GAR Intelligent Zombies - Bub vs. Big Daddy

[Trin]

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.

The Big Question:
- Were Bub and Big Daddy very much alike or fundamentally different?

Arguments for alike:
- Both displayed intelligence and behavior at a higher level than their zombie peers.
- Both showed a cognitive ability to manipulate their environment - i.e. problem solving abilities.
- Both communicated with humans beyond just trying to eat them.
- Both showed a diminished (or non-existent) need to pursue/eat humans on sight.

Arguments for different:
- Bub was driven/enticed by the need to feed. Big Daddy showed no inclination to feed even when presented with food.
- Bub was trained & conditioned by Dr. Logan. Big Daddy's higher level behavior had no visible catalyst.
- Bub paid no attention to other zombies. Big Daddy was highly empathetic to other zombies.

Another question is whether Bub and/or Big Daddy were really *that* much more intelligent than their peers. There is a lot of evidence that other zombies were learning:
- The captured zombies in Day began to avoid the zombie pen gates.
- The wandering zombies in Land didn't come around the Green electric fences anymore.
- The Uniontown zombies in Land learned quickly with a little Big Daddy prompting.
- The horde of zombies in Land began to ignore food sources in their pursuit of Fiddler's Green.
- The horde of zombies in Land learned to ignore the fireworks without prompting.
- The Hari Krishna zombie in Dawn chose to go up the stairs rather than pursue Stephen.
- The pit fighter zombies learned to fight over food rather than just lunging for the closest human.

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.

I had always taken the stance that Bub and Big Daddy were fundamentally different. After careful consideration I've concluded that I am torn on the topic.

So... discuss. And try to be civil. I'd rather this not turn into a thread to bag on intelligent zombies or any movie in particular. :)

[Slain]

I think it's misnomer to call zombies unintelligent creatures. If you invented an autonomous robot that could find, fix, and destroy enemy personnel without any outside direction, you could make a fortune selling them to the U.S. Army. Zombies as portrayed in the movies could be used as a weapons system with a little planning. Uses that come to mind for zombies; area denial weapon to protect a site from looters, scouts to locate living humans, and shock troops you could move behind as they destroy resistance ahead of you. I'm sure some people would consider using zombies for anything dirty pool, but hey, to the victor goes the spoils of the shopping mall.

[clanglee]

My main problem with Big Daddy wasn't so much the fact that he was intelligent, but the fact that he could impart semi-complicated messages and lessons to the rest of the zombie horde without any use of language.

[blind2d]

An excellent point, clang. also, i think the hare krishna zed wasn't really more intelligent, just chose a random path and stumbled over Frankie in the Box Room. - 2D
I agree with the blue-haired man.

[Arcades057]

So much for:

"These creatures are nothing more than pure, motorized instinct...."

[SRP76]

So much for:

"These creatures are nothing more than pure, motorized instinct...."

That's exactly why I hate both Bub and Big Daddy. They both go against the already-established "rule".

Romero broke his own rules just to try to play the old, tired, "zombies are just like us, only better, because people suck and should hate themselves" tune. A tune that I personally can't stand.

[sandrock74]

That's exactly why I hate both Bub and Big Daddy. They both go against the already-established "rule".

Romero broke his own rules just to try to play the old, tired, "zombies are just like us, only better, because people suck and should hate themselves" tune. A tune that I personally can't stand.

Yeah, I feel no pity or understanding for zombies. Period.

[Arcades057]

I've always felt that GAR was reacting to what other people were doing with ghouls in general.

For instance--with Big Daddy and the whole "they're learning" thing in Land, it felt to me like GAR saw what was going on in the Dawn remake and felt that he had to take his own ghouls to the next level somehow.

But, he went with intelligence instead of strength and speed.

[sandrock74]

At least he didn't go with zombies sparkling in the sunlight!

[Wyldwraith]

At least he didn't go with zombies sparkling in the sunlight!

Hey now,
While the movie version of Twilight leaves something to be desired, the four-book series it's based on are exceptionally well-written, and do a better job of depicting the so-called "humane vampire" than any of the host of sentimental drivel-movies that have come before it.

Rip on the movie if you want, but leave the books out of it. Photoluminescent vampires are a damned sight better than running wall-crawling zombies.

[krakenslayer]

Yeah, I feel no pity or understanding for zombies. Period.

If you're unable to feel any sense of empathy or pity for them, then that's a failing of your imagination, not necessarily Romero's. I'm not saying you have to "root for the zombies", but if you can glimpse the full horror of a zombie's existence - the mental remnants of something that was once an intelligent, sentient being now trapped in a rotting, retarded shell racked with an all encompassing hunger - if such a creature had even the slightest intelligence in order to grasp the terror of its situation... putting yourself in those shoes is a hundred times more terrifying than fighting a horde of monsters with a machinegun.

Setting the slightly awkward depiction of Big Daddy aside (who, basically, was just badly-acted), I think the biggest problem with "smart zombies" is people's unwillingness to step outside of their imaginative comfort zone. A lot of zombie fans are attracted to the genre purely because they like the idea of being able to freely shoot and kill things without any legal or moral issues. They're uncomfortable with anything that isn't straightforward black-and-white, us-and-them, cowboys-and-injuns.

Heaven forbid GAR actually complicate matters by rising above this.:rolleyes:

And "pure motorised instinct" was never an established "rule" anyway. It was mentioned by one scientist, but even in Dawn, the zombies show signs of memory and basic thought-processes.

I'm not saying we should all be "friends" with the zombies and skip through the meadows holding hands with them. But I like the added dimension of horror that the thing you are about to blow away was once your friend or your neighbour... and on some half-forgotten level, they still are. That's fucking scary!

[sandrock74]

If you're unable to feel any sense of empathy or pity for them, then that's a failing of your imagination, not necessarily Romero's. I'm not saying you have to "root for the zombies", but if you can glimpse the full horror of a zombie's existence - the mental remnants of something that was once an intelligent, sentient being now trapped in a rotting, retarded shell racked with an all encompassing hunger - if such a creature had even the slightest intelligence in order to grasp the terror of its situation... putting yourself in those shoes is a hundred times more terrifying than fighting a horde of monsters with a machinegun.

Setting the slightly awkward depiction of Big Daddy aside (who, basically, was just badly-acted), I think the biggest problem with "smart zombies" is people's unwillingness to step outside of their imaginative comfort zone. A lot of zombie fans are attracted to the genre purely because they like the idea of being able to freely shoot and kill things without any legal or moral issues. They're uncomfortable with anything that isn't straightforward black-and-white, us-and-them, cowboys-and-injuns.

Heaven forbid GAR actually complicate matters by rising above this.:rolleyes:

And "pure motorised instinct" was never an established "rule" anyway. It was mentioned by one scientist, but even in Dawn, the zombies show signs of memory and basic thought-processes.

I'm not saying we should all be "friends" with the zombies and skip through the meadows holding hands with them. But I like the added dimension of horror that the thing you are about to blow away was once your friend or your neighbour... and on some half-forgotten level, they still are. That's fucking scary!

I've got plenty of imagination, thanks. I make comic books...it's not exactly for the unimaginitive.

Anyway, no, I tend not to feel empathy for anything trying to kill me. In a situation like that it's kill or be killed. Primal survival instincts take control in such a situation. The human will to survive far exceeds that of a zombie...the only "advantage" zombies have is in sheer number...which actually works against most of them ever getting a hot meal if you think about it.

Empathy for a zombie will only shorten one's lifespan. :rockbrow: I don't blame myself or Romero for my refusing to feel empathy for zombies. I blame the situation. Anything that wants to eat me, isn't getting me without a fight! Should Quint have felt empathy for Jaws as he slid down the boat, into the sharks mouth? Should Luke Skywalker have felt empathy for the Great Pit of Carkoon that he was going to be tossed down into? Or the Wampa on Hoth? Should humanity have felt empathy for the lizard aliens in V? Of course not!!

ZOMBIES ARE NOT HUMAN! They are dead! They want to eat you. I'll let you go feel empathy for them while I work on keeping myself alive, thanks.

[bassman]

But, he went with intelligence instead of strength and speed.

This would make sense....but I believe the script for Land was started long before the dawn remake was even thought of. And Bub was intelligent, so that was definitely before Dawn04.

My opinion on the two "smart" zombies is this.....

Bub could do what he did because Logan was the catalyst and brought those memories back to him. Big Daddy was the same as Bub, but took a longer time to "remember" the memories because a human didn't help him push it forward.

As for being sympathetic for the dead....I've always felt that way. I thought of that the first time I saw Day(my first dead film) and I knew it was intended when I later saw Dawn and the certain "awwwww" scenes that are there...

[krakenslayer]

I've got plenty of imagination, thanks. I make comic books...it's not exactly for the unimaginitive.

Anyway, no, I tend not to feel empathy for anything trying to kill me. In a situation like that it's kill or be killed. Primal survival instincts take control in such a situation. The human will to survive far exceeds that of a zombie...the only "advantage" zombies have is in sheer number...which actually works against most of them ever getting a hot meal if you think about it.

Empathy for a zombie will only shorten one's lifespan. :rockbrow: I don't blame myself or Romero for my refusing to feel empathy for zombies. I blame the situation. Anything that wants to eat me, isn't getting me without a fight! Should Quint have felt empathy for Jaws as he slid down the boat, into the sharks mouth? Should Luke Skywalker have felt empathy for the Great Pit of Carkoon that he was going to be tossed down into? Or the Wampa on Hoth? Should humanity have felt empathy for the lizard aliens in V? Of course not!!

ZOMBIES ARE NOT HUMAN! They are dead! They want to eat you. I'll let you go feel empathy for them while I work on keeping myself alive, thanks.

The world (and Romero's world) isn't as clear cut as that. Just because I feel sorry King Kong doesn't mean I think they should have let him destroy New York. Just because Dracula (in the novel) has sympathetic qualities doesn't mean I think he should be left free to feast on maidens and terrorize the countryside. The world isn't split into two sets of people who either feel empathy and are unable to defend themselves, or are butch heroes with no sense of compassion. If a mindless zombie was trying to tear your heart out, I wouldn't expect you to want to give it a hug.

On the other hand, if you were being attacked by your beloved family pet dog gone rabid and were forced to shoot it in self-defence, I would expect you to feel a pang of regret knowing that somewhere behind that slobbering, snarling facade lies some vestige of the sweet, friendly little pooch you raised from puppyhood. It wouldn't stop you from doing what had to be done, but it would make the act itself a little more disturbing, especially in the aftermath.

To me, that's a major factor in what makes Romero's zombies so scary - they exhibit behaviour suggesting that somewhere inside the rotting shell of your dead friends and neighbours, there is some retarded vestige of that individual's personality, and yet you have no choice but to kill them. This has been a factor in the films since the beginning, it's what sets these films apart. Sure, perhaps Big Daddy was a step too far, but overall if it wasn't for the disturbing "human factor", the zombies might as well be replaced with alligators or something.

Speaking of which, all the examples you gave are of ferocious monsters which bear no resemblance to humans and exhibit no human traits. I understand if you wish zombies were like that - it would make for a more free and easy gun totin' time - but Romero's zombies have always been like a frighteningly close parody of human life.

Oh, and the shark in Jaws doesn't have a name. :D

[sandrock74]

The world (and Romero's world) isn't as clear cut as that. Just because I feel sorry King Kong doesn't mean I think they should have let him destroy New York. Just because Dracula (in the novel) has sympathetic qualities doesn't mean I think he should be left free to feast on maidens and terrorize the countryside. The world isn't split into two sets of people who either feel empathy and are unable to defend themselves, or are butch heroes with no sense of compassion. If a mindless zombie was trying to tear your heart out, I wouldn't expect you to want to give it a hug.

On the other hand, if you were being attacked by your beloved family pet dog gone rabid and were forced to shoot it in self-defence, I would expect you to feel a pang of regret knowing that somewhere behind that slobbering, snarling facade lies some vestige of the sweet, friendly little pooch you raised from puppyhood. It wouldn't stop you from doing what had to be done, but it would make the act itself a little more disturbing, especially in the aftermath.

To me, that's a major factor in what makes Romero's zombies so scary - they exhibit behaviour suggesting that somewhere inside the rotting shell of your dead friends and neighbours, there is some retarded vestige of that individual's personality, and yet you have no choice but to kill them. This has been a factor in the films since the beginning, it's what sets these films apart. Sure, perhaps Big Daddy was a step too far, but overall if it wasn't for the disturbing "human factor", the zombies might as well be replaced with alligators or something.

Speaking of which, all the examples you gave are of ferocious monsters which bear no resemblance to humans and exhibit no human traits. I understand if you wish zombies were like that - it would make for a more free and easy gun totin' time - but Romero's zombies have always been like a frighteningly close parody of human life.

Oh, and the shark in Jaws doesn't have a name. :D

Yeah, I'd feel bad about putting down my rabid family dog afterwards...not during. Like Seth Gecko said in From Dusk till Dawn, "Fight now, cry later!"

I don't think I would feel too bad about shooting a zombie neighbor. They would already be dead. I wouldn't be the one killing them, I'm just the one with the unwanted task of ending their threat. You'd need to look at it as such just to maintain a grip on your sanity.

By the way, the shark from Jaws did have a name...Spielberg and crew named the robot shark Bruce. :)

[Danny]

Hey now,
While the movie version of Twilight leaves something to be desired, the four-book series it's based on are exceptionally well-written, and do a better job of depicting the so-called "humane vampire" than any of the host of sentimental drivel-movies that have come before it.

Rip on the movie if you want, but leave the books out of it. Photoluminescent vampires are a damned sight better than running wall-crawling zombies.

there not, they really, really are not. I weep for the future of the literacy world if that wish fulfillment fan fiction is deemed as serious works of note.

[Mike70]

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?

I had always taken the stance that Bub and Big Daddy were fundamentally different. After careful consideration I've concluded that I am torn on the topic.

So... discuss. And try to be civil. I'd rather this not turn into a thread to bag on intelligent zombies or any movie in particular. :)

good point about bub. it brings to mind the difference in intelligence in people in general. maybe zombies mirror the human bell curve as far as intelligence goes. there are a few really smart ones who remember and are able to use more info/memory than your usual zombie. while the mass of zombies of "average" intelligence aren't able to do much more than simple manipulation of objects and the most basic of decision skills.

[Trin]

Anyway, no, I tend not to feel empathy for anything trying to kill me.

ZOMBIES ARE NOT HUMAN! They are dead! They want to eat you.
I think this is a crucial distinction for Big Daddy. He shows no signs of wanting to eat anything, and there's no explanation for why. Bub, on the other hand, showed a trained suppression of the instinct to feed, but we saw first hand that the instinct was still present.

For me zombies are scary because they cannot be reasoned with. They try to eat you. They are monsters. The fact that they are former loved ones makes it even more horrific. When intelligence becomes reasoning ability and then overrides the need to feed - then you don't have a monster anymore.


My opinion on the two "smart" zombies is this.....

Bub could do what he did because Logan was the catalyst and brought those memories back to him. Big Daddy was the same as Bub, but took a longer time to "remember" the memories because a human didn't help him push it forward.
It's a good explanation. I'll admit I'd like it a bit more if Big Daddy weren't such an aberration from the other zombies that Riley and crew were familiar with. It stands to reason that they saw A LOT of zombies. Why this one particular zombie was special is still a bit hokey for me. But if I had to choose one explanation that makes the most sense with the least grrrrr factor, this would be it.

That's an interesting point about the time difference. If you believe that Land comes several years after Day then Big Daddy had time to figure out what Bub was taught.

[shootemindehead]

I've never had a problem with the "intelligent" zombie aspect of Romero's world. There's indication of it throughout the series. The first zombie that we see uses a rock to smash glass to get at Babs. They are also "intelligent" enough to know that fire is dangerous. In 'Dawn of the Dead', there's the zombie who's fascinated by guns and Steven retains knowledge of where his former mates were holed up. There's also a couple of zombies that sit and study Fran instead of going bezerk trying to get through the glass to eat her (the nun and the guy in the sports shirt). In 'Day of the Dead' the corralled zombies learn to avoid the exit gates, because they suspect something is dangerous about it. Fisher also mentions that he saw "...one of those things sitting in a car in D.C. trying to drive down Independence Ave." Logan says that he Bub live, because "...he was responding so well" which suggests that Bub is one of several (if not many) experiments in domestication. He also says that one had become "...to unruly" and had to be destroyed.

However, I think that the "Big Daddy" character in 'Land of the Dead' may have been a step too far. Mad roars of anguish, his "enough is enough" epiphany and his "teaching method" just made him too human. But, as somebody said, I think a lot of "Big Daddy's" flaws are just down to bad acting.

It's not enough to make the film a failure for me though. I liked it a lot. It's the weakest of the original quad of course, but it's still light years ahead of 'Diary of the Dead' and (I'd wager) the rest of this "re-boot" idea that Romero has wedded himself too.

[Philly_SWAT]

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.

The Big Question:
- Were Bub and Big Daddy very much alike or fundamentally different?
A well thought out and intelligent topic to bring me out of semi-retirement...


Arguments for alike:
- Both displayed intelligence and behavior at a higher level than their zombie peers.
- Both showed a cognitive ability to manipulate their environment - i.e. problem solving abilities.
- Both communicated with humans beyond just trying to eat them.
- Both showed a diminished (or non-existent) need to pursue/eat humans on sight.
I am not so sure we can take it that they displayed intelligence and behavior at a higher level than other zeds. Throughout the GAR dead movies, we are shown very little of particular zombies, and their behavior patterns. What we predominantly see (and justifiably so) if what the LIVING are doing, thinking, etc. Other than Bub and Big Daddy, we are not shown any other zombies in enlightening situations...only as part of a horde, or an individual with no background, characterization, etc., following their instincts. For all we know, given the limited amount of time we spent with any GAR zeds on-screen, Bub and BD could either be two of the smartest zeds in the world, two of the dumbest, or just two middle of the pack, in terms of intelligence, abilities, etc.


Arguments for different:
- Bub was driven/enticed by the need to feed. Big Daddy showed no inclination to feed even when presented with food.
- Bub was trained & conditioned by Dr. Logan. Big Daddy's higher level behavior had no visible catalyst.
- Bub paid no attention to other zombies. Big Daddy was highly empathetic to other zombies.
One thing that is a consistent theme in GAR dead movies is that the zeds "are us". And of course, they are, or were. But we see ample evidence in all the movies that all zombies retain some knowledge of former life...how to walk, how to pick up objects and use them as a weapon, bludgeon, tool, etc., avoiding fire, the list goes on. If you accept that they are "us", then just like us, it only makes sense that different individuals within a large group would have different abilities, different ways of thinking, behaving, etc. So while Bub and BD do indeed act differently, I am not sure that is any different than any two of us here on this board acting differently.


Another question is whether Bub and/or Big Daddy were really *that* much more intelligent than their peers. There is a lot of evidence that other zombies were learning:
- The captured zombies in Day began to avoid the zombie pen gates.
- The wandering zombies in Land didn't come around the Green electric fences anymore.
- The Uniontown zombies in Land learned quickly with a little Big Daddy prompting.
- The horde of zombies in Land began to ignore food sources in their pursuit of Fiddler's Green.
- The horde of zombies in Land learned to ignore the fireworks without prompting.
- The Hari Krishna zombie in Dawn chose to go up the stairs rather than pursue Stephen.
- The pit fighter zombies learned to fight over food rather than just lunging for the closest human.
You point out a bunch of examples here to illustrate what I was saying above... different individuals in a large group are bound to be different.


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.
I dont think that Dr Logan was initially looking to keep a zed and train it, I think he just stumbled across that idea when Bub seemed to be easier to control/more receptive than the other zeds he had been dealing with. As Sarah tells him "You're making a lot of assumptions here", and I agree with her, although in a different way than she was saying. Even if Bub could have been trained to "not want to eat us for one thing" as Logan tells Rhodes, that does not necessarily mean that all zombies could be controlled/trained in the same way, or that any other ones could, for that matter. No legitimate scientist would take ONE example and extrapolate that it would hold true for an entire population. If anything, Logan's own experience with every other zed other than Bub (like the one he destroyed because it was too rowdy) should have led him to the conclusion that Bub was more than likely an exception, not a rule. Plus you have to remember that Dr Logan was quite deranged....which would explain how a scientist would think that a proper reward to give to a creature you are trying to train to not eat human flesh would be to GIVE HIM HUMAN FLESH to eat?!?! If anything, Bub was pretty adept at training Logan to do what Bub wanted, not the other way around.


I had always taken the stance that Bub and Big Daddy were fundamentally different. After careful consideration I've concluded that I am torn on the topic.
My answer to your initial question above would have to be this....for sure, Bub and BD were different than the random zeds we see throughout the series, but we do not know enough about the zed population at large to know HOW different they were in relation to other zombies. Even in Land, we only see a handfull of zeds that appear to be "communicating" with BD, the rest of the horde may have easily been just following the crowd cuz they had nothing better to do at the time. As far as differences to each other, we do not know how long both Bub and BD had been "undead" for, what their zed experiences were prior to the start of the movies, etc. so it is hard to draw finite conclusions about that either. Any argument either way, that Bub was more advanced than BD or vice versa would be dependent on information that we do not have access to as viewers. Hmmm, seems I did not actually answer the question. I guess I will agree with you to be torn on the topic. :)

[Trin]

A few points for consideration...


I am not so sure we can take it that they displayed intelligence and behavior at a higher level than other zeds. Throughout the GAR dead movies, we are shown very little of particular zombies, and their behavior patterns.
...
For all we know, given the limited amount of time we spent with any GAR zeds on-screen, Bub and BD could either be two of the smartest zeds in the world, two of the dumbest, or just two middle of the pack, in terms of intelligence, abilities, etc.
I think we can safely conclude they were at higher levels than their peers in the larger zombie population. Riley made a point of saying that the zombies in Union Town are different. He seemed positively shocked by what he saw in Union Town. Riley was an expert on zombies and would have seen thousands of them in lots of different settings. His testimonial speaks to the larger zombie population.


Other than Bub and Big Daddy, we are not shown any other zombies in enlightening situations...
I would question whether Big Daddy was shown in an enlightening situation. He was a gas station attendant. The fact that he became enlightened seems to indicate he was different simply because he had no catalyst to become so.

You mention that Dr. Logan was deranged, and I think we'd all agree. That makes it very difficult to use his actions/thoughts as evidence of anything. But we do know one thing for sure. He tried to train more than just Bub and failed. How many more - we don't know. Was Bub the sole trainable zombie from a group of a hundred? I think that's a conservative guess based on how many we saw in the zombie pen. If so, Bub would be in the 99th percentile of zombies with regard to train-ability.

I'm not trying to prove anything with my hypothetical line of reasoning. I'm merely pointing out a viable alternative that portrays Bub a lot more like Big Daddy than is commonly thought. The common consensus has always been that Logan trained Bub, end of story. But maybe Bub was already enlightened. It's impossible to tell. All I'm looking for is "maybe."


Even in Land, we only see a handfull of zeds that appear to be "communicating" with BD, the rest of the horde may have easily been just following the crowd cuz they had nothing better to do at the time.
That may have been true during the journey to Fiddler's Green. But in the motor pool the entire horde stopped eating and followed BD. They clearly had something better to do - eat human flesh - and they stopped at his urging. Any zombie that ended up crossing the river with BD has to be in the group that was communicating.

Welcome out of retirement btw!! And welcome to torn!!

[acealive1]

Yeah, I'd feel bad about putting down my rabid family dog afterwards...not during. Like Seth Gecko said in From Dusk till Dawn, "Fight now, cry later!"

I don't think I would feel too bad about shooting a zombie neighbor. They would already be dead. I wouldn't be the one killing them, I'm just the one with the unwanted task of ending their threat. You'd need to look at it as such just to maintain a grip on your sanity.



agreed, i'd have to blow my cousin's head smoov off. it's either me or him and i dont wanna be a zombie:lol:

[Philly_SWAT]

I think we can safely conclude they were at higher levels than their peers in the larger zombie population. Riley made a point of saying that the zombies in Union Town are different. He seemed positively shocked by what he saw in Union Town. Riley was an expert on zombies and would have seen thousands of them in lots of different settings. His testimonial speaks to the larger zombie population.I am not sure that I agree with the premise that because Riley said they are "different" that this necessarily means "more advanced". But even if it did, that would mean that all the zeds around there were advanced, not just Big Daddy, which was your original premise.



I would question whether Big Daddy was shown in an enlightening situation. He was a gas station attendant. The fact that he became enlightened seems to indicate he was different simply because he had no catalyst to become so.
When I used the phrase "Other than Bub and Big Daddy, we are not shown any other zombies in enlightening situations..." I meant enlightening to us, the audience, not zombie enlightenment. I did not mean that BD was shown in an enlightening situation, but that we the audience were enlightened to exactly what this particular zombie was up to.


You mention that Dr. Logan was deranged, and I think we'd all agree. That makes it very difficult to use his actions/thoughts as evidence of anything. But we do know one thing for sure. He tried to train more than just Bub and failed. How many more - we don't know. Was Bub the sole trainable zombie from a group of a hundred? I think that's a conservative guess based on how many we saw in the zombie pen. If so, Bub would be in the 99th percentile of zombies with regard to train-ability.What evidence are you basing your statement that we "know for sure" that Logan tried to train more than Bub and failed? He was doing experiments on other zeds....not trying to train them. In fact, about 50 minutes into the movie, Logan says "Bub has been doing so well lately I let him live...". To me that shows he didnt initially have any special training plans for Bub, like I said before, he just stumbled across the idea.


I'm not trying to prove anything with my hypothetical line of reasoning. I'm merely pointing out a viable alternative that portrays Bub a lot more like Big Daddy than is commonly thought. The common consensus has always been that Logan trained Bub, end of story. But maybe Bub was already enlightened. It's impossible to tell. All I'm looking for is "maybe."It is easy for me to give you a maybe. Maybe Bub and Big Daddy were very much alike. But again, we have no idea if they were drastically different than the general zed population or not.



That may have been true during the journey to Fiddler's Green. But in the motor pool the entire horde stopped eating and followed BD. They clearly had something better to do - eat human flesh - and they stopped at his urging. Any zombie that ended up crossing the river with BD has to be in the group that was communicating.
That could be true. I would be tempted to chalk that up to "poor writing", but I guess that wouldnt be very constructive! :) Remember, Land had studio influence. But even disregarding that, it would seem less likely that an undead Big Daddy was using mystical powers to communicate with his fellow undead brethren, and more likely that all those zeds were more or less on he same plane of thinking, therefore, diminishing the concept of BD being on a higher plane than the average zed around. Micheal Strahan may have been the leader of the Giants defense, but that didnt mean that Julius Peppers was some ignorant follower. I say they were on an equal plane, just that Strahan was acknowledged as a leader.


Welcome out of retirement btw!! And welcome to torn!!
Thanks! Not sure how long it will last....

[krakenslayer]

PHILLY!!? Got Dayom!

Welcome back man! Thought the zombies had taken you.

[Danny]

to throw another 2 cents into the jar, i think bub was an intelligent one taught tricks in expectation of reward. Whereas big daddy was some kind of zombie savant. I guess it goes back to the "pure motorized instinct thing". If a horse can be born and know how to get up and walk on instinct, why cant a creature thats basically an extremely primitive ape do what we do?, they walk, see, hear, eat, solve basic puzzles, In fact they had prior knowledge before, and if the brains still functioning as a brain, and as bub showed they have the capacity for basic learning is it so out of the realm of possibility in a world where the dead walk that the one in a billion chance does occur?I think the total number of "big daddys" would be very small, maybe it depends on the brain before they died, the current state and outside stimulus that can create this randomly generated alpha zombie, and george just makes him the focus as a semi-likeable frankensteins monster type of movie monster. Because i see him as something bridging the gap between the archetype monsters of old and the regular shamblers, the others in his "tribe" just seemed to follow him on impulse and learn by example, we dont know who big daddy was before he died, or what level of intelligence he had, any special conditions of his death that may retain some familiar past functions.
Bub was like one of big daddies followers, not having too much of a sentient emotion behind them, just an attachment like "okay, this one is leader, he is smarter, lead us to reward", for bub it was frankenstein, for the zombies of fiddlers green it was big daddy.

I guess in essence, frankenstein failed to create his goal, while it occurred naturally by any number of freak random occurrences in the wild, so to speak.

[kortick]

Romeros biggest change in 'intelligent zombies'
is mentioned here a few times.

Up until Big Daddy, they were all trained to perform
in a controlled manner. In Day that was released in the
theaters it was Logan. In the original script there were
many more 'intelligent' zombies as soldiers that Rhoades
was in command of.

Big Daddy was a departure from Romeros original idea
of trying to make them behave by controlling them thru
thier feeding habits. Big Daddy never bit anyone, which is
something that makes absolutely no sense. Even if he wasnt
feeding, it is most likely he would have killed by biting at least once.

And as for Land, as far as I see, BD is an 'intelligent' zombie, and a bad idea
at that, there was no need for him, all the zombies could have just
started walking towards the Green for food, they didnt need a leader,
they could have just followed the urge to feed and went where
the food was. This would be more true to established history.
And the underwater scene makes no sense, if u ever scuba dove
u know u need weights to get to the bottom, and walking across
a flowing river bed that size without getting taken away by the current
is impossible.

Land would have been better if it showed more of a colllective intelligenge
in the zombies, instead of a 'genuis leader' like BD.
Bub wasnt intelligent, just more easily trained to act the way Logan wants
as long as he is fed.
But that being said it was stated in Dawn they all have some small bit
of intelligence, some more than others.
But up until Land any use of thier intelligence was used to feed.

Thats where Big Daddy took it off the rails.

[bassman]

I've never understood the problem with Big Daddy not eating. Just because we don't see him eating doesn't mean he never did. There are countless movies set over a long period of time and the characters are never seen eating. Does that mean they didn't eat at all? No...we just didn't see it.

I believe there's that example and also the example that a leader doesn't mingle or dine with his soldiers.:p

[kortick]

thats the point.
BD could have eaten a lot off screen
But Romero never used his need to eat
as a device for his behavior change,
where with Bub and the others it was
all about feeding them to control them.

The fact that it was never shown BD eating
just enforces how he wasnt manipulated by
his appetite.
He seemed to be motivated by revenge, or
something like it.
A total departure from past Romero 'rules'
to use a word.

[Trin]

I am not sure that I agree with the premise that because Riley said they are "different" that this necessarily means "more advanced". But even if it did, that would mean that all the zeds around there were advanced, not just Big Daddy, which was your original premise.
Riley's comments came directly after observing Big Daddy and how he influenced the other zombies around him. His comments were clearly indicative that he felt these zombies were a threat due to being more advanced. If Riley thought they were "different" and less advanced he wouldn't have been warning Kaufman about it.

What is not clear (and this is a good counter-argument to my premise) is whether or not what Riley saw in Big Daddy was a phenomenon exclusive to Union Town. Riley does say something along the lines of "They're changing," which implies that he was not convinced they'd always been this way. It might also imply that he'd seen other instances of similar "changing" behavior. So it's not out of the question that zombies everywhere were changing and zombies like Big Daddy were popping up all over. But, hey, that's part of the fun with speculating!!


What evidence are you basing your statement that we "know for sure" that Logan tried to train more than Bub and failed? He was doing experiments on other zeds....not trying to train them. In fact, about 50 minutes into the movie, Logan says "Bub has been doing so well lately I let him live...".
I see your point, but I don't wholly agree. The statement could just as easily be interpreted that Bub was exceeding the smaller controlled training experiments and Logan was using him to test the boundaries of their train-ability.

Perhaps a better "know for sure" is that Logan believed in behavior as the key. At the time of the events it was the entire focus of his efforts. I believe (I'll back off slightly from "know for sure") that we can assume Logan tried his training techniques on numerous other zombies without success.

Another possibility is that Logan succeeded with Bub only because he had real human flesh to use as a reward. You have to figure that was not something he could have done with a whole bunch of zombies.


I would be tempted to chalk that up to "poor writing", but I guess that wouldnt be very constructive! :)
The films are certainly guilty of poor writing at times, plot loopholes at times, message overriding plot at times... all those things make these discussions more difficult. It's hard to focus solely on the events to prove/disprove anything when at times the events took a backseat to another moviemaking goal.

All we can do is be careful to use such arguments as "poor writing" sparingly and objectively.


to throw another 2 cents into the jar, i think bub was an intelligent one taught tricks in expectation of reward. Whereas big daddy was some kind of zombie savant.
That is certainly a valid conclusion, and the one I'd lean toward if *forced* to choose.


why cant a creature thats basically an extremely primitive ape do what we do?, they walk, see, hear, eat, solve basic puzzles,
The question becomes, at what point does the ape become so advanced that it stops being an ape? If it learns to read and talk and stops eating bananas is it still an ape? If Big Daddy learns to hate and communicate and stops eating flesh is he still a zombie?


for bub it was frankenstein, for the zombies of fiddlers green it was big daddy.
And for us it is Neil?? :)


And the underwater scene makes no sense, if u ever scuba dove
u know u need weights to get to the bottom, and walking across
a flowing river bed that size without getting taken away by the current
is impossible.

Land would have been better if it showed more of a colllective intelligenge
in the zombies, instead of a 'genuis leader' like BD.
Those are two points I've stressed again and again. The latter is relevant to this thread in that we'd be having a whole other discussion if Big Daddy had been more like the rest, and the rest had been more like him. That would've been more palatable to me.


I've never understood the problem with Big Daddy not eating. Just because we don't see him eating doesn't mean he never did.
The problem is that we see him NOT eat in a situation that would've had any other zombie chowing down. All the other zombies
in his throng started salivating at the first sign of human.

It's a fine plot development that they were able to override the instinct in order to pursue a goal. That even jives well with Bub's training. But to just not have the instinct at all? That's where I start to question things.

[EvilNed]

The fact that it was never shown BD eating
just enforces how he wasnt manipulated by
his appetite.
He seemed to be motivated by revenge, or
something like it.
A total departure from past Romero 'rules'
to use a word.

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.

[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:

http://www.slowleadership.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/unusual_sarcasm_notice.jpg

[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.:D

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.:D

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... :lol:

[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.
:elol:
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. :D

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...:confused:

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 :lol:

Second, I'm glad someone did, because I missed it he first round and obviously had some small opinions to be aired :shifty::)

[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...
:shifty:

[Philly_SWAT]

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...
:shifty:

There is no evidence one way or the other if Bub was in the military. Logan says that he must have been in the military when he salutes, but that is just conjecture. I think most of us know the military guys salute each other, and if we were drunk enough, we might salute a military guy if we saw one in uniform, since our brains wouldnt be operating at peak effectiveness. Well, who knows how Bub's brain was operating, so he could have saluting not because he was ex-military, but only because it is common human knowledge about salutes.

And I think that Bub had a Junior Mint dropped in his stomach during an operation before the outbreak....

[deadpunk]

And I think that Bub had a Junior Mint dropped in his stomach during an operation before the outbreak....

I was going to shoot for witty remark about this explaining why no one seems offended by the way Bub must smell, but that led me to thinking; No one ever complains of the stench. Ever. Not that I can recall, anyway.

Can you imagine what it must have smelled like going into Uniontown? Or in the zombie holding pens in Day? Or the crowded apartment buildings in Dawn?

How come no one is ever just standing in the corner, puking their guts out from the reek? ;)

[Philly_SWAT]

I was going to shoot for witty remark about this explaining why no one seems offended by the way Bub must smell, but that led me to thinking; No one ever complains of the stench. Ever. Not that I can recall, anyway.

Can you imagine what it must have smelled like going into Uniontown? Or in the zombie holding pens in Day? Or the crowded apartment buildings in Dawn?

How come no one is ever just standing in the corner, puking their guts out from the reek? ;)

I never thought about it in that way, but you are absolutely correct. I have been around a homeless person, a LIVING homeless person, and I could see how some people would have puked over their stench. So you're right, it must have been HORRIBLE, yet we never even see someone with noseplugs or something.

[Trin]

There is no evidence one way or the other if Bub was in the military. Logan says that he must have been in the military when he salutes, but that is just conjecture. I think most of us know the military guys salute each other, and if we were drunk enough, we might salute a military guy if we saw one in uniform, since our brains wouldnt be operating at peak effectiveness. Well, who knows how Bub's brain was operating, so he could have saluting not because he was ex-military, but only because it is common human knowledge about salutes.....
I know that to convince you Philly you'd need to see his military service record along with two forms of military id, preferably one with a picture of him post-zombie, just to be sure. And even then you'd dream up some scenario that could cast doubt. But really, "no evidence one way or the other?" Come on man, the evidence was strong enough to be reasonably sure he was military.

He didn't just half-ass salute. He did a full on military stand up straight salute. And he did it without prompting upon seeing a man in uniform. And he did it to the leader, not to any of the subordinates. And he held it until it was returned by Logan. He didn't shave, read the book, or use the phone with nearly that much precision. This was a very strong remembered behavior.

I don't buy that him being a zombie and not operating at peak efficiency made him more likely to salute. The common theme of GAR zombies is that they only exhibit behaviors they did in life. Things that are familiar. They don't act like drunk people who have their inhibitions removed.

None of that says he wasn't a mechanic though.


I was going to shoot for witty remark about this explaining why no one seems offended by the way Bub must smell, but that led me to thinking; No one ever complains of the stench. Ever. Not that I can recall, anyway.

Can you imagine what it must have smelled like going into Uniontown? Or in the zombie holding pens in Day? Or the crowded apartment buildings in Dawn?

How come no one is ever just standing in the corner, puking their guts out from the reek? ;)
Dr. Logan reminds me of a coroner. He has gotten used to the smell, to the point he can pretty much ignore it. The others all seem to spend as little time actually around the dead as they can. And there are a couple moments when Sarah looks like her stomach is turning. It's hard to say that was due to the smell though.

Peter and Roger both had some "turning green" moments in the apartments. But that may have been due to seeing the carnage, not the smell.

In Land they called them "stenches" which is pretty pointed that there was a recognized smell about them.

But there are a couple points that would suggest the zombies don't smell that bad.

In Dawn, when they went to clean out the mall it was after they destroyed the zombies and Peter says it's going to start to smell. Like it didn't already smell? There were zombies roaming the mall for a couple weeks prior to their arrival. Apparently they really didn't smell that bad until after they were put down.

And you never ever see a character react to smells as indication that zombies are nearby. A good example would be the airport when Peter goes into the building and there are two zombies in there with him. You'd think a couple dead bodies would stink enough you'd know they were around. Or in the apartments when they bust open that door and seem to have no indication there is a wall of zombies on the other side. You'd think the smell would give them a clue.

[deadpunk]

I know that to convince you Philly you'd need to see his military service record along with two forms of military id, preferably one with a picture of him post-zombie, just to be sure. And even then you'd dream up some scenario that could cast doubt. But really, "no evidence one way or the other?" Come on man, the evidence was strong enough to be reasonably sure he was military.

He didn't just half-ass salute. He did a full on military stand up straight salute. And he did it without prompting upon seeing a man in uniform. And he did it to the leader, not to any of the subordinates. And he held it until it was returned by Logan. He didn't shave, read the book, or use the phone with nearly that much precision. This was a very strong remembered behavior.

I don't buy that him being a zombie and not operating at peak efficiency made him more likely to salute. The common theme of GAR zombies is that they only exhibit behaviors they did in life. Things that are familiar. They don't act like drunk people who have their inhibitions removed.

None of that says he wasn't a mechanic though.

In looking at BUb, and the time era we are deaing with... Possible solution (highly probable, actually): In order to avoid being drafted for the next clusterfuck that followed Vietnam, Bub took a voluntary 2 year draft following High School. No new wars broke out, and he went back home to live in the trailer park with his mom and her 19 cats. :)



Dr. Logan reminds me of a coroner. He has gotten used to the smell, to the point he can pretty much ignore it. The others all seem to spend as little time actually around the dead as they can. And there are a couple moments when Sarah looks like her stomach is turning. It's hard to say that was due to the smell though.

Peter and Roger both had some "turning green" moments in the apartments. But that may have been due to seeing the carnage, not the smell.

In Land they called them "stenches" which is pretty pointed that there was a recognized smell about them.

But there are a couple points that would suggest the zombies don't smell that bad.

In Dawn, when they went to clean out the mall it was after they destroyed the zombies and Peter says it's going to start to smell. Like it didn't already smell? There were zombies roaming the mall for a couple weeks prior to their arrival. Apparently they really didn't smell that bad until after they were put down.

And you never ever see a character react to smells as indication that zombies are nearby. A good example would be the airport when Peter goes into the building and there are two zombies in there with him. You'd think a couple dead bodies would stink enough you'd know they were around. Or in the apartments when they bust open that door and seem to have no indication there is a wall of zombies on the other side. You'd think the smell would give them a clue.

You could explain away the smell in both the mall and the compound in Day with circulated air systems.

But, yeah...the idea of a zombie being able to sneak up on you? Pretty unlikely.

[rongravy]

But, yeah...the idea of a zombie being able to sneak up on you? Pretty unlikely.

Not unless you are a heavy smoker. I quit on New Year's and I can smell a mouse fart a block away already...

[krakenslayer]

I don't think zombies smell that bad, at least not initially. They seem to rot at a much reduced rate, which suggests that their bodies will release the noxious fumes at a much lesser rate than a genuinely dead corpse.

If you think about it - we see zombies breathe and we see still-red oxygenated blood squirt from their wounds, which suggests that their circulatory and respiratory systems will continue to operate for as long as they are undamaged (i.e. no bullets through the chest or whatever). The heart, for example, is just a muscle, and we know that the zombies have the use of their other muscles only partly impeded by their zombietude. I reckon this reduced metabolism is enough to stop them rotting fully away with a month or two. They don't NEED their heart and lungs intact to survive (as Logan showed us), but in theory they would rot faster without them.

This also explains why some zombies by the time of Land looked much worse than others that presumably died around the same time. The "fresher" ones just looked leathery and a little dried out, while some others looked like near-skeletons.

So a relatively-intact specimen would not necessarily stink just as badly as a festering corpse, although the more badly wounded ones might. That said, by the time of Land, even the freshies were probably getting a little ripe, hence: "stenches".

[wayzim]

Went through all the posts so not to be redundant, but did anyone not consider Stephen in Dawn to be intelligent?
It's not just that he had a rough memory of the hidden stairwell, but that he deliberately motioned to the other zombies to follow him. He waved them on, remember?
As to some of the rather elitist comments about Big Daddy, who says that someone who fixes cars for a living is less smart than Bud the soldier? That's something called False Logic, like the Victorian mindset about Class Value or the latter Eugenic Principles of overeducated nutters who'd argue Intelligence in regards to pure race/ethnic lines.
I worked on this warehouse job once where the smartest guy in the whole place ran the forklift, go figure.
While the progression of evolution in the Romero films is sorta haphazard, at least he gives us something more to chew on than your average Zombie Pic.
Like other posters, this is a good topic, let's run it into the ground.

Wayne Z

[Philly_SWAT]

As to some of the rather elitist comments about Big Daddy, who says that someone who fixes cars for a living is less smart than Bud the soldier? That's something called False Logic, like the Victorian mindset about Class Value or the latter Eugenic Principles of overeducated nutters who'd argue Intelligence in regards to pure race/ethnic lines.
I have mentioned in the past this very point. For all we know, prior to becoming a zed, Big Daddy could have been one of the smartest men on earth, who for any number of reasons just happened to work at a garage.


Went through all the posts so not to be redundant, but did anyone not consider Stephen in Dawn to be intelligent?
It's not just that he had a rough memory of the hidden stairwell, but that he deliberately motioned to the other zombies to follow him. He waved them on, remember?

I hadnt really thought of this before, but you are absolutely correct. This is an excellent point. It is only a few months into the outbreak at this point, and Flyboy is only dead and arisen for an hour at the most. Yet he is motioning to other zombies, and they are following his lead. So to all the people who say that Land HAS to be taking place after the events in Day BECAUSE of the way Big Daddy has "evolved" and is leading other zombies.....obviously not, as the Flyboy zombie was exhibiting similar characteristics before the events of either movie.

[deadpunk]

As to some of the rather elitist comments about Big Daddy, who says that someone who fixes cars for a living is less smart than Bud the soldier? That's something called False Logic, like the Victorian mindset about Class Value or the latter Eugenic Principles of overeducated nutters who'd argue Intelligence in regards to pure race/ethnic lines.
I worked on this warehouse job once where the smartest guy in the whole place ran the forklift, go figure.


My comments weren't mean to be elitist... I mean, Jesus wept.

I was trying to illustrate that a manual laborer would be more apt to recall the simplicities of a hammer over say, a lawyer.

:annoyed:

[wayzim]

I hadnt really thought of this before, but you are absolutely correct. This is an excellent point. It is only a few months into the outbreak at this point, and Flyboy is only dead and arisen for an hour at the most. Yet he is motioning to other zombies, and they are following his lead. So to all the people who say that Land HAS to be taking place after the events in Day BECAUSE of the way Big Daddy has "evolved" and is leading other zombies.....obviously not, as the Flyboy zombie was exhibiting similar characteristics before the events of either movie.

Just to throw a wrench into this, I was rewatching DOTD and early on where Flyboy tries to find Roger and Peter, he comes out of the stairwell only to be attacked!
Peter says "Don't go in that stairwell, you'll lead them right up with you. "

So, it could be simple recall after all ...

Wayne Z

[Philly_SWAT]

Just to throw a wrench into this, I was rewatching DOTD and early on where Flyboy tries to find Roger and Peter, he comes out of the stairwell only to be attacked!
Peter says "Don't go in that stairwell, you'll lead them right up with you. "

So, it could be simple recall after all ...

Wayne Z

I took it that since living Flyboy was right there in front of the door, and zeds were right there attacking Flyboy, that if they SAW him enter they would follow him. Just like right after that scene they make some noise and the zeds come downstairs so there are less of them upstairs, so they can get in the stairwell unseen.

[Trin]

I don't believe flyboy ever motions to the other zombies. I think his arm flails around. When he gets upstairs he closes the door. Did he decide to motion all his zombie buddies upstairs only to close the door on them? No.

He remembered at an instinctive level where the safe place was and he knew how to get there. The other zombies followed him out of the same behavior we've seen time and again - one zombie shows interest in something and the others follow along blindly.

And I agree with Deadpunk. It's not about a laborer being more or less intelligent. It's about them having more remembered behaviors of physical repetitive manual tasks. Those skills translate better to being a zombie than programming a computer or managing human resources.

[krakenslayer]

I don't believe flyboy ever motions to the other zombies. I think his arm flails around. When he gets upstairs he closes the door. Did he decide to motion all his zombie buddies upstairs only to close the door on them? No.

He actually does point quite distinctively with his index finger. And closing the door doesn't seem to be deliberate, he stumbles a little and tries to lean on it using his arm to support himself, while turning to face Fran and Peter. There is no motivation for a stupid zombie to close the door, in any case. If he did close the door on the other zombies, presumably to allow himself to get first dibs on on the survivors, then that's a sign of planning in itself.

[Trin]

He actually does point quite distinctively with his index finger. And closing the door doesn't seem to be deliberate, he stumbles a little and tries to lean on it using his arm to support himself, while turning to face Fran and Peter.
I'm going to have to watch that again. I thought he distinctly closed the door on purpose.


So to all the people who say that Land HAS to be taking place after the events in Day BECAUSE of the way Big Daddy has "evolved" and is leading other zombies.....obviously not, as the Flyboy zombie was exhibiting similar characteristics before the events of either movie.
Ah, my favorite argument. Feels like an old friend showed up to dinner... and groped my wife while farting on the buffet table. :p;):cool:

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.

Timeline is very difficult where Big Daddy's evolution is concerned. He didn't really evolve per se. He had an epiphany of sorts. One minute he's a gas station attendant who has seemingly been standing around the gas station since the outbreak. The next he's organizing a zombie army. The obvious catalyst for the change was the arrival of the scavengers. But there's no way to tell whether he manned the gas pump for 5 weeks or 5 years.

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.

[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. :lol:



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? :rolleyes:

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. :D



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. :shifty: 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? :rolleyes:


Ummm.....they both get taken out by an exploding car.:shifty:

[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...:p

[Phenia Films]

Big Daddy is lame..

Bub was fantastic

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff202/joebarbarisi/hinzmanmego.jpg
but nobody like #1 Ghoul Mr Hinzman

[Wyldwraith]

Just gonna say it,
Much like the jerk in Dawn '04, if anyone ever sees me shambling around *please, for the love of God. DESTROY ME*.

Shitty as my life has been, I would absolutely detest being reduced to an undead eating machine with all the sensibility of a dumb rat or smart cockroach. Know how hard its been to restrain myself from killing several people who were once part of my life? I would hate to think that in life I exercised such restraint, and didn't do in those who richly deserved it, but in undeath I preyed on the innocent.

The only remotely possible "sympathy" I could see having for a zombie, no matter who they were in life, would be to promptly make them truly dead as a tribute and memorial to fulfilling what would no doubt have been the wishes of the former human being who used to inhabit that body.

Still, just my .02 As always, your mileage may vary.

[Rancid Carcass]

Just gonna say it,
Much like the jerk in Dawn '04, if anyone ever sees me shambling around *please, for the love of God. DESTROY ME*.

Sod that, if I'm doomed to come back then I'm gonna get me a bullet proof helmet and just go for it! :skull:

[Andy]

I Can pretty much put an end to the Battle of the inteligent zombies with 5 words.

THERE
IS
NO
SUCH
THING

Their brains do not function, only the central complex of the brain which controls base instincts retains any kind of function, even logan says that.

Bub was mimicking behaviour from his memory and behaviours taught to him by logan, he was by no means inteligent he was just mimicking behaviour as all zombies have the capability to do and we have seen many times in many different films, the only reason bub seemed more inteligent was becuase not many zombies get to spend time around a human scientist to mimick them.

Big daddy on the other hand was totally degrading and insulting to the whole genre, and was some kind of result of a mental breakdown or stroke. Poor GAR.
Either way, if GAR had been fully compus mentus then big daddy (and land of the dead) would never of happened, therefore it didnt happen. See my land topic for details.

:D

[Trin]

LMAO - Nice

[Rancid Carcass]

Their brains do not function, only the central complex of the brain which controls base instincts retains any kind of function, even logan says that.

Don’t forget that Logans work, as Sarah commented, was based on theories that he wasn’t even proving correctly, so it’s hard to say whether or not if this was a definitive fact or just another hypothesis.

[SRP76]

All previous zombie study agrees with Logan, from the pointdexter on tv in Night to Patches in Dawn. Since everyone shown pre-Land agrees, that's got to be the accepted rule.

Romero just woke up one morning and thought, "hey, wouldn't it be cool to fuck everything up now?", and the next day Big Daddy was created.

[fulci fan]

The big difference between the two is: Bub is not annoying. Big Daddy is.

[Andy]

The big difference between the two is: Bub is not annoying. Big Daddy is.

Fulci fan, it always makes me smile when i see you've been online, not only becuase im a fellow fulci fan and ZFE is one of the best zombie movies ive seen not made by GAR, but your also the voice of truth and wisdom.

[Trin]

Bub was mimicking behaviour from his memory and behaviours taught to him by logan, he was by no means inteligent he was just mimicking behaviour as all zombies have the capability to do and we have seen many times in many different films, the only reason bub seemed more inteligent was becuase not many zombies get to spend time around a human scientist to mimick them.
Bub did thrash the chain around in frustration and anger when he finds Logan's body. He wasn't mimicking anything then.

[Wyldwraith]

About behavior,
Whether or not you're in the pro or anti-zombie intelligence camps, one thing that needs to be acknowledged is that all perpetuated behaviors are impulse/agenda driven.

In other words, it's a moot point whether a zombie can reason as we do, even on a simplistic level. The vast majority of animals don't reason out their actions, yet they perform suitable behaviors in the appropriate contextual scenarios every time.

When a pride of lions uses an oddity in the terrain (such as sort of shallow boxed in swell in a river or stream with unusually high banks to either side) to corner and bring down a prey animal using teamwork, none of the lions are engaged in tactical reasoning. Perception of the potential for an easier kill + hunger as motivator to act + evolved behavior patterns related to operating as a unit = 1 dead prey animal. Did the lions spring a trap on their target? Absolutely. Do they reason it out or "think" of what they just did as such? Of course not.

I've never disputed that zombies were/could be potentially capable of some rather complicated behaviors when spurred to act by the basic drives motivating them. My contention is and remains that zombies are not as a rule capable of abstract thought.

Even the complex multi-phase assault on Fiddler's Green lead by BD could be construed less as a quest for revenge against human tormentors, and more as a link in a chain of basic causality.

Step 1: Human scavengers descend on BD's locale, loot the area and trash some zombies.

Step 2: Big Daddy sees the warm humans rolling back towards the lights in the distance. Lights that are a unique sensory phenomena so far as the zombies in the area were concerned.

Step 3: Big Daddy, compelled by his base drives begins heading for this unique sensory phenomena because it was the direction warm flesh was last seen heading. Due to the daisy-chain effect, other zombies massed and began following Big Daddy.

Step 4: The events leading up to the massacre inside the Green.

None of this requires reasoning ability or capacity for rational thought. While rather complex, it doesn't fall outside the boundaries of the expression of the basic drives GAR zombies have been depicted as being motivated by.

What if Big Daddy isn't actually an "intelligent" zombie? What if he's simply the zombie exposed to a more complex series of sensory stimuli? Isn't it possible we're projecting our human bias onto a situation easily mistaken for thought-driven action, that was instead simply the tumbling of more dominoes than usual into each other?

Human beings have a well-documented tendency to anthropomorphize non-sentient entities responsible for triggering intense emotional states in the observer. An exaggerated example of which would be when the survivor of an attack by an animal predator ascribe traits like evil to the predator, or feel it "enjoyed" their pain and fear. In objective reality it was a simple act of opportunistic predation, but subjectively for the victim, belief that the predator planned its actions and derived emotional satisfaction from carrying them out gives them a target for their feelings of helpless anger/rage. They create a false image or persona for their attacker, because its easier to emotionally digest than so much physical and emotional trauma having been caused by simply coming in contact with a creature following a pattern of instincts.

It's a hazy, indistinct line..the boundary between complex instinct and simple thought. Maybe just a philosophical one, but I thought it was an interesting take on "Intelligent Zombies".

Thoughts?

[Andy]

About behavior,
Whether or not you're in the pro or anti-zombie intelligence camps, one thing that needs to be acknowledged is that all perpetuated behaviors are impulse/agenda driven.

In other words, it's a moot point whether a zombie can reason as we do, even on a simplistic level. The vast majority of animals don't reason out their actions, yet they perform suitable behaviors in the appropriate contextual scenarios every time.

When a pride of lions uses an oddity in the terrain (such as sort of shallow boxed in swell in a river or stream with unusually high banks to either side) to corner and bring down a prey animal using teamwork, none of the lions are engaged in tactical reasoning. Perception of the potential for an easier kill + hunger as motivator to act + evolved behavior patterns related to operating as a unit = 1 dead prey animal. Did the lions spring a trap on their target? Absolutely. Do they reason it out or "think" of what they just did as such? Of course not.

I've never disputed that zombies were/could be potentially capable of some rather complicated behaviors when spurred to act by the basic drives motivating them. My contention is and remains that zombies are not as a rule capable of abstract thought.

Ignoring the big daddy stuff becuase i refuse to acknowlege it as a character or land as a movie, i dont think its fair to compare zombies to a lion or indeed any animal, as any animal is alive and has a functioning brain, no matter what level its working on, its functioning.

A Zombie does not, its brain dosnt function in any way aside from the central core, the behaviours were we see them are not in context with the situation around them, for example trying to drive a car or truck, taking a gun off roger, fiddling with a cash register in the mall.. None of these "behaviours" have any reason for advancement of neither the individual or "pack", they are just husks acting out vague memories and following their instincts and that is all.

The absolute most potential i would give a zombie is the ability to mimick behaviour.

[krakenslayer]

Ignoring the big daddy stuff becuase i refuse to acknowlege it as a character or land as a movie.

"Big who?"

http://www.assistnews.net/images06/Web%20dw%20-%20bigdaddy.jpg?

[BillyRay]

While the gist of this arguement is about the relative intelligence of the Living Dead themselves, wouldn't the evolution of zombie intelligence actually be the mutation of the virus that caused the Dead to rise in the first place?

Any virus is a living entity, and Virus Z (or Solarium, or Morningstar) works by attaching itself to the brain of it's host/victim. It primarily clusters around the motor function portions of the Human brain (including the aggressive Reptle, or "R-factor", portion of the brain). What we call a "zombie" is merely the vehicle for the virus to travel and spread (through a bite) and survive.

By the time of Land, the virus may have mutated to other portions of the dormant brain. We've seen basic tool use and other learned/remembered behaviors since Night, why couldn't the virus develop some resemblance of 'higher brain function' as a means of improving it's chances of survival? The virus already seems to slow the decomposition process in the body, would it do the same with the head meat? If it does, that would keep the more advanced portions of the brain preserved.

I'm no Brain Scientist (not much of a Rocket Surgeon, either), but it seems the argument of "Zombie Intelligence" must go to the root of the problem - the Virus Itself. It is a living organism fighting to survive. It will mutate, adapt & evolve in order to do so.

[Andy]

In which of GAR's dead movies is it disclosed that the cause is a virus? I dont recall..

[fulci fan]

Fulci fan, it always makes me smile when i see you've been online, not only becuase im a fellow fulci fan and ZFE is one of the best zombie movies ive seen not made by GAR, but your also the voice of truth and wisdom.

Thanks, brother. You are probably the only guy on here that doesn't think I am an annoying dick.

[krakenslayer]

There's no mention of a virus in the GAR films (apart from Dawn, where you can hear them clutching at straws on TV).

To get a little sidetracked - a virus is a very unlikely candidate in a zombie outbreak: they're just clumps of DNA or RNA surrounded by a protein coat. It is a completely non-cellular entity and a lot of biologists don't even consider viruses to be "life" as we might understand it. They attach themselves to cells, inject their own genetic material, turning the cell into a factory that makes clones of the virus, and this kills the cell. The effects a virus has on a body are caused by either the cells being killed off in this way or are symptoms of the immune system trying to fight it off. A virus, by definition, would have no effect on dead tissue.

A strain of bacteria or a fungus or other single celled life-form is a more likely candidate, because of their more complex biology.

The existence of "smart zombies" in Romero's films seem to be allowed for by the following facts of his universe: 1) Decomposition is more or less stopped just after death, 2) Death causes the individual to lose a lot of their more fine-tuned processes, probably due in part to oxygen starvation and disintegration of the frontal lobe in the brief period of "actual death", 3) The zombies are able, over time, to re-learn a few of their lost functions in a very limited fashion, just like a stroke victim re-learning to speak despite her Broca's Area, the speech centre of the brain, being destroyed (undamaged cells "re-specialise" and start to compensate for the dead zones), 4) This recovery of function takes considerable time and varies in the extent to which it occurs, like with the stroke victim example.

EDIT: Man, I just came across as such a smart-arse, sorry bout that.

[darth los]

While the gist of this arguement is about the relative intelligence of the Living Dead themselves, wouldn't the evolution of zombie intelligence actually be the mutation of the virus that caused the Dead to rise in the first place?

Any virus is a living entity, and Virus Z (or Solarium, or Morningstar) works by attaching itself to the brain of it's host/victim. It primarily clusters around the motor function portions of the Human brain (including the aggressive Reptle, or "R-factor", portion of the brain). What we call a "zombie" is merely the vehicle for the virus to travel and spread (through a bite) and survive.

By the time of Land, the virus may have mutated to other portions of the dormant brain. We've seen basic tool use and other learned/remembered behaviors since Night, why couldn't the virus develop some resemblance of 'higher brain function' as a means of improving it's chances of survival? The virus already seems to slow the decomposition process in the body, would it do the same with the head meat? If it does, that would keep the more advanced portions of the brain preserved.

I'm no Brain Scientist (not much of a Rocket Surgeon, either), but it seems the argument of "Zombie Intelligence" must go to the root of the problem - the Virus Itself. It is a living organism fighting to survive. It will mutate, adapt & evolve in order to do so.


In which of GAR's dead movies is it disclosed that the cause is a virus? I dont recall..


Virus', Radiation, voodoo among other things, have been speculated upon in the films but a definite cause was never found.

:cool:

[Trin]

What if Big Daddy isn't actually an "intelligent" zombie? What if he's simply the zombie exposed to a more complex series of sensory stimuli? Isn't it possible we're projecting our human bias onto a situation easily mistaken for thought-driven action, that was instead simply the tumbling of more dominoes than usual into each other?
The difficulty lies in assigning stimuli to his observed behaviors. He screams. Why? He's not injured. Is there a cause/effect rationale for empathy? He pursues the humans. Why? He's not following them because they are meat. He doesn't eat them. In fact, he interrupts his fellow zombies when they start eating humans at the motor pool. So is he simply defending his territory against a foreign invader? If so, why does he stop killing when he's done with Kaufman? How did he even know Kaufman was the leader and his real enemy? Big Daddy walked away from Dead Reckoning - the instrument that decimated Uniontown. Why? How did he know that Riley and DR were not the real threat? That's a lot of unexplainable behavior.

I do agree that your run of the mill zombie is neither good nor evil and ascribing such terms is us trying to make more out of their behavior than what it is. On the other hand, Bub thrasing the chain around upon seeing Logan dead - that's well beyond cause/effect instinct driven behavior.


It's a hazy, indistinct line..the boundary between complex instinct and simple thought. Maybe just a philosophical one, but I thought it was an interesting take on "Intelligent Zombies".
I agree that it's an indistinct line. On the one hand, a squirrel going after a bird feeder is near impossible to thwart. Squirrels just figure stuff out. Is that abstract thinking? On the other hand I get hungry - I eat. I see a hot chick - I trip all over myself trying to impress her. That sure seems like cause/effect stimulus. So where do you decide that a level of complex behavior crosses the boundary from cause/effect stimulus into abstract thought? And can you really separate animals and humans into categories whereby one has abstract thought and the other does not?

And where does emotional behavior fit in? If my cat becomes visibly depressed when I am away for a week is that higher function? The behaviors associated with depression do not make sense from a cause/effect sense. Bub thrashing his chain around when he sees Logan dead is not an effect caused by that stimulus. It's not mimicked behavior. He has an emotional response.

If you look at zombies as brain damaged humans do they further blur the line? If we believe Logan and they are us only functioning less perfectly then do we need to allow for abstract thought regardless of what an animal is capable of?

And have we completely lost Andy? Is he sitting at his comp going "Big Daddy doesn't exist...na na na na I can't hear you"?

[Andy]

And have we completely lost Andy? Is he sitting at his comp going "Big Daddy doesn't exist...na na na na I can't hear you"?

http://forum.homepageofthedead.com/showthread.php?t=15195

This link should provide some insight into my feelings about that movie.

You will not get me to admit there is anything worthwhile about it at all, better men have tried and failed.

[Thorn]

Yeah, I feel no pity or understanding for zombies. Period.

Nope me either, I hate zombies. Never want to play one in any of the zombie games I play. Never identify with them, never cheer them on not even when they killed Rhodes. He was scum, but he was human.

Zombies are disgusting, vile murdering, undead things that would eat your children without thought or remorse.

There is no good zombie in my opinion.

At the end of land, I do not understand the line Riley utters about them just trying to find a place to go or whatever. The hell with that, the killed and slaughtered people. They need to be eradicated.

Now if you are going to say 'This is an evolution of the "species" they are not violent or warring, they are now civilized and are moving on. Please spare me, just because an native tribe comes in and steals your woman and children killing your men in the process and then flees... this does not mean the hostility is over or that they or some other band will not be back.

Nah I have too strong feelings of dislike for zombies to ever view them in a sympathetic way.

[Wyldwraith]

Trin,
I define true intelligence as such brain activity requiring any or all of these three factors to be realized:

1) Self-Awareness. The entity is capable of thought constructs, however rudimentary, in which it contemplates/otherwise affirms the fact it exists. Part and parcel of this awareness IMO is a basic sense of time, at least insofar as it relates to the self. The self-aware can conceive of a time before their existence began, of the time(s) during which their existence is occurring, and of some point in the future where they will no longer exist/be alive.

2) Ability to shape an agenda independent of basic causal activity. A zombie that went after a human who jogs into their field of view while they've been standing in place for who knows how long is simply reacting causally. On the other hand, if that ghoul were to generate some sort of basic thought-construct that began with their desiring warm human flesh and then set out to satiate that hunger by finding, bringing down and feasting on a human being, all when it hasn't even physically seen a human for some time, that would be consistent with an act of intelligent premeditation. Which leads me to the last of my three core factors.

3) Goal-setting. No further need to elaborate on this one. If an entity can act in furtherance of a formed agenda, such action is an expression of intelligence.

No, I don't really believe that as depicted, GAR zombies fulfill any, let alone all of these three criteria. Well, that's not *precisely* true. Suffice to say that I'm open to the idea that the rare ghoul may demonstrate one of these three criteria, but none will display all three.

Another thing: Have considered this issue a lot, and like a previous poster I've come to the conclusion that some other form of microorganism than a virus is the likely culprit of the zombie's infamously infectious bite. Bacteria I ruled out for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the anaerobic environment that much of a dead body would become. Also, however exotic, I find it difficult to believe that the scientists we see studying the zombie problem in Day would be stumped as to the cause if it were a bacterial infection. Out of the various types of microorganisms that assail man, bacteria are among the easiest to detect and destroy. My current guess is a microscopic parasite of some sort. Fungus or Mold don't seem like they'd have the virulence to down an otherwise healthy individual who had the skin of their arm broken by a couple zombie teeth during a grazing bite. Plus, molds tend to be EXTREMELY HARD on their host location/entity. I just don't see mold actually retarding the process of decay.

Just a few thoughts, your mileage may vary. Some very thought-provoking posts recently.

[wayzim]

Virus', Radiation, voodoo among other things, have been speculated upon in the films but a definite cause was never found.

:cool:

This was part of the deconstruction ploy which George was about, largely to make a memorable little movie. The Sci-Fi/Horror films before this almost always had a cause, or some Gee Whiz super scientist to give comfort to the audience. Turning these conventions on their heads was why the original NOTLD was interesting.

Wayne Z

[Philly_SWAT]

EDIT: Man, I just came across as such a smart-arse, sorry bout that.
I cant speak for everyone, but to me you did not come across as a smart-ass but a knowledgeable guy presenting logical, compelling arguments. I don't have much information in this particular area to know whether you are full of shit or not, but in either case it sounded good! :)

[Trin]

@kraken - I agree with Philly, your post was fine, well written, articulate, and intelligent.

@Wyldwraith - I think your criteria for intelligence ruled out half the posters, but may still allow room for Big Daddy.

Regarding zombie sympathy - I might make arguments regarding zombies being intelligent or worthy of pity/sympathy, but in the end that's an existence too piteous to allow (like being a Mac user) or too dangerous since you really just never know when one of these things is gonna decide to bite you. I don't care much about whether they can evolve or not - they shouldn't be allowed the opportunity.

I also agree with Andy in a large part - the whole premise of Land, Big Daddy, and zombie evolution should've never been allowed to make it to the screen. Bub was as far as it shoulda gone, and maybe too far looking back.

[Wyldwraith]

@Trin:
I agree that quantifying the emotional reactions of Bub and BD in a manner that squares with everything else we're shown of the "zombie condition" is extremely difficult, since they're almost depicted in an "Exception that proves the rule" sort of light.

However, I do NOT consider simply having an emotional reaction based on what's transpiring within your field of observation is a sign of intelligence. By definition, emotion is irrational, making it far more akin to instinct than thought.

Going back to your example of your cat becoming depressed in your absence. One could simply argue that this highly socialized feline (high degrees of socialization being the rule in well-treated pet cats and dogs) is as a consequence of that socialization experiencing anxiety and an aimless sort of apathetic confusion when confronted by the loss of positive stimuli it had become accustomed to, Ie: Your company, stroking its fur, feeding it treats etc.

While I am certainly not saying that animals, particularly those known to possess exceptionally developed brains, are without real emotion. I'm simply saying that the existence of that emotion is not a signpost leading us to the conclusion that they think as we think.

Or, to go on to your examples that used yourself as the subject. Particularly the one involving your attempt to impress an attractive woman. Hard-wired instinct at its finest, that. In this case instinct exists alongside reason, not in an either/or scenario.

Which I suppose proves your point, that animals have "thoughts" on some level, which are independent of instinct. I would even go so far as to say that this could even be the case for the occasional GAR zombie, however much most of us wish he'd never gone that route.

Again though, thought *of some sort* and intelligence are not necessarily indicative of each other's existence. Bub might have been having a socialized animal-like response to the death of its keeper. Emotion certainly, thought/perception enough to understand on some level what had happened to trigger that emotion, sure. Internal awareness by Bub of why Bub felt the way he did upon seeing a dead Logan? NO WAY.

If GAR ever goes as far as the clearly self-aware zombie, I'll be finished with his work. My dislike of a movie of his (with the exception of Diary simply being craptastic just because), is almost always proportional to the presence of an "intelligent zombie". Which is why Dawn is my favorite, followed by Night, and Day and Land are tied for 3rd.

What did you think about my assessment as to the probable microorganism involved in transmission of the "zombie plague"?

[Trin]

Good observations Wyldwraith.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether emotion in general is a sign of higher thinking or intelligence, as in my cat example. I just thought it was fun to add emotion to the conversation.

In the case of Bub thrashing the chain it's not really the emotional response that intrigues me so much as the understanding required to have the emotional response. When Bub sees Logan dead he reacts with grief followed by anger. Think about what has to happen for that. He has to realize and understand that Logan is dead. It may seem simple, but isn't it rather impressive that Bub knows what death is? That he recognizes it on sight? Going further, Bub realizes that Logan's death is a tragedy for him and that it has implications for him. Somehow he deduces that the soldiers are to blame. He takes action based on Logan's death.

I don't know how that factors into "self-aware". I don't know if Bub was "internally aware" of how and why he felt that way. I don't know if I'm internally aware of where my emotions come from either. In my view of the zombie intelligence debate I don't care. The fact that Bub made all those leaps of intuition or deduction or whatever - the result is the same. Bub's intellect was enough to make him a threat. The same goes tenfold for Big Daddy.

My computer can beat me at chess. To my knowledge it is not self-aware nor does it have emotions. But if my continued survival relied on me outthinking my computer at chess I might as well start digging my grave. I think of zombies in the same way. If they can outsmart me enough to get inside my Fiddler's Green and set me on fire - I've lost. It's small comfort to know they weren't self-aware as they did it.

Regarding the micro-organism debate. To be honest, I breeze over most of that talk. There are really two things that in my mind are inexplicable in the GAR universe and have to be chalked up to suspension of disbelief. Number one - the fact that the dead are reanimated. Number two - the fact that a zombie bite is 100% fatal.

Number one - dead reanimation. The best I can come up with is that the earth is bombarded with a new and unique type of radiation that affects the brain of the dead. We know that radiation carries energy. We know that dead muscles and nerves can be excited to move. I can buy that the constant bombardment of the dead nervous system by an unknown and potentially highly powerful radiation is the cause and continued energy source for the reanimated dead.

Number two - zombies bites are 100% fatal. I agree that bacteria is not the cause because it is too easy to detect. I will disagree on one minor point - some bacteria are nearly impossible to destroy (without killing the patient). But bacteria, viruses, and parasites all have a common problem. In order to pass them on you have to first become infected by them. In the case of a GAR ghoul dead bodies are infectious without a source. So somehow the dead body is producing the toxin after death.

Maybe a better explanation is a nerve toxin. The radiation causes the nerves to excite and that changes the chemical makeup in the mouth of the ghoul. A nerve toxin results and when it is introduced into a living subject it throws off the chemical balance in the live tissue. A cascade effect occurs eventually killing the person.

I don't know. But whatever the explanation it must allow for a perfectly healthy person who dies to become infectious.

[BillyRay]

When Bub sees Logan dead he reacts with grief followed by anger.


Reading that a couple times, I've just realized,

(regardless of any discussion of the hows & whys of Zombie inteligence)

Wouldn't Bub's reaction to seeing Dr Logan's dead body be: "Yay! He's dead! Once he gets up, I can be dead together with my bestest friend in the world!" instead of grief?

[Trin]

Reading that a couple times, I've just realized,

(regardless of any discussion of the hows & whys of Zombie inteligence)

Wouldn't Bub's reaction to seeing Dr Logan's dead body be: "Yay! He's dead! Once he gets up, I can be dead together with my bestest friend in the world!" instead of grief?That is sooo funny. I thought that just the last time I watched Day specifically due to this thread. Combined with the, "Why doesn't Logan come back?" question. I think we've hashed through this before but I could never see any evidence of damage to Logan's head.

Maybe Logan does come back after the events we see and the pair of them go wild making prank phone calls and playing jokes turning the lights off on the other zombies.

[Wyldwraith]

Hmm,
@Trin once again: I'll admit I never considered the idea of radiation-as-cause in the context of the radioactive phenomena *continually* bombarding the Earth over a long period of time. Still not my favorite theory by a long shot, but that twist did provoke some interesting speculation for me, so kudos to you compadre.

Something you mentioned about some bacteria. About how some are nearly impossible to kill without also killing the host. A good point, but automatically shot down by the Day scenario. Those scientists were working from the starting point that zombies are already 97.5+% of the population, so their goal was in essence to discover a means of eliminating huge numbers of zombies over large geographical areas with relative ease. Under those parameters, a pathogen whose resilience is based on the "You can't kill It without killing the infected individual" is no stumbling block at all.

Had the scientists in Day uncovered a method of destroying whatever source-phenomena was responsible for the dead reanimating, the military and bunker-dwelling government-fragments would actually have been happier with a solution that terminated zombies that also eliminated doomed/dying humans who had been infected and aberrations like the rare (but potentially real) Typhoid-Mary-like passive carrier humans than a solution that only terminated actual zombies.

However, we both seem to agree that bacteria are easy to detect with the right equipment, available specimens and microbiological know-how, so it must be something more exotic.

BTW, the reason I'm re-hashing the speculation on the origin-source of GAR zombies is the direct tie-in/implications it may have for the idea of undead intelligence.

Your mention of a nerve toxin rattled something loose in my gray matter. Red Tides. Poisonous plankton blooms responsible for occasionally making huge swathes of water appear much like the water-to-blood Exodus Plague/Divine Judgment vs Egypt.

In the modern era we've learned that when certain conjunctions of various factors/events occur together, the water becomes saturated with a nasty neurotoxin that most often bothers humans when we consume filter-feeding shellfish whose nature makes them prone to becoming rapidly laden with the toxin of the red tide.

Sort of like the microbiological equivalent of the Perfect Storm. What got me thinking about this was evolution. A stepping stone of biological adaptation for a variety of species when confronted with onslaughts of toxins/pathogens/parasites that aren't so deadly that they kill the entire affected population is to develop the capacity to carry large amounts of the substance/pathogen without harm.

The point I'm laboring towards is this: If some species (like a type of tidal shellfish for example) developed the capacity to carry enormous amounts of the still-living microorganisms that cause the red tide(s) in their tissue for far longer than those red-tide microorganisms had previously persisted on their own, what you would have as a byproduct of evolutionary adaptation is the potential for possibly millions or tens of millions of bio-incubators. Each one of which potentially the impetus for the red-tide microbe(s) to themselves adapt/evolve/mutate as a consequence.

Something like a Red Tide microbe that releases its toxin into the air as part of an altered life cycle. Given the vastness of the Earth's coastal areas/tidal flats, there's your continuous/ever-present toxin supply. If the stuff turned out to be relatively harmless to living humans, who world-wide rapidly become passive carriers of ever-increasing amounts of the microbe or chemicals produced by said microbe, since such a huge percentage of the world's population dwell in coastal or near-coastal areas.

If said toxin/microbe were then to do interestingly horrifying things to the brains of the recently deceased, THAT I could buy....its an incredibly rough/off the cuff example, but I think it serves its purpose as illustration of another potential avenue that leads to zombies from dead bodies.

Again, reason I spun all this out from whole cloth was to provide some kind of workable methodology for "undead intelligence". With a nigh-infinite potential for the evolution of microbial life, whose to say that an entirely unique form of consciousness couldn't develop?

The mass-extinction-like events depicted so inevitably in long-term/large-scale survival horror @ zombie apocalypse scenarios leave out one element that has been nearly as constant as gravity in the history of the Earth in the wake of each of the great Extinctions.

Ie: Evolution amongst the surviving life forms gets kicked into overdrive, ALWAYS resulting in a whole new ecosystem-wide paradigm. GAR gets hung up on portraying the extinction or near extinction of man as somehow being equivalent to the end of the world. When what could just as easily be zombies-as-catalyst to spur significant gains in evolutionary momentum amongst humans (should we survive), or some other species/series of species coming out on top of the evolutionary heap.

Unfortunately, GAR keeps trying to heavy-handedly imply/preach/scream from the mountaintop that zombies should be considered amongst the species that might evolve under such titanic pressures. Ignoring entirely so much of his own best work as to completely miss the point that while zombies might kick-start the afterburners of evolution for others, or even cause massive environmental change to optimize the rate of evolution for a variety of species, zombies themselves are dead, stagnant, STATIC caricatures that are empty, unchangingly broken vessels.

Apologies for the length and that I got ranty/redundant in places. Got all stream of consciousness inspired and just ran with it.

[Wyldwraith]

Damn,
Didn't mean to kill the thread. My bad. Got slightly off track from the zombie intelligence discussion. My apologies.

If someone would like to continue more on-point, think I'll just observe for a bit.

[Rancid Carcass]

I’m beginning to think that perhaps we’re approaching this the wrong way, maybe we shouldn’t be thinking in terms of intelligent zombies at all. The problem with using the word intelligence is that it denotes things like driving cars, operating machinery, dreaming up ideas and invention - the kind of things we humans do quite well. Perhaps it would be better to view this so-called intelligence simply as memories - it’s not that Bub and Big Daddy are any more intelligent than other zombies, it’s just that they remember more.

[wayzim]

I’m beginning to think that perhaps we’re approaching this the wrong way, maybe we shouldn’t be thinking in terms of intelligent zombies at all. The problem with using the word intelligence is that it denotes things like driving cars, operating machinery, dreaming up ideas and invention - the kind of things we humans do quite well. Perhaps it would be better to view this so-called intelligence simply as memories - it’s not that Bub and Big Daddy are any more intelligent than other zombies, it’s just that they remember more.

Dr. Fisher(John Amplas ) in the original Day did state that he saw a zombie trying to drive a car down a street in DC, but that it didn't make him want to be its' friend.

Wayne Z.
"He doesn't get excited or agitated when Logan walks in the room. He doesn't think of him as ... " "Lunch. " " Dinner. "
Sarah and Dr. Fisher in Day of The Dead (85)

[Andy]

I’m beginning to think that perhaps we’re approaching this the wrong way, maybe we shouldn’t be thinking in terms of intelligent zombies at all. The problem with using the word intelligence is that it denotes things like driving cars, operating machinery, dreaming up ideas and invention - the kind of things we humans do quite well. Perhaps it would be better to view this so-called intelligence simply as memories - it’s not that Bub and Big Daddy are any more intelligent than other zombies, it’s just that they remember more.
I Said near the start of the thread, no inteligence.. just vague memories and instincts.

Its taken awhile for you guys to come round but you can form a orderly queue with your "you were right andy" gifts..

:D

[Trin]

I'll admit I never considered the idea of radiation-as-cause in the context of the radioactive phenomena *continually* bombarding the Earth over a long period of time.
Whatever explanation you choose for how/why reanimation occurs, it has to account for the phenomenon affecting a dead body with no external contact. Dead bodies reanimate with no exposure to other dead bodies, reanimated corpses, infected humans, or anything.

It also has to account for the phenomenon being enduring. It affects a dead body in Land (penthouse guy) the same way it affected the first zombies in Night.

It also has to account for an enduring energy source for the reanimated body. The human body requires an energy source to power muscle and brain functions. If you want a science explanation you must describe how the body remains powered for years on end with no obvious external fuel source.

And, finally, somewhere related to all this we need to account for the infectious nature of the bites. No matter what people think about the germ cesspool of the human mouth, it's not 100% fatal.


Something you mentioned about some bacteria. About how some are nearly impossible to kill without also killing the host. A good point, but automatically shot down by the Day scenario. Those scientists were working from the starting point that zombies are already 97.5+% of the population, so their goal was in essence to discover a means of eliminating huge numbers of zombies over large geographical areas with relative ease. Under those parameters, a pathogen whose resilience is based on the "You can't kill It without killing the infected individual" is no stumbling block at all.
That's neither here nor there. There's no way to kill a bacterial infection in a zombie. Even if you had a pathogen you cannot deliver it. No digestion, no blood flow, no breathing. And even if you managed to introduce it to one zombie what good does that do you? Zombies wouldn't transmit it from one to another since they barely acknowledge each other. So whatever the Day scientists were after (which is a debate of its own) it doesn't make sense that they were looking for a biological pathogen to eliminate the zombies.

It's really questionable what we can infer from the Day scientist's goals. For example, you say they were working from the starting point that zombies are 97.5% of the population. Sarah says Logan was just proving theories they'd forwarded months ago. Assumedly, in the beginning the zombies were not 97.5% of the population. Their earliest research probably centered on stopping the spread. The best way to do that would be to combat the infectious nature of the bites. If they were still mired in that thought process who knows what they were really researching?


However, we both seem to agree that bacteria are easy to detect with the right equipment, available specimens and microbiological know-how, so it must be something more exotic.That is the best answer for why it cannot be a bacteria!!

[SRP76]

Since this thread is about Romero's brainiacs (specifically, Bub and Big Daddy), you must use Romero's plot exclusively. This means radiation caused the outbreak, simple as that. It is the stated cause in the first film, and is never contradicted in later films. You're stuck with it. Radiation. More specifically, "Mysterious High-Level Radiation".

[BillyRay]

Since this thread is about Romero's brainiacs (specifically, Bub and Big Daddy), you must use Romero's plot exclusively. This means radiation caused the outbreak, simple as that. It is the stated cause in the first film, and is never contradicted in later films. You're stuck with it. Radiation. More specifically, "Mysterious High-Level Radiation".


Fine...But are we allowed to speculate on what "High Level Radiation" would do to viruses, bacteria, or necrotic tissue? Because I thought that was what was going on here already.

[krakenslayer]

Since this thread is about Romero's brainiacs (specifically, Bub and Big Daddy), you must use Romero's plot exclusively. This means radiation caused the outbreak, simple as that. It is the stated cause in the first film, and is never contradicted in later films. You're stuck with it. Radiation. More specifically, "Mysterious High-Level Radiation".

Really, radiation was only a possible cause referred to by the press in their desperate search for facts, it was never intended to be the be-all-end-all explanation, it was never referred to again after the first film, and Romero himself has stated that this was never intended to be the only explanation. In fact, in Dawn, the newsreader talks about the Centre for Disease Control attempting to find a virus or germ which may be causing the phenomenon, in an attempt to create a vaccine. This is not the stated "true" cause either, but serves to establish that there was disagreement and confusion as to the actual reason for the outbreak.

[SRP76]

Fine...But are we allowed to speculate on what "High Level Radiation" would do to viruses, bacteria, or necrotic tissue? Because I thought that was what was going on here already.

Go right ahead. The first film already spelled it out for you, though. No virus, no bacteria. Radiation reactivates the brains of the dead. Real simple.

And even if the movie didn't already explicitly state it, common sense does. Living people that croak through normal means get back up. If it were due to radiation reacting to any virus or whatever, that would mean that person (along with everyone on the planet) must have already had that virus. If that were the case, the radiation would have activated the mutated virus and slap killed everybody right at the start, and brought them back; they wouldn't be "surviving" for any amount of time. They'd have no time to worry about the zombies.

---------- Post added at 03:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:58 PM ----------


Really, radiation was only a possible cause referred to by the press in their desperate search for facts, it was never intended to be the be-all-end-all explanation, it was never referred to again after the first film, and Romero himself has stated that this was never intended to be the only explanation. In fact, in Dawn, the newsreader talks about the Centre for Disease Control attempting to find a virus or germ which may be causing the phenomenon, in an attempt to create a vaccine. This is not the stated "true" cause either, but serves to establish that there was disagreement and confusion as to the actual reason for the outbreak.

The two scientists outright state that there is "a definite connection" between the radiation carried by the Venus probe, and the dead getting up. The only dissenter was the military high mucky-muck, whose job is to disagree and take zero public stance, like every Washington bootlicker.

Then the newscasts continue to elaborate, as they report that the radiation level is rising, and, as a result, the "ghoul-zone" is spreading, and as long as these radiation levels remain, the dead will continue to reanimate.

The people in Dawn didn't know what in hell was going on, and weren't even conducting any kind of research, since the CDC in Atlanta "couldn't find" any zombies, apparently (lack of available specimens). I won't even go into that mess.

[Trin]

Yeah, I still go back to radiation. Invisible, travels through solid materials, conveys energy with no obvious source (in fact, the higher the energy radiation the harder it is to block), has a demonstrated effect on the human body, could affect the whole world at once. That's a lot of answers.

The obvious counter-argument to a radiation theory is that it is relatively easy to detect and (given the right materials on hand) to block. Given that, plus that the news report in night speculated it was due to radiation, it is surprising that none of the Day scientists ever mentioned or seemed to be testing along the lines of radiation.

You want a broad scale zombie solution. Find out what kind of radiation is fueling them and figure how to block it. Make whatever safe area you want enclosed by this material and the zombies will literally walk in and fall over motionless. Destroy the brains... let the next group in. Wash rinse repeat.

[sandrock74]

Since the probe was returning from Venus, does that mean that if any humans dies on Venus, that they would become zombies? I always wondered about that....

[Legion2213]

Nope me either, I hate zombies. Never want to play one in any of the zombie games I play. Never identify with them, never cheer them on not even when they killed Rhodes. He was scum, but he was human.

Zombies are disgusting, vile murdering, undead things that would eat your children without thought or remorse.

There is no good zombie in my opinion.

At the end of land, I do not understand the line Riley utters about them just trying to find a place to go or whatever. The hell with that, the killed and slaughtered people. They need to be eradicated.

Now if you are going to say 'This is an evolution of the "species" they are not violent or warring, they are now civilized and are moving on. Please spare me, just because an native tribe comes in and steals your woman and children killing your men in the process and then flees... this does not mean the hostility is over or that they or some other band will not be back.

Nah I have too strong feelings of dislike for zombies to ever view them in a sympathetic way.

Awesome, awesome post.

Zombies should be exterminated, not "understood" or "pitied".


.

[SRP76]

Since the probe was returning from Venus, does that mean that if any humans dies on Venus, that they would become zombies? I always wondered about that....

I'm one of the anti-conventional people that believes if there were ever life in this solar system other than here, it was on Venus, not Mars. So "zombie apocalypse" fits quite nicely into explaining why there's no life there now.

[krakenslayer]

I'm one of the anti-conventional people that believes if there were ever life in this solar system other than here, it was on Venus, not Mars. So "zombie apocalypse" fits quite nicely into explaining why there's no life there now.

Just out of curiosity, what makes you think that? Not that I disagree with you, I'm just interested in this kind of thing.

[SRP76]

Just out of curiosity, what makes you think that? Not that I disagree with you, I'm just interested in this kind of thing.

Several things, but the simplest one to go into is its atmosphere and water. Things they are going crazy looking for and hoping exist on Mars already do on Venus.

Venus is a much better match to Earth. Gravity is almost identical. Oceans once existed (and still do; they're just vapor now due to having been boiled away). The atmosphere is toxic and is full of "end times" gasses - the end result of a greenhouse effect run amok. All that shit Gore and his kind are preaching? That's Venus. Take Earth's current atmosphere, let things get out of control, and it'll end up with what Venus has.

This means that it's more likely that Venus was once like Earth, long ago, than Mars was.

[Wyldwraith]

Here's my problem,
As other posters have stated, GAR himself has repeatedly indicated the "radiation theory" was supposed to be symptomatic of people rushing to find a hard and fast explanation for the inexplicable, not as the end-all/be-all certain cause.

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean I rule it out as I've previously said. The biggest problem I have with radiation-as-cause is the 100% fatality bites. That seems infectious, not radioactive. Before someone tries to float the idea that the zombies are exposing their victims to the "zombie radiation" when they bite them, that theory is sunk by the fact that everyone who's ever been depicted as coming to grips with/being in contact with zombies that DON'T get bit/zombies fluids in an open wound invariably survive.

No sort of radiation is housed solely in the mouths of the undead after all. Plus as someone else said long ago in another thread, Komodo dragons have saliva so infectiously lethal that they use it in place of venom as part of their hunting strategy, and even the hideous concoction of bacteria/microbes/enzymes in THEIR saliva takes DAYS to kill large mammals, and that assumes a substantial exposure to that saliva.

In the case of the undead we'd need a transmission mechanism so virulent that a 100% healthy individual can be reduced to the point of critically ill, then dead shortly thereafter in a matter of hours from the TINIEST breaks in the skin/most superficial of bites.

My best guess is that *something* spurred/acted as catalyst on a microorganism *of some sort* to cause this Microorganism-X to develop the capacity to a) spread all over the Earth to make everyone alive a passive carrier, b) reanimate any human body once clinical death occurs, c) completely and profoundly alter the bio-chemistry of said reanimated bodies to make them into active anaerobic biological entities that provides the chemical energy required to power the reanimated body and perhaps retard decay, and d) possess the potential for active Microorganism-X to act as a catalyst which can activate the harmless/passive carrier version of Microorganism-X in living humans exposed via oral or fluid transmission vectors with a reanimated corpse.

Tons of holes with that theory, but many of those holes also apply to the radiation = reanimation theory.

So I think that both Trin and SRP have a chunk of the answer. For an origin theory to be viable it must explain how dead bodies all over the world can reanimate without visible contact with a means of reanimation, AND explain why the bite of the zombie is 100% lethal in even its most superficial form.

In other words, it would SEEM like you need BOTH radiation fields and a virulent microorganism to plug up all the holes and cover all known facets of the zombie condition.

And no, radiation can't simply alter the microbes naturally found in the human mouth to account for the zombie bite lethality. For one thing there are hundreds if not thousands of strains of those saliva/mouth microbes, and mutation cannot be 100% consistent in the finished product if the base biologicals that get irradiated aren't at the very least incredibly similar.

Besides, if radiation was altering the microbes in human mouths to cause the 100% lethal zombie bite, then every human with a cold sore or tiny cut inside their mouth would promptly infect themselves upon entering an area exposed to said radiation.

Thoughts?

[Trin]

I don't believe any kind of micro-organism or virus or bacteria could be responsible. Anything like that would have hot spots and infection patterns. This phenomenon is everywhere equally.

I have a couple potential wild-assed possibilities.

What about a violent allergic reaction? Perhaps something in the unique chemical makeup of zombie saliva provokes a berserk immunity response in the victims? Allergic reactions have widely varying sypmtoms. They can be deadly. They can vary in intensity causing some people to die in a day whereas others die in an hour. Allergic reactions require only the briefest contact and can be deadly from even a tiny exposure. They require nothing infectious be present in either the victim or the exposing body.

What about an electro-chemical change in the victim? If we are suggesting that the radiation is exciting the nervous system of the zombie, what happens when that zombie bites into the flesh of a person? That should create a decent conduit for electrical impulses. The zombie could be "infecting" the victim with an electro-chemical change that is incompatible with life. Kinda like how a person who is immersed in acid dies. Even if they are immediately rinsed with water, the damage is done. The acid reacting with the skin creates a chemical change in the body that disturbs the electrical impulses to the heart and they die.

[Gemini]

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.

The Big Question:
- Were Bub and Big Daddy very much alike or fundamentally different?

Arguments for alike:
- Both displayed intelligence and behavior at a higher level than their zombie peers.
- Both showed a cognitive ability to manipulate their environment - i.e. problem solving abilities.
- Both communicated with humans beyond just trying to eat them.
- Both showed a diminished (or non-existent) need to pursue/eat humans on sight.

Arguments for different:
- Bub was driven/enticed by the need to feed. Big Daddy showed no inclination to feed even when presented with food.
- Bub was trained & conditioned by Dr. Logan. Big Daddy's higher level behavior had no visible catalyst.
- Bub paid no attention to other zombies. Big Daddy was highly empathetic to other zombies.

Another question is whether Bub and/or Big Daddy were really *that* much more intelligent than their peers. There is a lot of evidence that other zombies were learning:
- The captured zombies in Day began to avoid the zombie pen gates.
- The wandering zombies in Land didn't come around the Green electric fences anymore.
- The Uniontown zombies in Land learned quickly with a little Big Daddy prompting.
- The horde of zombies in Land began to ignore food sources in their pursuit of Fiddler's Green.
- The horde of zombies in Land learned to ignore the fireworks without prompting.
- The Hari Krishna zombie in Dawn chose to go up the stairs rather than pursue Stephen.
- The pit fighter zombies learned to fight over food rather than just lunging for the closest human.

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.

I had always taken the stance that Bub and Big Daddy were fundamentally different. After careful consideration I've concluded that I am torn on the topic.

So... discuss. And try to be civil. I'd rather this not turn into a thread to bag on intelligent zombies or any movie in particular. :)

This is a great post. Dr. Logan certainly did try to domesticate many zombies before finding Bub, remember his frustration as he offed one of the zombies with a cordless drill after it had broken its chains? So I feel that Bub and Big Daddy are one in in the same and are perhaps the 2 out of 200,000 zombies that exhibit this kind of higher thinking.

Although the concept was good, Big Daddy was the weakest character in LOTD. THis was dissapointing especially when compared to how soulful and effective Bub was in Day.

Interesting that the zombie IQ dropped dramatically after their debut in NOTLD when that tenacious first zombie actually tried using a rock to smash the car window ;)

[Gemini]

It's not enough to make the film a failure for me though. I liked it a lot. It's the weakest of the original quad of course, but it's still light years ahead of 'Diary of the Dead' and (I'd wager) the rest of this "re-boot" idea that Romero has wedded himself too.

I agree with this. LOTD was a fun ride, but not as grim or serious as the previous three which was a big part of the series charm. Diary was just plain weak.

However I don't know what this "re-boot" idea is, can somebody explain?

[krakenslayer]

However I don't know what this "re-boot" idea is, can somebody explain?

It's not really a re-boot, it's just shorthand for Romero no longer following the tradition of each film being set chronologically after the last - Night (first night), Dawn (two weeks to several months in), Day (many months or up to 1-2 years in), Land (several years in).

Diary goes back to the first night of the outbreak (around the Night timescale), Survival is set two or three weeks in (around the Dawn timescale). People are calling it a re-boot but it's arguably just him telling stories that take place at different points in the same outbreak.

[Philly_SWAT]

It's not really a re-boot, it's just shorthand for Romero no longer following the tradition of each film being set chronologically after the last - Night (first night), Dawn (two weeks to several months in), Day (many months or up to 1-2 years in), Land (several years in).

Diary goes back to the first night of the outbreak (around the Night timescale), Survival is set two or three weeks in (around the Dawn timescale). People are calling it a re-boot but it's arguably just him telling stories that take place at different points in the same outbreak.

Yes, this is similar to the way he showed Day and Land out of order.

[bassman]

:lol:

Crazy, crazy philly. He definitely sticks to his guns. Gotta love him.

[Trin]

Yes, who didn't cringe at Kraken's obvious invitation to this debate?

[Gemini]

What is the evidence for Land coming before Day? Day was the most bleak portrayal of the zombie war of any of GAR's movies, with people forced underground and the only foray into a civilized area resulting in absolutely nothing but walking death; no looters, etc. Also I don't believe even radio contact with the living was achieved through the whole movie.

Even if you buy into Land coming after Day you must admit the humans in Day were much more doomed and at the end of their rope.

[krakenslayer]

Even if you buy into Land coming after Day you must admit the humans in Day were much more doomed and at the end of their rope.

This. They were stuck down there on the Florida peninsula, the tip of the dick of America, with broken radio equipment and one chopper with a ~300 mile range (one way) which meant they could only explore in a 150 mile radius. They could have been the last people on Earth, or they could just have been the last large group in Florida who are actively seeking contact.

Sure, they were at the end of their rope and more desperate than anything in Land, but Land is conceptually set later into the outbreak. Even Romero said that he decided to go back to the beginning with Diary because he didn't want to keep going further and further into the post apocalyptic future like he'd been doing with the last three movies or he'd get to the point where it became The Road Warrior.

In the end, the Pre-Day Landers are entitled to their strange little belief system, so I'm not gonna get drawn in: it's fiction and can be interpreted in any number of ways. :p

[Philly_SWAT]

What is the evidence for Land coming before Day? Day was the most bleak portrayal of the zombie war of any of GAR's movies, with people forced underground and the only foray into a civilized area resulting in absolutely nothing but walking death; no looters, etc. Also I don't believe even radio contact with the living was achieved through the whole movie.

Even if you buy into Land coming after Day you must admit the humans in Day were much more doomed and at the end of their rope.
Excellent post, especially for a new guy. Welcome to HPOTD Gemini!



Sure, they were at the end of their rope and more desperate than anything in Land, but Land is conceptually set later into the outbreak. Even Romero said that he decided to go back to the beginning with Diary because he didn't want to keep going further and further into the post apocalyptic future like he'd been doing with the last three movies or he'd get to the point where it became The Road Warrior.
Romero is prone to mis-speaking, and especially when he is talking to someone who is not an extreme dead fan, he tends to keep things simple and easy soundbites rather than giving complex answers. So what GAR says or doesnt say isnt compelling one way or the other, especially regarding who he was talking to and why. Do you have a citation/context of when and where he said that?

Also, I disagree that conceptually that Land is set later into the outbreak.

[Trin]

Even if you buy into Land coming after Day you must admit the humans in Day were much more doomed and at the end of their rope.
The level of "doomed" is not indicative of timeline.

When Ben kills Cooper in Night and retreats to the basement he is as doomed and at the end of his rope as any character in any Dead movie. Same for Peter contemplating suicide after the mall is invaded. Did they come after Day too?

At the same time the sheriff and posse are not doomed at all. Nor is the biker gang. So even within the same movies experiencing the same events there are those who are in desperate situations and those who aren't.

The ending of Day had the survivors sitting on the beach. The ending of Land had the survivors driving off shooting fireworks. Both of the movies ended on relative happy notes.

[SRP76]

How are the people in Day any more "doomed" or "at the end of their rope" than the folks in Land, anyway?

[Gemini]

How are the people in Day any more "doomed" or "at the end of their rope" than the folks in Land, anyway?


In Land, Fiddler's Green was one of many high-end living spaces quaranteed from the living dead. Refer to the Fiddlers Green commercial in the movie which states "unlike those other places" ....the victims in Day had not even one such place to go..that they knew about anyway. As far as they were concerned they were the last people on earth.

Land had managed to carve out an actual society (a microcosm of our own maybe) the same could not be said for the desperate people driven underground in Day.

[Wyldwraith]

I'd argue against that,
Except for the unforeseeable event of Miguel going all pro-zombie and opening the base up to be invaded, even WITH Rhodes nutjob behavior, I can make a helluva argument that minus Miguel's lone act that SOME of the military grunts could've survived indefinitely.

Compare to Land, where the suburbs of the Green ended up ravaged by BDs Navy Seal-zombies, and the Green itself was overrun/brought down.

One could even make the argument that the base in Day was far more recoverable than the area around Fiddler's Green. Hole up in a lab, wait for the majority of the zombies to scatter, begin thinning the herd, then secure the elevator. Tough, but no tougher than excising BD and his learning-commando zombies from the area where "they were just looking for a home"

Personally, I subscribe to the view Land IS after Day in the timeline, but that's just a feeling. I have no substantive evidence that I'm right, it simply "feels" later.

[SRP76]

In Land, Fiddler's Green was one of many high-end living spaces quaranteed from the living dead. Refer to the Fiddlers Green commercial in the movie which states "unlike those other places" ....the victims in Day had not even one such place to go..that they knew about anyway. As far as they were concerned they were the last people on earth.

Land had managed to carve out an actual society (a microcosm of our own maybe) the same could not be said for the desperate people driven underground in Day.

The only difference is that Kaufman's leadership/deception skills were greater than Rhodes' and Cooper's. The two groups were in the same exact situation.

[Trin]

In Land, Fiddler's Green was one of many high-end living spaces quaranteed from the living dead. Refer to the Fiddlers Green commercial in the movie which states "unlike those other places" ....the victims in Day had not even one such place to go..that they knew about anyway. As far as they were concerned they were the last people on earth.We have absolutely no evidence that there were people outside the Green in Land. That video could've been years old.


Land had managed to carve out an actual society (a microcosm of our own maybe) the same could not be said for the desperate people driven underground in Day.
What does having a society prove? That's more a function of number of people than a function of time.

The situations in both Land and Day could've lasted indefinitely.

I feel like Land is after Day for a lot of reasons centered around the attitudes and behavior of the people. Philly will be quick to point out that all my reasons support Land being before Day. We each think the other is crazy. Good times.

[Gemini]

There is no way to prove it either way save for clarification from Romero himself, but it feels like Land was after Day ...Day just happened to portray a very grim and doomed corner of the earth.

[deadpunk]

This thread went wildly off-topic in my absence...

First issue: I loooooooove the fact that Romero gives no explanation for the rising of the dead. As evidenced by this thread, it would have made the movies wholly unpopular simply due to the fact that we would just spend all day punching holes in the ultimate cause. Finding the cause would also lead to a 'cure' and thats just no fun anyway :p

Scond issue: Land or Day? The Chicken or the Egg?

I could care less. My problem will always be thus: I guess Riley invented the fucking Surface to Air Missle, since the dead rose in the 60's and Dead Reckoning features technology far advanced beyond that time frame...

[Trin]

I could care less. My problem will always be thus: I guess Riley invented the fucking Surface to Air Missle, since the dead rose in the 60's and Dead Reckoning features technology far advanced beyond that time frame...I think the dead rose in the year 2010 in Iowa. It just looked like the 60's.