Everything’s on everybody in this show. Nobody cares about the social order. That’s the Democrats for ya!
Amen! Rick’s group could leave the prison and move into a greenhouse and be perfectly fine. As long as you have a sharp stick, the zombies are a nuisance at worst.
They certainly can be, see 28 Days Later or Return of the Living Dead.
A fellow has to sleep sometime.
Not the best examples. The “zombies” in 28 Days Later were living people infected with a “rage” virus. It’s like they were on a perpetual cocaine high. Even one of them would be very dangerous. The zombies in Return of the Living Dead (a horror comedy) are reanimated corpses but they’ve retained their intelligence and are much more agile than other film/tv zombies. The zombies in The Walking Dead are your typical “Romero” zombies: slow, stupid and easy to manage in small numbers as long as you keep your head.
once again, they’ve given the ominous overtones treatment for the Governor and his drinks. i find it jarring, especially since i doubt it would amount to anything. feeding everyone zombie juice would be twisted but pragmatically pointless.
Not giving a shit what Glenn goes through has been pretty much the M.O. of this group since day 1.
Would fighting a zombie while strapped to a chair rank as better or worse than being lowered into a pit to pull out a bloated zombie trying to eat you while being ripped in two? With friends like these…
The assertion was “Zombies in low numbers are never scary.” Plainly, they can be. The infected in 28 Days Later function exactly as zombies for plot purposes: faceless horde that shatters civilization and brings out the worst in humanity as we fight to survive at any cost. RotLD zombies are zombies.
Romero was able to make slow/stupid zombies frightening in Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead with skillful writing.
If Walking Dead zombies can’t be scary in low numbers, that’s a problem with The Walking Dead, not zombies as a concept. It the zombies aren’t very dangerous, and the ones on the show are not, it undermines what the show’s trying to explore with man vs. man struggles and the nature of leadership.
Zombies are not supposed to be dangerous or scary in low numbers. The only way that zombies prevail is through human fuck up, showing how easily that could happen is what makes zombie stories scary.
That is one possible interpretation of zombie fiction, but not the only one. 28 Days Later does a fine job of depicting human fallibility and moral weakness in the face of a sudden, universal threat, while featuring zombie-analogues that are dangerous and scary in small numbers.
Just as a matter of personal choice, I find that type of zombie apocalypse story much less interesting, because there’s relatively little possibility for small bands of survivors to really do much to survive, and re-establishing some sort of community is not a possibility. Even Woodbury for instance would be vulnerable to zombies with speed and modest climbing abilities. I liked the remake of Dawn of the Dead, with the survivors stuck in the mall, but that wouldn’t really work for a serial or extended story. Part of the fun is having the survivors have the opportunity to interact with the abandoned remains of their world, which they don’t really have the chance to do when they are constantly under siege.
Yeah, but at that point the monsters might as well be anything. 28 days later would have worked just as well if you replaced the rage zombies with werewolves, that is a run of the mill scary movie. Slow easily dispatched zombies on the other hand make you deal with real fears. Like the fear of deadly unstoppable worldwide diseases. Like the fear that if a massive calamity were to occur the government would be completely unprepared to deal with it. The fear that even the best and most powerful army in the world would have problems fighting an unconventional enemy. Or even more basic stuff like feeling alone in the world or that your loved ones will turn against you. Sure, you can tell a good scary monster zombie story, but that is not what they are supposed to be about.
Have you see 28 Days Later? The possibilities you’re discounting actually feature prominently in it.
These are just matters of taste, but I have to disagree with you here. 28 Days Later is an exemplar for zombie films, it is not a run-of-the-mill scary movie with interchangeable antagonists. Spoilers for 28 Days Later boxed:
28 Days Later features a deadly, unstoppable disease, and further stipulates that it’s the product of British government’s benevolent efforts to cure violence in humans.
[spoiler]The complete dissolution of the government is also a plot point.
Jim: What about the government? What are they doing?
Selena: There is no government.
Jim: Of course there’s a government! There’s always a government! They’re in a… a bunker, or a plane!
Mark: No. There’s no government. No army. No police. No TV, no radio, no electricity. You’re the first uninfected person we’ve seen in six days. [/spoiler]
In 28 Days Later, the military’s inability to hold their checkpoints or protect refugee camps is a major plot point.
[spoiler]Alone in the world? See the first 10 minutes or so of 28 Days Later.
Loved ones turning against you? See Frank’s fate in 28 Days Later, a far more affecting “turning” than any in The Walking Dead to date. [/spoiler]
28 Days Later captures, nay, is a paragon of, exactly what they are supposed to be about.
Yes, I have. It’s when I first realized I preferred the Romero type zombie movies. I don’t have great recall of much of it, but I do remember that people who were caught out in the open were pretty much goners. I recall one dude trying to run across open field and getting caught from behind. The only way that there’s any sense of survival at the end of the movie is that it was restricted to a country that’s an island. (But I recall some ending where an infected person gets onto an aircraft that goes down in Europe?)
Where I think the number of walkers is inflated relative to the real-world population in Walking Dead, I think it was vastly under-represented in 28 Days Later. England is quite a crowded place. Where did all the people go, again?
Personally, I thought 28 Days Later sucked, to be exceeded marginally in suckitude by its sequel.
I think you saw 28 Weeks Later, based on some of your wording up above. It wasn’t nearly as good a film.
Edit: responding to Hentor here.
Yeah, Astral Rejection’s right, that’s the wretched, Danny Boyle-less sequel, 28 Weeks Later. If you want to see a “fast-zombie” film that doesn’t trigger your stated objections, and is a fantastic film besides, check out 28 Days Later.
Return of the Living Dead is very good too, though for different reasons.
Better or worse than The Walking Dead (in aggregate)?
After checking out the Wikipedia summary, I’ve actually seen them both. I may be misremembering elements, but I don’t think my reservations are undone. A virus spread like the one in that movie, and exerting it’s influence within 20 seconds, combined with the speed of the zombies in that movie, would overwhelm any group in no time at all.
Just because I love this movie, I’ll address the elements in question. This is just for purposes of fun discussion, mind you, I’m not trying to bludgeon you into liking the film. I hate the sequel, so I’ll only address 28 Days Later:
[spoiler]The tandems of Selena and Mark, and Hannah and Frank, survived for quite a while on their own. The newbishness of Jim got Mark killed, but both pairs were doing relatively well.
As for re-establishing a community, that’s what the whole second half of the film is about, Major West’s efforts to do exactly that. One key difference is that, as living organisms, the infected in 28 Days Later will die off over time. The zombies in TWD would so as well if the humans were less stupid and were systematically culling them; neither monster-class can reproduce. [/spoiler]
Woodbury would be toast because they are idiots. In the film Frank and Hannah survive in their high-rise apartment building by obstructing the entrance; Selena and Mark shelter in a convenience store with a security gate; and Major West’s soldiers live in a manor home with a minefield, barbed wire, sandbags, and machine guns.
There’s arguably more of that per-minute in 28 Days Later than in TWD: Jim wandering alone, looting of the grocery, siphoning gas, sleeping in horse pastures, walking the elevated train tracks, the clogged highway tunnel. They aren’t constantly under seige, the infected have no super-smell or life-sense abilities.
They are dead, or scattered. The dead don’t rise up, they just rot.
And lets not discount Zombieland. They are sort of 3/4 speed zombies. Fast, but can be out-run if you are in shape (Rule #1: Cardio).
I have a theory that zombie fiction at it’s root hits on some subconscious human belief that most people are mindless, dangerous, unthinking morons that do nothing but take up space and consume everything around them. The only difference between the zombies and survivors is that the survivors have the ability to work together and use their brain. But they don’t. They act greedy, selfish or stupid, fight among themselves and ultimately become just another dumb zombie (literally).
Seriously, how many problems in Walking Dead could be avoided if people just used their heads and didn’t act like assholes:
-Don’t be a racist prick to people.
-Keep an eye on your kid.
-If someone only wants you for your ability to be food, don’t let them stay with you.
-Be sure of your target and of what is beyond it.
-Don’t sleep with your best friend’s wife.
-Don’t kidnap people.
-Try to get along with people in general.
You know what would have made sense? If the Governor and Rick came to the conclusion that freakin Merle was the cause of both their problems!