DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978)

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"Of course you can exchange."

Discussing both the 1978 and 2004 films. Just to warn you.

George A. Romero's 1978 film "Dawn of the Dead" is widely considered to be not only a feat of makeup and special effects, but also a celluloid commentary on social issues of the time. In 2004 the film was remade by first-time director Zack Snyder, however, it bore little resemblance to its inspirational predecessor. Snyder's vision of the film was not only different from a cinematic standpoint, but from a narrative one as well.

The films are separated by a gap of 26 years, so naturally there are technical advancements in the remade film that were not within the scope of possibility when the original was made, yet the differences are so much broader than that. While the Hollywood remake was obviously produced with large box office receipts in mind, Romero's 1978 version was more of an auteur's journey into the evolution of an event that he had introduced to popular culture 10 years earlier. While the films share a common title, that is the only thread that binds them loosely together.

The most glaring differences between the films are in the narrative aspects. While Romero tackles numerous social issues in the original "Dawn of the Dead", Snyder concentrated on making a knockdown, drag-out horror film that would be more palatable to casual moviegoers. While genre fans tend to over-analyze Romero's film, Snyder's is almost never referenced as anything other than a run-of-the-mill Hollywood cash-in. While this may or may not have been the original intent for Snyder's film, it does appear to be the final picture that is painted on the canvas. Romero's film discusses issues that range from consumerism to theology, and even subconsciously addresses racial issues that had been introduced in Romero's previous genre film, "Night of the Living Dead". While there may be some minor addressing of social concepts in Snyder's version of "Dawn of the Dead", they are incidental pieces to a larger puzzle that remains focused on flashy visuals and Hollywood theatrics.

While the narrative themes are drastically different, they are not the only aspects of the films that are immediately distinct to the viewer. The plot and dialogue used in both films are also unique, in comparison to each other, so much so that viewers might be prompted to question whether or not Snyder's interpretation was even inspired by Romero's source material at all. Barring the brief cameos from Ken Foree, Tom Savini, and Scott Reiniger, it is easy to forget that Snyder's film is in fact taken from another movie. Foree delivers, once again, the most famous line from the original film, "when there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth", but all other dialogue from the original screenplay seems to have been left by the wayside. The plot in the remade film is non-existent, and is really just an afterthought to the action. Romero used situations to further develop the ideas that he had seeded in his earlier film, but Snyder's vision of "Dawn of the Dead" foregoes any plot development because the film is a standalone piece, as opposed to Romero's series of films based on the zombie concept.

Even the setting itself is supplanted by Snyder to fit his own personal background. Where Romero is a native of Pittsburgh, and sets all of his films there, Snyder is a native of Madison, Wisconsin, and his version takes place closer to his hometown, just a few hundred miles away in Milwaukee. This does not necessarily change the innate qualities of the film, but it is another noticeable deviation from the original movie.

Visually the films are radically different, but this is due solely to the 26-year gap in between the times in which they were made. The MTV-esque visual style of the new film is a far cry from the original's conservative medium shot and long lens feel. While neither one of these techniques is technically wrong per se, the feel of Snyder's movie is much more akin to an action picture than it is to Romero's horror film style. The makeup effects used in the films might be the only visual similarity, maybe the only similarity at all, between the two of them. Although the technology available today via computers would have allowed makeup director David LeRoy Anderson and his team to digitally animate the zombies in the new film, they admirably chose to go the old fashioned route. Much like Tom Savini's zombies in the original "Dawn of the Dead", Anderson's ghouls are a worthwhile labor of love for makeup aficionados who flock to these types of films.

Since the films are so different in nearly every regard, largely due to the span of time between the two, it is almost unfair to directly compare them. George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" was a storytelling masterpiece of the genre, and has been viewed as such for the past 31 years. Zack Snyder's remade exegesis was nothing more than a broken down vehicle, commissioned by Universal, to cash in on an already established property. Both films have their merits, and certainly the directors and crews of both pictures worked hard to bring the best product possible to the screen, but the limitations of working within a studio environment are apparent in Snyder's version. It's possible that Snyder's intentions were commendable from the start, but the constraints of working under someone else's thumb undoubtedly hampered his ability to produce a praiseworthy credit to George Romero's original concept. Rather than liberally "remaking" the original film, 2004's version of "Dawn of the Dead" should have simply been renamed and released as a semi-original movie, thus not alienating the already established fan-base of the original. Both films have individual merits, but they are not traits that they share in common. Cutting ties would certainly have been a benefit to both films, and served to steer clear of unfair critiques heaped on Snyder's vision as an artist.

Upon viewings of these films and numerous other zombie flicks, I have become a paranoid fuck. And with what were doing with science (http://www.cracked.com/article_15643_5-scientific-reasons-zombie-apocalypse-could-actually-happen.html) a zombie apocalypse might happen in the future. So, I have come up with a zombie contingency plan (I have no life whatsoever, I know).

My Zombie Contingency Plan:

Someone had written a zombie contingency plan (http://www.cracked.com/blog/whats-your-zombie-contingency-plan-11-practical-strategies/) and I will be basing my plan on this:

"I am writing this from a fully and completely realistic point of view, I add none of the frivolous magical properties of a ghoul or zombie, and disregard the illogical completely. The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, takes the first part of the book explaining the virus "Solanum," and I am going to work off of that idea, using the same name. It is that concept alone that I am working with; that it is a virus. All other concepts are completely scientifically based and we will explore the possibility that a virus such as Solanum exists in nature and that it has the ability to infect a hosts brain cells (neurons), first by entering the circulatory system via bodily fluid interaction of an infected individual and an uninfected individual, and finally making its way to the neuronal cells and manipulating said cells. I will disregard the communicability of 100 percent used in the book in favor of a more realistic number, 99.4 percent as used in The Stand by Stephen King for a man-made virus (given that that is the most likely scenario for the creation of this virus). Critics may say that this is not a "zombie" contingency plan, and to them I say nay, it depends on your definition of "zombie." Plus, I find the idea of realism much more horrifying than fiction. Fiction you can brush off as being something implausible... The following may be fiction, but it is very plausible."

Soon, I will be moving myself to a beach town in Maine and that place is packed with people in the summer and completely DEAD in the winter. If the virus were to strike in the summer, I'd be dead within 15 minutes. I'll be basing this in the winter:

The town does have a menial population in the winter, but there is a population large enough that could fuck me in the jugular so I would need to get out of town. My parental unit would most likely be dead but I would have to move on (Pretty much rule #1 in Zombie lore). I would take my parental car and just drive off and find myself a gun/outdoors store (not a Wal-Mart because I would be dead within a second). I would load up on a tent, camping stuff, knives, rifles, pistols, shotguns (no machine guns), etc. I would also have to stop at a gas station and fill myself up (and of course get extra) as well as a small (but not too small) grocery store. I would then drive as far west as I could. Hopefully getting to somewhere with no forest. If one were to go to a city, it would either be A) Quarantined, or B) Filled with dead or soon to be dead fucks. In the middle of nowhere, you can see if someones coming at you from about two miles away and I would situate myself in that area. Just keep going.

Sorry to bore you.

In your comments, if you care, I'd like to know your zombie coningency plans. Unless you have a life. It's cool if you do.