MovieChat Forums > The Road (2009) Discussion > Leaving the survial shelter full of food...

Leaving the survial shelter full of food and supplies??

posted 8 years ago by meaningoflife-j
25 replies | jump to latest

Just watch The Road for the first time. I love post-apocalyptic movies. And overall I liked this movie. But, literally yelled outloud "what the hell?!" when the Dad decided to leave the survival shelter. In this world, that shelter would have been heaven. The absolute best thing you could ever hope for in this world. Shelter from the elements and other people (which also ticked me off at how they wasted food with huge meals, instead of rationing to make it all last). Food to last you at least 6 months, maybe a year if rationed out properly. If hidden well, it would be safe from roaming gangs. I mean, who is going to suspect something hidden underground? The could create a system of checking if anyone is around, using a make-shift telescope, before leaving the shelter to look for more food, go the bathroom and get more supplies. Basically, this was the best possible thing they ever could have hoped for to survive in this world. Even if it wouldn't be permanent, and could only last for a year or so, it would be infinitely better than roaming the wasteland with death at any moment. So with this almost utopian (in this bleak world it would be), the Dad decides to leave it because he heard something up above? When they went up, there was nothing there. So basically, they left safe shelter full of food and supplies, to wander to their most certain doom, for what? To further the plot? That's just bad story telling right there. I liked the movie, but this was a hard pill to swallow.

[–] pazuzu9 8 years ago

Maybe watch it again?

Or read the book?

It's possible you make rash judgments.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please - Mark Twain

[–] meaningoflife-j 8 years ago

Um, you didn't really contribute anything to the conversation. You care to expand on your opinion? You know, like a civil discussion?

[–] pazuzu9 8 years ago

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend.

The father obviously felt they were better off heading south down the road. The bunker was a trap. It was likely someone would discover it just like they had.

The fathers plan from the start was to go south, hoping things might be better. In the end the boy is taken in by that family so it worked out pretty good for him. At least as good as could be expected in a post apocalyptic world...

I hope you decide to give it another chance at some point.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please - Mark Twain

[–] Kung_Fu_VooDoo 8 years ago

I have read the book a few times AND watched the movie and all in all, I agree with you. In the book The Man says that it's very difficult to defend and he was afraid of being trapped down there. There are some key differences between the book and the movie though:
First, it (the bunker/storehouse) is in the yard of a house. He is walking towards a shed from the house when he feels the earth move differently under his feet. He grabs a shovel from the shed and proceeds to dig up the yard. He finds a plywood door, locked, with a zip lock baggie over the lock to prevent rust. He can't find the key so he breaks the hasp with the shovel and THEN finds the storehouse. The difference is, he had to dig the yard up so it would be obvious to anybody going by SOMETHING was there. While he and The Boy stay there, he covers the hole he dug with an old mattress but he doesn't believe it to be very good camouflage. But, even if they DIDN'T want to stay in the bunker, I don't know why he didn't set up a camp site within a viewable distance and start pulling supplies out to ration, stash and eat....Lay up for a few weeks and get fat again.....By all accounts in the book there was a LOT of food down there. I'd have stayed until I got ran off or until I ran out of food. I DID love the book, but I'm with you on that point.

The greatest trick the devil ever played, was the one where you pick a card, then he shuffles....

[–] guer0071 8 years ago

I really think the efforts required to camouflage the port hole and earth were worth not having to travel and starve or risk being attacked/robbed.

[–] mobocracy (891) 6 years ago

Would it have been obvious to anyone that he had been there?

It's post-apocalypse, and in theory the yard could have been dug up anytime, including years before, although it may have taken some work to make it less obvious it was recently dug up.

My take is that if the storehouse hadn't been found by scavengers or gangs already, it never will. I'm sure most people, especially roaming cannibal gangs, are operating on the principal that everything has either been destroyed or already scavenged, and only moving people are worth chasing down. Plus, there's not that many survivors left.

I think they should have stayed at least long enough to gain weight and fatten up at some obscure camp nearby.

[–] cyguration (3951) a year ago

I operate on a really simple principle that I believe the movie captured when I first saw that scene:
Don't get greedy

This is something I've seen ruin many a good people over the years. It's always, "Just one more...", or "I can take this one and they won't find out...", or "No one will notice, and it won't hurt anyone...." only to be the joker card they finally pull from the deck of chances.

That was what that scene represented: the potentiality of the joker card in a deck of chances.

The difference was that pulling the card at the wrong time meant death, or worse, a life of misery as a victim for cannibals/rapists.

While I initially felt like everyone else when they found the storehouse -- that they should just stay and stockpile -- I realised that the father was right in his intuitive sense. What if someone did come along? What if hunters with a hound managed to sniff them out? What if wandering bandits did happen upon the shelter?

As others pointed out, there was no way to defend from within the bunker, and no way out if they were trapped. The best that they could have done was take some supplies and leave. Otherwise it would be Schrodinger's bunker, where it's either safe to come out, or a hungry band of cannibal rapists are waiting for you on the other side.

[–] mobocracy (891) 10 months ago

It's probably a good survival instinct, especially one in a universe like the Road where good luck can often be a trap or an ambush and even if it isn't, maximally exploiting the good fortune leaves you exposed and vulnerable.

That being said, I think rationally weighing the situation against these risks might suggest they could have reasonably exploited the bunker. In a word of total deprivation, it hadn't been found yet and the extremely low population density would suggest its unlikely to be found soon. Anyone nearby had already decided there was nothing there and it could be ignored. Random travelers roaming are few and far between (since just doing that is, as shown, extremely perilous).

Probably more importantly, though, is that staying at the bunker would have distorted the narrative, offering hope where none was supposed to exist except maybe at the end. Holing up, gaining some nutrition, and not moving wasn't compatible with it.

[–] mcolby-125-523976 8 years ago

I think by then the dad was paranoid and any little noise was an enemy. I also believe he was very determined to get to the coast to fulfill his wife's final wish even if it killed him, and it did.

[–] joker4252 8 years ago

The dad was dying and he felt like the only hope for his boy was south and that's all the mattered.

[–] greg-233 8 years ago

"So basically, they left safe shelter full of food and supplies, to wander to their most certain doom, for what? To further the plot?"

Another reason that no other poster has mentioned is: it gets boring if you stay in one place for too long. Spending a year to recuperate in that little shelter would induce a bad case of cabin fever. (Or would it be survival shelter fever in this case?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_fever

A story only goes somewhere if there are problems to be overcome, and conflicts to deal with. Take Adam and Eve as an example. In the Garden of Eden, so the story goes, Adam and Eve had everything they needed. Life was great. Now, suppose Adam and Eve had never been kicked out of this Garden, because Eve never succumbed to temptation. What would we have? No problems, no struggles, nowhere for the story to go. Boring.

In the case of The Road you couldn't have the Man and the Boy staying in the shelter for an extended period of time, because it means the quest to reach the coast has come to a standstill, and we'd end up with a movie that is twice as long. Scenes of eating and sleeping, followed by um... more eating and sleeping... the Man looking at the map... followed by some more eating and sleeping... It just wouldn't work. We may like to believe that we would do things differently to the characters, but then, we don't inhabit a fictional story with our actions predetermined by an author.

[–] mental1981 8 years ago

You've gotta stop worrying about the plot and think about the situation at hand. Don't be a critic, and immerse yourself into the story. With a juvenile to care for, it's more important to find Long term safety than short term rations. They'd been constantly on the run, and found the bunker with little effort. The Cannibals were constantly on the hunt, always expanding their range. They would've been discovered at some point. Taking enough for the road was the smart thing to do. Without a small army to help defend the bunker, it would be anybody's for the taking. The only other option would be to use it as a remote cache, and travel to it regularly for supplies, until you are healthy. Community is everything.

[–] Nikulturny 8 years ago

The Man already knows he's dying at this point so holing up for weeks on end won't do any good; he's trying to find somewhere relatively safe for his son before he dies.

"There is no more human race. There is only.. the Master race!"

[–] carsjr 8 years ago

nailed it

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Obviously the goal was to reach the coast, but his decision to leave the shelter seemed rushed in the movie.

You can't leave an hiding place and maybe a year worth of food and water just because you heard a noise. Especially in a world where your entire life consist of hiding from cannibals and eating twigs and bugs.

I would have shot this scene differently by making it clear that someone found the hatch and tried to enter.

[–] GordianNott (137) 5 years ago

That actually would have made a lot more sense and wouldn't be a tough alteration.

In my own mind, I figured the dad was more than half crazy, so doing the logical thing and staying put where there was food and shelter wasn't on his menu. The more sensible son would have stayed there if decisions were left up to him.

[–] charliekelly (1018) 5 years ago

We wrote almost the same thing at the same time lol. That's cool.

[–] GordianNott (137) 5 years ago

Great minds think alike. :)

[–] charliekelly (1018) 5 years ago

"I would have shot this scene differently by making it clear that someone found the hatch and tried to enter."

I like what you're saying here. Or, it could have been shown that he was actually starting to mentality slip, and made a bad decision out of paranoia and delirium. Maybe that was the intention, but when I watched it, it looked like they were showing that as him making the most sound, reasonable decision. Like yourself, and others, that's not my definition of the best choice in the situation.

[–] msenjur (22) 2 years ago

what if the dog, they heard, was the dog of that family? Family said they were tracking them for a long time....

i think that it was that family, and it was then when they started to follow them.

[–] rex (2828) a year ago

he made the decision while Drinking, the kid was right it was irrational thinking

[–] pazuzu9 (384) a year ago

It just wasn't the long term plan. The father was determined to head south hoping things would be better there. He new he had serious health problems and limited time to accomplish his objective so leaving the bunker was regrettable yet necessary.

[–] cyguration (3951) a year ago

That's the better way of looking at it -- long-term planning in a desolate world is the rational way of thinking.

I think a lot of people are looking at it from the perspective of the movie and wanting good things to happen for them, and that that shelter was the only good thing they encountered throughout their journeys. But that bunker wasn't a long-term plan, and there was zero safety there.

[–] pazuzu9 (384) a year ago

It's unfortunate that people struggle so much with this movie. Maybe they watch too many Mad Max style movies :)