… then watch the unrated cut. The return of the excised footage actually makes the battle scenes less disconnected and easier to follow.
It also seems like an example of how arbitrary and silly are the sensibilities of the censors of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). CGI-rendered blood flows are apparently too much for certain audiences, yet those same audiences paid to see a film about a global zombie holocaust. Entire cities fall, but certain individual bites and head-blows are too much for the more delicate filmgoers?
The late Roger Ebert had a few interesting things to say about the MPAA, how it works, and its influence on theater owners and audiences — if I ever run across those particular columns again, I’ll link here to them. What some people don’t realize is that the MPAA is not a government agency like the Federal Communications Commission — it’s a voluntary trade association composed of the major studios. And the whole thing seems pretty weird to me.
I still maintain that this movie is terrific. The plane scene alone … yeesh. And there actually IS an in-universe justification for the zombie locked in the airplane bathroom. Read Max Brooks’ incredible novel for an explanation of why certain infectees take longer to turn into monsters.
