Private Steele: Most awkwardly developed character ever?

[Crow T R0bot]

I found Steele to be somewhat clunky when it came to writing him. He's obviously a bad guy overall but early in the film, it seemed as if George was setting him up to have a change of heart some way or another and then forgot about it when writing the latter portions of the script.

At the beginning of the movie, he refuses to shoot Sarah even when Captain Rhodes threatens to shoot him as a consequence, yet mere days later, he gleefully feeds helps feed her and McDermott to the corral zombies. This is the only thing I can remember but I plan to re-watch the movie with a friend today, I'll keep an eye out for some more character inconsistency.

[coma]

I utterly disagree.
I think he was a very well rounded character who is not an archetype or a cardboard cut out.
To have a change of heart is a cliches and GAR rarely telegraphs his xharacter arcs, which is why he is a great writer.

He feeds them to the zombies in the cave because he hold them and their expreriments responsible for the deaths of his friends. The majority of the soldiers are no longer concerned with humanity at large, but their own survival. Steele was probably your average Grunt with an decent moral compass and respect for the chain of command. He would only shoot Sarah under threat of executuion. However it is illustarted in the Stroys arc that the soldiers are snapping, turning on each other and acting irrationally. Rickels acting like Roger just berfore he got bit, the inappropraite laughter etc.

Ultimately it was Rhodes fault that Miguel was in no position to fight ("dont go dopin up my men). It was only Logan's actions and theothers observation of, that lead to the cave part. It appeared as if they were all in on it and Knowledgable of. In other words, the scientists fed a soldier to bub, they would feed the scientists to zombies.
Because McDermitt was a civillian and asscoiated exclusively with the scientists, he was guilty by association.
Also Rhodes Manic irrationality was infectious.

I wonder if we saw the same film at all:p

(just kidding)

[OddDNA]

I thihk it is harder to shoot someone when everyone is watching you than to kill someone as a group...

The whole mob mentality thing.

[Fulcifan91]

I also think that he had snapped sometime in those few days, the same way Dr. Logan somewhat goes crazy and does tests on the other soldiers.

[Svengoolie]

At the beginning of the movie, he refuses to shoot Sarah even when Captain Rhodes threatens to shoot him as a consequence

I never got that impression.

My take was that Rhodes ordered Steele to shoot Sarah...which he obviously took for a joke. When Rhodes leveled his hand cannon at him, it quickly became obvious that it was for serious.....and he drew his own piece and leveled it at Sarah.

He didn't lower his weapon until John stood up and showed that if Sarah was shot, then she wouldn't be the only one knock-knock-knocking on Heaven's door that afternoon.

And, let's not forget everybody else in the room, who at that point was reaching for a piece--to be honest, after watching it now as an adult and a former enlisted man myself, I think the soldiers would've been shooting in Rhodes' direction instead of John and Billy's...especially since he was bearing down on one of their own.

Shooting Sarah in cold blood, even while Rhodes had his gun trained on him, would be one thing...but doing that and being shot back at by Johnny, or being caught in a crossfire between soldiers and civilians, would be a ghoul of another color.

In essence, it wasn't that he didn't want to shoot her, per se...it was that he didn't wanna wind up shot himself. This attitude is related later in the film, when Steele gleefully turns on the scientists and participates willingly in the crap that goes on.

[Crow T R0bot]

I never got that impression.

My take was that Rhodes ordered Steele to shoot Sarah...which he obviously took for a joke. When Rhodes leveled his hand cannon at him, it quickly became obvious that it was for serious.....and he drew his own piece and leveled it at Sarah.

He didn't lower his weapon until John stood up and showed that if Sarah was shot, then she wouldn't be the only one knock-knock-knocking on Heaven's door that afternoon.

And, let's not forget everybody else in the room, who at that point was reaching for a piece--to be honest, after watching it now as an adult and a former enlisted man myself, I think the soldiers would've been shooting in Rhodes' direction instead of John and Billy's...especially since he was bearing down on one of their own.

Shooting Sarah in cold blood, even while Rhodes had his gun trained on him, would be one thing...but doing that and being shot back at by Johnny, or being caught in a crossfire between soldiers and civilians, would be a ghoul of another color.

In essence, it wasn't that he didn't want to shoot her, per se...it was that he didn't wanna wind up shot himself. This attitude is related later in the film, when Steele gleefully turns on the scientists and participates willingly in the crap that goes on.

I'm sorry, I mis-phrased that. I knew Steele originally thought Rhodes was joking, but even when Rhodes leveled his own gun at Steele, he hesitated to go after Rhodes began counting to five (or was it three?). Admittedly, this can be explained away as him expressing disbelief at how tyrannical Rhodes was acting but the next part doesn't add up. The part where he takes his sweet time lining up his own piece at Sarah (though I think you covered that already, no one wants to be killed by the guy who did a voice in an anime dub).

Nonetheless, that clears a lot of things up for me, as well as some of the other stuff mentioned here.

[Guru ofthe Dead]

Steele was a soldier and followed orders. Yeah he thought it was a joke. However I liked his character. Real easy to like and to be ticked off when he had to kill himself. Crow T. Robot. MST3000. I dig it.

[mista_mo]

I partailly agree...watch his face during the whole encounter...thats all I need to put.

[Philly_SWAT]

In regards to that scene, you have to remember that even though Rhodes was always deadly serious, the men were not, and Rhodes tolerated it. Rickles was always laughing and so was Steele. The other men to the side were smoking pot in the middle of this supposed "important" meeting. Even though Rhodes was talking tough, none of the men seemed to pay that much mind.

As already mentioned, it is a different thing to shoot somebody in cold blood, and to throw people in a zombie pen after you discovered that their cohort had been literally feeding one of your friends and fellow soldiers to the zombies. It was a payback in a sense, and they still had a chance to survive, so it wasnt a death sentence (they DID survive, after all).

And I am not so sure that Steele was a "bad guy". True, he was definately mean at times, but he was in a tough situation. When watching movies, we are generally fed portrayals of "good" guys and "bad" guys, and we look for that normal situation whether it is there or not. Sarah, as the lead character, is rational and intelligent, so as the lead we see her as a "good guy", as well as John and Billy after they "join her side". The soldiers are depicted as mean, so we see them as "bad" guys. But were they? Look at the situation they were in. Five of their brethren were dead. They were risking their lives for reasons they didnt fully understand, and maybe were to the point where they didnt care if they understood or not. The situation may have seen hopeless to them. After Logans speech about "making them behave", how confident would you be in the "research" that was going on? Another important factor that can not be overlooked is this...

They have been in that cave for a long time (more than 3 years I think, but thats another discussion). Other than Miquel, no one has had sex down there. That is another reason for the tension. Miquel is the only one "getting any", and natural jealousy makes him a target for the other soldiers. We had 2 pet mice at one time. They tended to have a ton of babies that we had to keep taking back to the pet store. So we decided to keep 10 of them, 5 males and 5 females, and put them in two separate cages to avoid any more babies. The females lived peacefully, lying against each other and cleaning each other. The males were constantly fighting and ....anally intruding each other. There was blood all over the cage after a while. It is simple hormones. Males kept caged and separated from females get violent, same thing happens in our prison system. So I dont view the soldiers as "bad guys", just guys, who have been in an incredibly crappy situation for a long time, and are past the point of behaving 100% rationally. I think that Steele was portrayed very well actually.

[erisi236]

lets not forget that Sara and Fisher were seen constantly berateing the soldiers down there. Most of them seemed to just be trying to have as good a time as possible given the situation, but they kept being called idiots at every turn by the civilians.

I think Steel and pretty much all the soldiers were good, see the way the intereact with Billy and John at the begining, just good natured chit chat. I think the real bad guys were Sara, Fisher and Logan, get rid of those 3 and the rest of the group lives.

[Guru ofthe Dead]

lets not forget that Sara and Fisher were seen constantly berateing the soldiers down there. Most of them seemed to just be trying to have as good a time as possible given the situation, but they kept being called idiots at every turn by the civilians.

I think Steel and pretty much all the soldiers were good, see the way the intereact with Billy and John at the begining, just good natured chit chat. I think the real bad guys were Sara, Fisher and Logan, get rid of those 3 and the rest of the group lives.
Cudos Cudos. I totally agree. In movies it seems that the brains usually gets everyone in trouble. What a bunch of DFF's.

[EvilNed]

Hehe, yeah now that you mention it. In the beginning of the film, the soldiers are all talking natural like, but Sarah and John are ****ed off and arrogant. Billy and John also pass up a moment to go help out the group.

[Brubaker]

Something worth mentioning:

I would assume Steele had to shoot more than one fellow soldier (Miller) down in that bunker, seeing that 5 men were lost before the beginning of the movie. Regardless of what happened with Major Cooper, there are four others who are not even mentioned except as a number. I can't see where anyone other than Rhodes, Cooper or Steele had to kill any bitten soldier, but I may be wrong. It just seems that Steele would have gone through a little more trauma than the rest of the soldiers, contributing to his personality.