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Doomsday Conception

Director Neil Marshall lived near the ruins of Hadrian's Wall, a Roman fortification built to defend England against Scotland's tribes. The director fantasised about what conditions would cause the Wall to be rebuilt and imagined a lethal virus would work.


Marshall had also visualised a mixture of medieval and futuristic elements: "I had this vision of these futuristic soldiers with high-tech weaponry and body armour and helmets�clearly from the future�facing a medieval knight on horseback."


The director favoured the English/Scottish border as the location for a rebuilt wall, finding the location more plausible than a lengthy boundary between the United States and Canada. Additionally, Scotland is the home to multiple castles, which fit Marshall's medieval aspect.


The lethal virus in Doomsday differs from contemporary films like 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later by being an authentic plague that actually devastates the population, instead of infecting people so they become aggressive cannibals or zombies.


Marshall intended the virus as the backdrop to the story, having survivors scavenge for themselves and set up a primitive society. The director drew from tribal history around the world to design the society.


Though the survivors are depicted as brutal, Marshall sought to have "shades of gray" by characterising some people in England as selfishly manipulative.


The director intended Doomsday as a tribute to post-apocalyptic films from the 1970s and 1980s, explaining, "Right from the start, I wanted my film to be an homage to these sorts of movies, and deliberately so.


I wanted to make a movie for a new generation of audience that hadn't seen those movies in the cinema�hadn't seen them at all maybe�and to give them the same thrill that I got from watching them. But kind of contemporise it, pump up the action and the blood and guts."


Cinematic influences on Doomsday include:

Mad Max (1979), The Road Warrior (1981), and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985): Marshall drew inspiration from the punk style of the films and also shaped Rhona Mitra's character after Max Rockatansky as a police officer with a history.


Escape from New York (1981): The director drew from the concepts of gang warfare and the experience of being walled-in. Rhona Mitra's character has an eye patch like Snake Plissken, though the director sought to create a plot point for the eye of Mitra's character to reinforce its inclusion.


Excalibur (1981): Marshall enjoyed John Boorman's artistry in the film and sought to include its medieval aspects in Doomsday.

The Warriors (1979): The director enjoyed the tough and violent films of Walter Hill, including the "visual style of the gang warfare".


No Blade of Grass (1970): Marshall perceived the film as a predecessor to 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, though he sought to make Doomsday less straight-faced.

The Omega Man (1971): The director was inspired by the "empty city" notion of the film and drew upon its dark and gritty nature.


A Boy and His Dog (1974): Marshall created a homage to the 1974 film's ending by including a scene of a human being cooked in Doomsday.

Waterworld (1995): The director enjoyed the gritty atmosphere and how people scavenge to survive and adapt in their new world.


Gladiator (2000): Like in Gladiator, Marshall sought to put Mitra's character through a trial by combat.

Children of Men (2006): With the film coming out during the development of Doomsday, the director realised the similarity of the premises and sought to make his film "more bloody and more fun".


Marshall also cited Metalstorm (1983), Zulu (1964), and works of director Terry Gilliam like The Fisher King (1991) as influences in producing Doomsday. Marshall acknowledged that his creation is "so outrageous you've got to laugh".

He reflected, "I do think it's going to divide audiences... I just want them to be thrilled and enthralled. I want them to be overwhelmed by the imagery they've seen. And go back and see it again."






Detailed Plot and Screenshots



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Locked and loaded, Sinclair's team head out of the hangars in the APC's. The large Wall Gate, which has been closed for so many years, DDS staff have to take power saws to it. The Gate opens, both APC's enter into the unknown, heavy rain pouring down. Behind them, the DDS staff weld the gate shut. Entering the quarantine zone, they gaze at nightmarish landscapes of delapidated buildings and stranded vehicles in ruin, skeletons of victims from long ago.


As they travel down the dark road, the APC is jostled, they stop to investigate. Outside they see hundreds of cattle, one squished to a bloody pulp they had just run over. As they move on, Talbot explains to Sinclair that Dr. Kane is the best in his field. Talbot learned everything he knows from Kane without ever actually meeting him. Kane's papers on virus research were required reading at Medical School.


Sinclair shares intel on Kane, she inserts a disc in a player, a recording by Kane. At his lab he dug in with a bunch of stranded soldiers, they held out at St. Andrew hospital as long as they could. He kept up regular reports but eventually their frequency reduced to nothing.


Morality had abandoned the people, fires spread, power supplies dwindling, food and water running out fast, distant cries of pain and anguish in the night, they begin to feed on each other. It's Medieval out there. Ammunition low, barracades don't hold out, their time has run out.


Sinclair's team arrive in Glasgow, with Bio-suits on and weapons ready, they set out on foot and escort the medical scientists, Talbot and Stirling, to St. Andrew Hospital. Sinclair warns Talbot and Stirling that if the soldiers face conflict, they need to stay clear of the line of fire. They open the hospital door, Sinclair holds her synthetic eye inside to survey the interior, nothing but long ago ruin.


They enter the building, cautiously moving further in. They see a placard on the wall listing hundreds of names of those who died from the disease. They make their way to the fifth floor, the Viral Research section. Inside they see a horrid vision of plastic canopys splattered with blood surrounded by damaged medical equipment and abandoned weaponry.


They move on further into an area labeled the Decontamination Zone. Sinclair orders Talbot and Stirling forward to search for evidence of Kane's work. The interior is scattered with medical equipment in ruin and the skeletons of victims.


Meanwhile, in the APC, Chandler is having a technical problem with the video feed that is positioned to survey just outside the vehicle. Suddenly, it corrects itself and he is startled to see a young woman covered in filth right next to the APC. By radio, he reports to Sinclair he has a live one.


Against orders to not approach her, he readies an isolation capsule, a mobile plastic canopy chamber, and gears up with a Bio-suit. The team are screaming at him to return, but he steps out and approaches her, she appears to be in shock and collapses in his arms.


Back in the Decontamination Lab, Sinclair orders Carpenter to investigate an untouched area of the lab. He wanders forward . . . suddenly a spiked bat slams into his helmet, shattering his shield visor, spikes embedded in his bloodied face, he drops like a rock. Holding the spiked bat is a wild looking character, a Marauder, get up in large goggles and outlandish hair do.


The Marauder screams and ready to strike others, but Sinclair fires multiple rounds, taking him out. Instantly another Marauder appears, charging as he too is shot down, a third Marauder charges and is shot down. Now the Marauders are appearing from everywhere swarming the team, it's an ambush. A fierce battle erupts, guns blazing and hand to hand combat.


After killing a number of Marauders, they scramble to the exit. Norton radios Corporal Read to get ready for an emergency evac. They battle their way through a seemingly endless supply of Marauders as they race for the APC's. Chandler carries the unconscious girl into the APC and seals her in the isolation capsule.


Both APC's take off to get closer to the pick up point. However, they are immediately bombarded with Molotov cocktails, makeshift hand thrown incendiary grenades, courtesy of a number of Maruaders perched higher up on nearby buildings. As Sinclair's team head for the pick up point, the onslaught of charging Marauders is relentless, the team's weapons are firing almost non-stop.


The same for Chandler and Read, the fire bombs hit their APC's repeatedly as they race to the pick up point. Chandler's APC is on fire as he crashes through vehicle wreckage littering the streets. Behind and out of Chandler's view, the young woman is conscious, she uses a small blade to pierce the canopy and releases herself from the isolation capsule.


As the Marauders continue their assault of fire bombs and hopping on the vehicles, the young woman creeps up behind Chandler and slits his throat with the small blade. Blood squirts outward as he loses control of the APC and it crashes into a building. The violent heaving of the crashing APC slams the young woman to the back of the APC.


Blood spewing from his neck in a high arc stream, in his last moment of consciousness, Chandler releases a hand grenade. It tumbles to the back of the APC within inches of the young woman. Suddenly the APC erupts with a violent explosion, shooting the back door like a missile toward's Corporal Read's APC and richochet's off to the side.


Read reports to the team that APC One is down, they lost Chandler. The Marauders now focus their fire bomb assault on her. A Marauder clinging on the top of the APC climbs to the driver's portal and smashes the glass. Sinclair orders the team to the elevator, sub-level one. All now inside the elevator, Sinclair uses a shotgun on the elevator support cable, breaking the cab loose as it goes into a high level free fall.



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Excerpts and References: wikipedia.org, imdb.com



Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Main

Armageddon

Waterworld

Doomsday

The Road

The Colony

Snowpiercer

Oblivion

Fury Road


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