Fractured (A Dark Days Ending Book 3)

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The group board Frank's cab and head to Manchester, bonding with one another during the trip. At the deserted blockade, Frank is infected when a drop of blood falls into his eye. He is killed by arriving soldiers, who take the remaining survivors to a fortified mansion under the command of Major Henry West. West reveals to Jim that his "answer to infection" entails waiting for the infected to starve to death and luring female survivors into sexual slavery to repopulate the world.

The group attempts to flee, but Jim is captured and chained next to Sergeant Farrell, a dissenting soldier. Farrell shares with Jim his speculation that the virus has not spread beyond Great Britain and that the country is being quarantined. The next day, the soldiers prepare the girls for gang rape, while two others lead Jim and Farrell to execution.

While his executioners argue after killing Farrell, Jim escapes. Jim lures West and another soldier to the blockade, where Jim kills the latter and leaves West stranded for arriving infected. He runs back to the mansion and releases Mailer, an infected soldier West kept for observation.

Mailer infects another soldier and they wreak murderous havoc throughout the mansion. In the confusion, a soldier drags Selena upstairs, where Jim ambushes and kills him. The two reunite with Hannah and run to Frank's cab; Jim is then shot by West, who has been waiting inside. Mailer grabs West through the rear window of the cab and kills him, and the trio finally leave the mansion. Another 28 days later, Jim is recovering at a remote cottage. Downstairs, he finds Selena sewing large swaths of fabric when Hannah appears. The infected are shown dying of starvation.

Hannah says she hears it and the three rush outside and unfurl a huge cloth banner, adding the final letter to the word "HELLO" laid out on the meadow. A lone Finnish fighter jet flies over the three survivors and the pilot calls in a muffled radio transmission. The DVD extras include three alternative endings, all of which conclude with Jim dying.

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Two were filmed, while the third, a more radical departure, was presented only in storyboards. On 25 July , cinemas started showing the alternative ending after the film's credits. In this ending, after Jim is shot, Selena and Hannah still rush him to the deserted hospital, but the scene is extended.

Selena, with Hannah's assistance, attempts to perform life-saving procedures but cannot revive Jim. Selena is heartbroken and Hannah, distraught, looks to her for guidance.

Selena tells Hannah they will go on; they pick up their guns and walk away from Jim's lifeless body. Selena and Hannah, still dressed in ballgowns and fully armed, leave the hospital. On the DVD commentary, Boyle and Garland explain that this was the original ending of the film's first cut, which was tested with preview audiences.

It was rejected for seeming too bleak; the final exit from the hospital was intended to imply Selena and Hannah's survival, whereas test audiences felt the women were marching off to certain death. Boyle and Garland express a preference for this alternative ending, calling it the "true ending".

They comment that this ending brought Jim full circle, as he starts and finishes the story in bed in a deserted hospital. This ending was added in the theatrical release of the film beginning on 25 July , placed after the credits and prefaced with the words, "what if The "Hospital Dream" ending is an extended version of the theatrical alternative ending, wherein Jim dies at the hospital.

In the optional commentary the director states that this was the full version of the original ending. The footage cuts back and forth between the scene with Selena and Hannah trying to save his life, and the dream sequence. As he gets hit by a car in his flashback, he simultaneously dies on the operating table. This ending, for which only a rough edit was completed, is an alternative version of the potential rescue sequence shown at the very end of the released film. Here, the scenes are identical, except that this ending was intended to be placed after the first alternative ending wherein Jim dies, so he is absent.

When Selena is sewing one of the banner letters in the cottage, she is seen facetiously talking to a chicken instead of Jim. Only Selena and Hannah are seen waving to the jet flying overhead in the final shots. The "Radical Alternative Ending", rather than a bare ending, is a radically different development of the film from the midpoint; it was not filmed and is presented on the DVD as a series of illustrated storyboards with voiceovers by Boyle and Garland.

When Frank is infected at the military blockade near Manchester, the soldiers do not enter the story. Instead, Jim, Selena, and Hannah are somehow able to restrain Frank, hoping they will find a cure for the virus nearby as suggested in the radio broadcast. They soon discover that the blockade had protected a large medical research complex, the same one featured in the first scene of the film where the virus was developed. Inside, the party is relieved to find a scientist barricaded inside a room with food and water.

He will not open the door because he fears they will take his food, although he does admit that the "answer to infection is here". Unfortunately, he refuses to talk further because he does not want to create an emotional attachment to people who will soon be dead. After hours of failed attempts to break through the door or coax the man out, Jim eventually brings Hannah to the door and explains Frank's situation.

The scientist reluctantly tells them Frank can only be cured with a complete blood transfusion and supplies them with the equipment. After learning that he is the only match with Frank's blood type, Jim sacrifices himself so Frank can survive with his daughter. Just as his journey began, Jim is left alone in the abandoned medical facility, and Selena, Hannah and Frank move into the room with the scientist, as a horde of the infected breaches the complex.

The computer monitors show death and destruction come to life around a thrashing, infected Jim, who is strapped to the same table as the chimp had been in the opening scene. Garland and Boyle explain that they conceived this ending to see what the film would be like if they did not expand the focus beyond the four survivors.

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They decided against it because the idea of a total blood replacement as a cure was not credible. Boyle said in the DVD commentary that it "didn't make much sense", since the film had already established that one drop of blood can infect a person. Drain him of blood and scrub his veins with bleach? On the DVD commentary, Boyle explains that, with the aim of preserving the suspension of disbelief , relatively unknown actors were cast in the film.

Cillian Murphy had starred primarily in small independent films, while Naomie Harris had acted on British television as a child, and Megan Burns had only one previous film credit. However, Christopher Eccleston and Brendan Gleeson were well-known character actors. In an interview with Creative Screenwriting , Garland explained, "I said to him that I had an idea for a movie about running zombies.

I wrote it and sent it to him and the two of us went backwards and forwards with it for a few drafts At the point I was working on 28 Days Later I had a lot of zombie movies as well as video games like Resident Evil turning round in my head. To depict these locations as desolate, the film crew closed off sections of street for minutes at a time, usually in early morning before sunrise on Sundays and would have typically around 45 minutes after dawn, to shoot the locations devoid of traffic and members of the public — to minimise disruption.

Portions of the film were shot on a Canon XL1 digital video camera. The scenes of the M1 motorway devoid of traffic were also filmed within very limited time periods. A mobile police roadblock slowed traffic sufficiently, to leave a long section of carriageway empty while the scene was filmed. The section depicted in the film was filmed at Milton Keynes , nowhere near Manchester. Boyle adds that his crew probably would not have been granted permission to close off Whitehall for filming after the terrorist attacks in New York.

A clapperboard seen in one of the DVD extra features shows filming was still taking place on 8 October The mansion used in the film was Trafalgar Park near Salisbury. Many rooms in the house, including the Cipriani -painted music room and the main hall, were filmed with minimal set decoration. The scenes occurring upstairs were filmed downstairs, as the mansion's owner resided upstairs.

The end scenes of the film where Jim, Selena and Hannah are living in a rural cottage were filmed around Ennerdale in Cumbria. On the DVD commentary, Boyle and Garland frequently call it a post apocalypse and horror film , commenting on scenes that were quotation of George A. Romero 's Dead trilogy. As usual, I only found it when I was done. One day I'll learn to check. Quick plot overview without getting into spoilers - this is a dystopian novel, set on a far future Earth. There's an index of the various Fifth Seasons at the back of the book as well.

In the current timeline, an empire called Sanze controls most of the continent. In philosophical themes, the book gives you a lot to chew over and think about in regard to the true meaning and results of slavery and freedom and the intention of actions and the results. The book also touches on race a lot of comments will note the description of most of the population reads as African or Asian and sexuality there is a gender fluid character as well as some bisexuality and a three-way, sort of, relationship.

The book is most certainly dark, but worthy of reading. There are several instances of abuse centered on children which always seems harder to read and a few grisly deaths as well as some mass death events. The world of The Fifth Season is a harsh one. There was not a lot of humor to lighten this book up but it was nonetheless an engaging read that left you with something to ponder. I finished this book several months ago but I'm still thinking about it. Added an extra star for the narrative's lasting power.

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Audible Audiobook Verified Purchase. I picked up the Kindle and audio versions if this trilogy to take a break from my recent "hard SF" binge. My expectations were not high -- I've been disappointed by many fantasy authors trying to "break the mold" and differentiate themselves from the Tolkiens, Martins, and Rothfuss of today's big-book-fantasy.

I was happily surprised by these books. It is a well-written fantasy with a largely unique magic system and mythos coupled with a satisfying personal story of loss, revenge, and what it means to be an "other" in stratified, xenophobic, society.

Highly recommended for any reader of modern fantasy looking for a unique world and system of magic. I've enjoyed all of Jemisin's books thus far, but I often avoid starting series books until the whole series is complete because I hate being left hanging, waiting for the next installment.

But "The Fifth Season" was totally worth the suspense. The world of The Stillness - an ironically-named super-continent that suffers frequent, massive environmental catastrophes thanks to its unstable geology - is a captivating setting for the story's three narrators, each of whom is forced to journey across the dangerous, shifting land. In conceiving a society able to do what it takes to survive across multiple devastating periods of disaster and climate change, Jemisin creates a world order that each of her main characters sees through different eyes: Even though I enjoy a good Tolkein-esque fantasy, it's so refreshing to read Jemisin's writing, which always takes a fresh departure from the pseudo-medevial-Europe settings so common in the genre.

Rather than elves and orcs and plundering armies, Jemisin gives us orogenes those gifted with the ability to control geological forces , stone-eaters non-humans who can move through solid rock with their own, mysterious agenda , and a continent that is a greater threat to its people than any army. Whether the strict, caste-driven, xenophobic society that has evolved in response to the environment is a necessary evil or a regime to be overthrown is an argument that will likely span the entire trilogy.

The book builds toward several narrative twists slowly revealed in its final third; I had picked up on enough very subtle hints to suspect some of them, but they still came into focus with a satisfying emotional "click" that made me glad I waited and didn't stumble across any spoilers. I was so captivated by the narrative that I literally woke up in the night wanting to read more thanks, insomnia! Waiting for the next two chapters leaves me feeling as unsettled as the world of The Stillness itself. See all 1, reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers.

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