MovieChat Forums > The Girl with All the Gifts (2017) Discussion > Just seen it - Questions

Just seen it - Questions

posted 8 years ago by foebane72
6 replies | jump to latest

So Melanie basically set fire to the tower infested with the seed pods and essentially DOOMED HUMANITY?

OK, so Melanie and those other children in the orange suits bound to chairs are technically the future of humanity, being able to think coherently and act normally despite having their brains infested with the zombie fungus and a craving for living flesh, and that they were developing in their mothers' wombs when the epidemic hit, and so thanks to the placenta were immune from the full effects of the contagion, and so they are our last hope for a cure, thanks to that doctor.

But then she is killed by the hungry children and so are all our protagonists, except for the teacher and Melanie, and so at the end the air is toxic to normal humans throughout the planet and the only teacher left is teaching Melanie's ilk from behind a glass airlock door? What happens if the teacher gets infected too? Will that be it? The children will grow up with no knowledge and the human race is doomed to be infected with the fungal virus with no cure AT ALL?? A bit downbeat, surely? 

Why are you here if you haven't seen the movie yet?

[–] ns1crr 8 years ago

The human race is going on: it's just a new evolution of human that is formed of a symbiotic relationship between cordyceps and human. It may even be a better version of human - they cordyceps integrates with their brain and seems to make them more intelligent than normal children (as seen in the way that they can memorise the periodic table and form hunter-gatherer clans that set traps).

As for the non-infected humans: yes, anyone out in the open will be eventually be turned into a mindless zombie. Miss Justineau will live out the rest of her life behind airlocks. If something goes wrong and Miss Justineau does get infected, it's not the end of things. Melanie could help teach the others herself, and eventually the new society can relearn the previous society's knowledge from books.

That was the (rather hammered in) parallel with Pandora: Melanie has unleashed all the horrors in the world on humanity but she also releases hope. To some degree the removal of the "junkers" (violent bands of survivalists) from the book hurts this theme, because it removes a threat to the new society of humans that needed to be removed for them to flourish.

[–] Youkilledmypine 8 years ago

So er, where's she getting her food from? Running water? Super air filters pack up ever? She just opting to stay behind the doors in case the Lost Boys decide to attack her? Will the spores ever disappear? As endings go it's not a particularly cathartic one.

[–] scoulter2 8 years ago

You can judge the movie however you want, but there a deleted final chapter from the book that you can read. It doesn't sound like it made it into the movie either.
http://mikeandpeter.com/2016/05/girl-with-all-the-gifts-deleted/

[–] Youkilledmypine 8 years ago

I've mentioned elsewhere that this film appears to have relied too heavily on folk having read the book. If there's an epilogue in the book that offers a more satisfying ending then great, but by the time the film ends it seemed to render everything that happened before it largely pointless. It would only have been a matter of time before the spores were released, Melanie merely sped up the process and (perhaps even only temporarily) spared the teacher. There's no morality play here- Caldwell had already made her decision ages ago and she wasn't going to change her mind. Melanie decided not to be euthanised, but there's no arc there as she'd made that decision on the base long beforehand. The only question is what motivation Melanie was carrying throughout but even that's moot because she's left in the same position she was earlier. It wasn't much of a coda.

[–] speculator-1 8 years ago

http://mikeandpeter.com/2016/05/girl-with-all-the-gifts-deleted/

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[–] Metatron_Fallen 8 years ago

I assumed that Melanie was bringing her these things.

I also never forgot it was just a story- not reality. I don't think a zombie plague could actually happen. It's just fun to pretend for a little while.