Given the advanced state of decomposition, it appears that many did rise from the grave.
But, apparently, there is a flaw in the virus mechanics in WD: everybody has the virus inside of them, and no matter how they die, as long as their brain is intact, they will reanimate. However, a bite will also cause them to turn, which makes absolutely no sense at all because they already have the virus. Logically, if two healthy humans bite each other, that should also trigger a turn.
So, if the dead did rise from the grave, only those that decomposed unevenly could rise.
But, you apparently missed the entirety of season 2 (at the Atlanta CDC) where all they did was talk about it.
They also completely forgot that in season 1, if you rub zombie guts on yourself you become invisible to the zombies, which also makes no sense since everybody is already infected, regular guts and zombie guts should be identical.
The zombie bites in WD aren’t fatal because they’re loaded with the zombie virus, they’re fatal because of some other factor - possibly a biological mutation caused by the virus, possibly a sympathetic virus that finds undead hosts to be particularly good incubators. It’s possible that, if someone in that universe developed a vaccine for the zombie virus, a zombie bite would still kill a vaccinated human, because it contains a neurotoxin, or some sort of super-staph infection.
The zombies didn’t leave them alone because they could smell the zombie virus on them. They left them alone because they looked and smelled like corpses, and zombies only attack living creatures.
I haven’t seen The Walking Dead TV series, but in the graphic novel there was one character who was bitten by a zombie, and then had his leg (or arm) amputated before he could turn (of course, one character also died when they tried to do that - seems to me I remember that the death was caused by a shoddily performed operation that let the victim bleed out. There were also a couple of incidents where a person was bitten, didn’t die, and turned into a zombie anyway. So using WD as a guide for this, it looks like the virus is responsible for zombification. If you die, the virus gets you as long as your head is intact, and if you get bitten you can turn without dying.
And relevant to nothing, I auditioned for Romero’s original Day of The Dead when I was in high school, along with my entire film making class (well, 6 other students + teacher). Our teacher was the only one who was hired, and he’s the zombie in hornrim glasses that gets his leg shot off standing by the water fountain. I think he had a total of 1.5 seconds of screen time.
So? It just means that zombies are smart enough to recognize that “looks dead” + “smells dead” + “still moving” = “don’t eat.” There’s no need to assume that they can somehow sense the virus in other creatures to explain their behavior.
She did indeed die of infection, but looking back, it was never specific what kind of infection–zombie/walker bite or gangrene (I know, gangrene doesn’t work nearly that fast) or unknown other infection.
Morphine. Sweet, sweet morphine.
This has bothered me since the beginning of TWD–zombies/walkers do not breathe. In or out. The limbs are ambulatory, the mouth works but they take no sustenance/nutrition from flesh. There should be no Arrrrghhhh-ing, no “smelling out” non-Zs/Ws and if you bust off the mandible, they’re a lot less dangerous (I got that from a short story collection called “Book of The Dead,” in the one story, the “Hero” spends most of his time whacking off the lower jaw of re-animates; he’s looking for a zombie girlfriend).
As for inconsistency, I think it’s just the opposite–If we don’t make set “rules,” we won’t get caught with our brasses hanging out, later.
They don’t “breathe” in the sense that they take in oxygen from the air, and burn it for energy. But they still have lungs (except when they don’t) and the muscles needed to inflate and deflate them. Just like zombies don’t need to eat, but can still chew and swallow, zombies don’t need respiration, but can still inhale and exhale.
In the 1968 “Night of the Living Dead”, the reanimated corpses seemed to be alive, brought back to life, but minus higher brain functions. The cerebrum seems to be damaged, with some function related to senses (smell, taste, sight) still operating. The cerebellum mostly is intact, with the diencephalon apparently functioning. This is supported by the “destroy the brain to kill the ghouls” plot element. If the brain functions, the body must keep glucose levels up, (circulation is active and the digestive tract still operates).
I submit that reanimated corpses that are damaged beyond the circulatory system’s ability to maintain blood-flow to the brain will be rendered inactive. There may be an element that extends the brain’s ability to function at primitive levels will less than optimum nutrient and blood supply. These reanimated corpses are alive in the same sense we are, they are just severely brain damaged and perhaps affected by some hyper- adrenaline condition that is a by-product of the reanimation process.
This is all related to strictly the 1968 “Night of the Living Dead”. Subsequent movies added to the genre canon, and my comments don’t relate to any sequels or other “zombie” movies. If anyone can remember any dialog from the original movie that indicates the reanimated corpses have no pulse or don’t breathe, please advise.
Did you really like Day of the Dead? I hated Bub and the annoying boyfriend. They are actually making another remake of this movie. I hear it’s suppose to be pretty good.
In Dawn of the Dead, one character (I think it was the tough black cop) remarked that someone had told him as a child that when Hell was full, the dead would walk the earth ever after. This theory has not been expanded upon in subsequent works, sadly.
There was only one zombie in the graveyard in the original. The remake did have multiple zombies in the cemetery, but that was the result of a corpse reanimating during a funeral (we see the open coffin). Barbra also calls for help from a guy in a suite (which falls off because it was slit in the back revealing autopsy wounds). Whatever phenomena causes reanimation in Romero’s movies only effects the recently dead (unlike **Return of the Living Dead **were Civil War veterans crawled our of their graves).
Personally Dawn… is my favourite (I have 3 version on DVD). Land… had problems, but get’s a pass because it was the 1st sequel in 20 yrs & was Hollywood movie. Diary… was OK too, but Survival… was horrible and it’s the only Living Dead movie I don’t have on DVD.
It’s a standard conceit in zombie fiction that the story is taking place in a universe without zombie lore, Return of the Living Dead being a major exception. Also the Zombie Survival Guide (& by extension Word War Z) appear to have had zombie lore prior the Solanum pandemic; though is probably more due to outbreaks stretching back into prehistory than Hollywood movies.
What part don’t you understand? Bites are highly infectious. They’re so toxic, they’ll kill you in a day or two, e.g. Jim. Depending on the severity of the bite, they die quickly or slowly. Their death leads to reanimation.
And yes, if two people bite each other and it causes an infection that kills one of them, that one will reanimate. It works if you shoot them dead, too, e.g. Shane.
Bites can’t be infectious because everybody is already infected. The “bites are poisonous” idea is more logical, because we don’t know if suddenly they grow venom sacs seconds after reanimating or their saliva suddenly changes into poison. But, we also do know that zombies can tell the difference between dead-infected and reanimated-infected because they don’t eat each other and in the first season, rubbing zombie (not plain corpse) guts over you makes you invisible.
Through this discussion, one logical theory is that the virus behaves similarly to the Andromeda strain, in that it is only dangerous in the absence of oxygen, e.g. a living body, and once the body dies, it goes through major changes that make it poisonous to living humans (which also would not make sense because it would act through saliva, and in the seconds where reanimation occurs it doesn’t seem to make sense that all the saliva is suddenly poisonous or replaced by poisoned saliva.)
