MovieChat Forums > Daybreakers (2010) Discussion > So, what exactly was achieved? (Spoiler...

So, what exactly was achieved? (Spoilers aplenty)

posted 14 years ago by IcyShadows
33 replies | jump to latest

So, we know there's a cure. Edward and 'Elvis' are cured vampires. The blood substitute was successfully synthesized.

From what I gathered watching this, was that each time they cured a vampire, their companions descended on them in an orgy of death and blood, and then you generally end up with one living cured vampire. Which, in each scene in the movie, that cured vampire gets killed through conventional means.

So, basically, all the cured vampires besides Edward and Elvis are dead, and there's a working blood substitute.

Essentially, they succeeded in riding off into the sunset, having achieved absolutely nothing, other than Edward foolishly giving up immortality, and sooner or later, he's going to get killed along with Elvis, the only other cured vampire.

There's no real way for them to spread their cure, seeing as there's only two of them, and with a substitute, there's not going to be a frantic attack on them, and they wouldn't want to spread their cure via their own deaths anyway.

I can't really figure out what, if anything, they managed to really DO. Chances are, someone will report at what's found out, or perhaps Chris did in the interim between talking to Edward and later being killed (or even the whole thing was caught on security camera), Edward and Elvis will be marked as "shoot on sight, do not feed on" fugitives, and they'll likely be shot at some point in the near future, and vampire society will proceed as normal.

[–] Stealthsnet 14 years ago

They're still going to run out of blood, so it won't be "vampire society as normal", it will be a planet full of mutated freaks that have no moral code at all, and probably feed off of each other thus eventually dwindling the population down to nothing until the last mutated vampire dies(?)

-
You've darkened the heart of an innocent and now you cower in the face of Alessa's revenge.

[–] thefooligan5 14 years ago

You missed the part about the successfully stable blood substitute that was going into production in a matter of days.

[–] jchazekamp 14 years ago

You're forgetting that everyone else who knows about the Blood Substitue is dead. The head of the company, the soldiers, and the scientist who cracked the formula.

You said that "There's no real way for them to spread their cure, seeing as there's only two of them"

Maybe you missed the part in the movie where Edward explained how the cure works? The blood of a vampire who was 'treated' with sunlight is able to cure other vampires, which means if they draw samples of their blood and synthesize more of it (Edward, being a hematologist could do this) it would be easy to distribute.

Now wether or not people would WANT the cure is another story. Would they use a cure if there was no alternative? Yes. But, many people are probably quite happy with near-immortality, and would choose a blood substitute over a cure. The ending lies in the fact that they killed everyone related to the substitue, which makes their 'cure' the only choice.

[–] hi224 14 years ago

the other dilemma is who is going to help them distribute the blood since who could they trust and will they have enough time to save that many people as well.

[–] bentstrider 14 years ago

Other renegade bands of humans they might run across in other parts of the country maybe.
Perhaps an aerosol delivery method via the luck of running across a human pilot and plane could work out as well.

[–] hi224 14 years ago

thats really good luck indeed.

[–] bentstrider 14 years ago

Considering the brief shots of Vampire US Army helicopters flying around, that idea would fall apart rather quickly.

OTOH, Aerosol Missile Delivery system, sort of like those SCUDS with the chemical agents that went missing in the Iraqi desert.

[–] hi224 14 years ago

its possible but lets hope not everyone is scrweed by the time they show up indeed.

[–] sollidottingen 14 years ago

They could just take some samples of their own blood and toss it in the street marking it with a sticker that says "human blood". Soon you got an army with miracle-blood-humans and those few instances where one would be killed there would be, let's say, 3-4 new miracle-blood-humans.
(remember that vampires outnumber humans 20 to 1 and i don't think just one lonely vampire would feed on every single human they manage to kill)

Based on the shortage of blood i think the scales would tip rather quickly as the miracle-blood-human population would expand exponentially.

The cured ones can also draw some of their own blood and toss it in the streets. *beep* gonna spread faster than herpes yo!

[–] Xumuon 14 years ago

All they would have to do is leave a portion in a clear plastic bag (small) outside each home during the day in a big city... With a note saying it's from the Government - The next time the sun goes down the blood will be drunken, humans will be created amidst the starving population and then more and more - until some kind of critical mass is achieved.

I admit doing it this way will be messy (as the ending showed) but there is a whole apocalyptic vibe about everything that is going on in the world they inhabit, acceptable losses? I think so.

[–] baronvonyiffington 14 years ago

"You're forgetting that everyone else who knows about the Blood Substitue is dead. The head of the company, the soldiers, and the scientist who cracked the formula. "

Before dying, the head of the company said that the synthetic blood was going to be mass produced in two days. That means, chances are, everyone involved with the actual production of the synthetic blood knows about it, as do a large number of employees, other scientists, etc.

Considering they already had produced, bottled portions of the synthetic blood that had to be actually created and bottled by someone, far more people than just those few people know it exists.

I think it's a pretty big plot hole. Great, they cured vampirism, but why would anyone want to be cured if there is a limitless, synthetic blood supply? I'd happly give up my ability to sunbathe and eat regular food for immortality. Just sayin'.

[–] mal karma 14 years ago

Nobody killed the scientists. Just one, Ed's friend, and also the President of the company was killed.

Other than that, you cannot infere that nobody else knew about a working synthetic blood. And why would the soldiers be aware of a cure?

Of course the methods depicted on the movie are not the most practical, but it was'nt Ed or Elvis' idea to have a cured vampire be killed buy a vapire who will be killed when cured and so on. But it's a start, it's only a mather of time until someone will find a bunch of slained humans dressed as soldiers. People aren't that dumb.

"That was a courtesy flush. I'm not actually done yet"

[–] iand247 14 years ago

It was a stupid, easy to film ending. They should've not killed the cured soldiers and showed a montage of the continued chain reaction of feeding, curing, and then more feeding, until a large portion of the vampire population is cured, thus giving the message that they've succeeded, and then they could've had the stupid riding-off-into-the-sunset ending they so damn wanted.

Babe 2: Pig in the City is by far the best talking pig movie of the last three hundred years.

[–] evert_chin 12 years ago

it was already too late for them to save the world. the blood supply was already deprived. Means that the cure has been found, those cured will quickly became food for other starving vamps. The starving vamps can't seems to control themselves much. Unless it is done in highly controlled environment.

[–] atogcheese 14 years ago

Everyone who knows about the cure will be dead, moreover, given the shortage, a cured human will be captured soon. Once they are captured, the humans get hooked up to the blood-milker. This means that the individual human's blood will be shipped out around the nation for use in blood coffee, black pudding, etc. People buy their cup of joe and drink it there, or take it home, and the cure acts on them. The military rounds up the new "human refugee", puts human in the blood-milker. By the time anyone traces the cure-causeing blood to its sources, it's all over the place.

[–] hi224 14 years ago

still a sloppy process, though if as shown in the film no one can control the need to eat really.

[–] sollidottingen 14 years ago

basically what i said.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Acrimonious 14 years ago

So what was achieved? Depends on what you would like to believe would have the most probable chance of succeeding. For example, even though they have the synthetic blood, how do they mass produce? It looks like the vampire society in general was collapsing. Can't imagine they have a factory on stand by with workers that can produce and then distribute. The vampire society appeared very laid back, probably because they didn't see any real aging to cause them to be alarmed. So, under the synthetic blood scenario, getting it to the people would be problematic. Some point out all the people that knew about it were dead anyway. Alternately, if you assume they take the cure and spread it some how, you have other problems. Lets pretend they find a way to distribute the cure through aerosol or dart guns. X amount of people become human all of sudden. But given the shortage, the vampires would go after them. The humans would have to reach a point where they have enough humans to stave off the vampires. Even a thousand humans can't fight off a world full of vampires. And then there is the problem of food. Vampires don't eat food, so McDonald's is out of the question. That means that if you were able to make a whole city somehow human again all at once, what would they eat? What about doctors, which probably didn't exist since no one needed them. Suddenly you would have a population of humans trying to exist in a society with no human food or services available. May seem trivial, but most humans can't farm or hunt for their food. And even if they could, if they indeed turn a large number of humans, what then? It would be chaos. It wouldn't be like voting out one government and replacing it with another. Who would lead?

So, no matter what, all things would be bad. I think they ended the movie the way the did because they boxed the story idea in a way that could not be quickly resolved. The only thing that could be done is to return enough folks to being human and start from scratch. Not so many you have a food or resource problem, but large enough that you have a diverse DNA base. Of course, theres the new vampires they have to fight off.

[–] scarletminded 14 years ago

I agree with atogcheese. All they need to do is take a few of these vampire turned humans into the milker. Either people who are willing to sacrifice themselves or maybe the army would take them prisoner. Either way it would get into the coffee and everything else.

A lot of these people would end up being eaten and then the vampires would change and might be eaten as well, but only those in crowds. Vampires at home drinking coffee or other blood tainted items, might be ok if they locked their doors or if they lived in the middle of nowhere. Either way, the vampires would all eventually be killed off.

[–] nystulc 14 years ago

> So, we know there's a cure.

Two cures, actually. The original treatment, and a new, easier treatment that is also an anti-vampire weapon.

> was that each time they cured a vampire, their companions descended on them
> in an orgy of death and blood

Whereupon all the "companions" become human. Did you miss this part?

> and then you generally end up with one living cured vampire.

Why "generally"? Multiple cured vampires will inevitably be created - and were in fact created in this case. Each human "orgy" victim only results in more humans. The process was halted when the multiple humans created were killed (while disoriented) by conventional (non-feeding) means, by a specific character for a specific reason.

Can you really not see the implication of this? The vampire plague has been reversed. Now humanity has become contagious.

> they succeeded in riding off into the sunset, having achieved absolutely
> nothing

????

> other than Edward foolishly giving up immortality

Ah! I see part of your problem. You cannot grasp the decision to be Mortal.

> There's no real way for them to spread their cure

You are joking, right?

> with a substitute, there's not going to be a frantic attack on them, and
> they wouldn't want to spread their cure via their own deaths anyway.

So your objection negates itself. (Also, you are assuming the blood substitute will be instantly and generally available; assuming it is ever made generally available).

> Edward and Elvis will be marked as "shoot on sight, do not feed on"
> fugitives,

I don't see how anyone knows that Edward and Elvis are the source of the problem. All they know is there has been some weird accident at a blood research facility. Nor will knowing about Edward and Elvis help, if more treated humans are (easily) created before Edward and Elvis are caught.

> and they'll likely be shot at some point in the near future,
> and vampire society will proceed as normal.

Sure. It is POSSIBLE the new human plague will be wiped out and contained before it can spread. The same could have happened to the vampire plague (but did not). But obviously the hopeful ending implies this will not happen. And it does not seem very likely. The vast majority of vampires are so hungry they cannot control themselves, and the blood substitute is not yet generally available, if it ever will be.

Humans will start spreading now; and they will no longer be available as food for vampires. Normal humans can be easily treated by turning them into vampires, then back into humans.

[–] syerov 14 years ago

Not sure what you are confused about. Remember how Edward puts the cured head of the company into the elevator and all those guards eat him? Well those vampires get cured and now new vampires will drink their blood, and thus will get cured, and it will go on like that.

Oh and don't pull the "Edward's lab partner killed all the cured vampires", that will just tell me you didn't pay attention to the movie. There are two groups of cured vampires, the ones that drank the blood of their boss, and the ones that drank Frankie's blood. Those that drank Frankie's blood are all dead, because they got shot. The other ones are still alive.

[–] hi224 14 years ago

heres my issue with your theory, i thought the scene at the conclusion with the soldiers proved, this can't work well because too many will die, everyone will kill eachother.

[–] syerov 14 years ago

I agree that in that particular situation it did not work very well, probably because the cured vampires didn't have enough time to realize they were cured and they had nowhere to run. However, I think once the few cured survivors get out into the world the natural selection would kick in, having the slower survivors getting eaten while the faster ones getting away such that 1 dead human would create more than one cured vampire.

I wonder if those mutated vampires with wings and long ears, would they go back to normal if they were given the blood with the cure?

[–] GloriousGooner 14 years ago

yeah, it was basically a monumental waste of time.

"Really? If you can pee that high, DEFINITELY join the fire brigade."

[–] cartwright33 14 years ago

Seriously?

Blood is oil.

Vampires are captialism.

The substitute is renewable fuel.

The ending says you can have the cure... if you want it. i.e. do you want to fix the real problem, uncontrolled capitalism, or will you just take the substitute oil.

[–] tb-balla 14 years ago

Would i rather drive a electronic car or use substitute oil for my Hummer?

[–] thefooligan5 14 years ago

Well as you said they now have a viable blood substitute yet there is also a cure. There may simply be a fractioning of the society as some people will choose to remain living as a vampire while others will choose to go the route of the cure because they're fed up with having to exist in fear of the sun all the time. From the ending of the movie I actually assumed that Hawke and Dafoe would taint to the new blood substitute with cured blood to disseminate the cure widely and quickly. Yet they didn't do that so it's sort of up in the air as to what will happen. But Hawke and Dafoe can always donate their blood so that there will always be some on hand should something happen to either of them.

[–] silversmith82 14 years ago

No way to distribute the cure? Seriously? Shoot one of those tranq gun cartridges that EVERY soldier had filled with Elvis or Edward's blood into a crowd of starving vamps and whoever it hits is insta human. Then the chain reaction starts and in a big city like NYC or Chicago or wherever this will take care of 2 problems. 1, is it will wipe out a large population that would require conventional feeding and medical care (they were all bastards anyway) and 2 is that in the end there will be tens of thousands of cured miracle human survivors in a city with a population in the millsions. That just goes by sheer numbers.

As for the cure, yeah I agree that if mass production was geared up two days from now, everything was already in place and I would bet that the vampire workers overseeing this production already had a supply of the small scale production substitute so they could come to work ready to go and not screw anything up. You don't put something into mass production and only have a few ppl know about it. The mass production setup would not even be there, it'd be outsourced to some factory location nearby.

So the real problem for the Vampires who will want to remain Vampires is eventually going to be to remain Vampires. You'll have humanity working like HIV so no Vampire would ever risk going after any human since there is going to be a chance of them catching this literally lethal condition where they'll start to age and die. Then you'll have the fanatics who want to get rid of Vampires altogether and it will not take very much for even some yahoo with a dart gun and darts dipped in cured blood to "infect" a Vampire with humanity.

So I would say that Elvis and Edward should probably get themselves to the center of a large Suburb during the day, leave a bucket of their blood sitting right out in the open and then watch the fireworks.