AMC zombie series from Frank 'Majestic' Darabont - The Walking Dead

ya hah

haven't watched this series but I think the comic is just a rehashed zombie story. it brings nothing new to the table.

after reading enough about this series, the "new thing" seems to be a zombie story that continues. Kirkman said his reason for starting this was his disappointment in not being able to see what happens next. i'm totally fine with this approach, actually this is kind of what i want. a very classic zombie story that just keeps unrolling beyond what we typically see.

the pilot wasn't at all boring to me. this is actually very much what i wanted. a zombie story with a lot of quiet and discovery.

a very classic zombie story that just keeps unrolling beyond what we typically see.

otm!

I'm glad these are some OG Ramero-style zombies who just sort of amble haphazardly w/o being able to run. Zombies already have strength in numbers - giving them hyperkinetic musculature on top of that was just sorta unfair imo.

*Romero

Rambero

otm

I loved this show. I am not much of a zombie fan but this was pretty ace.

I really dug it too but I was amazed by a. how quickly our hero adapted to waking up in a brave new zombie world, and also b. his complete lack of curiosity as to how the fuck this happened. I'm having Lost deja vu where you're wondering why nobody asks each other basic questions about the situation. I would be badgering anyone within reach to tell me how long I was out, how extensive it is (Alabama? North America? northern hemisphere?) But they've got to pad this out, so I accept that.

Intrigued by the piles and piles of pristine military hardware lying about - somebody somewhere (hoping for a zombie Dennis Hopper with an eyepatch) is amassing a serious army if all this is just around for the taking. I'm sure they'll get to that at some point (zombie virus moved quickly through close-knit groups or some such).

Sorry if this has already been addressed - somebody was telling me this is a six-episode season. That right?

that is correct.

Thinking about this a day later, it does seem good-but-not-great. But my objections to the acting were silly, I think. If you're going to make an upmarket show in a b-grade genre, unknown actors that are a bit clunky are part of the spirit of the endeavor. I'm impressed by how much genuine love went into this show.

how can you tell how much genuine love went into this show

cannn you feeeeeel .... the gooooore .... toniiiiiiiiiiiiite

Thanks for six-ep clarification. I was wondering if popping zombies in the head and people crying as they cap a spouse would get pretty old by episode 11.

Saw Monsters the other night and now I'm mixing up which post-apocalyptic bleak deserted landscape belongs to which show.

yeah the hero did seem to get over the whole "the world is destroyed, the dead are eating the living" shit pretty quickly.

how can you tell how much genuine love went into this show

If you have to ask...

exploding zombie heads and long closeups of crawling zombies and buzzing flies over blackened corpse feet = LURVE imo

wow kinda suprised to see so many people down on this show - i watch lots of crazo horror stuff and yeah most of it might be a little more edgy and OTT and better in many ways than this, but im still down with the "HOLY SHIT A GORY ZOMBIE MINISERIES ON THE TV AWESOME" reaction tbh.

esp considering that like 99% of TV horror attempts have been unmitigatedly fucking awful

^

no idea what the comix are like, but i am hoping this goes in the direction of... deadwood!

hours and hours of survival horror is not interesting, and lost-style soapy shit among the survivors isn't either. but people figuring out how to live with each other and build ad-hoc institutions of stability in extreme circumstances is super interesting imo

any chance of that?

thats my hope, but i havent read the comics either.

part of my optimism tho is that a miniseries or series or whatever handled right could totally fulfill that long arc post societal breakdown/rebuilding in a way that zombie movies never ever can - all respect to the dawn/day of the dead stuff or 28 days/weeks, but commenting on it isnt the same as showing it happen.

I read a little bit of a current issue of the comic and it involved a lot of people on a farm standing around and yelling at each other

about leaving the toilet seat up or down, I'm sure.

also peeps saying the gore/FX aren't up to par may i please direct you to another comparable low tier cable network called SYFY which should maybe change yer feelings about that.

i think the gore is good

i dont think the fact that it is a zombie show alone is reason enough to give it a pass... i mean, i like zombie movies but it's not like they're exactly underrepresented in pop culture

dreading the inevitable mummy movie renaissance

Brendan Frazier did well enough with that already, imo.

Sorry, Fraser.

no one ever has to apologize to brendan fraser

Dug the pilot. The creators obviously saw 28 Days Later and played Left 4 Dead, but I was surprised how well the pacing and effects came out. I don't know why but I had an optimism about this too, it seems like a good medium for the ongoing story.

I read some of the comic too, but gave up after a few volumes, it just got too relentlessly depressing - seemed like they were just going to go from one shitty situation to another every volume. Also as said, the art wasn't very good. I never even got to the samurai character.

hours and hours of survival horror is not interesting, and lost-style soapy shit among the survivors isn't either. but people figuring out how to live with each other and build ad-hoc institutions of stability in extreme circumstances is super interesting imo

any chance of that?

The creators obviously saw 28 Days Later - Even tho the initial premise is basically the same (man wakes up in hospital to find himself seemingly alone in post-apocalyptic wasteland), but the graphic novel this show is based on was published in 2003, the same year 28DL was released, so the similarity is likely a coincidence.

If not a trope in itself.

there is a quote in the middle of this thread where the creator talks about how 28DL came out the month before the first issue of this was published

And isn't it just an example of a literary device which thrusts the reader/viewer directly into the post zombie apocalypse world, and provides at least one story arc for later on; namely, HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN?

I'm trying to think of another setting in which this could apply - waking up after the mid-term election results come in? Blacking out at a party, and waking up with no clothes on?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medias_res

such premises are easy (& often effective) devices, tropes etc., sure. And even tho zombie stories in general rely on so many other shared narrative similarities, it was still sort of uncanny that two 'zombie' stories, released within a month of each other, started with an an extended opening sequence w/ protagonists in nearly identical sets of circumstances.

I'm aware it's not a fully unique idea, but they are really similar and they came out around the same time. Sure, it's possible when Kirkman wrote it he just had the same idea, it happens. According to WP, the first issue of The Walking Dead is dated October 2003, while 28 Days Later came out late 2002 in the UK and June '03 in the US. Regardless, I can't help but think the success of the movie impacted the current TV series. Even L4D, another property that uses a lot of old zombie tropes, seemed to influence this, with the general look, graffiti on the walls, lol no gas etc. (If the chopper pilot turns out to be a zombie...)

Regarding the "28 Days Later" opening, Kirkman:

"I saw 28 Days Later shortly before the first issue of Walking Dead was released. That first issue came out in October of 2003 and 28 Days Later was released in the States in June of 2003. So we were working on our second issue by the time I saw it. Yeah. It was a little annoying. But great minds think alike, right"

― circa1916, Monday, November 1, 2010 3:17 PM

since ppl can't be bothered to read the middle of the thread

yeah, but apparently they came out around the same time...

the dawn of the dead remake was on tv before this, and the end is both soooo corny (lol slow-motion shot of the clip falling out of a handgun) and so influential on L4D (that last shot of the four survivors getting on the board after escaping hoards of running zombies). still has a great opening though.

it really is underrated. pales in comparison to the original, obv, but works pretty well as an action romp on its own. and yeah, that opening is A+

important to say it's an action picture though. fast moving zombies take away the horror imo*. it's most effective moments of dread involved large groups of zombies shuffling around.

*exception for me is the shot in Dead Set where the zombie sprints onto screen and goes to town on that Big Brother Employee on the console while that Mika song plays.

the last last shot in the remake is cool

you mean the part after the credits?

ya

I don't think it's so much that it's "zombies on TV" that's cool, more that it's a serious attempt at serialized, straight-up horror on a network known for quality television - I'm not sure there's any precedent for that?

im not sure why that's a big deal?

...because new forms of TV don't spring up very often? I mean I guess there's (the similarly high-rated) True Blood but that appears to pretty much entirely camp.