The Walking Dead, SERIES PREMIERE, (open spoilers)

Cafe Society
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Caught this last night. Living in Atlanta, we had some local coverage of it, and searching for something to watch last night, we decided to give it a shot. Personally I think I’m a little too spent on TV dramas, Having had a great run with 24, and the show that stole heavily from 24’s playbook, PrisonBreak*. Don’t get me started on The Event. The presentation is Solid, I’m just not sure I can devote to Walking Dead what it would require. That, and I don’t have cable – caught the show at my parents house.

***** Good to see that Sara(h) (Callies is it?) has found new work. Didn’t catch her character’s name though. Is she going to **pull a Danza **and have her character go by the same name in this show as well? Also, it’s sad that her best acting comes when she hides the lower part of her face. She did this a lot in PrisonBreak, and well it would be interesting if it is a bit of method acting for her.

Interesting having the show being set in GA. We watched the downtown ATL parts, and I couldn’t recognize the location. I read one of the few street signs, and I knew of the street, but not that location. My mother recognized some of the buildings. Then again, GA has had a few movies and other projects filming here recently.

A nitpick I have, and I didn’t see it covered when I skimmed upthread:

The Ending, the final minute or so :

Why did they choose to end the episode showing Zombies on the tank? Wouldn’t it have played better to have ended the episode with the Voice over CB Radio “Cozy in there” line ?

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There is (likely) no issue with blood spatter that doesn’t exist in dealing with murders, executions or slaughtering animals in the real world. It’s icky, and it could draw wild animals (not likely zombies, as they don’t seem to consider each other good food), but it’s not (likely) going to kill someone or make them a zombie.

We’re told that a zombie’s bite is 100% fatal, due to the fever it induces. That’s it. There’s no claim, or indication*, that external contact with their blood can induce the fever.

  • Save for that single scene where Rick is wearing the mask. And, even that is a REALLY weak indicator, since neither Duane nor his father are wearing masks, and they know the Walkers better than Rick does. Rick was more likely protecting himself from an actual attack by the Walker, given that he was getting up close and personal with it, instead of shooting it.

There’s also plenty of indicators that it won’t - specifically the multiple zombies shot or bashed to…non-viability without inducing a fever in Rick, Duane or his father, and the fact that none of the people who’ve been dealing with the Walkers since the outbreak seem to consider this something to worry about, when having survived as long as they did would make it vanishingly unlikely that they hadn’t had to deal with it at least once if it were an issue, given how close they often get.

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Because it’s a much cooler looking shot?

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The season is available through iTunes, for about $15 IIRC.

I for one am going to go out of my way to buy shows offered in this way, to hopefully encourage Hollywood to offer pay-per-show stuff contemporaneously with the broadcast season. Seriously, HBO, I’m not buying cable and your premium channel just to watch True Blood. If I can’t buy the show as a standalone, I’m just going to “go to my friend’s house where they have HBO and watch it.”

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Ving Rhames?

Dawn of the Dead spoilers BOTH versions

Everyone winds up dead in the “remake”, so long as you keep watching during the credits (which I notice AMC cut out of their edit). Conversely, in the original, Peter (Ken Foree) turned out to be the first black guy to survive a zombie movie. Of course, he probably died a few hours after the movie ended when the chopper ran out of fuel and they didn’t have a good place to land, but he certainly outlasted Ving.

As for the Walking Dead, loved it. Never really read the comics, so I really didn’t know what to expect, but thought it did what it needed to, and did it well. Sure it moved along kinda slowly, but considering this is a series and not a movie, I think slowing it down a notch helps it. And the makeup, top notch.

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No, they are not. As a general rule-of-thumb, most armored fighting vehicles are cramped, to downright claustrophobic, in order to render the smallest external profile (smaller targets are harder to hit). But some tank/armored fighting vehicle models do come equipped with a bottom hatch.

The tank shown in Walking Dead appears to be a British Chieftain, being passed off as an Abrams. While the Abrams-series does NOT have a bottom hatch, the Chieftain may; I’m not familiar with the particulars of that model, which has numerous variants.

Yup; I was talking to the TV, saying, “Sherriff, you may want to rethink your strategy; jammed outbound lanes, plus empty inboud lanes, equals really bad situation.”

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Same here. You see the start of a mass exodus for starters, and after that, they didn’t make it. I wasn’t talking to the TV, I was observing the same [but apparently not so] obvious for the benefit of the other viewers at

Same rule of thumb for the treasure chest in a dungeon that has 3 or so intact skeletons next to it, and random scattered bones after that.

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The premiere brought in huge ratings. Which hopefully means AMC will continue to develop awesome TV shows.

The show felt like a more in depth version of a well trodden genre. It hasn’t offered anything new in terms of plot, but it was still well executed.

I thought the horse scene was shot well.

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There’s something I’ve always wondered about scenes like those; if the had really hit the fan and people were fleeing in fear of their lives wouldn’t a few people say “Screw it!, I’m driving in the inbound lanes”? I know I would. Of course the cars of anybody who did that wouldn’t be sitting abandoned in the middle of the road.

Indeed if it were part of an organized evacuation wouldn’t the local authorities just reverse traffic on the inbound lanes? Or do not all cities do that? It’s also possible that the feds insisted on keeping the inbound lanes open so they could keep shipping supplies in to the CDC (or so evacuate it by land).

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This is actually the first I heard of it being made into a show! (I missed it)

The comic was pretty clear that the wife was, if not exactly under duress, knowing she needed protection and buying it the only way she could think of. With the other cop knowing subconsciously but trying to convince himself he’d finally ‘won’ her. Realistic, but not terribly pleasant.

Oh, and eventually, they have pretty much that exact conversation about the word ‘zombies’ if I remember right. Including one charactor remarking they feel stupid using it, but what else are you gonna call them?

If they don’t wuss out on it, there’s a actually a very nasty, (but kinda compelling) plot point WAY down the line that might build on it. IF they don’t wuss out.

Honestly, having someone else make a version of it is really the best thing that could have happened, I think. Great concept, good plot (if a bit heavy on DRAMA at times) but I stopped reading because I realized I didn’t like any of the characters. The main character went directly from a Mary Sue to a Jerk Sue. (Someone disagrees with him? Well, he’ll be proven right, and the dissenter will be proven stupid, within two issues or less) Pretty much everyone else got less and less likeable. There were good reasons for most of the jerkiness, but there wasn’t enough sympathy to balance it out. Not enough to get me to keep paying for it anyway.

Well, except for the beta-male ‘smart guy’ character, who got less and less screen time. (Probably hasn’t shown up yet on the show) I stopped reading shortly after a major plot point rested on the fact that THE BAD GUY (read: Writer) FORGOT HE EXISTED.

Oh, the armed robber guy was fun. If he’d gotten more than 3 panels a book, he might have made it work.

Anyway, adding a director and actor level to the characters might be just what it needs.

–
I wonder if any of the main cast is in line for a race-lift. Things did kind of break down into, ah, traditional roles. The women don’t come out looking too good, either.

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Speaking of, a nitpick but I’ll mention it any way-

I hate when they do the jammed outbound/empty inbound lane, which they did in this movie, in Independence Day and in several other disaster films. I would assume in a real life situation they’d do the same thing they do for the gulf when a hurricane strikes, which is close the inbound lanes to any traffic by putting barriers on the entrance ramps then open the inbound lanes to outbound traffic.

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The correct collective noun is a stagger of zombies. :smiley:

We retconned this by saying that the inbound lanes were empty because those people got on the freeway early enough to make it out, and by the time the rest of the law-abiding citizens made their way to the freeways, the ramps to the inbound lanes were blocked either due to traffic or the military.

Makes as much sense as anything, we thought (given this was after a party of zombie movies and alcohol leading up to the premiere).

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My suggestions for a collective noun for zombies:

A Groan- a small pack (4 or less)

A Decomposition- (5 or more)

An Apocalypse- (hundreds)

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Loved the premier, can’t wait to see more!

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I love the imdb credits- character names include Zombie, Zombie, Zombie, Featured Zombie, Zombie in Overalls, Zombie, etc…

The half-a-zombies were particularly gruesome.

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Too much gore for the sake of gore. It’s not that they showed death and decomposition. It’s that they linnnnngggered on each shot.

A lot of what the cop did showed a lack of common sense. Like setting off by himself so soon. He was lucky enough to hook up with a solid guy who knew how to handle things. Why wouldn’t he stick with him, at least for a while?

These stock characters aren’t just found in zombie movies. They’re found in countless post-apocalyptic movies of all types.

I enjoyed it, but it was soooo cliche-ridden. When ex-partner kissed the unwilling wife, but it wasn’t 100% clear yet that it was the wife, I said “Now she’s going to look at a picture so it’s reeeaaal obvious that she’s the wife.” Well, it was the guy who looked at the family photo right then, but same difference.

And I hope they bring Lennie James’s character back into it because Lennie James is the bomb.

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Okay, I suppose this one seems fair.

Given how little screen time either character had I’m not sure how you could come to that conclusion. The woman might be stressed out, but, then again, who wouldn’t be? She didn’t seem to be coping poorly.

He didn’t seem particularly precocious to me. In what way did he seem precocious to you? If you mean he seems a little mature for his years, well, that’s what surviving a zombie apocalypse will do to a kid I guess.

This I find to be rather unfair and it begs the question, can you have a black character ever assist a white character without being a “magical negro?” The character has few of the traits of a magical negro. He has a past, his character does not exist simply for the sake of helping the white protagonist, and while he uses his abilities to help the white protagonist he also uses them to help him and his son survive.

How many zombie movies has this happened in?

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  1. Those cops shooting accuracy is balls at the beginning.

  2. They really are terrible at their job–not only were they unaware of how many people were in the car (surely the cops chasing them would have radioed them in), but the failed to ensure the car was empty before tending to other tasks. Also, why did some of them not even attempt to take cover?

  3. The protagonist is an idiot. The Atlanta scene has already been discussed, but he was way too nonchalant about the obvious (to me) Zombie in the tank–check the corpse at least dude before getting all snugly with him; jesus.

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Pardon the hijack - I quit reading the thread when I realized I don’t think my DVR recorded the whole thing. My show stopped right after the deputy shot the half-a-zombie girl in the park. Can I assume for some reason it recorded just the first hour of a ninety minute show?
Thanks.

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Yes. It went from there.