 Originally Posted by TheLivingDead
I never "hoped" for anything. However, I never showed you my content and you reacted to it, as if you did. It would be one thing if I spammed unsolicited links to this forum, and you were just offering criticism.
I was coming at this with a hypothetical, I just don't have time for drama or moral grandstanding. Sorry, but my horse is higher than your soapbox.
As for the Stephen debate, I'll bite. Good way to close this off.
Romero is one of his last interviews is clear that his characters and characterizations come from a place of nihilism. He said he doesn't do "white hats or black hats". Not as black and white as that.
Look at the evidence from the film itself....
(1) Stephen tries to BS and rationalize their crimes, saying he has IDs and clearance to fly the "stolen helicopter", to which Peter (clearly in Romero's voice) rebukes him, "We are thieves and WE ARE BAD GUYS.... that's exactly what we are." So, that should give you a hint about the karma that will eventually come their way.
(2) The original cut, the Cannes extended cut (which, sux BTW), clearly establishes that ALL the men at the dock where murdered by the outlaws posing as cops, Pilato's men. He didn't reshoot that in his tighter, director's cut. So, suicide is off the table. Savini makes it clear his violence is practically forensic in nature, basing injuries off of real life violence, much of it that he witnessed sadly in Vietnam.
(3) If the dock workers were murdered, then that won't change in the tighter cut. So who killed these men? Are the dock workers still the culprits? Nope, that subplot is cut and all we get is that one police officer asking for cigarettes. Clearly Stephen and his crew almost get caught stealing the helicopter, only to realize that the police officer is also abandoning his post and duties, much like them. There is nothing left to suggest those cops are still outlaws, other than the AWOL element of it. This demonstrates how an edit can change the meaning and narrative of a story. It was a good choice of Romero.
(4) Now onto the stealing of the helicopter itself. A frantic Stephen makes it clear to Fran at the TV station that one way or another he will get that helicopter. It is not like a piece of equipment that expensive or valuable will go unguarded. And if Stephen doesn't have the papers to fly that helicopter, it is not like some guard is just gonna let him take it for a joy ride. He's a traffic reporter, and typically they work during the day anyhow.
Now...that poses a narrative problem for Romero. It just isn't believable, that during a time of martial law, that you could just steal a helicopter. So, the first solution he comes up with in the extended cut is that Stephen lucks out when he finds all the dock workers dead. However, the director's cut, those bodies are cut out. So the story clearly leaves us with one guard, one dock worker, and those other police officers who likely were supposed to be guarding the area. Stephen lucks out when him and the other's learn that the police are also going AWOL. But even then, there is anxiety about the police showing up, and they are pleasantly surprised when it is Roger and Peter, and not more police.
So, who killed the dock worker? Certainly not the police, whose characterizations were changed. You can't go off of the expanded cut since Romero changes the movie a lot, to make the story tighter and more credible in several scenes. The only hint is that as Peter shoots a zombie in the basement, you CUT to a the dock operator's head flying back...and there is Stephen, upset. Grabbing the radio as some concerned OTHER person on the other end is basically saying (to paraphrase) "You are not coming in at all...What the hell? I can't hear you!! What is going on?!?!" and Stephen nervously grabs the radio and bullshits to cover up. He doesn't say, for instance, and he could, that "Yeah, this dude killed himself, and I'm getting ready to do traffic reports." He bends the truth, "The dock operator is dead..post abandoned". And his pained expression isn't guilty as all hell.
Not to mention, in this re-edit by Romero, it is clearly implied that the poor dock operator was in the middle of a radio conversation with someone else and was suddenly interrupted, by a gun shot, which the guy on the other end of the radio clearly heard.
THINK ABOUT IT....if Stephen simply walked in on a suicide, then the last thing he would want to do is reveal himself if he can just sneak off with the helicopter. Last thing he'd want to do is end up a suspect if they come looking for the murderer. It would be laughable to suggest he just walked in AS the dock operator was murdered since if shots are going off then he'd be ducking for cover. Yet, if Stephen is the one doing the killing, and he interrupted the dude's conversation with some guy on the other end, he now has NO choice BUT to grab the radio mic and do SOME kind of cover up, for fear that if he doesn't then the dude on the other end will sent the cops to see what is wrong.
And think about how dumb all this would sound IF Stephen just happens to walk in just as some dude's head flies back, from having shot himself?!?! Uh....no.lol If it is still the outlaws, which is absurd, what...do they have a sniper from afar or something?lol
Again, it would be dumb to suggest that Stephen just happened to walk in as one of those police officers shot that dock operator from afar. Again, wouldn't Stephen be ducking for cover?!? Worried he's next? He seems awfully calm for a guy who just walked in on a murder that someone else committed. But not for some amateur killer committing his first murder. His behavior is more consistent with that, and it makes the story more interesting. More real.
The final clue is in the original edit, from the expanded cut, and how it changed in the director's cut...in the original shot, the dock operator's head flies back because Stephen grabs the guy who was hunched over and pulls him back, just after walking into the station and coming across the OTHER murdered bodies. If this guy was murdered by someone else, or committed suicide, then why not keep at least that shot? Why not have Stephen, in the final cut, still grab the hunched over guy? Romero clearly cut that out for a reason and I can tell you why....Clearly a gun shot that happens at that moment, coincidentally at the same time when Peter is shooting the zombie in a basement, and it's not a coincident that Stephen is standing right next to him as he's killed....duh! Romero was nothing is not a thoughtful editor and he was such an amazing editor that he was criminally underappreciated for his amazing talent in that department. The guy could tell a story and he paid attention to detail.
In the scenes that follow, Stephen is clearly an unstable loose cannon. He nearly kills again in a scene that follows, when he almost "blows Peter away" in a mindless shoot out with a zombie. Peter makes it clear that he knows that Stephen is playing with a couple of loose screws, especially when he points a loaded gun at Stephen as retaliation. Fran doesn't even really object all that much, suggesting that she knows how her man is. And that's a bold action to do to another, pointing a gun at someone else he hardly knows, just to make a point. However, that characterization makes more sense if the person he's dealing with has severe issues...and Peter is left with no choice.
Stephen continues to demonstrate his unstable personality... nearly getting himself killed in the boiler room by the security guard zombie... mistreating Fran for not adhering to his chauvinism.... and then idiotically shooting at the bikers. All of that is great story arc for someone plagued with guilt, and it is clear that Romero found a creative editing solution to address all of that and turn David Emge's otherwise wooden performance into something with pathos, which makes more sense if you and I were plagued with guilt. That shit eats at a man.
Even with all that said, it's not like I didn't research this, and the whole project... speaking with still living original cast and crew to figure out if my instincts were right. I'm not going to resort to that appeal of authority here, since I don't want to drag those people into this, a fan page no less. But I will just say that, Stephen/Flyboy's murder fits a theme of Romero. In NOTLD, Ben murders Cooper who turns out to be right about the basement. He didn't have to kill him. In Day of the Dead, Sarah protects Dr. Logan who killed Major Cooper because "I needed him Sarah!" for his horrible research. Sarah keeps that a secret when she should've reported Dr. Logan's murder immediately to the men, now a co-conspirator for a crime. So it's hard to feel too much sympathy for her later in the movie when Rhodes goes ape shit over learning the truth about Dr. Logan's experiments.
My point with that is that Romero doesn't deal with black and white, superficial characterizations... at least not in his early films. Which is WHY they are so great. And if my little fan edit, which really draws attention so this, can trigger a fun debate like this...then what I'm doing can't be ALL that bad, ya know?
Okay, that's really all I got. For those who did reach out to me, I sent them links to my content and gathered the research I needed.
Fun sparring with you guys. Take care!
You are taking a rather sloppy editing job (yes, the theatrical cut is the one that sucks compared to the way better and more explicit extended cut) and trying to completely change this character based on that. The flaws in your scheme have already been pointed out, namely:
1- Stephen does NOT have any guns with him when he stumbles upon the dead radio operator
2- Even if he did, and he was the one who shot him, EVERYONE at the docks would have heard the gunshot and easily put two and two together. There is no way that Stephen could have kept this a "secret" and would have easily been discovered. The sloppy way in which the theatrical cut is edited is in fact the #1 enemy of your intended "twist" for this character: Fran and the rogue cops are already there, going about their business (Fran is fueling the helicopter and the rogue cops are unloading boxes from a truck) when Stephen supposedly kills the radio operator. OOOOOOPS! There goes your theory down the drain again!
3- The fact that he even bothers to answer HQ points out again that he has nothing to do with the radio operator's death. The real culprit would logically not want to answer the call and possibly incriminate himself (and if you go back to the extended cut you will see that it is in fact the cops who don't bother to answer the radio calls, it is them who haven't got the slightest interest in reporting what's going on at the docks)
4- When Stephen answers HQ's inquiries about what's going on at the docks, he is visibly shocked. Why? The radio operator at HQ CANNOT SEE HIM, so it would be pointless for him to put on an act when there's no one actually seeing him.
5- Throughout the whole movie Stephen's character is well shown. He is definitely NOT the "bad guy" type who would kill someone in cold blood, but rather a mild mannered and somewhat "wimpy" fellow.
As for Peter's remark: he clearly says "thieves", not "murderers"! There is a huge difference between both. He is plainly referring to the fact that they are violating the mandatory relocation of all citizens to government controlled shelters, and trying to make it their own way instead, by "stealing" whatever they need to survive if necessary. It in no way implies that they are the kind of people who will kill other people in cold blood for no reason whatsoever. The movie plainly shows that this group are not really "bad guys", just trying to survive. They might be "bad guys" from the authorities' point of view (since they refuse to cooperate with their plans of a mandatory relocation of citizens and imposed martial law), but that's it. As far as we viewers are concerned, these people are actually the "good guys", the "heroes" of the story.
As for Stephen's behavior at the abandoned airport: it actually shows that at this point in the story he has virtually no experience in violent and potentially dangerous situations, that's why he did not notice that Peter was directly in the line of fire along with the zombie, and thus could actually have accidentally killed Peter.
Everything that you keep trying to bring up actually shows the opposite of how you want to reinterpret Stephen's character.
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