The latest movie in the ’28’ franchise has just released. 28 Years Later is set, as you might have guessed, almost three decades after the first outbreak of the Rage virus spread across the UK, destroying the country. There’s been some talk that the movie retcons or straight up ignores its inferior predecessor from 2007, 28 Weeks Later, but I don’t think that’s true. If anything, the latest movie only makes the events of Weeks seem even more important.

In 28 Weeks Later, the Rage virus has seemingly been irradicated, because the Infected couldn’t feed themselves and literally starved to death, so after a few months with no new case, a US-led NATO taskforce is sent in to help out the survivors and try to reestablish order in Britain. Unfortunately it all goes south when a woman is discovered who, despite being infected by the virus, hasn’t turned into a “zombie”. Trough some stupidity, the virus ends up being spread again, and the final shot of the movie shows a horde of Infected running through Paris under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

This felt like a clear set up for a sequel that would show the effect of the virus on Europe, but that never happened, and eighteen years we finally get a follow-up that’s once again confined to Britain, with a quick opening text revealing that the virus was driven back from France and now the UK has been placed in isolation. So it could be seen that Weeks is forgotten or ignored, but I think this movie actually explains a lot about the situation in Years.

Isolation

One criticism I’ve heard is that it’s unrealistic for Britain to have been left alone for nearly three decades and not offered any help. It’s worse than that even, as we see in the movie, the islands have been cordoned off, with foreign navies patrolling the waters around to make sure no one–human or infected–can escape.

It might seem like a brutal thing to do, but it does make sense. After all, it follows on from what we see in the first movie, where it’s hinted that Britain is the only part of the world affected. Granted, it’s never properly explained how the virus was contained, but considering we’re an island, it’s not that hard to enforce an isolation to stop it spreading.

After the virus reached Europe in Weeks, it only makes the case for total quarantine of the British Isles stronger. Those in France would know the danger of allowing survivors from Britain in, and they would be the first places people would flee to, so have a good reason to object to any aid attempts. It’s also likely that once the virus reached Paris, the surrounding countries would have taken a similar approach to stop it spreading, with a “shoot first, ask questions later” policy, and after two devastating outbreaks in Britain within twelve months, they would likely think it a lost cause.

Considering that the first of these outbreaks destroyed the country within a month, it’s a pretty solid justification for not taking any risks, and not allowing a single person to leave the UK.

Research

There’s also a good excuse for the United States not to do anything to help either, as they were the ones in charge during the events of Weeks, and saw how impossible it was to contain the virus. It’s possible that they managed to salvage some samples too, and could study it back home, leading them to the conclusion that it would likely mutate to become even more deadly, and possibly that there was no chance of creating a vaccine against it.

In 28WL, Tammy is found alive after contracting the virus but is not suffering any of the effects as she has a natural immunity. She’s still a carrier though, and passes on the disease when her rather dumb husband kisses her and turns full zombie, rampaging through the US base. Later we see that her son also has this naturally immunity when he’s bitten, and it’s through him that the virus spreads to Europe.

Assuming that the authorities are aware of these facts it’s another good reason not to take any chances, because a. the virus mutates constantly, as most viruses do, and b. even those who don’t display symptoms can still pass it on, so infection might not be so easy to spot.

Clean Up Job

But would it really be all that likely that the British would be left to fend for themselves for thirty years with no one coming to help?

The fact is that at the end of it all, it’s only natural for countries to protect themselves first. Any attempt to clean up Britain by foreign armies would naturally lead to some deaths and infection of service men and women, which could be viewed as unacceptable by the public back home.

As it is such a difficult and dangerous mission, these forces would have to go in alone, with no backup or extraction if things went wrong, and if anyone gets infected, they would have to be counted as an enemy too. This is something actually shown in 28 Years Later, and it’s likely that any recon missions or satellite photos would show that the infected still survived, and humans were still in hiding.

In addition the US (who would have to lead any large-scale clean up attempt) would be unlikely to want to try again after their first attempt went so disastrously bad. They would know first-hand the impossible task of containing the virus, especially as now it’s spread across the entire country again, and would be reluctant to try a second time.

As for why they don’t help out a little more by dropping food, weapons, etc., to survivors, there are a few possible answers. The most unpleasant is that they simply want to starve the entire population, so as to destroy the virus once and for all. Or it could be that they do try to drop supplies, just not to Lindisfarne (the island in Years). After all, most groups of survivors would be quite small, likely isolated, and with no radio contact, so getting coordinates for a successful airdrop would be difficult.

The other question is why not go the whole way and destroy Britain and the Infected?

This has another obvious answer: it would look bad. There are still going to be British citizens, emigrants, and even politicians around the world who would put up resistance to the idea of destroying the UK. Doing nothing is the least-terrible option from the outside than doing something so destructive.

It’s also impractical. Nuclear would be unusable because of the fallout, and as for conventional weapons, they would be no use in immolating the would country, and some infected would always survive. The most politically neutral course of action would be to simply say there was nothing that could be done and do absolutely nothing.

***

It’s clear that trying to clean up an island that was overrun in a month, then again a few weeks later, would be a hard, dangerous, costly, and in the end, probably fruitless task. Of course, we don’t this is how things worked out, as these details aren’t explained in the movie, but I don’t think they have to be, as we only see things through the eyes of a few isolated characters.

It could be that there were other failed attempts to retake the UK, or that scientists created and distributed vaccines with no effect, so that eventually it was agreed on that the only logical course of action was quarantine to protect the rest of the world, with the hope that at some point in the future a better solution could be found or nature would find a way. Nearly thirty years later, that solution is still not any closer to discovery.

I don’t think 28 Weeks Later is a great movie. It has a lot of shaky science, a paper thin plot, and relies upon a lot of convenience and just the dumbest characters to make sure everything falls into place, but its presence does help to explain a lot about where the world is in 28 Years Later and why no solution has been found.

It’s not on the level of either 28 Days Later or 28 Years Later, but it’s still had a big impact on the franchise, and is still an important part of the story.