George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead

[darth los]

Amen to that, sir! A well crafted story with engrossing characters will do a lot more to sell a message and get people thinking than furnishing them with a hollow story whose whole point seems to be repetitively bonking the audience on the head with said 'message', which is the unfortunate thing that happened in Diary. Is that to say that DIDN'T happen with land?

[Trin]

I don't think Land's message was in the same category of head bonking as Diary's. Land put forth a situation that relied on the message to be plausible, and at the time I thought that was a message bonking. Diary had a narrator describe the message, then had the characters talk about the message in dialogue, then it used their actions to show you the message. And it did that sequence repeatedly. Rocky couldn't take that kind of pounding.

[AcesandEights]

Is that to say that DIDN'T happen with land? It did, but for me it was to a lesser extent. Yes, I rolled my eyes and cringed a bit at the heavy-handedness of it all in Land, but I think a stronger story, which was realized in a less silly manner than Diary, helped mitigate the effect, for me anyway.

[bassman]

I agree that Diary was a bit over the top with the message.....but so were the films in the original trilogy. Look at Dawn. The message slaps you in the face, kicks you in the balls, and then beats you with a hammer....

[Neil]

I agree that Diary was a bit over the top with the message.....but so were the films in the original trilogy. Look at Dawn. The message slaps you in the face, kicks you in the balls, and then beats you with a hammer.... TBH I recon all the stuff about Dawn and consumerism was unintentional. Romero got the shopping mall purely by accident... For example is there/was ther one mention of this intention at the time?

[shootemindehead]

Neil's correct here. All of the "message" bollocks about 'Dawn of the Dead' came after the fact. In addition, I don't think it does belt the viewer over the head. I consider it rather subtle and can be utterly ignored, if the viewer wishes it. The "message" in 'Diary of the Dead' is on the screen the whole time though. It's impossible to ignore.

[krakenslayer]

Neil's correct here. All of the "message" bollocks about 'Dawn of the Dead' came after the fact. In addition, I don't think it does belt the viewer over the head. I consider it rather subtle and can be utterly ignored, if the viewer wishes it. The "message" in 'Diary of the Dead' is on the screen the whole time though. It's impossible to ignore. Nah, according to Romero, the idea came to him as he watched shopper strolling placidly through the mall "just like zombies". Then - BAM - he decided this would be a great basis for a sequel to Night. The original script the consumerist message was much more obvious - the mall was literally the domain of the zombies who wandered it like shoppers 24 hours a day. A male and female character lived a hunter-gatherer existence in the air ducts, making raids on the zombies' mall to gather food and supplies. Later, it becomes home to another kind of consumerism when the army move in an start using it as a warehouse to store crates of human flesh, intended as food for use in training and domesticating the undead for use as zombie soldiers (i.e. placating the restless crowds with consumerist goodies, geddit?). He seemed to tone down the message when he rewrote the script. But yeah, I think the message in Dawn is more skillfully executed - the message is portrayed through the actions of characters and the setting, whereas in Diary it's pretty much hammered home over and over again in dialogue. I still enjoyed it, but it wasn't Dawn.

[MinionZombie]

I don't agree, I would say that surely the consumerism message was there from the off. GAR got a tour around the new mall owned by friends/acquaintances of his - he saw the potential from a zombie survival point of view. But then look at the film itself, and indeed the script, you've got Roger and Peter going absolutely nuts as soon as they get into JCPenney's - they start looting the place - they whoop and holler and joke about getting the "important stuff first" (chocolate, lighter fluid, watches ). Fran even says "you're hypnotised by this place, all of you!" - clearly referencing the fact that the consumer in at least the three blokes is having at least a solid impact on their reasoning for staying there (from her view at least). The message is implanted within the script, to say it was just 'tacked on after the fact' doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever when you just watch the flick. You step into a new fangled thing called a "mall", and you see all this shopping under one roof all at your fingertips - what else are you going to start thinking about? Consumerism is what. No doubt with such a lifestyle being new on the block, there must have been news items about such things, and general talk on the street - an air of change in the world of shopping. 'The message was just tacked on after the fact' makes no sense therefore.

[bassman]

There's quite a bit of dialogue that shows romero had the idea of the consumerism commentary when he was writing the script.

[Monrozombi]

TBH I recon all the stuff about Dawn and consumerism was unintentional. Romero got the shopping mall purely by accident... For example is there/was ther one mention of this intention at the time? I wouldn't say intentional as much as I would say it was more underlying. George always has had messages in his films. From the more overt "Diary" to the more covert "monkey Shines?" He got the idea for the message after seeing and realizing he could do the sequel to Night in the mall but I agree that his messages in his last 2 films have come to the surface. Would his change in going from underlying to in your face have to do with the fact that from 93-99 he did one film Bruiser and got hired and fired from numerous high class projects. And then was given money only for zombie films since?

[MinionZombie]

There's quite a bit of dialogue that shows romero had the idea of the consumerism commentary when he was writing the script. Exactly. Just because a bunch of movie fans and critics started waxing lyrical about Dawn's message after it was released and have constantly asked him about it in interviews etc, doesn't mean in any way, shape, or form that he wasn't deliberately putting that message in. It's like how Night was a reaction to vietnam specifically - although in that case, he himself has said that the civil rights issue was never really his intention when writing the script, he just thought they were "being hip" to have a black guy and never make an issue of it - but interestingly he said that Duane Jones did say they should make an issue of it, and that GAR now wishes he had done (this was in one of the Diary of the Dead 2-disc DVD extra features). It's like with Knightriders - the message about indie VS corporate, and selling out, was all there from the start, and is integral to the script - just like Dawn. Just like Day as well - specifically "just giving up" - the whole mid-80s America vibe. His work after Day became less about messages though I think ... Bruiser might have a little bit of a message, but only a small one ... it wasn't until Land that he really got back to his messages, I feel (after he'd done Day in the mid-80s, I mean).

[shootemindehead]

Ok, perhaps "All of the "message" bollocks about 'Dawn of the Dead' came after the fact" was a bit off, but I certainly don't think that the "message" in 'Dawn of the Dead' takes over (and in some ways, ruins) the experience in the same fashion that it does in 'Diary of the Dead'. In addition, I don't think there would have been many who would have got the "message" either, at least not on first viewing. I think many people would have thought that it was a rather logical place to go in such a crisis. The dialogue regarding "...the place" is rather subtle. The dialogue in 'Diary of the Dead' becomes excruciating. I still enjoyed 'Diary of the Dead' too, but I find repeat viewings tougher and tougher. Whereas, I could sit down to 'dawn of the Dead' any time. I still think all the "message" stuff (bollocks ) in 'Dawn of the Dead' is way over rated by some people though. Either way, I really hope he does away with the "message" (or at least tones it down considerably) with '...of the Dead'. If it's as "overt" as it was in 'Diary of the Dead', then I think I'll be tuning out of this re-boot of Romero's zombie apocalypse. I was never really satisfied with the re-boot idea, in the first place, though.

[Griff]

The message in LAND was delivered with a sense of humour. Romero even referred to some of the lines that allude to terrorism and whatnot as "cheesy". DIARY, on the otherhand, is pure browbeating. Of course, it makes sense from the point of view that a pretentious university student put it together as a substitute for their final film project but still... I understand that was something manufactured in post production. Romero probably felt it was required to provide a stronger narrative thru-line or something. For all we know, the film might not work at all without it. Fan edit, anyone?

[Trin]

I don't believe that Dawn had a pre-conceived consumerism message. GAR denied it in several interviews as the critics applauded him for it. What Dawn had was a keen observation of human nature. Namely, the idea that if you had a shopping mall all to yourselves and no one was watching what would you do? You'd run around and take all the great stuff, that's what. It's a really simple concept and makes complete sense. It translates well to action and behavior and plot. The characters also acted appropriately within the bounds of this concept. They took relatively low risks to satisfy this lust for things. Land tried to sell us that money is more important than survival and that people will ignore obvious problems to the point of extinction. It's an interesting perspective taken way further than is practical. It just doesn't play out. Because while *some* people might do that a whole society won't. And thus the setup, characters, and events were based on a faulty observation of human nature. And while the movie didn't beat us to death with it, it was an undercurrent of the whole movie since everything relied on it. Diary just beat us to death with a horribly flawed observation of human nature. No one holds a camera and films a hot chick being murdered because catching stuff on film is so goddam important.

[thxleo]

I don't believe that Dawn had a pre-conceived consumerism message. GAR denied it in several interviews as the critics applauded him for it. In the book the The Zombies that ate Pittsburgh, author Paul Gagne has an excerpt from Romero's shooting script for Dawn of the Dead and it reads as follows... "Stores of every type offer gaudy displays of consumer items - at either end of the concourse like the main altars at each end of a cathedral, stand the mammoth two story department stores, great symbols of a consumer society. The images are all too familiar, but in their present state they appear as an archeological discovery revealing the gods and customs of a civilzation now gone." Romero most definitely had a pre-conceived consumerism message with Dawn of the Dead. I don't understand why this is suddenly being debated?