geneva convention, but then they weren't exactly fighting a nationalized army and war never played out as honorably as it was supposed to. None of that mattered to Martinez, though. She was good and truly fvcked. So Otis did the only thing he felt he could do in that situation. He chambered a round and shot her, shot her right in the head.

Otis had cried about it for a long time. You weren't really supposed to do that sort of thing, but he had. He was responsible fopr Martinez and that was a sacred bond. He couldn't conscience letting her scream a moment longer.

It wasn't long after the combat incident that Otis was headed home. Not home to base, but home to the States, to his hometown. Mr. Cooper had died and his Otis' mother, long since retired, was gravely ill. So Otis did the only thing he could, he took over Reginald's old gas station and pumped gas in-between trips to the hospital or doctors offices with his mother. His spare time punctuated by an occasional trip to the library, as he still loved to read, or a game of poker that Sam the Butcher sometimes hosted in the back room of his shop.

Yeah, there was a lot of time for Old Oat to think about what had happened on that day he had to put a bullet in Pvt. Martinez, as he repetitively pumped gas. Some days, when he could manage it, it was nice just to not think about it or anything at all as he mechanically went about his tasks at the gas station.

It was in his second Fall after he had returned from the war that Otis's mother passed on. Oat was sad, but, at the same time, relieved that his mother's pain was over. He understood, he desperately told himself, that sometimes it was better to embrace that end, rather than continue in pain.

When the dead started rising, Otis really didn't take note till it was too late. Death came scrabbling up at him, one early morning, from behind a parked car at his gas station and sank it's teeth into his ankle. As he lay in his shop dying Otis looked back on his life and wished he had some way to do it all over again and learn from his mistakes and to not torture himself so for some of the tough choices he had made and then it all ended.

The small town boy from just outside of Uniontown, who had gone off to war, known loss and come home to bury his mother, was dead. Then, sometime later, he got up again. But that's another story all together :p

[sandrock74]

Sooooooo....that's what happened. OK, I get ya.
Thanks!

[bigmonkey2582]

Too bad none of thats stated in the actual movie.

[EvilNed]

To evolve, something must be living, with evrything in it working and things like genes and DNA come into play. Something dead, including zombies, have nothing working inside (except some primordial part of their brain...we think). The skin is literally rotting off their bones as they shuffle about aimlessly. If locked into a room and never released, they will rot away into a skeleton.


You basicly answered your own question, or rather, contradicted your own theory.

There is infact something still alive in the zombies... Their brains, as you said. And don't give me that "Hasn't been proven" card, because well... Look at Bub. Look at Big Daddy. Look at the fact that it's the brain that needs to be destroyed in order for them to stop walking.

Their brain is alive, on a different level than ours, and while "evolve" might be a strong word, it's not an altogether unfitting one. Even if I think that it'd be more reasonable to assume that a zombie might be able to develop their cognitive powers beyond that of instinct. They have the ability all the time... It's just that, like a human, they function more primitively at first, and a few, lucky few, develop something that could resemble rational thought after awhile.

How? I don't know. They are zombies, they function differently from us. They've got our brain, but with all the electric charges in the wrong place.

I kinda view the zombies initial craving for human flesh similar that to newborn kittens and puppies (and many other animals). They really have only two cravings: Warmth and food. They get both from their mother and they know this. They simply know.

Zombies work the same way, at first. They have only one craving. Human flesh. And how do they know this? They simply know.

[MoonSylver]

There are many cases of people with strokes or brain damage who "re-learn" how to do things that were wiped out in the damaged areas of their brain. I've even seen an account of a girl who had to have ONE WHOLE HEMISPHERE of her brain removed, who they said would never recover, relearn how to walk, talk, access "lost" memories etc. Her brain was literally forming new neural pathways to those areas. IMO, that's what is going on with the zombies.

"Evolution" isn't really the correct term. But it's become the shorthand way of expressing what's going on. A holdover from the original source of inspiration: Matheson's "I Am Legend", the whole basis of which was the new society rising up & replacing the old, & the evolution the vampires go through to form that new order.

As for Big Daddy? Nothing necessarily special about his education or intelligence. Maybe just something about the man himself. The indication is that the others undergo "evolution" in the film independent of him (the sky flowers: that wasn't something he taught them, they just "evolved" past it.) He just happens to be the first, & nudges the others in the same direction.

[bd2999]

Evolve in the pure sense of the word is wrong, because it does not refer to an individual so much as a population. In theory it does not work with zombies, as far as I can tell. The simple fact is that they do not reproduce so they do not pass their genetic traits on to the next generation, so its not true biological evolution. They are dead bodies that got up, and so just cant do things that other biological organisms can.

I like the analogy to a stroke victum though. Its a trama, lack of oxygen or something to the brain, but it would be possible to remember or relearn some functions from before. Never as good as before, and it would vary from individual to individual with the potential for someone to nearly become what they were before it all happened and some having no more potential than a can of peas. I think that would be the best way to think of it. They all have some form of memory from being human, they all just seem to remember some things. Some can be reminded and conditioned to do things, and some seem to figure it out on their own at some level. They were able to figure out how to use tools and in Day its mentioned that some pretended to drive cars and we have them wondering around the mall with no people in it at the start of Dawn.

I agree that Big Daddy is out of place though. The idea of a Bub like zombie coming about is very possible when you consider the millions of walking dead all over the world, and given the length of time it would seem even more likely. He just seemed like to much to me, to far above what the others were. They seemed to have no more memory than in other movies (might not totally be true with the band thing going on and some zombies holding hands but they might have just died that way and comic relief is good sometimes), but anyway, but Daddy just seemed to be to smart. All things considered he is still not as smart as a person is, at least a normal reasonable person, but he just sort of seemed to be able to recognize anything and react to it.

I dont have a huge problem with a super smart zombie out there but super smart in a "species" that will naw at a wooden door is a relative term. They could definatly figure alot of stuff out and I could see the others following it and not remembering why and such but just seemed to ordered and how they all left at the end of Land. Just left a bad taste. I still enjoued it though.

[Trencher]

Wow that is an great backstory Acesandeights!
As for zombies evolving I dont see it either, I think both Bub and Big Daddy rememberd things from their past. I think how much a zombie can remember is dependent on chance and how rotten the brain is. Maybe Big Daddys brain was resistant to rotting because of him working with gasoline for so long or maybe he was a genious in life that never got fulfilled his potential because of racisim. I dont know. The only thing we know is that what is rememberd and how fast a zombie comes back is highly induvidual a zombies reasoning power is based on how much the brain is hurt by the rotting process and perhaps in some cases some zombies are not so hurt by it. Headwounds effect on the living brain is unpredictable so why should it not be for the dead brains? One thing that all the zombies that learn to remember have in common either if they learn it by themselves or by others is that there is emotional stimuli requred for the learning process to begin. Bub likes it when he gets food for doing tasks for Dr Logan and he recognizes the fact that Logan puts himself inbetwen Bub and a bullet from Roades. Big Daddy starts to reason because he feels sorrow and rage because his fellow zombies being gunned down by the raiders. More mysteriously he also recognizes Kaufman as the source of the raids and calls off the attack on Fiddlers green as soon as Kaufman is dead. :annoyed: It seems to me that Big Daddy was a punishment from God zombie like the 30'th anneversary and return of the living dead five had. :annoyed:
So I have come to this line of thought zombies should not be able to have any other emotions than hunger, if they do it lessen the horror.
Their reasoning powers should be very low and if anyone of them should remember something they should forget it after a while. No zombies driving cars or using guns for instance.

[bassman]

I think both Bub and Big Daddy rememberd things from their past.

Bingo. Romero has used this in every film since Dawn. You could even argue that he used it in Night.

This poor, poor horse.:(

[Danny]

This poor, poor horse.:(

why bassman?, they just kepe beating it, theres nothing but a bloody goo left man, theres nothing left at all....

[Philly_SWAT]

Ok, why is Big Daddy soooo much more intelligent than the other zombies? In DOTD, Bub was conditioned to "behave" and to not crave human flesh. He learned through that and flickers of memory to fire a gun, enjoy music and even display sarcasm when he salutes Rhodes at the end.
So where did Big Daddy gain his "knowledge"? He shows no desire to feed on the living. He ignores the 'sky flowers' while the others are mesmerized by them. He communicates with the others through grunts and body language. He basically commands an army. He even kills through the use of an explosive device. WTF??!! He's basically a regular mute guy with a slighly low IQ. Whatever he was in his past life may play a role, but unless he had someone like Logan to help unlock his brain, he should be pretty much like all the others.
In the Land commentary, GAR says that Big Daddy is about where Bub left off, but he seems more advanced to me. And if so, who taught him? Did he just rise from the dead with an intellegance level the other Zombies lack?
Land would be so much better if this were explained in the movie.

My explanation is this....

With living humans, there are those of us that are far more exceptional than the rest. Albert Einstien was a genius compared to the rest of us. Why? Who knows? With billions of people on this planet, it is reasonable that a few will have different/better capabilities than the rest. So, Big Daddy just happened to be one among millions (perhaps billion) of zombies that had a higher learning curve than the rest. And naturally the movie would focus on that character and not another. If the worlds smartest zombie was actually in India, but they set the movie in Pittsburgh, then it would have been a pretty boring and different movie.

You may say "but he worked in a gas station while alive, why would he be so smart when dead?" Again, who knows? Just because he worked in a gas station doesnt mean he wasnt smart while alive, just that he worked at a gas station. For all we know, the worlds smartest man right now could be the homeless guy down the street.

[MoonSylver]

My explanation is this....

With living humans, there are those of us that are far more exceptional than the rest. Albert Einstien was a genius compared to the rest of us. Why? Who knows? With billions of people on this planet, it is reasonable that a few will have different/better capabilities than the rest. So, Big Daddy just happened to be one among millions (perhaps billion) of zombies that had a higher learning curve than the rest. And naturally the movie would focus on that character and not another. If the worlds smartest zombie was actually in India, but they set the movie in Pittsburgh, then it would have been a pretty boring and different movie.

You may say "but he worked in a gas station while alive, why would he be so smart when dead?" Again, who knows? Just because he worked in a gas station doesnt mean he wasnt smart while alive, just that he worked at a gas station. For all we know, the worlds smartest man right now could be the homeless guy down the street.

This mirrors my thinking as well.

[clanglee]

First of all. . .that was great Aces!! Good stuff there

Second of all. . . .You're right Bassman, this poor horse . . this poor poor horse.

Third of all. . . .As I have stated MANY times before, I don't buy the concept of the super smart zombie. Zombies are dead. . . rotting. . rotting brains can't create new synapsis. Rotting brains would make the zombies stupider over time, not smarter. But the real problem that I had with the zombies in Land was not so much Big Daddy being smart, but the other zombies learning from his behavior after a grunt and a hand gesture. Let me see If I can find my quote from the other dead horse thread. . .


Not when Big Daddy told 'em not to. You see when Big Daddy grunts and grits his teeth. . .that means "lunch time is over". . .or "Duck for cover!! They are shooting at us. Can't you see?" . . . or "Here, Using the aid of this grunt and this simple hand gesture, I would very much like for you to use your rapidly decomposing brain to make an unlikely leap of intuition thereby aiding us in our endeavor to raid the human city, not to dine upon them, but simply to oust them from their homes and cause general panic, thus exacting my revenge upon a man that I have never before seen, but that I, in some mysterious way, will know is the leader of said humans! .. . and. . umm. . then I'll blow his car up."

[SRP76]

The horse-beating comes from people stubbornly trying to act like it makes a bit of sense, when it doesn't.

Romero just wanted to have a zombie be the good guy, to show us that we living folk are pieces of crap. For that, he needed the zombie to think, "have feelings", and possess a bunch of skills needed to punish those horrible, horrible living people. So, he simply did it. No reason. He wanted it, so he made it.

[MoonSylver]

First of all. . .that was great Aces!! Good stuff there

Second of all. . . .You're right Bassman, this poor horse . . this poor poor horse.

Third of all. . . .As I have stated MANY times before, I don't buy the concept of the super smart zombie. Zombies are dead. . . rotting. . rotting brains can't create new synapsis. Rotting brains would make the zombies stupider over time, not smarter. But the real problem that I had with the zombies in Land was not so much Big Daddy being smart, but the other zombies learning from his behavior after a grunt and a hand gesture. Let me see If I can find my quote from the other dead horse thread. . .

Ah, but I don't think that's it's TOO far a leap to assume that since they've been reanimated & we have nervous system activity that we have electrical impulses in the brain. I'm no brain surgeon or biology guy, but wouldn't that mean that creating new neural pathways is possible?

For me, if we can accept that whatever has reanimated them has jump started their nervous system, then I can also accept that the electrical activity in their brain could be "rerouting" to those "lost" skills & memories.

HOWEVER, I DO agree with you that the process of death itself & resultant decay IS going to impair the brain itself, SO I don't think you would nor SHOULD ever see any return to full capacity. They're a damaged, imperfect version of their former selves. Really, somewhere in the neighborhood of Bub or Big Daddy is about as far as I could realistically believe them progressing.

[clanglee]

I could see them maybe starting out at the level of Bub or Big Daddy, but then they would get progressively worse. How could new pathways be formed in dead flesh. Even if there is( and there obviously is) some electric activity in the nervous system, how could the dead cells replenish? There are no new cells growing. Hell. . .we living human beings get stupider with age because or brain cells generally do not replenesh. So how could a dead brain's? I dunno. . it doesn't really matter. It was a stupid concept to begin with and it was (to me) all that is wrong in a zombie film.

[MoonSylver]

How could new pathways be formed in dead flesh. Even if there is( and there obviously is) some electric activity in the nervous system, how could the dead cells replenish?

Same way that they get back up from being dead in the first place, or walk around for YEARS w/ little decomposition. :p :D :p

[clanglee]

Same way that they get back up from being dead in the first place, or walk around for YEARS w/ little decomposition. :p :D :p

LITTLE decomposition, not none. They are dead. :dead: No new cells. . no new neural pathways, no. And actually there were some very very decomposed and emaciated zombies. I assume the oldest and slowest. Like the one that bit Cholo.

I realize that this is a silly argument. But the concept just flys in the face of what IS a zombie to me.

[bassman]

The horse-beating comes from people stubbornly trying to act like it makes a bit of sense, when it doesn't.


Yeah. It doesn't make any sense to have walking dead people either, now does it? Of course it's all a matter of opinion, bubba.;)

Jesus! I think I saw the horse move. Get it!

[Thorn]

great back story thanks for the post, really opens things up a bit and I agree would be nice if there was time or a way to put it into the film successfully.

[MoonSylver]

LITTLE decomposition, not none. They are dead. :dead: No new cells. . no new neural pathways, no. And actually there were some very very decomposed and emaciated zombies. I assume the oldest and slowest. Like the one that bit Cholo.

I realize that this is a silly argument. But the concept just flys in the face of what IS a zombie to me.

I understand. I guess what I was getting at is that, if I can accept a zombie in the first place, & I can accept that some mysterious something brought them back to life & that the same mysterious something has slowed the rate of decomposition to 10-12 years (if Logan is correct), then it isn't a big stretch (for me) to assume that it could allow them to slowly regain access to some of their lost skills & memories.

Don't get me wrong though! I'm as about as traditional in my taste in zombies as the come! I like 'em slow, hungry, & not too bright. It's just that I can envision a Bub or Big Daddy as plausible in the context I've outlined. I don't mind a couple of this type stories as a sideline thing, but as the exception, NOT the rule.

[ZombiePizza]

In the Land commentary, GAR says that Big Daddy is about where Bub left off, but he seems more advanced to me. And if so, who taught him?

Maybe Bub taught others when he got out of the caves. You know what they say about knowledge, it spreads...spreads just like the living dead.:dead:


Zombies are dead. . . rotting. . rotting brains can't create new synapsis. Rotting brains would make the zombies stupider over time, not smarter.

My man said stupider trying to argue against zombie intelligence...Which begs the question, are you a zombie? :skull:

[Yojimbo]

Dudes, I can buy into the concept that a ghoul would use a tool as a bludgeon. I can also believe that some residual memories would be retained, so ghouls would show up to their former churches, schools, workplaces or shopping malls. And, maybe, I can accept that a ghoul like Bub who has had his brain scientifically fiddled with to make him more docile and who has also been systematically conditioned to view his meals as coming from a bucket and not from a warm-blooded living human as being capable of learning simple "tricks" like saying "Hello Aunt Alicia" or recalling stuff like how to salute, or that a gun should be pointed at something you are pissed off at. But what I have a hard time accepting is Big Daddy leading a flock of ghouls like a rag-tag army, directing them to do this or that like a staff sgt., exhibiting the range of emotions and intuitive reasoning ability that was shown in LAND.

I am a GAR fan, but I like to think that I am not a fan-boy. So as much as I do respect GAR, and admitting that there were things that I actually liked in LAND OF THE DEAD, I have to say that Big Daddy's histeronics and deductive reasoning were not among the things that made LAND work for me, and I found myself rolling my eyes and groaning practically every time he came on screen.

[clanglee]

My man said stupider trying to argue against zombie intelligence...Which begs the question, are you a zombie? :skull:

http://www.evelcat.com/images/bite_me_evel_cat.jpg

word nazi


Dudes, I can buy into the concept that a ghoul would use a tool as a bludgeon. I can also believe that some residual memories would be retained, so ghouls would show up to their former churches, schools, workplaces or shopping malls. And, maybe, I can accept that a ghoul like Bub who has had his brain scientifically fiddled with to make him more docile and who has also been systematically conditioned to view his meals as coming from a bucket and not from a warm-blooded living human as being capable of learning simple "tricks" like saying "Hello Aunt Alicia" or recalling stuff like how to salute, or that a gun should be pointed at something you are pissed off at. But what I have a hard time accepting is Big Daddy leading a flock of ghouls like a rag-tag army, directing them to do this or that like a staff sgt., exhibiting the range of emotions and intuitive reasoning ability that was shown in LAND.

I am a GAR fan, but I like to think that I am not a fan-boy. So as much as I do respect GAR, and admitting that there were things that I actually liked in LAND OF THE DEAD, I have to say that Big Daddy's histeronics and deductive reasoning were not among the things that made LAND work for me, and I found myself rolling my eyes and groaning practically every time he came on screen.

Yes!!! Preach it brother Jimbo!!


Oh and yay me!!! this is my 1500th post!!

[MoonSylver]

I am a GAR fan, but I like to think that I am not a fan-boy. So as much as I do respect GAR, and admitting that there were things that I actually liked in LAND OF THE DEAD, I have to say that Big Daddy's histeronics and deductive reasoning were not among the things that made LAND work for me, and I found myself rolling my eyes and groaning practically every time he came on screen.

Yeah, he was a bit over the top. My issue was not as much with the character as written (which was still a tad too much), but with the PERFORMANCE, which was WAY over the top. Sumbuddy shoulda at Clark's a$$ down in a chair, made him watch "Day" & said "THIS, is how you play a 'smart' zombie mutherf*cker!!!":mad:

[blind2d]

how true... oh well, what's done is done, I suppose... no use whining about it now.

[bassman]

how true... oh well, what's done is done, I suppose... no use whining about it now.

You must not come here often.:lol:


As for the Big Daddy/Bub comparison....I agree that the actor's performance of Big Daddy was over the top at times but when you put that aside, the character is virtually the same as Bub. I don't understand why some people are okay with the idea of Bub but not with Big Daddy. They do the exact same things. The only big difference that I can think of(and it's been brought up here before) is that we never SEE Big Daddy eat. Personally, I don't think that means he never does...just that we don't see it.

I remember someone here once complaining about Land and arguing that no zombie should ever HOLD or FIRE a gun. Apparently that person didn't see the two films prior to Land.:rolleyes:

[AcesandEights]

You must not come here often.:lol:

Yeah, we don't want the boards to whither away and die from a lack of use, with only the occasional lolcat posts to sustain us. :p

[Yojimbo]

Oh and yay me!!! this is my 1500th post!!


Congrats brother Clang!


Yeah, he was a bit over the top. My issue was not as much with the character as written (which was still a tad too much), but with the PERFORMANCE, which was WAY over the top. Sumbuddy shoulda at Clark's a$$ down in a chair, made him watch "Day" & said "THIS, is how you play a 'smart' zombie mutherf*cker!!!":mad:

In total agreement with moon once again. Having never seen Clark in any other role, I don't know if his acting chops are any good, but he did blow it in this role.

Plus, I do know that GAR (who is a master editor and usually does all of his own editing) did not edit LAND, so I wonder if Clark's crappy acting was made to look even crappier with the mediocre editing. Really, I wasn't very impressed with the editing overall in Land and feel that if GAR had done this himself that the film would have been tighter, more suspenseful and more believable.

[SRP76]

As for the Big Daddy/Bub comparison....I agree that the actor's performance of Big Daddy was over the top at times but when you put that aside, the character is virtually the same as Bub. I don't understand why some people are okay with the idea of Bub but not with Big Daddy. They do the exact same things. The only big difference that I can think of(and it's been brought up here before) is that we never SEE Big Daddy eat. Personally, I don't think that means he never does...just that we don't see it.



I hate Bub.

And no, Big Daddy is not the same. He didn't spend months in a lab being specifically taught. He just shambled out of the garage one day and knew more than the average living human.

[Philly_SWAT]

I could see them maybe starting out at the level of Bub or Big Daddy, but then they would get progressively worse. How could new pathways be formed in dead flesh. Even if there is( and there obviously is) some electric activity in the nervous system, how could the dead cells replenish? There are no new cells growing. Hell. . .we living human beings get stupider with age because or brain cells generally do not replenesh. So how could a dead brain's? I dunno. . it doesn't really matter. It was a stupid concept to begin with and it was (to me) all that is wrong in a zombie film.


LITTLE decomposition, not none. They are dead. :dead: No new cells. . no new neural pathways, no. And actually there were some very very decomposed and emaciated zombies. I assume the oldest and slowest. Like the one that bit Cholo.

I realize that this is a silly argument. But the concept just flys in the face of what IS a zombie to me.
I totally understand what you are saying here. But I submit for you to think about. People in the films (and us, the audience) have no concrete evidence of what caused the outbreak, how the process works, etc. In order to enjoy the films, we have to "suspend our disbelief" and except that the dead can rise and want to feast on the living. So excepting that, and giving no evidence one way or the other, we can not assume that there are no new neural pathways, or that zombies cant learn. As far as "real world" science goes, the dead can not arise and seek to eat human flesh. But in "GAR science", they can. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assume that new neural pathways CAN be established. We have no evidence to the contrary. In fact, all the evidence we do have points to the fact that CAN be established. Whatever it is that allows a dead body to rise, that same "whatever" could easily allow new neural pathways to form.

Plus, we are told over and over about the zeds that they are "us". Well, we (most of us anyway :) ) do in fact learn over time. Studies indicate that 90% of human communication is non-verbal, facial expressions, gestures, etc. In a horror movie, or a war movie, when a character catches another characters eye, then makes some signals with their hands indicating "be quiet" "go that way" "I'll go this way" etc, it is believable, because the human brain is used to processing information. "Hey dude, grab that pipe at your feet. I'll grab this bat. You go right, I'll go left. Make sure you are quiet. We can sneak up on that guy over there quietly, then surprise him and beat the **** out of him". All of that can be expressed in a few seconds with a few hand gestures, providing both parties understand the context of the situation.

Seeing as the zombie brains used to be human brains, and we have no real evidence about exactly how their brains work, it is not way off it left field to assume they could understand commands consisting of grunts and gestures. Seeing as we are excepting that the dead can rise to begin with, it is within reason that the process of becoming a zombie could make changes in the way the brain works, for example, making it extremely difficult to comprehend complex ideas and accomplish complex tasks, but making it easier to understand simple ideas and accomplish simple tasks.

[Yojimbo]

I totally understand what you are saying here. But I submit for you to think about. People in the films (and us, the audience) have no concrete evidence of what caused the outbreak, how the process works, etc. In order to enjoy the films, we have to "suspend our disbelief" and except that the dead can rise and want to feast on the living. So excepting that, and giving no evidence one way or the other, we can not assume that there are no new neural pathways, or that zombies cant learn. As far as "real world" science goes, the dead can not arise and seek to eat human flesh. But in "GAR science", they can. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assume that new neural pathways CAN be established. We have no evidence to the contrary. In fact, all the evidence we do have points to the fact that CAN be established. Whatever it is that allows a dead body to rise, that same "whatever" could easily allow new neural pathways to form.

Plus, we are told over and over about the zeds that they are "us". Well, we (most of us anyway :) ) do in fact learn over time. Studies indicate that 90% of human communication is non-verbal, facial expressions, gestures, etc. In a horror movie, or a war movie, when a character catches another characters eye, then makes some signals with their hands indicating "be quiet" "go that way" "I'll go this way" etc, it is believable, because the human brain is used to processing information. "Hey dude, grab that pipe at your feet. I'll grab this bat. You go right, I'll go left. Make sure you are quiet. We can sneak up on that guy over there quietly, then surprise him and beat the **** out of him". All of that can be expressed in a few seconds with a few hand gestures, providing both parties understand the context of the situation.

Seeing as the zombie brains used to be human brains, and we have no real evidence about exactly how their brains work, it is not way off it left field to assume they could understand commands consisting of grunts and gestures. Seeing as we are excepting that the dead can rise to begin with, it is within reason that the process of becoming a zombie could make changes in the way the brain works, for example, making it extremely difficult to comprehend complex ideas and accomplish complex tasks, but making it easier to understand simple ideas and accomplish simple tasks.


You make some very good points, Philly, and I tend to agree with you here, especially about the zombie communication being like the silent "hand" and "facial expression" communication between soldiers on a battlefield. That being said, however, I still feel (just IMO) that Clark's portrayal of Big Daddy the "Thinking Zombie's Zombie" was still pretty hammy and heavy handed. It is possible that had this been done by someone else that it would have been more acceptable, or at least been met with less resistance.

But, again, I agree with your statements, homeboy!

[bassman]

I hate Bub.


Congratulations?:rockbrow::shifty:



And no, Big Daddy is not the same. He didn't spend months in a lab being specifically taught. He just shambled out of the garage one day and knew more than the average living human.

I don't have the film in front of me right now, but I always got the impression that Bub was advanced even before Logan got to him. "It's not what he does...it's what he doesn't do", "Apparently he was in the military - return the salute", the tape player/razor/book, etc, etc.

And who's to say that Big Daddy did nothing but sit in the garage up until the beginning of Land? Maybe he was out venturing around and then would go back to the station. I got the impression he had watched people "kill" the zombies for a long time and was getting tired of it. That's why he growls at Riley when he notices him in the bushes.

So in my eyes, Bub and Big Daddy are virtually the same. Just one was played by a better actor.:p

[Yojimbo]

I don't have the film in front of me right now, but I always got the impression that Bub was advanced even before Logan got to him.

Maybe he was smarter than you average zombie, but I recall Sarah arguing with Logan (something to the effect of) "And all it will take (to get zombies to behave like Bub) is a lot of fancy brain surgery that only a handful of people can do" which I have always thought meant that they had done something along the lines of a lobotomy or something to make him less agressive. That, coupled with the "reconditioning" that Logan had put Bub through - i.e. behavior modification primarily geared towards getting Bub to not view Logan or other people as Lunch - is what made Bub the likeable zombie dude that he was.

[bassman]

Maybe he was smarter than you average zombie, but I recall Sarah arguing with Logan (something to the effect of) "And all it will take (to get zombies to behave like Bub) is a lot of fancy brain surgery that only a handful of people can do" which I have always thought meant that they had done something along the lines of a lobotomy or something to make him less agressive.

hrmm...I don't remember this one. Would we have seen the scars on Bub's head, though? Maybe Sarah was just trying to insult Logan in some way and didn't know what he had done to Bub? He scares her the first time she sees him, so I thought he was new to Logan's lab....

[Philly_SWAT]

You make some very good points, Philly, and I tend to agree with you here, especially about the zombie communication being like the silent "hand" and "facial expression" communication between soldiers on a battlefield. That being said, however, I still feel (just IMO) that Clark's portrayal of Big Daddy the "Thinking Zombie's Zombie" was still pretty hammy and heavy handed. It is possible that had this been done by someone else that it would have been more acceptable, or at least been met with less resistance.

But, again, I agree with your statements, homeboy!

Of course you agree with me, you are an incredibly smart dude! :)

But dont misunderstand me, I am in no way saying that I think Clark performance was great. It wasnt. It was indeed "hammy and heavy handed" to use your phrase. A different actor would probably have been better in that role. That being said, the concept of a "thinking" zombie is not a concept to be dismissed out of hand as not believable.

[Yojimbo]

And who's to say that Big Daddy did nothing but sit in the garage up until the beginning of Land? Maybe he was out venturing around and then would go back to the station. I got the impression he had watched people "kill" the zombies for a long time and was getting tired of it. That's why he growls at Riley when he notices him in the bushes.


This is a very good point. Why did he growl at Riley if he didn't interpret them as a threat?

Maybe instead of merely sitting around in his garage, one day he heard "food" coming his way and in his excitement to get outside to feed on the humans looting gas from his own tanks he somehow fell forward, maybe slipped on some crankcase grease or something, and then smacked his bald headed skull really hard on the floor, fracturing his skull at precisely the right angle to drive a small bone into his brain, effectively giving himself a lobotomy. And then, when he woke up, he no longer felt hungy, effectively "remembering" that he was a vegetarian for moral reasons in his previous existance, and therefore while he would still gladly attack some carrots or asparagus, he no longer wanted to kill humas for food. But then he remembered, "Humans take Big Daddys gasoline without pay...arrgh! Big Daddy hate humans, arrrgh! Big Daddy's head hurts, arrrrgh!" Soooo, when he saw (or smelled?) Riley and the other Red Shirt (sorry, a Trekkie reference if there ever was one) he thought to himself, "Humans, arrrrgh, here to steal Big Daddy's gas, arrrrgh, maybe make Big Daddy's head hurt again. arrrgh!"



So in my eyes, Bub and Big Daddy are virtually the same. Just one was played by a better actor.:p
Total Agreement here!!

[bassman]

This is a very good point. Why did he growl at Riley if he didn't interpret them as a threat?

Maybe instead of merely sitting around in his garage, one day he heard "food" coming his way and in his excitement to get outside to feed on the humans looting gas from his own tanks he somehow fell forward, maybe slipped on some crankcase grease or something, and then smacked his bald headed skull really hard on the floor, fracturing his skull at precisely the right angle to drive a small bone into his brain, effectively giving himself a lobotomy. And then, when he woke up, he no longer felt hungy, effectively "remembering" that he was a vegetarian for moral reasons in his previous existance, and therefore while he would still gladly attack some carrots or asparagus, he no longer wanted to kill humas for food. But then he remembered, "Humans take Big Daddys gasoline without pay...arrgh! Big Daddy hate humans, arrrgh! Big Daddy's head hurts, arrrrgh!" Soooo, when he saw (or smelled?) Riley and the other Red Shirt (sorry, a Trekkie reference if there ever was one) he thought to himself, "Humans, arrrrgh, here to steal Big Daddy's gas, arrrrgh, maybe make Big Daddy's head hurt again. arrrgh!"


Total Agreement here!!

:lol::lol:

That's it! You've figured it out. That is easily the best explanation we have.

[Yojimbo]

hrmm...I don't remember this one. Would we have seen the scars on Bub's head, though? Maybe Sarah was just trying to insult Logan in some way and didn't know what he had done to Bub? He scares her the first time she sees him, so I thought he was new to Logan's lab....
I know that Lobotomies can be done without opening the skull case, but rather by inserting a tool under the eye socket and punching it through the bone and up towards the appropriate area of the brain. Just a theory, of course, but maybe this is how they did it.

That line, Sarah's line about the brain surgery, I think was right before she starts ranting at Logan about him making too many assumptions and that he is destroying too many specimens, right before she figures out that the headless, brain zombie on the table is actually one of the recently deceased soliders. I'll have to check, but I am pretty sure it was there.

[MoonSylver]

I know that Lobotomies can be done without opening the skull case, but rather by inserting a tool under the eye socket and punching it through the bone and up towards the appropriate area of the brain. Just a theory, of course, but maybe this is how they did it.

That line, Sarah's line about the brain surgery, I think was right before she starts ranting at Logan about him making too many assumptions and that he is destroying too many specimens, right before she figures out that the headless, brain zombie on the table is actually one of the recently deceased soliders. I'll have to check, but I am pretty sure it was there.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the "surgery" reference was to the zombies that Logan has on the table. He's bragging about how they can be pacified, can be controlled. So I always took Sarah's response to them, not Bub. I kinda figured Bub was a separate project he was working on: Pavlovian conditioning (we DO see Fisher attempting the same thing, at Logan's behest I believe...)

[clanglee]

I totally understand what you are saying here. But I submit for you to think about. People in the films (and us, the audience) have no concrete evidence of what caused the outbreak, how the process works, etc. In order to enjoy the films, we have to "suspend our disbelief" and except that the dead can rise and want to feast on the living. So excepting that, and giving no evidence one way or the other, we can not assume that there are no new neural pathways, or that zombies cant learn. As far as "real world" science goes, the dead can not arise and seek to eat human flesh. But in "GAR science", they can. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assume that new neural pathways CAN be established. We have no evidence to the contrary. In fact, all the evidence we do have points to the fact that CAN be established. Whatever it is that allows a dead body to rise, that same "whatever" could easily allow new neural pathways to form.

Plus, we are told over and over about the zeds that they are "us". Well, we (most of us anyway :) ) do in fact learn over time. Studies indicate that 90% of human communication is non-verbal, facial expressions, gestures, etc. In a horror movie, or a war movie, when a character catches another characters eye, then makes some signals with their hands indicating "be quiet" "go that way" "I'll go this way" etc, it is believable, because the human brain is used to processing information. "Hey dude, grab that pipe at your feet. I'll grab this bat. You go right, I'll go left. Make sure you are quiet. We can sneak up on that guy over there quietly, then surprise him and beat the **** out of him". All of that can be expressed in a few seconds with a few hand gestures, providing both parties understand the context of the situation.

Seeing as the zombie brains used to be human brains, and we have no real evidence about exactly how their brains work, it is not way off it left field to assume they could understand commands consisting of grunts and gestures. Seeing as we are excepting that the dead can rise to begin with, it is within reason that the process of becoming a zombie could make changes in the way the brain works, for example, making it extremely difficult to comprehend complex ideas and accomplish complex tasks, but making it easier to understand simple ideas and accomplish simple tasks.

Nah. Once again . . zombies are dead people. Carniverous automatons. They "remember" a few things about former life, but those are the instinctual things that were important in their lives. Aside from that. . they eat. They are motivated by the need to feed.

Now. . if there are occasional "smart" zombies. . well I can buy that. Bub. . and even Big Daddy could be the exceptions to the rule. Remembering more of their previous lives. Holding onto some very basic cognitive skills, advanced tool use. . etc etc. HOWEVER. . . Big Daddy's ability to impart relatively complex instructions to his fellow zombies was silly. Even if he was special, what are the chances of an advanced zombie community? I just didn't like it. I will never accept it. :bored:


Yeah, I'm pretty sure the "surgery" reference was to the zombies that Logan has on the table. He's bragging about how they can be pacified, can be controlled. So I always took Sarah's response to them, not Bub. I kinda figured Bub was a separate project he was working on: Pavlovian conditioning (we DO see Fisher attempting the same thing, at Logan's behest I believe...)

Yeah, I agree here. Bub's behavior was partly remembered, partly trained, but no surgery was involved. Sarah was refering to the other "patients".

[bigmonkey2582]

Yeah part of the reason that I can accept Bub, they played it so plausibly that Frankenstein working with him intensiveely, and who knows for how long?

[SRP76]

The surgery was in regards to the specimens Logan had removed parts of the brain from. It had nothing to do with Bub. Bub was taught over a period of months, no surgery involved.

And at the end of the day, Bub DID eat. Nothing really got solved with him; he still was into eating warm flesh; he was just willing to do tricks to get it. Nothing at all like Big Daddy's "I just want your house" crap.

[Yojimbo]

Nothing at all like Big Daddy's "I just want your house" crap.
:lol::lol::lol::lol: This totally made me litterally LOL.

[Wyldwraith]

Here's a notion,
If you don't like the evolution of a dead organism how about the actions of a live organism on a dead one? If the zombie rising is caused by a pathogen, and that pathogen doesn't die off when the zombie rises then there's no telling what it would do to a dead brain. The natural electrochemical responses of the brain might be offline, but the "zombie virus/bacteria" could be producing waste or other byproducts, or causing any of a host of ongoing changes to explain differing behavior in the undead.

How do you end up with zombies with different levels of reasoning power? Genetics. If the brains are slightly different to begin with, then what amounts to a minute difference in a living uninfected brain could have profound impacts in an infected brain.

Heck, there are parasites in nature that are designed to make frogs really easy for herons to catch and eat, going so far as to suppress the frog's natural fear of predators. All so the parasite can be passed on to the predator and complete another step in its life-cycle. The frog is only incidentally involved, the parasite is the real player. It could be the same with the zombie pathogen.

Don't get me wrong, I hate the notion of a dead organism somehow "evolving", but there are other viable explanations to account for GAR's idiotic decision to include a Big Daddy in Land in-movie if one wants to reach for it.

[clanglee]

I've heard of that parasite. . there's a similar one in snails that actually makes it climb higher in the tree and then pulsates to attract birds. Creept stuff that. But those parasites take away the natural "intelligence" of the animal. Bad example. .but I understand your point. Once again. .however. .The movie shows BD to be a special smart zombie . .fine. .My problem was the sudden leap to intelligence and control that the "regular" zombies had in Big Daddy's presence. Not buying that. . Silly silly silly.

Fact is. .tho. . I just don't like smart zombies. The only movie I've ever liked 'em in is Return of the Living Dead. .and that was a campy movie. Bassman loves that movie!!

[MoonSylver]

Zombies seem to follow a "herd" mentality of sorts. Maybe in the presence of a smarter zombie they would follow direction better, but wander/revert if one wasn't present?

I think I'm over thinking this too much...:dead:

[Wyldwraith]

Agreed,
There was a lot more going on than monkey-see/monkey-do with Big Daddy's minions. Lot of difference between staggering in the same direction as the zombie who seems to know where its going, and having a sharp object pushed into its dead hand and suddenly knowing how to chop on people. Residual memory gets to be an extremely tired excuse when accounting for these behaviors.

My biggest pet peeve is still the river crossing breach of Fiddler's Green, followed by the stealth attack on the two dock guards. Plenty of fit live human beings couldn't stick together during a river crossing, but mindless undead? No problem.

I guess Big Daddy was also teaching a Zombie Ninja course by pantomime off-camera, because I've never seen so many zombies sneaking up on the living than in Land.

[sandrock74]

OK, this thread made me officially realize that we all need to, "Get a life!" (to quote William Shatner). LOL
:p

[MoonSylver]

OK, this thread made me officially realize that we all need to, "Get a life!" (to quote William Shatner). LOL
:p

You're just now realizing this? :rockbrow: :lol:

[bigmonkey2582]

I need a beer. lol

[bassman]

OK, this thread made me officially realize that we all need to, "Get a life!" (to quote William Shatner). LOL
:p

Welcome to HPotD!:p

[sandrock74]

You're just now realizing this? :rockbrow: :lol:

I'm a slow learner? LOL

[MoonSylver]

I'm a slow learner? LOL

:D :lol: