Roger being bitten, who is to blame?

[Thorn]

In watching the original Dawn of the Dead the other night I was struck by something that had never really occurred to me before. It was during the scene in which Peter and Roger were trying to get the trucks and use them to block the doors. Flyboy of course was overhead, to I imagine serve as aerial reconnaissance. We have talked on the old forums at length about how Roger leaving the door open was likely a result of stress or him kind of loosing it. You know leaving a door wide open with zombies walking around and your legs hanging out like deep friend chicken waiting to be eaten is a really bad idea, I am sure we can all agree upon that. This time though I was looking at it from a different view and taking other factors into account. While ultimately I place the blame for the zombie attack firmly on Roger as it was his mistake. I feel others share in that blame as well. Let me explain and get your opinion... The mission at hand is easy enough to understand, get large easy to move objects and use those objects to help in barricading the doors to the mall. The trucks are excellent choices for this as they move easily under their own power and do not require preparation or construction. So far so good. The execution of that plan however was terrible. You have a three man party working together to facilitate this action. One over head who is aerial surveillance and reconnaissance. If he is not doing that he may as well be parked on the roof saving gas, and not drawing attention to the mall and those who live there. No one needs more zombies there, nor do you want people like looters. The chopper as was said and shown is a good way to attract attention. So that having been said, where was the plan for communication between the chopper and the assets on the ground? The radios they had may have had limited range, but I am sure they would have worked well enough to allow communication over a short distance even if you could not hear well over the rotors or motors you could key the mike and draw attention. More over I think Stephen had sufficient time to take more action than he did to alert the two people on the ground to the danger that was around them. Peter was another ground asset. He said he was going to ride shotgun, or pick up. I forget which right now. Bottom line is he was part of a two man team, and his job is to watch the other guys back. Why did he drive off and park well away from where Roger was so that he had no visual on what he was doing? Did he momentarily forget that the dead were walking the earth and that everyone was in a constant state of jeopardy? I personally would have been parked right there near him watching him and covering his back. I would then certainly have told him to do his work with the doors shut if he was so stressed out or "out of control" he did not think to do it himself. Part of your job in a situation like that is reading signs of the people around you and picking up on tells. Roger was certainly juiced up on adrenaline and very much getting reckless. He however in those situations should be able to count on his buddy to help him. It is not very often we all loose it at the same time. Having various personalities and thresholds for stress. At any rate as I watched this again I could not help feel that the plan while on the surface was sound, was very poorly executed and that both Flyboy and Peter really let Roger down. What do you think?

[dracenstein]

I think Flyboy should have had a radio. Peter the other. The trucks had their own CB radios. Actually, the helicopter should have a radio anyway. They should, at least, put their radios on the same frequency.

[AcesandEights]

Roger was an idiot and while I don't want to say he deserved what happened, I can sure as hell say he was at fault and bears the full brunt of responsibility for his actions (and those actions include choosing to put himself in harm's way, taking matters ridiculously lightly, clucking like an idiot and how he went about his hand to hand fighting). I know Roger is like a fan-fav, but he was a big time liability with regards to how he handled himself.

[SymphonicX]

The fact that Roger left the door open only really facilitated his descent into madness...Stephen's heli position was in no way useful to either of the group, neither was Peter's position - but this attack never killed Roger.... Roger's fatal mistake occurs later on, it was a combination of the door to the truck being jammed and him forgetting his tools, Peter and Fran were all over the zeds as much as possible but Roger dropped his bag and had to climb down to get back up...the easiest mistake to rectify in this situation wasn't the position of Stephen, Fran or Peter, but that Roger should really have lobbed his bag through Peters window THEN climbed into the cab with Peter ready to drive off....this would have saved Rogers life...The earlier attack just served to send Roger a bit loopy, but he was whooping and going a bit mad well before then...

[Thorn]

Symph I agree in many ways, I do view that attack as the beginning of the end for him. Though he was going a bit crazy before that and showing some signs of it. I think the open door attack where he nearly was killed by zombies and had blood splattered all over his face was the catalyst for his death. The message I got out of it was that it pushed him over the edge and lead to him forgetting his tools in his delirium after the attack. I honestly feel had that not happened (and if it were not in the script of course ) he would not have left his tools and been so reckless. I also never thought of them trying to get on the same frequencies that is an excellent point. Something more should and could have been done, the entire plan was sort of not very well thought out and certainly not well executed as we see from the results.

[SRP76]

Roger brought death on himself. Which always seemed strange to me; up until the "get its head up, man!" episode, Roger was utterly calm and efficient, almost Nazi-like. Then, all of a sudden, he's gone nuts. No buildup, no gradual decent into madness, just *CRASH*, he's a lunatic now. One of the few things I don't like about the movie.

[Bub666]

It's all Roger fault he got bitten,he had completely lost it by that point.

[Mike70]

it is roger's fault he was bitten but i think that peter should've recognized that roger's transmission was starting to slip a bit. peter probably should've called a halt to activities that day and let roger get himself back together before attempting to either retrieve roger's bag or block anymore of the doors.

[capncnut]

It's a blameless situation, I mean with the dead rising all around him is it any wonder why he went mad? And besides, all he did was drop his toolbelt. Who hasn't dropped something before by mistake?

[bassman]

It's a blameless situation, I mean with the dead rising all around him is it any wonder why he went mad? And besides, all he did was drop his toolbelt. Who hasn't dropped something before by mistake? I agree, but the dropping of the toolbelt could have been avoided if he had calmed down and stopped being so cocky about it all...

[Thorn]

...but the dropping of the toolbelt could have been avoided if he had calmed down and stopped being so cocky about it all... Agreed and further to the point if he had taken it with him the first time and not left it behind, he would not have been so pressed for time. When he initially transferred to the pick up/drop off vehicle it went much smoother. You can make the assumption that the zombies were much more spread out and less congregated. After driving up smashing a few, and exiting the zombies knew that meals on wheels was in the area and they were ready for blood. And as was pointed out he left it behind because he was reckless, out of controlling, stressing out, and basically in a state of shock.

[sandrock74]

I never did understand why Peter didn't have a second tool bag with him in his truck? No one ever heard of a back up?? They had the (virtually) limitless supply of tools that the mall supplied, why not make two identical bags? If one were lost, then you automatically had the second bag as your back up and the plan continued without missing a beat. I never understood how the helicopter didn't have a radio? I always thought that all helicopters had radios in them. How else does the pilot stay in touch with HQ or whomever? Had I been Steven, I would have been listening to chatter on the radio the whole flight from Philly to Monroeville. Just a way to keep tabs on everything. At the very least, I would have thrown a walkie talkie into the copter and made sure each driver had one. Again, just common sense. As for Peter pulling out of visual sight of Roger: yes, that was a bad mistake on his part. The only thing that comes to mind (besides thats the way the script was) was that Peter was parked to view the gates for the place. That way he could see incoming zombies, perhaps following them from the mall? Kinda lame I know, but that's all I could ever fathom. I do give Fran credit thou. For an untrained civilian, she was shooting anything she could get half a beed on while the trucks were below! I think the only thing she could have done to help along was to maybe start gunning zombies down at the next door as the others were getting the next truck. You know, sort of thin out the herd a bit? Between the trucks coming and going, the helicoper flying overhead and Fran shooting at them, the zombies wouldn't know what was going on! Of course, it is easy to play armchair military strategist...

[MinionZombie]

Every single time I watch the movie, I secretly hope he doesn't drop his tool belt and just chills out a smidge ... also I think, why not try to draw some of the zeds around the other truck (with the dropped tool bag in it) away from Roger so he can make a cleaner escape ... and indeed why not open up the door on Peter's truck, then open the door on Roger's truck - shoot some approaching zeds from the side that isn't blocked - make the hop over, kicking the Roger truck door shut, and then going on your way. But it had to happen, because the film wouldn't have moved on ... but if it was real, then my above would come into my head.

[wayzim]

Roger brought death on himself. Which always seemed strange to me; up until the "get its head up, man!" episode, Roger was utterly calm and efficient, almost Nazi-like. Then, all of a sudden, he's gone nuts. No buildup, no gradual decent into madness, just *CRASH*, he's a lunatic now. One of the few things I don't like about the movie. Truth be told, and watch the scene again, but Roger was hardly entirely sane ever since the slaughter at the tenement apartments, but absolutely after he's splattered with the dead girl in the truck that tipped the scales. All the scenes leading up to that he was more manic than in control. His calm later on was simply the quiet before the storm. But check out the film and see what you think. Wayne Z "This ain't no horror show or creature double feature, babe. " (DeadFall; Foreshadow. )

[lullubelle]

He is my favorite character of Dawn, but it was his own fault, he was starting to loose it since the raid in the building (scene when Woolly goes berserk and Peter shoots him) it was a matter of time before he got careless, wonder how the story would have went if he had not gotten bitten.