Daybreakers

I went to see the movie Daybreakers with my friends tonight. I was interested in this movie because it depicts vampires in a cyberpunk setting, granted not really late future only about ten years from now, but late enough to have corporations holding a great deal of sway and for there to be futuristic cars, etc. Since this is a very similar setting to my novels, I had high hopes for this movie.

The technology and setting was believable, with believable advances in technology for a time period not too distantly away from our own. The premise is that vampires have overpopulated the earth and now are running out of blood. There was a great deal of gratuitous blood and violence (this is a plus, since it is a vampire movie). There was also a good bit of emo subplots, where the main character doesn't drink human blood because of sympathy for the humans. There was also some subtle humor, and interesting topics explored, such as vampire animals, and liberal and conservative vampire parties trying to figure out the fate of the remaining humans. I thought the concept was interesting and it was definitely worth watching, but there were about four major problems I had with the movie.

Problem number one, when the vampire virus began people were changing into vampires because of the desire for immortality, by accident, etc., and anyone could be changed. Yes, many people would desire the change, but not all people. It just seems to me, if the population was becoming more vampire than human, someone would've regulated the spread of the disease by making laws so that people not to spread it anymore, possibly even killing off those that would continue to spread the disease. Vampires at this point are running everything and, knowing that they need a food supply, they would probably stop allowing people to spread the disease to just anyone. (Hence games like "Vampire the Masquerade" and other books that say that vampires that have their own societies are very elitist when it comes to who they change.) Vampires, being human-like, would know better than to hunt their only food source to the point of extinction. This would also be foolish since vampires can't breed.

Problem number two, the human farming in the movie wasn't very believable. The people are comatose in this matrix-like setting and it looks like they're being practically drained dry. This is bad science because the people wouldn't survive having that much blood drained away from them. It also looked like a pretty expensive set up, and if anything, corporations don't waste money. For some reason, they also haven't been able to come up with a blood substitute that they can drink. This makes no sense since we can clone blood now. Cloned blood is no different from regular blood, so by using bone marrow, vampires could technically clone blood to drink (but for whatever reason, in this movie they couldn't.) Also, it doesn't make sense for them to farm blood in this fashion. It doesn't allow the humans to mate and produce more humans for them to feed on. It also makes them into useless lumps of flesh. It seems to me, if humans were second class citizens in a vampire society, they would probably be treated sort of like immigrants to this country in the nineteen twenties (before unions), forced to work for a company as grunts, or literally farm, use a company store, and donate blood once a week. This would be more efficient, more cost effective, and better common sense. (This would also be bad for the humans, but at least they wouldn't be vegetative blood banks...)

Problem number three, in this movie, a group of humans and rogue vampires find a cure for vampirism. Instead of embracing this idea, the company doesn't seem to want it. For a city facing starvation because of a lack of HUMAN blood, it seems to me that it would be a good idea to create more HUMANS by changing vampires who no longer desire the disease back into humans. These new humans, once being vampires, would also probably be more willing to give blood for their starving brethren. Also, there's another problem going on, where starving vampires are turning into strange bat-like creatures. Their brains are basically rotting away. It also seems the company could use the cure on these creatures and use them for food as well, since instead they were destroying them outright. It's just a waste of resources, something a corporation would understand.

Problem number four, this movie did have an agenda. I hate it when a movie is just a mask for a political agenda, and this movie was definitely against big corporations. I think that's one of the reasons why the corporation acted so foolishly and decided to hunt the humans rather than using them, along with the other points I discussed above. The movie was becoming preachy by the end of it, showing how illogical and evil the corporation was, and how it was corrupted by it's own power. ::sigh:: Anyway, it seems to me that the corporation would've used the cure to further it's grip over the vampire society.

Other than these problems, the movie was good. I didn't like the ending because it leaves a lot of unanswered questions along with a few plot holes, but that isn't really a problem in and of itself, just kind of a letdown. The effects were very good, the action was exciting, and you do feel for most of the characters. I'd say, if you like vampire films, go and see Daybreakers, if nothing more for the cheap thrills of seeing it on the big screen. (They also have a couple of scenes where they use bats to scare you, and it won't quite be the same without the large screen and surround sound.)