LITR 4632: Literature of the Future

Student Future-Visions Presentation 2007

Tuesday, 26 June: Future-vision presenter: Ashley Jones

Dawn of the Dead

(Zack Snyder, 2004)

Objective:

§        To identify, describe, and criticize typical visions or scenarios of the future (seen from 2007)

§        Low tech; actual reality – rough, messy, hot, real, hungry for power

Summary:

          An unexplained plague has decimated the world's population and yet the dead aren't dying. They've become zombies, stalking endlessly in a constant quest to feed on the flesh and blood of the few remaining living. A group of desperate survivors in a Wisconsin town seek refuge in a large indoor mall, where they must learn not only to protect themselves from the ever-increasing zombie horde, but also to co-exist with each other as a last bastion of humanity. Sealed off from the rest of what used to be the world, the group uses every available resource (both within and without) in their against-all-odds fight to remain alive and human.

Questions:

1.     Taking into consideration things such as the bird flu and the man plane hopping with a drug-resistant strand of tuberculosis, what do you think the likelihood of an epidemic of this magnitude happening is?

2.     Who should take control of such a situation, the Government of the infected individuals? Who do you think would do a better job rectifying the situation?