Can't believe Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 4: Dawn of the Vampires is already 1 year old! Anyway, this is some art I did last year for the lyric videos of the movie that I have posted on my YouTube channel:
Top row from left to right we have Zed, Addison, and Eliza
Middle row left to right is Willa, Nova, and Victor
Mal: One more day in Auradon might actually kill me.
Jay: Hey, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Mal: Well I haven't killed you
Mal: Yet
Mal: And you're still pretty pathetic
Thank you so so so much for your patience with me; I've been getting my footing back after starting school again :') I honestly don't remember what you'd asked me about anymore, but I know it was Zombies related so I'm just going to ramble about the franchise until I run out of steam, haha
The first Zombies movie has bothered me since it I first watched it, especially because of its ending. It looked like there was another cheerleading school competing against the Mighty Shrimp!! But that other team doesn't say Anything about Seabrooke, which irked me because.. why didn't they? If they knew about a zombie outbreak in this one town, and they saw cheerleaders who looked exactly like a zombie..... why did no one say anything about the zombies? The lack of their input implies, to me, that either this other school is a farce and Seabrooke is some Orwellian nightmare, OR that everyone is fully aware of Seabrooke and they do not care about the zombies for whatever reason (e.g. zombie outbreaks are common, the politics behind zombies has long-since been discussed, Seabrooke is a really conservative town). I wish we got Zombies 4 so we could see the world outside of Seabrooke!!! And it's a crucial part of my rewrite, especially since it'd make Addison realize how everyone thinks she's human, regardless of her hair color and rhinestones.
Speaking of Addison, I love her potential. Addison is best when she is played as an accidental villain, or at least constantly at moral odds with herself. Addison's flaws primarily stem from her privilege and white guilt, originally perpetuated by her environment being too close-minded, but continues to be perpetuated by her choosing ignorance and neglect of her privilege (which unfortunately in the canon leads to little or no consequence). Even now, in the main series, she's got good foundations for showing how activism can go downhill, or be/become superficial; there's a powerful story there that I want to tap into.
So, in my rewrite, I want Addison's journey of becoming a proper activist to be really clear. In Zombies 1 & 2, I need the characters to full-on call her out on her malarkey. I'd love it even more if marginalized groups like the zombies can't say anything right away, and that builds and builds, and suddenly Zed and Addy get into a huge argument. I even like it if Brianna -- yes, Brianna, the "black best friend" stereotype in the movie about battling racial stereotypes -- had this fight with Addison!!!
I want Addison to have a big fight with Zed, hear the things she doesn't want to hear, and be a coward for a second. I need her to run back to her human friends and family to get some space, only for her to realize that she has the privilege to run away at all Maybe she cries to her parents and her dad threatens to tell the authorities about Zed, despite him doing nothing wrong, and Addison gets this clarity. . She could've done anything to Zed, to his reputation or career or life, in that moment due to her anger; he was lucky that all she did was go to her family. And realizing the power she has over her boyfriend because of her social statuses is what makes her return to Zed with humility. I mean, maybe this borders on too unrealistic, haha; the point is simply that Addison needs to see how she is still like her human friends/family in many regards.
By the end of the series, I want Addison to understand that, regardless of her heritage, her role in Seabrooke is as a human ambassador. Her arc should feel like she learned how her privileges and guilt impact those around her, and how to help a new race of monster without immediately trying to become one of them.
But, of course, that all doesn't even begin to touch on the other major gripe people have with Addison-- her suspicions that she's different were actually correct, and worse, she's rewarded for it. In my rewrite, I want Addison to get confirmation that she's part alien way earlier, ideally at the end of Zombies 2. I think for the best long-term arc, her learning she's generally not human should start at the end of Zombies 1.
Ideally, the reveal she's not human is a private confession from the mom at the end of Zombies 1, which makes Addison's conflict in Zombies 2 a choice-- she can either reveal herself as monster, or she can keep it to herself. Again, that's a huge privilege for her, one that the zombies and werewolves can't afford (as Zed himself demonstrates in Zombies 1). Based on Addison's choice, the world becomes our oyster! Addison can try sneaking away by herself to find answers in Zombies 2 such that she finds the werewolves (instead of it being a matter of fate/luck); she can try leaving Seabrooke altogether; she can come clean and watch her human peers not care (or maybe they do ostracize her like she feared; that's a plotpoint that's not really explored in the original canon). In my perfect world, Addison ends up doing some research, and ultimately causes the aliens to arrive. Maybe the group decides to help her at the start of Zombies 3, or they try to but can't because they're all going away and graduating while Addison feels stuck. Maybe Addison talks to her to-be-deceased grandma, or a similarly-knowledgeable loved one, and inspired by those stories, she chooses to summon the aliens despite not knowing the worldly consequences. Regardless, when Addison gets to engage in her alien culture, I think she needs to be an outsider who learns (hopefully already knowing how to respect another culture thanks to Zombies 2).
Again, Addison is root of a majority of the conflicts in this rewrite because I like her that way, haha. The original canon makes her so paradoxically selfish despite her empathy with sense of justice. It just makes sense to explore a world where Addison's selfishness keeps getting the best of her. I want redemption for Addison; I just make that a very difficult process, haha.
Here are some other comparatively small thoughts about the franchise:
The end of Zombies 3 where Bucky takes over the ship absolutely rocks me because for someone who cared so much about hating on the zombies & co... how did he handle learning he's an alien?? Similar to Addison, Bucky in the canon gets all the benefits without the repercussions. So when Addison learns about the alien thing, I want Bucky to be there too. Actually, wait here we go!!!! Bucky summons the aliens, not Addison; he becomes the villain for Zombies 3. This then allows Addison to teach Bucky everything she's learned over the last two movies about how to be a good person.
Also, Eliza should've been president in Zombies 2; her entire arc was building up to that and her subtle ways of demonstrating how she is a leader and struggling with how to be a passionate revolutionary without turning to violence. Zombies 3 should've then been about her struggling to make change within the bureaucracy of the school instead of being away at college.
