28 Movies Later
The other part of the conversation I had with my friend (and bear in mind we are absolute film geeks) was about how the recent UK film “28 Days Later” bore more than a passing resemblance to Day of the Triffids and several other films. I’ve always claimed that you could take pieces from other films, put them together and you’d have this film more or less in it’s entireity. Let’s take a look:
- Opening scene in Animal Labs: 12 Monkeys (stretching it a little perhaps)
- Jim waking up in an empty hospital: Day of the Triffids
- Jim wondering the streets of an empty city: The Omega Man
- Raiding the supermarket: Dawn of the Dead
- Escaping the city in the taxi: Escape from New York
- The Road Trip: Blade Runner (escaping to better things)
- Road block: Mad Max
- City on fire: Independence Day (clutching at straws on this one)
- Chained up Zombie, Slightly loony army commander: Day of the Dead
- Taking Jim out to the forest to shoot him: Miller’s Crossing (even though that’s gangsters and not zombies
- Fight in the Stately home: Resident Evil (the game, not the film)
- Escape to new life: Day of the Triffids again
The saving grace is that Alex Garland prefaced his screenplay with an acknowledgement that although it was an ‘original’ screenplay, lots of ideas were lifted from elsewhere. The hero, Jim, for example is named after J.G.Ballard who wrote several science fiction novels as well as more straightforward fiction. Serena, the heroine if you like, is explicitly stated as being black as a homage to George Romero’s Dead trilogy where the lead characters are all black.
Of course, while I enjoy the film a lot (particularly the opening scenes of the empty streets of London) none of these references help in making it scary. Let’s face it, Shaun of the Dead is a scarier film than 28 Days Later. (Anyone else notice the subtle dig at 28 Days Later at the end of Shaun of the Dead by the way? If not, listen carefully to the news broadcasts. Only one other person and myself “got it” when we saw it in the cinema. Or perhaps we were the only ones to laugh?)
Does it matter? Couldn’t you do this with an awful lot of films? Just because it has been done before doesn’t mean it can’t be original.
Comment by BF — March 27, 2005 @ 11:48 am
No, doesn’t matter at all. Garland admitted he felt it was a tad dishonest to say it was an “original” screenplay even though it is. The original idea I had was to actually remake ‘28 Days Later’ using nothing but clips from other films purely as an exercise in editing. I’m sure we could find plenty of other films that we could do the same with.
Comment by T. — March 28, 2005 @ 2:27 pm
That sounds like an interesting idea from that point of view. Did you enjoy 28 Days Later and what did you make of Ecclestone in Dr Who?
Comment by BF — March 29, 2005 @ 8:28 am