Anyone feel like its time for a 'soft reboot' of Romero's series?

[nycbsn]

By soft reboot, I mean something along the lines of what Halloween and Robocop are doing. The upcoming Halloween is a soft reboot in the sense that it takes a new refreshing direction by ignoring everything after Halloween 1 and just picking up after part 1. The next Robocop is a sequel to the original that retcons 2 and 3, only acknowleding the first film. Heck we might as well throw Neil Blomkamp's cancelled Alien film which retcons Alien 3 & 4, only picking up after both Alien and Aliens. Well how about someone like Greg Nicotero doing that with Romero's universe? The film can just pick up after Day of the Dead, ignoring Land, Diary, Survival, and.... Ughh.. Road. Sorry I didn't want to exclude Land but honestly, that film is a mixed bag for me. However, push come to shove, I'd take Land over the 3 that follow it any day My point is... Ever since Land, this series has been going downhill compared to the quality of the first 3. Upon reading the premise for the next one (Road of the Dead)... WTF, seriously? Zombies in race cars? This is like bottom of the barrel digging for plots. Might as well add the Disney channel movie "Zombies" to this series cannon. The series needs a fresh take that continues sometime after Day of the Dead. Land had potential, awesome ideas, neat setting, good cast, but lacking in execution. Any thoughts?

[shootemindehead]

Nope.

[EvilNed]

Well, John A. Russo's timeline is an alternate series of sequels to the original Night of the Living Dead. So in a way that's already happened with Children of the Living Dead etc, (which was shit). Having said that if the right director were to get their hands on the franchise I believe some great stuff could come from it. Imagine a Blomkamp helmed zombie film set in the Romero universe. That'd be great!

[JDP]

The man himself couldn't keep up with the first three movies, so one would tend to think that the chances that someone else will are slim. But I think that many people could do a better job than Survival and the ridiculous planned Road of the Dead movie. Romero truly fully lost "his touch" with these.

[MinionZombie]

A big old nope on that. He'd basically said all he needed to say with the movies he did, and there's not really a clearly defined 'universe' surrounding those films anyway being that they have different settings, characters, and time periods. To have someone who isn't Romero try to hop in there would be disastrous and pretty pointless. Want a smart socio-political zombie flick? Just make one, it doesn't need any kind of Romero branding or connection, just make a movie. The Dawn remake stripped all of the intelligence and commentary out of the original, hell, even the characterisation was poor. It was just flashy MTV visuals and slick action, that was it really. The various Day remakes/whatever have all been utter garbage of the highest order as well. The only decent remake there's been is Night, and that has its flaws, but it worked as much as it did because of the timing (before the zombie onslaught that would start about 15 years after it was made) and the people involved. However, the various other remakes of Night? Yeesh. So yeah, there's no need for any kind of 'reboot'. That series of films is so synonymous with Romero's name and style and outlook on the world that it just can't be dived into by someone else, not to mention the aforementioned fact that it's not your usual type of 'franchise' with connective tissue between the entries.

[beat_truck]

The original series (at least the first three) were perfectly fine as-is. We don't need any more shitty, dumbed down reboots or remakes. That goes for the rest of the classic movies out there. Time for some NEW ideas, people! Preferably ones that don't suck, too.

[Neil]

Nope. LOL! /thread - - - Updated - - - The Dawn remake stripped all of the intelligence and commentary out of the original, hell, even the characterisation was poor. It was just flashy MTV visuals and slick action, that was it really. Yep! It sort of started well, but the moment there was the cheap sex scene (5-10mins in) to attempt to buy character depth, followed quickly by ninja gravity defying zombie children, and the instant conversion of her partner to a fog contacted lense dinosaur screaming zombie, I lost most of my hope. Underline all this will zombie babies, ninja stealth climbing zombies and stupid characters risking their lives for a dog... Grrrrr! ps: And let's not even mention impossible/pointless ceiling crawling zombies from the Day remake

[beat_truck]

Even though the Dawn remake had some fairly cringe worthy parts, I still liked it overall. Maybe because I just immediately accepted the fact that it has pretty much nothing to do with the original, besides having a mall in it. The Day '08 remake... UGH. That movie had absolutely zero redeeming qualities. I'm hoping that I can keep myself from ever seeing the newest Day remake. It sounds even more atrocious.

[facestabber]

What I appreciate about Dawn 04 is that it, IMO, rebooted the genre. Lets face it, zombies weren't cool enough for mainstream. 04 changed all that. Romero got a budget for Land(which I rate as terrible). But more importantly TWD, became possible. To topic. I think we all need a new trilogy with new ideas about the ZA. A nice budget with respectable writing and characters. I don't need Brad Pitt and absolutely no need for sprinting zombies.

[nycbsn]

I know he said all he needed to say. But it just kinda sucks that we wait 20 years for a follow up and the result is Land and its even shittier offspring (Diary, Survival, and Road). The sequels are just getting worse (Road), so if they're gonna make more, might as well make a good one that ignores the shitty ones and makes up for the 20 year lead up to what we got. What im saying is to make 1 that picks up after Day, a movie that is in the same spirit as the first 3, and is a proper send off that closes the series. Think about it, Land and everything that followed never happened. Night, Dawn, and Day are still intact. What would you like to see happen next? With the right people and budget behind it, it could work.

[beat_truck]

In my opinion, it would take a miracle for a movie to be a continuation of the first 3 and actually turn out to be nearly as good. Hell, as you said, GAR himself couldn't pull it off in his later years. And as far as I'm concerned, without GAR involved, it will never have any relation to the original trilogy. It would be an afterthought. Time to move on and come up with something new and original. Not some tired retread.

[Moon Knight]

Like it or not, the Dawn remake made the zombie genre relevant again. However, I say leave the films alone and come up with an entire new IP. Actually there are already several zombies movies and series coming along the pipeline.

[EvilNed]

Like it or not, the Dawn remake made the zombie genre relevant again. However, I say leave the films alone and come up with an entire new IP. Actually there are already several zombies movies and series coming along the pipeline. Didn't 28 Days Later predate the Dawn remake?

[beat_truck]

28 Days Later is a good movie, but despite what most people believe, it's not really a zombie movie.

[MinionZombie]

Didn't 28 Days Later predate the Dawn remake? Yep. The influence on the Dawn remake is clear. 28 Days Later is a good movie, but despite what most people believe, it's not really a zombie movie. Also yep. It's an infection/virus movie. To be a zombie movie the beasties need to either actually be dead or there has to be the clear belief that they are dead (the latter is in the instance of voodoo zombies). 28 Days Later's beasties are living people who are infected with a rabies-on-roids virus who then keel over after a few weeks because the body starved to death.