tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post1450052666300141160..comments2023-08-16T12:07:22.995+00:00Comments on The Daily (Maybe): The HorrorJim Jeppshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17410387006098326671noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-10582547861372968122007-05-24T12:33:00.000+00:002007-05-24T12:33:00.000+00:00I should ... but I've not taken the boycott poll y...I should ... but I've not taken the boycott poll yet so I'm making the most of my meat eating time - god i'm a disgrace.<BR/><BR/>Bizarrely fast food nation (which made at least one of my companions go right off meat) had the opposite effect on me. I guess I already knew meat was dead animals.Jim Jeppshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17410387006098326671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-85710455630732732732007-05-23T22:49:00.000+00:002007-05-23T22:49:00.000+00:00to move back on to the old red green politics. are...to move back on to the old red green politics. are you joining us for Vegetarian week then, on the basis of this orgy of cannibalism at the movies...?Derek Wallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-36131792436800408692007-05-22T13:55:00.000+00:002007-05-22T13:55:00.000+00:00I don't think that's true matthew. Everything I've...I don't think that's true matthew. Everything I've said is in the film. If you want to intrepret it differently then fine but the film *is* about well intentioned soldiers and children disobeying their orders and causing the end of the world. The subtext is that it is necessary to do bad things for the greater good - otherwise why are the US army killing civilians - what is code red for? Not because they are simply horrid surely?<BR/><BR/>I know the refugee camps were abroad - I'm saying that the repatriation had only just begun, from those camps. The kids were in Europe weren't they - on a school trip.<BR/><BR/>the argument for saving the mother was really interesting - although it would have been nice if they had her in a sealed compartment rather than lounging around where anyone could visit her. And that kiss - wonderful! I don't know what i would have argued... I think i may have sided with the general.<BR/><BR/>"But the disease was always going to spread" - really? why do you think that? should everyone have given up trying to contain it?<BR/><BR/>"this time they say the disease doesn't cross species barriers, but I'm sure the dad in the first film got it off a bird" yes and no. It does cross species in the first film because the first victim gets it from a chimp... but the dad gets a gob of human blood in his eye after a bird pecks a corpse up on the scaffolding... so birds aren't shown as carrying the disease.<BR/><BR/>However in the first film they explicitly mention that the disease ad spread to France, which actually fucks the ending slightly - although obviously the initial outbreak may have been contained and its only the second time that it gets out of control - perhaps - if the film makers had thought about that.<BR/><BR/>anyway i still think it was a good film.Jim Jeppshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17410387006098326671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-64087909105578012692007-05-21T23:50:00.000+00:002007-05-21T23:50:00.000+00:00Jim's comments have just so little to do with the ...Jim's comments have just so little to do with the actual content of the film or the point of the genre: which is really the absence of happy endings and the glorious prevalence of human stupidity. The refugee camps were definitely signalled as being abroad. The resonance is so strongly about Iraq, it can't be ignored. Trouble with that is that then the infected becone something like the resistance and we've got mto draw back from that! The general dismisses the medic who says they've got to save the mother as she might provide a cure. The medic says they've got to save the children and the heroic individualised soldiers do that and the result is the unintended consequence of spreading the disease. But the disease was always going to spread. I seem to remember a piece of revisioning from 28 Days Later: this time they say the disease doesn't cross species barriers, but I'm sure the dad in the first film got it off a bird. In which case it was already in Europe!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-83840380365226446632007-05-21T21:45:00.000+00:002007-05-21T21:45:00.000+00:00Hold on ed... no matter how sympathetic to the sol...Hold on ed... no matter how sympathetic to the soldiers who disobeyed orders we might be they are definately the villains of the peice because if it wasn't for their actions then the virus would not have spread (probably).<BR/><BR/>Also most of those in the green zone were rounded up from the surrounding area no? They were at the very beginning of repatriation stage I thought (?) - i agree this was a mistake (policy wise) although quite possibly in that situation people may have wanted to go back home and get out of the "refugee camps" that were mentioned in passing.<BR/><BR/>If we are "meant" to sympathise with the two soldiers it's a film maker's trick - to turn our expectations on their heads and possibly think about what the real moral decision would have been.<BR/><BR/>I agree that one important layer of the horror is what is happening to the innocents, although due to much of the perspective being from the soldiers eye view I tended to find more horror in the fact they were being *ordered to kill* innocents. i certainly didn't think they were bastards... why do you think we were meant to think that? Perhaps I missed something.Jim Jeppshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17410387006098326671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-81723868344134898212007-05-21T20:27:00.000+00:002007-05-21T20:27:00.000+00:00The other option, Jim, might have been not to 'rep...The other option, Jim, might have been not to 'repatriate' the Remaining British population so bloody soon after the outbreak of the worst epidemic in history.<BR/><BR/>I really don't think that the underlying message of the film (if we can talk about a message to it - it's probably right that there's no one right way to interpret it) is that the military should have wiped out the whole damn lot of them. We are clearly meant to sympathise with the two 'heroic' US soldiers who help the kids. Isn't one very important layer of horror in the film concerned with the fact that there is no escape for those poor blighters that were herded into that warehouse? Those that didn't get bitten were shot down or burned to death with napalm and flame throwers. Aren't we supposed to sympathise with them and think 'you utter bastards' when the soldiers start mowing everyone down?<BR/><BR/>Agreed though, those irresponsible little monkeys were largely to blame for the mayhem that ensued after their sneaking out from the compound. They never seemed to show any remorse either.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11986710256832859804noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-43753468933310581022007-05-21T13:48:00.000+00:002007-05-21T13:48:00.000+00:00Hmmm, I don't agree. Of course there are easy para...Hmmm, I don't agree. Of course there are easy parallels to draw with Iraq - but what those parallels mean is the knotty bit, particularly as many of us are minded to assume that any mention of Iraq, particularly in cultural forms like film is prefixed with a silent "the distaster that is" - but it's not necessarily the case.<BR/><BR/>It's a double sided humanitarian occupation - they attempt to create a safe zone to protect those within from further infection but it also serves as a quarenteen where they quite properly monitor the occupantions for possible signs of infection for this unknown contagion.<BR/><BR/>Once it breaks out they have no choice but to kill them all. No choice at all, because they have learned that infection can break out even in supposed uninfected areas.<BR/><BR/>Therer are moments of incompetances of course. Like herding everyone together allowing one lone infected person to infect *everyone*, that was clearly idiocy on their part. But other areas of incompetance were refusing to kill those who could be carrying the plague and of course the most liberal humanitarian act of all "saving" those bloody children, which ultimately means sacrificing everyone else's children.<BR/><BR/>I don't know what polysemic might mean but I do think this is a film that allows for moral problems to be seen in more than a black and white manner. However, if we take Bentham as a guide (perhaps we shouldn't) with his greatest possible good for the greatest possible number then the US army were just not tigger happy enough and there presence as a potential lethal occupier was the correct thing to do.<BR/><BR/>If you were in charge of the US at the time would you not have three options<BR/><BR/>i) nuke em, wipe it out totally<BR/>ii) try to find a cure and hope you do it before the infection has killed millions upon millions, which it clearly would<BR/>iii) contain the infection whilst looking for a cure. If the infection could not contained then its necessary to wipe out the carriers.<BR/><BR/>iii is the most benign option and it is the one we see the US army carrying out. It is for a well intentioned occupation that has to commit murder, even of innocents, for the greater good.<BR/><BR/>I do agree that children should behave though and all children should be forced to see this film to see just what the consequences of not obeying your elders and betters could be. The end of civilisation as we know it!Jim Jeppshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17410387006098326671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-42869196231859257112007-05-20T22:19:00.000+00:002007-05-20T22:19:00.000+00:00I think you get 28 Weeks Later badly wrong. Put it...I think you get 28 Weeks Later badly wrong. Put it this way: the American Army are engaged in a 'humanitarian occupation', sheltering in a supposedly safe 'green zone', and when they lose control of the situation they attempt to kill everyone, infected or healthy. The echoes of the Iraqi occupation are obvious. The film doesn't sympathize with the US military command, but does find room for some sympathy with soldiers taking an individual line, but they are doomed. It's just not 'pro-war' (unless you are willing to agree that the polysemic nature of film makes multiple interpretations inevitable).<BR/><BR/>For myself I'm tempted to just blame the children: 'It's all your fault' I wanted to shout. 'Couldn't you just do what you were told'.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com