The Wikipedia link I mentioned earlier delves into making of an alternate ending for "Dawn." In the original plan, Romero had Peter shoot himself at the end after all, and Fran was to thrust her head into the moving helicopter blades. (The special effects crew was probably pretty psyched for that).
Like most movie viewers, I preferred the ending Romero chose in which Fran and Peter get away, but because I saw "Dawn" before "Night," I didn't understand one of the basic concepts about the zombies. I thought that you didn't become a zombie unless they infected you. But as "Night" tells it, if you die of any cause in this new era, you become a zombie, unless it's a fatal head wound. By that logic, Fran, Peter and the other survivors will eventually have to choose suicide or become one of the undead. (Barring a "fortuitous," fatal head injury.)
That made me rethink Romero's ending -- maybe he shouldn't have chosen the "happy" version.
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4 comments:
I like it when films avoid the "Hollywood ending," so I would have preferred the alternate ending. It also would have gotten rid of one of the silliest scenes in the film, where Peter swashbuckles his way through the crowd of zombies receiving nary a scratch whilst the orchestra swells in heroic triumph.
I'm not sure. I like the idea of the suicides at the end, but I think it might have just been too damn depressing. And the movie -- despite all the death and violence and hopelessness -- had a lightness to it that a suicide ending would have squelched.
If they had to end on a lighter note, I wish they would have found a way to do it without the silly swashbuckling!
The movie IS silly, though, from beginning to end. I mean, I think it was conceived of as sort of light and fun and campy, and it was certainly rife with social satire, as are many movies in this genre. I think it maintained a consistency of tone.
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