The opening scenes are supposed to be showing how adults are often the *enemy* to children: by starting wars, torture, starvation. And that the children are now getting their revenge. I heard this on the film's commentary.
The director says he just wished he had put it at the END of the film, so viewers could maybe understand the film better.
But even with the 'revenge' idea, it doesn't explain WHO or what made the children go beserk/evil and kill the adults. In the commentary, its mentioned that the book (written after the screenplay was written, I believe) says that 'a yellow powder fell over a village before all this happened.' But the director (?) didn't seem to like this idea.
But if we consider the yellow powder version, who or what dropped the powder on the village?! The government? Aliens? Nazis?
It seemed unlikely that human adults would have done it, after all, who wants a huge horde of killer children running amok? But then, humans were never too bright with their experiments were they?
One curious thing was that the children were able to 'recruit' more children seemingly by staring at them, and by touching the woman's pregnant stomach...implying something supernatural or extraterrestrial was at work there.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush."
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moviesnob1138
14 years ago
I also think that using the war footage as an opening is a choice that's way outside the norm. That was actual war footage of real events, which, even if the movie does come off at some points as slightly low-budgeted or even cheesy at times, really sets the tone for the viewer to understand why these powerless children should rise up like a military force and essentially begin a revolution on this island. Using that footage sets a completely serious feeling on the viewer that the story they're about to hear is trying to make a point. Without the opening sequence, I think this comes off much more as a low-budget B-movie style of a film that could easily be lost in the shuffle with mainstream horror films of a similar (kids killing adults was also pretty original at the time) genre. I absolutely loved this film, but I really strongly believe that the opening provides justification for the characters which you can at least identify with. It's an incredibly unique and overwhelmingly bold way to open a horror film. I don't think I've seen anyone even attempt to open a film in a similar way.
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