I certainly don’t have a problem with it…
No reason to. Nearly a year has passed since his last encounter with that group; the only member of that group who got a good look at any of Rick’s group’s faces is dead, and the farm, which is what that group would have most wanted, is destroyed.
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.
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I love the movie, too, but despite its flaw, which you overlook here. Specifically,
Given what we know about the physical abilities of those afflicted with the rage virus, there is no reason to think the obstruction at the entrance of the high rise’s stairs or the security gate on the convenience store would afford any real protection. The only real defense is to avoid being spotted. This of course raises the obvious question: would they really so nonchalantly stroll through town? A survivor’s movements would be quick and concealed.
In effect, as Hentor observed, the 28 Days Later zombie is too much of a threat for a realistic chance of survival, so you’re left with these inconsistencies if you want to have a protagonist who interacts with the zombies and stays alive long enough to have an interesting story. The Romero zombie, on the other hand, is a constant, persistent, lethal, nuisance, but at the end of the day, to quote the sheriff, “They go up pretty easy.” That leaves room for the real enemy in the zombie story, other survivors. If you get got by a zombie, it’s only because you couldn’t get your act together.
For what it’s worth, in my opinion, the opening of of The Walking Dead is flat plagiarized from 28 Days Later, which appeared a year before the comic.
And that group was stated to be mobile, were they not? The Philly guys were looking for a new place to go, and Randall was leading Shane to their most recent camp, where he hoped they’d still be, IIRC. Seems unlikely that they’d still be in the area 8 or 9 months later.
[spoiler]Can you elaborate? Why wouldn’t a steel security gate offer protection?
Stealth was obviously important; the lack of same is what got Mark killed. That said, I don’t recall anyone nonchalantly strolling through town. Jim does at the beginning, when he has no idea what’s occuring, but once he links up with Selena and Mark, they stick to their convenience store and elevated train rails whenever possible. Once Jim and Selena link up with Frank and Hannah, they stick to driving where they need to go, e.g. the grocery store, then up north. [/spoiler]
I disagree that 28 Days Later infected are too lethal for a plausible tale of survivors, but either way, I think the threat does need to be pretty damn lethal for the “real enemy is other people” stuff to work, at least in long-term stories. Inept but numerous zombies works fine for Night of the Living Dead because it takes place over a single night. TWD zombies would be eradicated within a few weeks, there’s just no way they could take down an industrial civilization with a) tons of non-perishable food, b) a massive military, and c) hundreds of millions of privately-owned firearms. It’s a good thing the fall of society takes place offscreen, because there’s no flippin’ way you can make it seem even halfway realistic. And if the threat isn’t that bad and people act like psychopaths anyway, then the whole story rings false.
msmith537 had a good point in mentioning Zombieland’s “3/4 speed” zombies. Unlike TWD, they are the result of a disease that created lots of dead-people-cum-zombies in a short time. Unlike 28 Days Later, they are actually dead and thus will be around for awhile. They are much more capable than TWD zombies, and dangerous even in small numbers, but less so than 28 Days Later infected.
Recall the scene between Columbus and the girl from 406. That zombie was tough, quick, and motivated, TWD zombies have skulls like rotted pumpkins and the reaction time of an out-of-shape coma patient.
I agree that the Zombie-land zombies present a nice middle ground.
I think the 28 Days Zombies could have broken the gate down, or at least trapped them in the store
World War Z made the fall of society seem realistic enough with Romero zombies and it is a far far superior work of zombie fiction than The Walking Dead or 28 Days Later.
TWD should have gone the route Zombieland did, wherein the zombie plague kills people and raises them as zombies, instead of only the latter. A sudden pandemic might create an initial critical mass of zombies that could overwhelm society. TWD’s scenario lacks that critical mass, and there’s just no way that the whole ‘all corpses rise as zombies’ thing would have remained unknown for more than a couple days.
They’re no stronger than regular humans; Frank is able to defeat two of them in close combat with a baton and riot shield. It’s unknown if the infected would stay at a place where they knew there were humans but couldn’t get at them, since the film doesn’t feature that scenario. Selena’s machete would seem to suffice to stab the infected through the security gate (which TWD characters should be doing with their chain-link fence), or they could leave out a back door and find a new shelter.
Heck, some degree of magic is always needed for zombie premises. If they really were animated corpses, each of them would be surrounded by a cloud of blowflies eating their dead flesh tidily and efficiently and reducing them to skeletons in a matter of days.
If they’re nominally alive but are mindlessly violent from a bad case of super-rabies, they starve and/or dehydrate to death in equally short order, assuming the fever itself doesn’t finish them off.
Why won’t carrion-eating insects feast on zombies? Why does someone with a homicidal fever not quickly succumb to it? Magic!
Presumably, he was expecting Rick to remove his gun belt. Since he didn’t, the govna probably didn’t think he could get a clean shot off without Rick at least getting a shot off himself.
I don`t think the Gov retrieved the pistol, either. He runs a serious risk of Rick coming back early for their next meeting and finding it, or having to go back later for it himself.
Either way, I also dislike the blatant audience manipulation at work, in which killing the Gov is made to seem like the only logical (indeed, the only, period) course of action, because we’re spoon-fed just how eeeevil he is.
In that case they’ve failed miserably to manipulate this audience member. To me the most logical thing would be to cut & run. Killing the Gov will only invite reprisals. Which would be very costly for both sides. Any victory would be pyrrhic.
Well, granted, and I commented earlier that if a prison is considered such a safe haven, surely there are numerous prisons to choose from. This is America, after all.
If we saw planted fields and fortifications at the prison representing hundreds or thousands of man-hours, I can see the hesitation to casually abandon it, but the only justification presented so far that I can recall is “this place is our home,” and that’s apparently enough to go to war over in this particular fantasy universe.
I’ll keep watching, but I’m not rooting for anyone for any more.
As for a Woodburian reprisal: They only have a dozen or so “warriors”. The rest are sheeples. Cut off the head, and the rest of them would fall into line.
Rick has got to pull a Ronnie Ray-gun on the Gov. It’s the only move.
THERE ARE NO ZOMBIES IN 28 DAYS LATER
Comics have months of lead time between being finished and published. 28 Days Later came out later in the US than the UK, only a few months before Walking Dead was in stores, not a year. Taking that into account, it’s not very likely at all for Kirkman to have ripped it off instead of just coming up with the same basic thing in parallel. Kirkman himself says he was already working on issue 2 by the time 28 Days Later came out (in the US), and that actually fits the timeframe given pretty well.
Both 28 Days and TWD ripped off Washington Irving, whom I’m sure ripped off another story or ancient myth when he wrote Rip van Winkle
There’s a big difference between “influenced by” and “ripped off.”
The first Resident Evil movie had a similar scene, but at the end*, and it came out the same year.
They are zombie analogues; they serve the exact same plot purpose as the zombies in any work of zombie fiction.
There’s also The Day of the Triffids. I don’t think it’s a matter of ripping off; it’s an obvious choice for the writer to make. The writers all wished to focus on the aftereffects of a major event (zombie apocalypse, pandemic, and the American Revolution), not the event itself: post-apocalyptic fiction, as opposed to apocalyptic.
Having the protagonist out of commission for the event and waking up for its aftermath supplies a naive protagonist that other characters can explain things to, allowing them to also explain them to the reader/viewer, making such exposition more naturalistic and less clunky. Also, if the event in question was highly implausible, like the zombies of TWD wiping out civilization, declining to depict the event allows the writer to sidestep this implausibility.
there are no zombies in most zombie movies. they’re always nameless or called something else: walkers, biters, infected, OMGBBQWHATISTHAT?!?!
You forgot to explain your asterisk.