I feel what Romero is missing is...

[DjfunkmasterG]

As we all know most of us here are not fans of the newer dead films, for me LAND is just well... we know how i feel about it and let us leave it at that... Anyway, I sat here watch TWD the other night and then followed it up with DAWN and DAY and it hit me... Romero is focusing less on the True Human emotion than he used too. If you go back and watch DAWN and DAY the films had great and interesting characters, even though the acting was so-so you still connected with them because of how they were written and played because Romero brought a truer reality tot he fold and gave the characters a more human persona... Something seriously lacking in the newer dead films. instead he is focusing on more mediocre characters and even more mediocre zombies. One great thing about the original 3 films was they each had a unique zombie you sort of rooted for..., whereas while we have lead zombies in the newer films you don't really give to shits whether they make it or get a bullet to the head. The writing has become so poor that now you want the zombies to win and everyone else to just die. If Romero could go back and flush out the characters more, and actually cast people who have charisma I am willing to bet he could bring out another kick ass zombie film. I know I give the man a lot of shit here on the forums, but I do hold him to a high standard, and I refuse to lower that standard because of his lower budgets... The man started on low budgets, this should not be a problem for him, but with his more recent entries it is a major problem. However, it has come down to the writing. He pushed aside the humanity in his living characters for some cheap political commentary and poorly written and executed zombie gags. I know people like the gore aspect, but what good is the gore if you can't make it through 15 minutes of the movie. He needs to sit down and revamp his characters and bring back the human emotion. Stop futzing around with the drunken irish men, cowboys and western horse riding zombies... George you're not making The Quick and The Undead... which BTW was a far more entertaining zombie flick than SURVIVAL and LAND. As I said bring back the human characters with rich and colorful background informatin and stories and I bet with the right amount of time you will have another awesome zombie film on your hands.

[Mitchified]

Somewhere along the way the Romero movies went from being about the humans to being about the zombies. When that happened, the crap (much like the spice) flowed. Romero is trying to go a number of different directions with his human characters so that it's not just the usual formula of "survivors who normally wouldn't even speak to each other band together, hide out somewhere, and the zombies eventually break in". I get that, and I respect the fact that he's willing to go outside of what made him famous to achieve some sort of vision. The problem is he's writing what he likes as opposed to what the fans want. Artistic vision aside, these are movies, they're meant to appeal to a wide variety of fans.

[bassman]

Although I don't downright loathe Romero's newer films....I agree. Been saying that for a while, actually. It's always been the characters in the original trilogy that make them great. It's never been the zombies. Although Day is my favorite and I absolutely love Bub, I think he was the beginning of the end for Romero. It was after Bub and his (good)translation to screen that Romero has since turned his focus to the zombies rather than the humans. While I can also get behind the "we're them and they're us" storyline of the sympathetic zombies, it doesn't work if the human characters aren't fleshed out even more. This is why I like TWD so much. No zombie gimmicks. Just real humans trying to survive in a really desperate situation.

[joeharley666]

In his shitty new movies he seems to be trying to out-do himself creatively by coming up with new ideas on how to kill zombies with all these stupid cgi gags. I could care less about how many different ways he can kill a zombie. Also, in the original trilogy you didn't get to know any of the zombies on a personal level except for Bub, but he was part a story line. In Land I felt he was trying to force feed us his zombies on a personal level, which causes the zombie actors....to...overact. He now is totally devoid of tension and atmosphere in his last three films. It's very disappointing that Romero does not know his hardcore audience anymore. I still think Diary was not a total stinker, it was dark and had a lot of potential. But Land and Survival, holy shit, what was he thinking. As we all know most of us here are not fans of the newer dead films, for me LAND is just well... we know how i feel about it and let us leave it at that... Anyway, I sat here watch TWD the other night and then followed it up with DAWN and DAY and it hit me... Romero is focusing less on the True Human emotion than he used too. If you go back and watch DAWN and DAY the films had great and interesting characters, even though the acting was so-so you still connected with them because of how they were written and played because Romero brought a truer reality tot he fold and gave the characters a more human persona... Something seriously lacking in the newer dead films. instead he is focusing on more mediocre characters and even more mediocre zombies. One great thing about the original 3 films was they each had a unique zombie you sort of rooted for..., whereas while we have lead zombies in the newer films you don't really give to shits whether they make it or get a bullet to the head. The writing has become so poor that now you want the zombies to win and everyone else to just die. If Romero could go back and flush out the characters more, and actually cast people who have charisma I am willing to bet he could bring out another kick ass zombie film. I know I give the man a lot of shit here on the forums, but I do hold him to a high standard, and I refuse to lower that standard because of his lower budgets... The man started on low budgets, this should not be a problem for him, but with his more recent entries it is a major problem. However, it has come down to the writing. He pushed aside the humanity in his living characters for some cheap political commentary and poorly written and executed zombie gags. I know people like the gore aspect, but what good is the gore if you can't make it through 15 minutes of the movie. He needs to sit down and revamp his characters and bring back the human emotion. Stop futzing around with the drunken irish men, cowboys and western horse riding zombies... George you're not making The Quick and The Undead... which BTW was a far more entertaining zombie flick than SURVIVAL and LAND. As I said bring back the human characters with rich and colorful background informatin and stories and I bet with the right amount of time you will have another awesome zombie film on your hands.

[Sammich]

IMO the problem is that Romero's recent characters are very hard to identify with or like and thus the viewer doesn't care if they live or die. Eccentric or interesting traits can overcome those issues but he hasn't done that either. I think the closest to achieving this was Charlie from Land. He was like the kid in the neighborhood or younger brother that insisted on tagging along that everyone eventually accepted.

[Andy]

As we all know most of us here are not fans of the newer dead films, for me LAND is just well... we know how i feel about it and let us leave it at that... Anyway, I sat here watch TWD the other night and then followed it up with DAWN and DAY and it hit me... Romero is focusing less on the True Human emotion than he used too. If you go back and watch DAWN and DAY the films had great and interesting characters, even though the acting was so-so you still connected with them because of how they were written and played because Romero brought a truer reality tot he fold and gave the characters a more human persona... Something seriously lacking in the newer dead films. instead he is focusing on more mediocre characters and even more mediocre zombies. One great thing about the original 3 films was they each had a unique zombie you sort of rooted for..., whereas while we have lead zombies in the newer films you don't really give to shits whether they make it or get a bullet to the head. The writing has become so poor that now you want the zombies to win and everyone else to just die. If Romero could go back and flush out the characters more, and actually cast people who have charisma I am willing to bet he could bring out another kick ass zombie film. I know I give the man a lot of shit here on the forums, but I do hold him to a high standard, and I refuse to lower that standard because of his lower budgets... The man started on low budgets, this should not be a problem for him, but with his more recent entries it is a major problem. However, it has come down to the writing. He pushed aside the humanity in his living characters for some cheap political commentary and poorly written and executed zombie gags. I know people like the gore aspect, but what good is the gore if you can't make it through 15 minutes of the movie. He needs to sit down and revamp his characters and bring back the human emotion. Stop futzing around with the drunken irish men, cowboys and western horse riding zombies... George you're not making The Quick and The Undead... which BTW was a far more entertaining zombie flick than SURVIVAL and LAND. As I said bring back the human characters with rich and colorful background informatin and stories and I bet with the right amount of time you will have another awesome zombie film on your hands. Absolutly 100% agree with everything here. Part of what divides the 2 romero trilogy's for me, and makes land a part of the second trilogy as opposed to the first.. is that movie standards aside, Night, Dawn and Day all focus on the people. Land, Diary and Survival focus on the zombies. Thats romero's biggest mistake in my humble opinion.

[mpokera]

I agree with mostly with the above sentiments. Although unlike most, and as I have previously stated, I liked Diary. But the key is as others have said "It has to be about the people, not the zombies" The zombiegeddon scenario is one we all know and love. And if you are like me you like to spend time thinking "What would I do in that situation?" And not just in zombie movies but all areas of horror. It's why I dont really care for Demons and that type of things in movies. "What would I do there? Oh I would just die like anyone else against an all powerful monster lol" But Zombies are my favorite because they have RULES. They are horrible but can be fought against and somewhat understood. So I want the people in a zombie movie/show to act believably. And that includes being tramutized/scared to death!

[ProfessorChaos]

i've said this in another thread, but it bears repeating here: i seriously doubt romero had all that "social commentary" bullshit planned out, people just interpreted the films that way. sure, there's some stuff that's deliberate, but they were mainly movies about everyday people you could relate to and sympathize with trying to survive a fucked up scenario. after nearly 2 decades of hearing people refer to him as "visionary" and spout all their ass-kissing about his "brilliant social commentary", he began making films where the main focus is "the message", and puts some lame-ass characters into a convoluted story. and jesus christ, has anyone seen this? below is an introduction with romero hamming it up and goof-balling around....while some may say this is just him having fun, give him a break, etc...i feel that this clip below does a good job of showing what's wrong with his approach these days.

[JonOfTheShred]

Yea, the characters in Land - Survival were pretty whack. Its gonna be hard for him to top... - Flyboy's 'jealousy' of Peter and Rogers budding friendship. - Dr Frankensteins bat-shit craziness, and Officer Rhodes even more maniacal bat-shit craziness. - The tension between Cooper and Ben. Barbara, portrayed both as a damsel in distress (original) and as a woman of action. (Savinis remake) The best new characters he has developed, in my opinion, were mostly in Land. The aforementioned Charlie is cool, and I also loved Dennis Hoppers character. (Dennis Hopper is the closest we'll get to Rhodes in terms of awesome bad guys from Romero.) I rather liked Cholo as well. In Diary, the only character I remotely liked was the girls with big tits (though the guy filming had the BITCHIEST girlfriend, even if he was a fucking jackass) and the cliche drunken professor. Oh, and the Amish guy was cool, I definitely liked Samuel. In Survival, I didn't like anyone. MAYBE the lesbian. But those were the worst characters he's ever created. That douchebag kid that they save from the rednecks is the worst human character George has ever created; the only thing worse than that little prick was Big Daddy.

[Philly_SWAT]

One great thing about the original 3 films was they each had a unique zombie you sort of rooted for..., whereas while we have lead zombies in the newer films you don't really give to shits whether they make it or get a bullet to the head. I would like to know which zombies in either Night or Dawn you think anyone would sort of root for. Obviously in Day you have to kind of root for Bub, both because he seems like a "nice" zombie, and Rhodes is such an overwheming prick, but I can't think of a remote equivilant in the first two. In Dawn, there wasn't really any zed that was focused on at all...unless you want to say something like "well the nurse zombie was hot so I rooted for her" or "the nun zombie looked forelorn", but none really merited and sympathy at all I didnt think. Bill Hinzman in Night certainly didnt make me want to root for him. I suppose you could say Johnny-zombie, but he was only seen for a few seconds at the end, and displayed no characteristics to make mme want to root for him...his appearance made Barbara's new found confidence to fight for her life disappear, as she did soon thereafter into a crowd of zeds. So I dont really think there were rootable zeds in Night or Dawn. The writing has become so poor that now you want the zombies to win and everyone else to just die. If Romero could go back and flush out the characters more, and actually cast people who have charisma I am willing to bet he could bring out another kick ass zombie film. I really enjoy Fran/Gaylon Ross, but I hardly think she had a lot of charisma. What I enjoyed about early Romero characters was the ..."realness"...that I felt from them. When Arnold Schwartzenegger throws a lead pipe through someone's stomach, it goes through and pins them to the wall, and as hot vapor comes out the end and he says "Let off some steam Bennett"...who the hell is he talking to? No one is there. Would you be cracking clever comments if you just killed another human being at close range? Cool dialogue (I guess) in an action pic, but hardly realistic. I thought the dialogue in Dawn was very realistic, including Fran being rather subdued, Flyboy being a little awkward but learning as the movie goes on, etc. I know I give the man a lot of shit here on the forums, but I do hold him to a high standard, and I refuse to lower that standard because of his lower budgets... The man started on low budgets, this should not be a problem for him, but with his more recent entries it is a major problem. If anything I think his pursue of more mainstream budgets, i.e. Studio money and the beholdenness that brings, may have compromised his standards. However, it has come down to the writing. He pushed aside the humanity in his living characters for some cheap political commentary and poorly written and executed zombie gags. I thought a lot of the gags were pretty good. i seriously doubt romero had all that "social commentary" bullshit planned out, people just interpreted the films that way. sure, there's some stuff that's deliberate, but they were mainly movies about everyday people you could relate to and sympathize with trying to survive a fucked up scenario. after nearly 2 decades of hearing people refer to him as "visionary" and spout all their ass-kissing about his "brilliant social commentary", he began making films where the main focus is "the message", and puts some lame-ass characters into a convoluted story. I agree with this for sure. No one among us could ignore all the praise that Romero has received through the years, and that surely makes him feel like he *HAS* to make some social commentary, as opposed to just letting it come naturally. Part of what divides the 2 romero trilogy's for me, and makes land a part of the second trilogy as opposed to the first.. is that movie standards aside, Night, Dawn and Day all focus on the people. Land, Diary and Survival focus on the zombies. Thats romero's biggest mistake in my humble opinion. I disagree that the "2nd trilogy" focuses on the zombies. Land - Primarily focused on Riley, Kaufman, and Cholo and there dynamic to each other. Of course it did focus on Big Daddy and how he was "leading and communicating" with the zeds, but overall screen time and implied importance to the storyline heavily favored the human characters, not the zeds. Diary - Primarily focused on Jason and Michelle, his desire to "film for posterity" vs his desire to be there for his girl emotionally. Story ends where after bitching at him the whole time about his obsession to film, when he dies, she continues the filming/editing process. In this movie we dont even really see all that many zombies, and the ones we do are not focused on much at all other than as obstacles to overcome, excuse for a cool death scene, or to advance human characters's relationships to each other. Survival - Primary focus was the two different philosophies on keeping the zeds "alive" in case a cure was found or just because they USED to be a family mmeber, friend, etc. vs the philosophy of kill them because they are dead or an abomanation, and how this difference in philosophy effects the human characters. Whether someone liked any of the latter 3 films is certainly a valid debate, however, I dont think that the latter 3 abandoned in any way the idea of focusing on human characters.

[DawnFan inCincy]

I'm sure it's been mentioned a million times on here, but I've always thought one of the major problems with the newer films is Romero left his central location concept. Night had the farm house, Dawn had the mall, and Day had the Missile Silo. Once you get to Land, people are roaming all over the place. Not that the last 3 films were set in happier times obviously, but I felt it took away from some of that feeling of hopelessness. Night, Dawn, and Day had such an overall feeling of doom to them. These people were just locked away trying to survive. It gave a gloomier feel and helped you bond with the characters going through it. In terms of rooting for the zombies, Dawn's really the only one where there's multiple iconic zombies. Night has Bill Hinzman & Kyra Schon and Day had Bub (and I guess you could make an argument for Dr Tongue). Land had Big Daddy and Survival had the twin. I can't remember if Diary had one. The only one coming to mind is Greg Nicotero. Dawn though...Plaid Shirt, Helicopter, Nurse, Sweater, Hare Krishna, Machete, Miguel, and Roger + Stephen. I'm biased though.

[Mike70]

Survival - Primary focus was the two different philosophies on keeping the zeds "alive" in case a cure was found or just because they USED to be a family mmeber, friend, etc. vs the philosophy of kill them because they are dead or an abomanation, and how this difference in philosophy effects the human characters. Whether someone liked any of the latter 3 films is certainly a valid debate, however, I dont think that the latter 3 abandoned in any way the idea of focusing on human characters. my biggest problem with survival was the rather comedic nature of many of the gags/scenes/etc. i do not think that worked very well for romero and is the number one reason that survival falls completely flat for me. play it straight or play it for laughs; very few films can do both successfully and survival isn't one of them.

[Legion2213]

I'm sure it's been mentioned a million times on here, but I've always thought one of the major problems with the newer films is Romero left his central location concept. Night had the farm house, Dawn had the mall, and Day had the Missile Silo. Once you get to Land, people are roaming all over the place. Not that the last 3 films were set in happier times obviously, but I felt it took away from some of that feeling of hopelessness. Night, Dawn, and Day had such an overall feeling of doom to them. These people were just locked away trying to survive. It gave a gloomier feel and helped you bond with the characters going through it. In terms of rooting for the zombies, Dawn's really the only one where there's multiple iconic zombies. Night has Bill Hinzman & Kyra Schon and Day had Bub (and I guess you could make an argument for Dr Tongue). Land had Big Daddy and Survival had the twin. I can't remember if Diary had one. The only one coming to mind is Greg Nicotero. Dawn though...Plaid Shirt, Helicopter, Nurse, Sweater, Hare Krishna, Machete, Miguel, and Roger + Stephen. I'm biased though. These are pretty good points IMO (especially the first part). The feeling of clautrophobia in the first three movies is tangible. As for comedy, that should be left to the likes of Simon Pegg who understand what modern comedy is...I don't think GAR is noted for his comedic genius.

[JonOfTheShred]

I'm sure it's been mentioned a million times on here, but I've always thought one of the major problems with the newer films is Romero left his central location concept. Night had the farm house, Dawn had the mall, and Day had the Missile Silo. Once you get to Land, people are roaming all over the place. Not that the last 3 films were set in happier times obviously, but I felt it took away from some of that feeling of hopelessness. Night, Dawn, and Day had such an overall feeling of doom to them. These people were just locked away trying to survive. It gave a gloomier feel and helped you bond with the characters going through it. The central location concept was getting REALLY old. If Land had any step in the right direction, it was abandoning the central location concept. In terms of rooting for the zombies, Dawn's really the only one where there's multiple iconic zombies. Night has Bill Hinzman & Kyra Schon and Day had Bub (and I guess you could make an argument for Dr Tongue). Land had Big Daddy and Survival had the twin. I can't remember if Diary had one. The only one coming to mind is Greg Nicotero. Dawn though...Plaid Shirt, Helicopter, Nurse, Sweater, Hare Krishna, Machete, Miguel, and Roger + Stephen. I'm biased though. I'd make an argument for Dr Tongue. Perhaps my favorite zombie EVER. And he inspired the only special infected in Left 4 Dead that wasn't comedic. The Spitter is downright CREEPY in appearance. I didn't root for ANY zombies in Night or Dawn though. I definitely feel Bub was the first zombie the audience is conditioned to root for. And the only zombie since to illicit any kind of support from me were "Fido" and perhaps "Ed" at the end of Shaun of the Dead.

[Trin]

I disagree that it's the characters. Land, imho, had central characters that were every bit as good as Night/Dawn/Day. I loved Charlie, Riley, Cholo and Kaufman. I agree with DawnFanInCinci that losing the central location has hurt things. The farmhouse and the mall and the caves defined the trilogy. I disagree that Land lost that. I thought the location in Land was ideal for taking the location to the next level in fact. If GAR had surrounded the place with a half million zombies and depicted the struggle (physical and mental) of sending scavengers out amidst that chaos... we'd have had the epic zombie masterpiece that was advertised. And that's the rub. The situation is the problem. Survival against the zombies. That's what the trilogy had that the later movies did not. The zombies have become so beside the point as to be ignored. Land took that failure to the next level. Not only was the situation implausible and unbelievable due to lack of zombies, but it added the zombie intelligence tangent that was poorly conceived and executed. @Deej - Given your love of Diary how do you reconcile your position of characters with your love of Diary. I personally thought Diary had the worst characters of them all. Most of the people in there are unmemorable, stupid, flat... I could go on.