this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
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I've given pretty detailed explanations of why the things you've brought up don't seem unrealistic to me.
We just seem to have radically different interpretations of what we saw on the screen. You seem to be very confident about what you think the filmmakers intended and how most audiences will interpret specific scenes, which I dispute. To my mind Erik's main purpose was for world building, to contrast the way the UK had regressed to an older type of civilisation while the rest of the world moved on. Erik's character is petulant and kind of obnoxious and Spike never really takes to him, I don't see him as a familial figure to Spike at all. If anything he presents another type of authority figure that Spike rejects and stands up to, in the scene with the child.
This is probably in line with a lot of the people I've talked to who had issues with the film, it didn't fit into their expectation or categorisation. I don't know why this is a negative for some people but each to their own. Danny Boyle has basically built his career on subverting categorisation and challenging stylistic norms.
I find this kind of a baffling statement. Her character is defined by her illness, and it defines the relationships of the whole family to each other. Right from her introductory scene she is her illness, she is no longer in control of herself. Spike travels onto the mainland because of her illness. During her travel she is continually regressing into a childlike mental state, because of her illness, inverting the parental role with Spike. This is central to Spike's character arc, imo, rejecting the expectations and traditions of his society and choosing his own path, taking over the parental role from his mother and eventually taking complete ownership of his own life after she is gone.
And of course her death is central and necessary for the most overt theme in the whole film, the fleeting preciousness of life, whatever shape it takes.
When the zombies burst into the room with the kids at the start, there is a very specific shot of blood splattering across the TV screen. To me that was a very intentional message that those kids are dead. There's definitely something going on with the blonde hair, but it seems to somehow be tied into the fact that they're all dressed very similarly to the celebrity and child molester Jimmy Saville, who had the exact hair that Jimmy's group all have. I don't know what's going on there but I don't think they're the same kids. I guess I could be wrong about this, all the kids at the start being blonde is certainly a bit confusing in the context. But if I am I'll wait and see what the explanation is before I decide whether its believable or not.
He can't have different strength darts? Is that unrealistic? This seems like the key difference between how we've viewed the film. For me this is a minor detail that serves the greater plot, and can easily be explained without jarringly breaking suspension of disbelief, even though it isn't specifically explained. It didn't stand out to me at all. But if that detail jumps out at you and interrupts what the scene is trying to do, I guess that undermines the film for you.
I think Erik's purpose as world-building would be redundant. It was already achieved by Spike's dad pointing out the quarantine patrol. He could have served a world-building purpose if he helped explain why Britain alone is the quarantine zone and not France where 28 Weeks Later clearly depicts the virus spreading, but he doesn't.
I'm not opposed to tonal departures from previous films in a series, but when it plainly contrives justification to jump between genres mid-movie, to me this screams artistic compromise for the aim of broadening audience appeal. Especially combined with the technical choices like the 30-iPhone camera rigs, it feels less like they were trying to reframe the series and more like they were taking the piss, blinded by hubris, motivated by a payday, etc.
I'm referring to the large parts of the movie where she clearly is. She alone has the presence of mind and body to endure danger to save baby Isla, to save Spike while he's sleeping. The way the movie depicts her, when they wake up and she has apparently forgotten what she'd done it's almost as though she's hiding the truth to mentally shield Spike. Following her diagnosis she even explains her previously unspoken awareness of her own confusion. She isn't continually regressing; she's intermittently regressing. She is more helpless at the start of the movie than at the point of her death.
I hadn't considered they were a depiction of Jimmy Saville, I think you're right. It would add to the backstory of the kids, given they are depicted as related yet socially distant from eachother. I'd imagine they were in a cult, probably half-siblings with Jimmy with the same crazy Catholic-molester-cult leader father, his bloodline carrying the mutation that makes them subservient to Jimmy, and his character which Jimmy emulates. The shot of the TV you're talking about is likely a red herring, not because of this theory of mine but because there's simply no reason for the group of kids to exist as they are depicted. It's almost certain that whole scene's purpose was to set up the next movie.
Certainly he can. Again, I agree with you that suspension of disbelief is fine and normal in movies. The point at which it becomes bad is when a significant part of the narrative arc of a movie heavily depends on that suspension of disbelief. It is fine to assume that Ralph Fiennes' character has devised some way of surviving on the mainland because he is already built up as an expert survivalist, so the specific methods he used don't require extensive explanation. His medical expertise means it's even fine that he's somehow found a way to either synthesize morphine himself, or scavenge it. No critical part of the narrative arc of the movie relies on these facts. However Spike and his mother's acceptance of her death and the method of her death all hinges on that Ralph's morphine darts, the purpose of which is to temporarily sedate Alphas, are actually pre-prepared for mild sedation of a child, euthanisation of a human, and presumably a range of other purposes. Can you see how that would need some sort of surface-level explanation to be believable, or do you really think it's ok that we are just to presume that he's a master of adjusting bootleg morphine blowdart dosages on the fly? Perhaps if that were the only case where such a leap of faith is required by the audience to make sense of the plot, it wouldn't bother me.