richardmurray

The Girl With All The Gifts (2016) from Movies That Move We

My comment 
05:38 yeah the Hannibal lector mask for the zombie kids:) 
10:11 The Zombie Capo ask, Do you promise to bite without hesitation after this moment?
23:50 truly, the same energy or characterizations as "I am legend" of Richard Matheson
Did Zenobia feel squeamish for this film?

Thoughts as I viewed
01:32 It isn't a "Night of the living dead" style zombie movie where it is a war of sensationalism it is in the style of  "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson with an evolution aspect of a popular movie monster, unlike the matheson, this is zombie's not vampires. But similar end point. 
07:38 Really nice storytelling describing how Melanie's qualities are unique, a talented and gifted child of zombies. 
12:42 Yes, she doesn't have to protect the human race. It is like I am legend, the human race at the end of i am legend or the girl with all the gifts is the same, ended. the vampires 2nd or 3rd generations are vampires but really just humans who dont like the light and wear sun screen in the same way the second or third generation zombies can talk and think while they still need to eat fraw flesh and blood. 
18:30 Is it difference that shakes up humanity or is it fear or losing contentment? No one wants to lose where they are comfortable and usually, change brings a difference to comfort, a negative difference. And no one in their right mind wants to constantly recontent. Maybe many statians, people of the usa, like the idea of constantly finding contentment but most humans never have or will want to find contentment again and again. 
26:36 I think the choice is obvious. It isn't dystopian, it becomes like I AM Legend, a good topian because all will have the sickness and eventually, the 2nd 3rd gen zombies will be the future of the human race, like the vampires in "I AM legend" 

TRANSCRIPT
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[Music]
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hey everyone welcome back to another edition of movies that move we today we are discussing a film that
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Don and I wanted to do for a really long time if you
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remember or for those of you who knew him um he had a neck for
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writing what amounts to horror stories and he was a fan of the horror genre but
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um and one of the stories he wrote it did focus on zombies
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and it was intense it was intense um this
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particular film that we're going to be talking about today is called the girl with all the
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gifts this isn't your typical zombie film as
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in um how can I say it doesn't feel like the typical zombie film to me where
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these things just come out of nowhere and they're chasing down humans eating them and then you know they're being
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converted kind of thing um I think this it feels different to me because they
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explain the reason why they've turned into zombies and then
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they take a look at what the unconverted society is doing how they
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dealing with it so um let me get into it
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um some of the the faces that you see the main characters there's five main characters focal
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characters um in this you have Melanie who is played by Sena nanua right now
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she's um one of the cast members of the serpent Queen um there's Dr Caroline Codwell
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which we just saw her last week um playing the mother Glen Close playing
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the mother in The Deliverance you may also know her from older films like um Fatal
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Attraction then the next character is Helen Justino played by je Gemma
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Aron um she was one of the cast members in the kings men if you watch the Golden
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Circle Series you will see her there um Sergeant Eddie Parks played by Patty con
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conine he was in peaky blinders and right now he's in House of dragons and
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the next character was Karen Gallagher which considered he was played
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by a black guy it's kind of an interesting name for a black character
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but he's played by FAO um akinade he's had he's been in episodes of Atlanta and
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he's been in Dangerous Liaisons which Glen Clos was in the movie he has a role
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in the series so what is happening in this film
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post-apocalyptic um people have contracted a fungus that
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wraps around their brain okay and um
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it's causing them to lose the ability to function as a normal human so they lose
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the ability to speak and the only thing that they are interested in doing is finding any type of mammal that
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moves so they can jump on and devour like I said earlier if you get
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bitten or scratched by these things you now become what they refer to in the
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film as a first generation hungry that's what they
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called them the hungries so in the film takes place in a
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in a base like an army base they call it the facility um just outside of
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London and in this facility they have
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children second generation hungries if you come across these
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kids they are like regular kids
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until they smell human flesh and then you become
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dinner so you look shot I mean that's a zombie I mean yeah
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so um what you see is they have these kids restrained they put them in
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wheelchairs they have the strap across their head so they can't lean forward and bite
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anybody the military is guarding them they're put in what amounts to to a jail cell
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whenever they're moving them from one location to another they got guns trained on
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them and these kids don't entirely seem to be bothered by it because they've
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gotten used to it they know what the protocol is we meet the main character
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Melanie Melanie is very polite to her captors when the guards come in they got
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guned con strained on her she's like good morning Captain good morning sergeant and they're like shut up you're
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an abortion that's what they call these kids hungries they call them abortions
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um and they take these kids to class so these kids are sitting in these
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wheelchairs strapped down and the teacher Miss Justino is at
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The Head of the Class teaching them normal things mythology mathematics science all of that good stuff and
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they're not being taught things out of the idea that they're kids and they
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still need to learn they're not viewed as children they're Lab Rats
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essentially and you start to see the difference between Melanie and the other
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kids the other kids they have normal kid knowledge okay they may not know the
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answer to 522 divided by six whereas
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Melanie is the first one shouting out the answers okay um their classroom is being
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guarded and observed and so when Miss Justino starts
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moving away from the normal lessons she's admonished and and they're like stick to the
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curriculum these kids love story time oh
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okay and they're like you don't have time to encourage imagination here teach them what we told you to teach
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us and when the kids insist story time story time is justtin know it's like I can't I can't do it you know I'm not
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allowed and so Melanie says well why don't you teach us Greek
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mythology that way we're getting our education you're sticking to what we should learn
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and we still get Story Time which was like
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okay and this is the way her mind works I'm not going to get into all of the the things but there's a head scientist
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played by Glen Close who's running the experiment on these kids and so she'll go buy sell to sell
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check on the kids take notes but she takes a little extra time with
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Melanie she'll stop by herself C she'll ask her a few questions things that are
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philosophical things that are Technical and then she'll ask her for a number between 1 and
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28 and Melanie will pick a number well Melanie noticed very quickly that the
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number she chose correlated to one of the cells the other students was in and when she
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selected a number the next day that kid would be missing oh and so that's when you find out the
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experiment that they're doing on these kids results in their
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death fast forward a little bit Melanie has figured this out and the base is invaded by
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generation one hungries so you got the military hand-to-hand
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combat with these things these things are not afraid of a weapon they're not afraid of a
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truck they're just we smell humans we smell blood we're going for it and
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consider the way I just reference that we're going in there and we're having a
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meal a lot of them were killed eaten
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converted transformed I should say cuz converted makes it sound like the the
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hungries were standing there and saying do you promis to follow all these rules and that's not what happened so anyway
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the five characters I mentioned in the beginning Melanie Dr Caldwell um Dr
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Justino Sergeant Parks and Karen Gallagher who is part of the military
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they managed to escape and their goal is to get to London so they can communicate with the
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other base and get coped out of the
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area that becomes complicated once they finally do make it to
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London because when you get to London what you see are the generation ones they're just kind of standing there
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because there's no activity around them and what triggers them is fast movement
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and eye contact and Noise so they had to tiptoe through London to
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find a safe space where they could hunker down and figure out what their next
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steps are how to get in touch with the other base in the process what they ended up
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doing was using Melanie because the other hungries don't respond to her M
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they use her to go out and find food and supplies
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the military people in the doctor still don't trust her because they're like she's not quite human yeah she looks
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human but she's not and she will kill all of us if if she has the chance out of all
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of the other kid she's the one that exhibits a certain amount of self-control okay where when she feels
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that urge to bite a human she articulates listen if you guys don't let
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me go out you're going to be my
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meal and so they'll let her out to go find something to eat MH and then she
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comes back she puts the the muzzle that they had on her back on and then she
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sits and she's a quiet kid there's other stuff that that
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happens along the way I'm not going to give away the entire movie but what I
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will say about the ending is that there was
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a I'll say philosophical um question that was
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presented and Melanie's response was
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basically that's not my
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problem so I'm going to just put that there I'm going to let you ask the
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important some of the important questions excuse me about the film so
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what um what are the hungri like context in
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the film so this is a PO
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postapocalyptic story and the hungries rep
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represent um the part of society that's Fallen
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um it's a very literal representation these people are no longer a part of the
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norm whereas those who were still regular functioning humans they
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were trying to regain control of society eliminate the
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problem and get back to what felt like the norm and that's part of what this film is
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questioning what's normal and how do you deal with different different or
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other okay okay um and then what role does education play in shaping melan's
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identity and choices well like I said um she was put in in a situation
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with other kids who had similar is issue the fungus was a part of their brain
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mhm they communicated they used normal
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language um they interacted with with each other not
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physically because one of the other things like I said in in London with the
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first generation if anything moved all of a sudden they were chasing together they
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were a mob and the same thing was true with the
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kids and there was something that was done in the classroom to show
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that um as far as ask the question again the
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last part um what like what what role does
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education play in shaping melanies I lost the classroom part of it okay so
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again she was the one who was taking information
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in think of it like this in a regular classroom like when you and I were in school they give
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information we get tested on it and there's only a certain amount of it we
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retain yeah you retain enough to get through take the test or you retain
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what's interesting to you the rest of the class
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was retaining enough to function in that setting God Melanie
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on the other hand was not just retaining it but giving it
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context so like I said when the doctor the doctor asked her a question about um
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what is it sh shinger cat mhm you know and she asked a series of questions
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stuff that we would normally answer like can you shake the Box can you put a hole in the Box can you listen to the box to
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see if the cat is really in there and when the doctor said no to all of
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them she paused and she said I have to think about
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it right so the doctor took a note and
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made a point to say there's no mimicking Melanie read that and was like
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well what does that mean so she's interacting she's
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questioning outside of the classroom setting and even in the classroom
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remember I said she said well wait a minute let's do this logically we can't
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have regular Story Time according to the guards and the
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doctors but if you do it this way so she was was she had logic where all of the
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other kids were like all right I have to learn this because there's going to be a
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test and we have to pass a test if we want to live live yeah that was the the
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the beginning and end of their logic gotta and then in what ways do the
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hungry symbolize deeper societal
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fears again we're people get afraid of what's different
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and I don't want to get too deep into politics but we see that right
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now um we saw that what was that 12
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years ago 16 years ago I I've lost a we we saw that when Barack
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Obama uh ran for office the first time um people questioned a whole lot of
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things they were like wait a minute we've never had a black president before is he going to be black or white
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you know it's like is he going to be for the black folks or is he going to be for everyone you know and so different
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shakes us up we don't think about ways [Music]
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to we don't think about ways to find the commonality yeah okay and granted
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zombies are an extreme difference um there's something that
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they do that is normal to them but puts our lives at risk and so um in
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a lot of ways in pre-apocalyptic world that we exist in that's kind of how we
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function for lesser things okay yeah so do you feel like the
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film you feel like the film reflects a lot on what's like currently happening
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in the world in general yes it uses an extreme example but yeah yeah and again back to the
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question Melanie poses at the end of the movie mhm the first time I saw the
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movie it was a gun punch watching the movie again I was like girl you go you
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giving it to her tell her yeah cuz like some films they have
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like they have certain these even though it's like fantasy or sci-fi or something that would not really happen in real
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life it's just like some of them have such a message where it ties very heavily into like current events or even
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like just stuff that's going on now yeah this didn't use current events it was
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just more like yeah the societal things that could kind of take place or things
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that have kind of th this this was done in two 2016 so prepandemic
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uh yeah it was around the time that Barack Obama was was in office but again
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this was also done in England okay so it's it's taking it I think it took a
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broad look at all right we have these people that are
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extremely different that we're not used to and like I mentioned to you
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earlier um consider people who have cognitive
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disabilities and how we deal with them we've categorized them to the point of
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and people try not to use this today they're moving away from this phrase
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we'll categorize them as high functioning or low functioning High
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function in meaning that they'll communicate like we do they'll move
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around in a way they'll they'll do you know daily task in a way that we are
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accustomed to seeing M but for somebody who doesn't function like the of the
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world around them my opinion I think we treat them
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like they lack intelligence and if they
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show okay they have knowledge in this
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particular space like encyclopedia knowledge of a a specific topic
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we get excited and oh they're you mean they are Smart M and it's like who said
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they weren't what makes you think that because they can't do all of these other
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things that they lack intelligence yeah they're not capable right and so the
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movie put that into perspective you have the hungries who
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have actually lost the ability as as far as we can tell to
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communicate what the doctor says is mimicking Behavior because if one chases
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they all Chase they all Chase but it didn't mean that they didn't have a means of communicating they didn't show
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that with the first generation hungries they gave you an example of
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second generation hungries but then there's another group that did not grow
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up in the facility they weren't given education
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that they show Intelligence MH but they're not verbal
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the same way regular regular degular humans are
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okay okay and then um what does Melanie's final
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decision say about her character in the world she inhabits she views herself as
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normal she doesn't disregard the normal that the doctors
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and the folks that were in the military mhm oppressing people like her she
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doesn't view them as different she she even says at one point I'm just like
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you so it it it takes it back to if you have
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somebody who in our present day who is considered high functioning they don't
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see themselves as any different and for somebody who doesn't
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move the same way in our setting they
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recognize the difference as far as how they process but they don't see
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themselves as any less human as they themselves outside of maybe their
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ability toally or Express they don't see themselves as any
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different they recognize that they're being treated differently okay if that makes sense
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that makes sense so any other questions okay what did well I guess
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what did what did you think about the movie overall was it something that was kind of like up your Al is something
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that's kind of like I don't mind a a a a zombie movie
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okay um I like this one because it actually made a statement
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without bashing you over the head with it okay you know it even though the main
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character is a black little girl this wasn't happening to all black characters
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yeah you know it affected the young the old regardless of race and she just
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happened to be the kid that was
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um that was the highest functioning you know so um I I like the
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message of the movie again watch this watch it to the end
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because that one line that one question
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she asks put a whole button on the entire film and then what she does after
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that um kind of makes you think about your place right
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now and if all of a sudden there was a decision
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that had to be made between your group M
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and another group how would you [Music] move how would you
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move um so like I said this is postapoc
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postapocalyptic and it's also dystopian um because in most
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dystopian fiction takes place in AOC postapoc thank you because I've been
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struggling with that this whole time um but it they all tie into
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an an oppressed Society loss of individuality
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dehumanization these kids were called anyone who had this condition they were called hungries they weren't called
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people with fungus on the brain um the kids were called abortions um
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resistance you didn't see the rest of normal society
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because the only world that existed at this point as far as they knew was that
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base and the five people who survived that base um but I think
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overall it really sends a strong message about differences and how you deal with
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differences and I think they made Melanie's character
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extreme um in in a way like she didn't hate
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these people mhm that were oppressing her yeah um she understood that you get
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more more flies with honey than vinegar yeah and so from the very beginning like
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I said she was very polite um even to the sergeant who
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was the most cruel to towards her she was very very polite and through
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through their Adventure if you will you start to see them soften to her a little
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bit just a little bit so I think overall this is a a great
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movie um it's not uh intense
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action so don't go looking for that again it's not beating you over the head
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with message it does that a little more with action than it does with uh
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words okay and while I'm talking about this um let me tell you bit a bit about
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the writer you're probably familiar with some of his work um Mr Cary Mike Cary um
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he's written he wrote the book which is is the same title as the movie
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um he also you'll recognize his work he's done a series of comic books for DC
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and Marvel um for DC he did Batman I
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think is Gotham Knights um hellblazer and the spin-off
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to that Lucifer um and he did a lot with X-Men Legacy and the Wolverine series
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for DC Comics as well as as for the video games so he's not you may not know
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his name but you you've you've seen his work somewhere along the line so all of
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that to say check this movie out I'm not going to put a number on this because
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people are going to feel a little bit differently about it again to your question I can take a a a zombie movie
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but I'm not chasing zombie movies that's some people's favorite genre but
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in in the horror space this is my speed there it's to me
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it's not a whole lot of blood and guts they don't give you a whole lot of that because there's a bigger story to tell
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yeah so definitely check this one out this is all we have for
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today I didn't look at my list to see what we have for next week but pay
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attention to our Facebook page movies that move we I changed the banner once a
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mama tell your friends and until then bye bye
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[Music]

URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RacUkZ-5P0