After re watching this movie, I noticed Selena told Jim in the newspaper stand that the last they heard, the infection had spread to France and NY? Was this a lie to get people to stay in place, in an effort to contain the infection? This wasn't mentioned in sequel either.
shareArrgh, there's a discussion about this somewhere on the board, but it does appear to be a bit of a bug, considering it seems from the sequel that it virus was contained to the U.K.
Unless, it did show up in France and NY, but was contained quickly enough. To me, the trick is how it got there, since to get there takes much longer than it takes the virus to take hold.
The problem with this virus is that's it's relatively hard to make an international pandemic out of it. It shows up way too fast, after infection. If it took a week or two after exposure, that's how it could go global in today's fast-moving world.
In fact, the way it crosses the Channel in the sequel is probably the only way it could be spread - by someone who's a carrier who is transported to other countries and it spreads from there. (I've surmised, on the Board for 28 Weeks Later, that it is poor Tammy who gets infected by her l'il brother Andy, causes the helicopter to crash, spreads the bug to France, etc.)
It wasn't a plothole. In the chaos it's likely that there was a lot of speculation about what was happening and at some point a media outlet could have easily communicated some rumor that it had spread to NY. Look at what happened after 9/11...some people to this day don't even know that WTC7 collapsed. The media is hardly reliable.
Anyway, it was necessary for that line to be written to convey the sense of hopelessness. Otherwise you're just waiting for the military planes to show up.
As a screenwriter myself, always thinking about how to franchise my original spec scripts? It was a bug. When you're writing your stories you have to watch out for things that close off your story and make it difficult for the writer of the next installment (who may be yourself).
The other remark that seemed unnecessary, and seems confusing, and was delivered about the same time, was her about the disease spreading from the outlying small towns before it hit London.
I had the impression that the laboratory in the opening scene was in some big town, ie. London.
Confusing.
Great movie, though.
It didn't spread to France or New York that was either media speculation or a way of controlling the population so they didn't all try and leave.
If you noticed later on the Sergeant that was chained up in the basement along with Jim said he believed Great Britain had been quarantined and was the only site of infection.
Explains why planes were still flying over.
Makes sense. Kind of what I was thinking except I highly doubt commercial planes would still be flying over England after a disaster like that. It would probably be deemed a no fly zone.
I always assumed the plane that Jim saw was some kind of military surveillance aircraft from another country. Thoughts anyone?