Do you think that it was justified for Barbara to shoot Cooper at the end of the movie?
I am the Walrus - Goo Goo Ga'joob
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In a world where dead people are coming back and killing/eating people, I doubt what's legal would really matter.
shareYea it would not matter anyway if they have to burn the bodies.
shareI'd think that under those circumstances, the law would matter more than ever...to prevent total chaos.
I am the Walrus - Goo Goo Ga'joob
I think he deserved it. He was an evil, nasty man who treated everyone around him like garbage. I feel sorry for Helen and Sarah for having to live with that on a daily basis. I wish Barbara would've shot him sooner to be honest.
Come, fly the teeth of the wind. Share my wings.
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Poor man? Cold blood? Have you done a swan dive through the looking glass? Harry didn't care about anybody else being killed so long as he saved his own cowardly my-way-or-the-highway ass.
shareDoesn't matter how much of a prick Cooper was, what Barbara did was murder. Tom Savini made a mistake ending the movie this way. Our hero is no longer heroic, she's actually worse than Cooper now. Logic and rationale separates us from the animal kingdom. This is why we should all (generally) find better solutions to problems without using violence. If we all went around shooting anyone who made us angry, there would be no people left on earth.
"I fulfilled a lot of people's predictions about me. I've become a real scumbag."
Danny Vermin
If we all went around shooting anyone who made us angry
But my point is, as an audience, we're supposed to hate Cooper. He's cowardly, he's selfish, he's a liar, etc. But he's not a murderer. But Barbara is... which makes our hero worse than our villain. That's just bad filmmaking.
"I fulfilled a lot of people's predictions about me. I've become a real scumbag."
Danny Vermin
He's not a murderer technically only because he doesn't actually pull the trigger, but his actions and lack thereof contributed to the others' deaths, and that is worse than what Barbara did.
share"but his actions and lack thereof contributed to the others' deaths, and that is worse than what Barbara did."
But nobody died because of Cooper. How did any of his actions lead to anyone's death? Cooper was just a cowardly prick, that's all. But regardless of that, my problem with the movie isn't Cooper. He's the villain, so he's SUPPOSED to do bad things. My problem was the way they wrote Barbara into a murderer. She's supposed to be better than that, that's all I'm saying.
"I fulfilled a lot of people's predictions about me. I've become a real scumbag."
Danny Vermin
Actually, Cooper killed Ben. He shot him multiple times with the rifle - Ben shot Cooper several times in response. Neither die immediately from their wounds. Instead Cooper retreats to the attic and Ben to the Basement. During the night, Ben dies from his gunshot wounds, which is why he is a zombie when they enter the farm house the next morning.
That being said, I agree with that it was a mistake to have Barbara kill Cooper so brazenly. To simply say "he had it coming" doesn't do it for me. Had it happened in the middle of the shootout, when Cooper had a gun and was shooting back, it would have been understandable, but pretty much every legal and moral system in the world condemns killing an unarmed and wounded individual out of revenge. It was really out of character for Barbara, IMHO.
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"Uhm, no. It's an ending you don't like, but it's not bad film making. I glad she shot him."
You may be glad she shot him, and that's fine. Lots of people have no problem with murder. That still doesn't make what she did right.
And if you make your hero worse than your villain, then yes, that's bad film making.
And if you make your hero worse than your villain, then yes, that's bad film making.
But my point is, as an audience, we're supposed to hate Cooper. He's cowardly, he's selfish, he's a liar, etc. But he's not a murderer. But Barbara is... which makes our hero worse than our villain. That's just bad filmmaking.
That's an interesting point. But I wonder if that's what Savini was going for. Because with zombie movies, I've always felt that the zombies were never the villains, they were more like victims. The villains of zombie movies were the survivors who slowly lose morale and become less rational and eventually violent. With this movie, I thought that's what Cooper represented. By having Barbara snap in the final moments of the movie, it seems to invalidate everything we've seen thus far in the movie, making the whole film experience pointless. That's why I called it bad filmmaking, but I do see where you're coming from.
shareI didn't realize averting murder makes one "perfect" otherwise...
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It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing î‚•.
I don't think so. He was unarmed and wounded - Barbara killed him in cold blood.
Also, as far as Cooper being the "bad guy," I disagree. That is the "easy" reading of the movie, but I don't think Ben is that much better than Cooper.
Ben is generally more likable than Cooper. However, he, like Cooper, insists on being in charge. He is the one who tells Cooper that if he goes to the basement he has to stay there, and that "you're boss down there, I'm boss up here."
Cooper refuses to help with boarding up the house. On the other hand, Ben's idea (to board up the house) causes an incredible amount of commotion, which attracts more and more of the zombies.
Then we have the TV fiasco - I imagine most viewers believe Cooper is taking the TV down to the cellar to "hoard" it, but his claims that he was just bringing it downstairs and that there is no reception in the cellar are perfectly reasonable. If he is telling the truth, then Ben is just as responsible for breaking it as he is the one who starts the struggle with Cooper.
Of course, Cooper shoots and mortally wounds Ben, but that is only in a misguided attempt to save his daughter, who has turned into a zombie.
I'm not saying Cooper is a good guy - he's a total jerk. However, Ben has a lot of responsibility for what happens to them too, and he played a major part in creating the tensions in the house by immediately meeting Cooper's aggression with more aggression. There was never any attempt by EITHER Cooper or Ben to work together.
I think this is the point we're supposed to get - had Cooper and Ben worked together even grudgingly, they could have easily escaped. After all, as Ben discovers in the end, once he is already mortally wounded, the house overrun and the gas pump in flames, the key for the gas pump was in plain sight in the basement, clearly marked "GAS PUMP." Had the two men not created such a hostile environment, they could have easily found the key, fueled the truck and then made it to the redneck stronghold that Barbara reaches in the end.
Of course, Barbara is the only one who has a good solution. She pointed out that the zombies are so slow that you can just walk past them. Had they simply left and looked for other survivor strongholds, rather then holing themselves up in the house and letting the zombies build up to a sizable mob, they could have easily all survived.
All of that to say that Cooper cannot simply be called "the bad guy" and his cold-blooded murder excused. I think it was a mistake to have Barbara murder him in such a way - it takes away from her standing as the rational and "good" protagonist.
No. But i would have done the same thing Barbara did
shareCall him whatever you like but if they would have listend to Cooper to start with then they would all be alive. Granted they would of had to deal with the daughter but I'm sure all the adults could have restrained her. But this is a fact the basement was secure and Ben got them all killed. I never saw why they thought he was hero. He caused everyone to die in the original...But justified, Not at all.
shareThere's still the matter of if zombies can turn over a car, or break down the boarded up doors, then they could also bust down a basement door, it never made any sense that they just passed it by.
shareI think that maybe the ending signifies the same as the ending of the original film. Everyone is dead. Barbara kills Cooper, and Barbara is now dead inside because of all that has happened.
I am the Walrus - Goo Goo Ga'joob
[deleted]
Glad she shot him and that nobody else in the film cares.
just sitting on the dock of the bay..
Thank you, namaste, and good luck
Absolutely.
Y'know, I could eat a peach for hours
Hell yeah. The only good thing she did the whole movie.
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