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Erting's Replies
Emma never actually showed up, hence she didn't die. Her death was just another hallucination. If you notice, not counting Jane Doe, they only take out two body bags at the end (for Austin and his father). If you watch Austin's final scenes carefully, his shirt is covered in Emma's blood right up until he falls. As soon as he's dead, his shirt is completely dry, showing that none of the blood was real because Emma was never really there.
For what it's worth, I tried re-watching season 1 and my thoughts haven't changed. It's still the weakest season easily. My ranking of the seasons would be 4, 3, 5, 2, 1. The ending of Season 2 episode Godspeed is what got me hooked on the series, and the immediate following episode Home is one of the most intense episodes of sci-fi tv I've ever seen.
I actually thought this was more similar to South Korea's Exit. Both films take place in big cites with the gas rising higher and higher and the characters having to use rooftops to travel. The style, tone, and approach of both films differs greatly, however, with Just a Breath Away aiming for a more apocalyptic sci-fi mystery take while Exit was a thrilling action/adventure packed with comedy and romance. I enjoyed both films, but thought Exit was easily superior.
I definitely see the similarities. I do think Breakdown is the superior film, but Dying Room Only is an excellent thriller in its own right.
I admit I'm not that well versed in made-for-TV horror thrillers, but Dying Room Only is definitely among the best, it's a very taut and suspenseful thriller. It's still not as good as Duel, which is clearly the best.
Dying Room Only (1973)
Road Games (1981)
Night Terror (1977)
I'm getting really tired of Quinn being shoved front and center in the DCEU. While I liked The Suicide Squad, if there's a bright spot to the film being a big box office flop, it's that this and the box office disappointment of Birds of Prey will likely spell the end of Quinn as a lead character, at least as played by Robbie. Her "romance" subplot with the president of Corto Maltese really halted the film dead in its tracks, especially when the first 40 minutes before that had been an absolute blast up to that point.
I do believe that Dawn of the Dead (the original) does an excellent job of presenting the decay of society. This is well-captured in both the opening half-hour before they get to the mall and the passage of time while they're at the mall and the biker lootings at the end.
In regard to your comment about nihilistically dreadful, I can see that to an extent for Dawn (the original) but I actually felt that applied much more so for Day of the Dead. That was really one of the things that I liked best about Day, which I felt was the most thought-provoking of Romero's films. It truly felt like a hopeless zombie apocalypse from which there was virtually no escape or return to normalcy. The conversations in that film between John and Sarah were really some of my favorite moments, when they reflected on the long distant past and what hope they have for the future.
That last half-hour of Day cranks up a level of dread and intensity that has rarely been seen in any film, period! The nihilism in Day is so strong that I even felt somewhat sorry for the zombies in the bunker at the end since they're going to be stuck down there forever! (Unless Bub figures out there's a ladder way in the caves and learns how to climb a ladder and teaches the rest how to do so, but that's a stretch).
I'm a fan of the original and I love Day of the Dead as well. They're also among my favorite zombie films. But in the end, I still do prefer Snyder's remake for a few reasons. The original film had one lead character that I loved (Ken Foree's Peter) and three others that I didn't really care for, where as the remake gave me at least four great characters (Ana, Michael, Kenneth, and C.J.). I really think the characterizations in the remake were extremely underrated. The fact that Snyder got me to care and sympathize for Andy, a character who we don't hear a single line of dialogue from until over 80 minutes into the film, is a fairly amazing accomplishment.
The zombies in the remake were just far more intimidating and frightening. It's not just the speed, but a combination of their relentlessness and the terrific zombie make-up. One of the issues I had with the zombies in the the original Dawn of the Dead was that they were a bit too easy to wipe out, which kind of lessened the intensity of the film. I'm not asking for running zombies, either, as I thought the zombies in Day of the Dead were more frightening and intimidating as well.
I'm in agreement. This is a rare film that can be called a breathless thrill ride from beginning to end. Even amidst the rollercoaster pace, we get great characters and dialogue (Ana, Michael, Kenneth, and C.J. are some of my favorite horror protagonists ever) and so many memorable setpieces and visuals. This film has a white-knuckle intensity that no other zombie film has been able to match.
I saw it on Friday night at my local Cinemark theater, but it's still playing in theaters. As far as I know, it'll still be in theaters up through May 20.
I've seen the movie. It's not set in the same universe as Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, and I didn't notice any references to that film, either.
I've already seen Army of the Dead in theaters. It is a terrifically fun and exciting movie that I highly recommend if you're a fan of Zack Snyder or the zombie genre. It's got a lot of great action and tension, excellent gore and make-up effects, an overall excellent cast, and great deal of really fascinating world-building. I thought the zombie civilization was one of the film's most intriguing plot elements. But they still have the mindless zombies in addition to the smart ones, so I thought the film delivered the best of both worlds in that regard.
I saw in the cast list that Richard Cetrone plays the zombie king Zeus in this film, and I thought he did a terrific job, one of the most memorable horror villains in a long time. I was wondering why his name looked so familiar and saw that he played the lead Martian ghost (or whatever they were) in Ghosts of Mars and thought he was terrible in that film. He really redeemed himself here!
I did have a few issues. The father-daughter bond between Dave Bautista and Ella Purnell just didn't fully work for me. I thought Bautista was excellent in the film, but Purnell was the weak link of the cast. Snyder also introduces a new kind of zombie in one of the last battle scenes that was a bit of a WTF moment for me. It's so brief and not given any explanation that I think it should have been cut out or reserved for the inevitable sequel. The final scenes were entertaining, but definitely stretched my suspension of disbelief. I'm also uncertain as to what happened to one particular character, whose fate appeared to occur off screen.
As far as how this compares to Snyder's Dawn of the Dead? To me, the DOTD remake actually my favorite zombie film so Army of the Dead is not quite as good, but it's still fairly close and does now rank among my favorite zombie films (off the top of my head, it's somewhere in my top 10). I definitely can't wait to re-watch it again on Netflix. It's an 8.5 out of 10 for me.
I've seen the film several times now, and I really thought Snyder portrayed Superman perfectly. I really didn't see any brooding in the film, and he actually smiled a lot in this version (during his reunion scene with Lois and Martha, his meeting with Alfred, and when he lifts Bruce up after the battle). I thought his scenes with Lois were beautiful and tender, and the gentle way he played with the butterfly and even the way he lifted up Bruce to stand by him side-to-side and the gentle head nod he gave him after the battle were more symbolic and telling of his heroic and good-hearted personality than any Whedon one-liner could hope to achieve.
You should check out Naked Fear. It's about a completely nude woman being chased in the woods by a psycho. There is literally a 20-minute long chase scene where the lead actress doesn't have on a single stitch of clothing and the camera does nothing to obscure that fact.
Snyder has publicly stated that he's never seen the Whedon version, so how can he make "corrections" to a cut of a film he's never seen? For him, this was about completing his original vision of the film. Even things like Steppenwolf's design were not "corrected," but restored to what Snyder's original vision was. The fact that the exact same Steppenwolf design was at the end of the Ultimate Edition of Batman v Superman is proof of that. Most importantly, everything about Snyder's version of the film looks, feels, and sounds entirely like his vision.
This is because now that everyone has seen both films and now knows what choices Whedon made compared to Snyder, the vast, vast majority agree that nearly every choice Whedon made resulted in a worse film. I say this as someone who actually got some enjoyment out of the Whedon version when it first came out in theaters. Here is a simple but crucial scene that is a microcosm of Whedon's poor decision-making: the cornfield scene between Lois and Clark in which Clark regains his memory. This scene had already been fully shot by Snyder and was a beautiful, tender moment that needed no messing around with. For some reason, Whedon decided to reshoot the whole scene, with much weaker dialogue and the awful CGI removal of Cavill's mustache. The latter alone should have tipped Whedon off that he should have just stuck to what Snyder already shot, but that he went through with it anyway is astounding.
I think Watchmen is great, but I've never considered it his best. For most of the last several years, I've gone back and forth between Dawn of the Dead and Man of Steel as his best. And now I've got to throw in Zack Snyder's Justice League into the mix. Right now, I've got Man of Steel as his best, with ZSJL second, DOTD third, and Watchmen fourth.