 Originally Posted by LoneCrusader
In Dawn of the Dead (1978), it was showing groups of people and the army effectively taking care of the zombies. How did those groups fall? Do you think it was not cooperating (as seen in all GAR films), the groups seperated, the undead just really outnumbered them until there was few men left, or maybe the groups did survive and maybe moved to the Fiddler's Green? Or maybe they're still on the road? Somebody give an explanation as to how things so slow and so stupid can whipe out the military.
I remember reading online somewhere that GAR addressed this in either the Dawn novel or some other venue. Does anyone remember?
The common problem with the groups in the GAR movies is that they never went on sweep and destroy missions. In all four of Romero's films, the groups you saw were content to stay in one place and hope to ride it out. The first two movies had people who would sit still at rescue stations until they were overcome.
-Both Night movies had the group of people barricading themselves in that house. While the "rescue team" at the end did clean out the area, that is something which was probably an exception.
-Dawn had the residents barricading themselves in the apartment building, the main characters barricading themselves in the mall and the rednecks/cops riding it out in the woods. Even the motorcycle gang chose to ignore almost every zombie that wasn't in their way. All Roger and Peter really cared about was cleaning out the inside of the mall when they went on their shooting spree.
-In Day, the characters occasionally made reference to shooting the zombies outside of the fence or in the corridor. It never happened, though. Granted the zombie invasion prevented Rhodes from the grand plans he had of taking his men inside that corridor to blow the **** out of every last specimen before leaving. That and Logan's position that there wasn't enough ammo. I seem to remember Rhodes going for a gun near the end and seeing some other guns and ammo sitting on the wall in the room he emerged from. I could be wrong, though.
-In Land, everybody was located inside of the Green or other outposts. The characters delibrately avoided shooting any zombies they didn't have to. This happens on the raid, for one. Riley's decision at the end says everything you need to know. So that means he essentially dooms any unlucky human or humans that Big Daddy and his gang happen to run into as they look for a place to go.
I have two theories:
1. I guess those rednecks, military men and cops probably sat back until a group of zombies too large for them to effectively handle snuck up on them. I'd expect it was similar to the way Brubaker and his men were caught unprepared and looked up to find their fence about to come down in Land.
That and I am sure with three different groups of people there (rednecks, cops and military), they started to fight amongst themselves and probably became divided. It's not out of the realm of possibility for a few rednecks to start firing at the cops or military guys, or vice versa, in a struggle over who is going to "call the shots" in their wooded area.
2. In the apartment building, during Dawn, the teams of men were struggling to control the zombies. There was nothing effective about it. When the barricade (boards) came down and the zombies flooded the hallway, you see them brushing by all the guys with the guns. There was no room to move or fire, so I would assume that most of those army/swat fellows in the hallway were bitten and never made it out of the building alive. Sure, it isn't shown in the movie and you see the zombies just brushing past them to move through the building but there is no way a big group of zombies would let those guys go unscathed. I would imagine all of the guys at this very complex had the job of cleaning out several other buildings in town. They had a hard enough time controlling things in that one. How many swat/military guys would have been left when that building was "contained" to go on to the one down the street? That group would have been finished before the night was over, especially if men were shooting each other (ala Wooley) or leaving post like Roger and Peter.
Dr. Logan says it best in Day, when it comes to wiping out the zombies. The time to have done that was the beginning.
Having some military guys or whoever go on sweep and destroy missions, where they actually hunted zombies and shot them, would have been beneficial. It would have reduced the number of existing zombies and presumably lowered the number of people who were newly infected.
It's easy to say behind a keyboard but if I'd been as good of a shot as Roger or Peter, I'd likely have been outside of the mall with a good amount of ammo trying to find and destroy as many zombies as I could. Nobody ever bothered to do something of this nature in any of the four movies. I guess they always assumed "somebody else" would wipe out all of the zombies and eventually restore order.
Originally Posted by Philly_SWAT
Well, look at the real life situation in New Orleans last year during hurricane Katrina. This was no where near a bad a situation of the dead coming to life and eating the living, and more than half of local law enforcement abandoned their jobs, starting looting stores, and generally contributing to civil disorder rather than helping. How long before military grunts in the field would start freaking out with the whole situation? Plus, in Dawn, I dont think we know for sure if those were army regulars that we saw or more reserves. Seems to me as if they were probably reserves, seeing as how chummy they were acting with the local cops and locla rednecks. They probably didnt have a huge supply of ammo. Once the ammo starting runnung out, for the reserves, the cops, and the rednecks, they would all either be killed or be forced to run.
That makes sense. I'd say reserves because the A-Team would have been in the city itself, which explains why the best of the best in the military ended up becoming zombies. You might even argue that they were people already living in the area, or nearby, as opposed to a special unit of troops that were sent specifically to keep things under control there.
Couple that with the fact that they wasted what little ammo they had. Did anyone else notice how much ammo they wasted in killing three or four zombies that would show up? Some individual zombies were fired at several times by several people.
For the original poster, keep in mind there are one or two scenes in the woods where a zombie somehow sneaks by everybody there and comes within a couple feet of munching on a redneck from behind. Somebody wasn't keeping watch and after that happened a few times with enough zombies, everybody would scatter.
Originally Posted by Trencher
Really? I am very suprised to hear this. Can you give me more information?
You'd be best off using Wikipedia or Google as a reference. In short, several law enforcement people in New Orleans (and nearby) deserted their posts and quit on the recovery effort. The funny (or sad) thing about it all is that these very same people showed up again after things were under control (as best they could be) and expected to slide right back into their old jobs without any animosity from the community, fellow officers, their superiors or the people they deserted in the city.
As for looting and civil disorder, there were reports of officers looting stores just like common criminals. These same people also came out of the woodwork once things were cleaned up to reclaim their old jobs like nothing had ever happened. Others would open fire on anyone they thought that looked suspicious (like a looter), no questions asked.
Again, it is too much to ask a single person here to explain it all. Just do a quick search on some of the major search engines.
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