The Walking Dead

[']['ear]

Fast zombies or slow zombies?

I have a couple of problems with Zombies. If they are supernatural, all bets are off. But if they are not (virus is the usual explanation), then they are still subject to the usual limitations of an organism. That is, they cannot be half rotten, they cannot walk around on broken legs, etc. Sepsis would be a serious issue, as would nervous system blocking functionality. Finally, they would be just as willing to eat other Zombies as they would a live person; no reason not to.


Am I wrong in this?

But I think an interesting notion would be a virus that eliminated higher brain function. So Zombies would act like, say, dogs. Still very dangerous, but not the silly notion that Zombies would prefer uninfected humans to other Zombies.

[GGT]

The half carcass woman was dragging herself along as she rotted. They don't eat each other, and they're not eating the dead bodies at the hospital. Some memory is retained, that's why the mom keeps coming back home, and that one sheriff came back to the station.

I'm wondering if they'll have the zombies evolve somehow, and they start to scheme and plan together to actually hunt humans.

[EyeKhan]

The Walking Dead - Zombie Attributes

So to break down the Zombies of The Walking Dead, their attributes appear to be as follows:

Mobility - Starts at below average human and works down from there based on level of decay or physical damage. For instance, they can run, jog, walk, shamble, or crawl, and can navigate in a human like manner. This means that while they can walk around a jumble of cars, try to open doors, or make the connection that they need to crawl under a tank, or on top of it, they won't be running any marathons.

Habits - As if you took a human and put them on autopilot, and only interrupted this with an immediate and indelible desire for warm flesh. If you sat idle on a bus waiting to go to work before you turned, thats what you will do afterward. You'll try to go home, pick up your toys, go on patrols, whatever you did before you'll do after. Except without much thought, and punctuated with chasing people or animals down and brutally eating them alive.

Respond to noise with curiosity, and live prey with pursuit (if possible). Apparently will stop giving chase, or attempting to get at prey after a certain amount of time.

Brainz! - Eats any warm flesh, regardless of species, or organ, not just brains.

To Kill Them - Severe cranial trauma. They'll keep chasing you so long as they have a head and a method of locomotion.

Intelligence - Semi intelligent, but dependent upon your level of intelligence before death. They appear to analyze situations and attempt effective solutions, however if you were a particularly braindead individual before turning, you'll do things like continuously walking into a mesh fence even though it impedes your progress.

These are basically Romero Zombies ala the original Dawn of the Dead. They were sort of on auto-pilot too - whatever they frequently did while alive, they do while dead when they're not trying to eat living flesh. The noise response is right out of WWZ. I can't remember if these guys moan or not. I don't think so - they do make hissing noises...

[Hazir]

I think we haven't really seen differences in smart/dumb zombies; the police-man zombie faculties were clearly muddled by the fact that he saw 3 live human beings on the other side of that mesh fence.

[EyeKhan]

I have a couple of problems with Zombies. If they are supernatural, all bets are off. But if they are not (virus is the usual explanation), then they are still subject to the usual limitations of an organism. That is, they cannot be half rotten, they cannot walk around on broken legs, etc. Sepsis would be a serious issue, as would nervous system blocking functionality. Finally, they would be just as willing to eat other Zombies as they would a live person; no reason not to.

I can imagine rot not mattering for some functions, I can imagine the rot slowing down, I can imagine nerves still working for some reason or other, I can even imagine why they wouldn't eat each other but would eat live things (some sort of scent ability) but what I can't imagine is how the zombie can be animated with no real energy source. Most zombies don't get a meal after the outbreak settles down and most humans are dead. So, weeks later, how can these things still be active? What's their energy source? Even when they do get a meal, their digestive system isn't really working, their circulatory system as often as not is broken open to the bleed out point, their hearts don't pump anyway, and their skin is as cold as the dead. Where's the energy to make those muscles work coming from?

[Illusions]

I think we haven't really seen differences in smart/dumb zombies; the police-man zombie faculties were clearly muddled by the fact that he saw 3 live human beings on the other side of that mesh fence.

Business Suit zombie was pretty smart, for a zombie at least. He kind of hung back and looked to be like he was analyzing the situation that he was being presented with. He didn't unnecessarily expend energy. Once he realized that the guy was going to get away by hiding in the tank, he didn't continue to shamble forth to fruitlessly pound on it.

Fast zombies or slow zombies?

Explained in mobility. They'll move as fast as they need to, at the top speed of a below average human running. Any further slowness is due to either state of decay or physical damage.

I have a couple of problems with Zombies. If they are supernatural, all bets are off. But if they are not (virus is the usual explanation), then they are still subject to the usual limitations of an organism. That is, they cannot be half rotten, they cannot walk around on broken legs, etc. Sepsis would be a serious issue, as would nervous system blocking functionality. Finally, they would be just as willing to eat other Zombies as they would a live person; no reason not to.

A few contentions. People are perfectly capable of still being alive when half rotten, walking on broken legs, or dealing with sepsis. The major hurdles are pain and shock, which a common attribute of zombies is that they don't feel pain or go into shock, at least not as much as people do. Also if there is an innate preference to eating warm, undiseased flesh, you're not going to eat other zombies. Other zombie movies and games explain this away by including things like pheremones, or smell, or having the zombie be the result of parasite infection, in which case the zombies don't attack other zombies because they're of the same species, and are already infected.

You'd probably be most happy with the 28 Days Later "Not-zombies" Infected. They'd eat or kill each other if significantly provoked, and could be killed in a manner similar to humans, although more like a human on PCP or hopped up on adrenalin.

[EyeKhan]

You'd probably be most happy with the 28 Days Later "Not-zombies" Infected. They'd eat or kill each other if significantly provoked, and could be killed in a manner similar to humans, although more like a human on PCP or hopped up on adrenalin.

This effecitvely addressed pretty much all zombie issues - they weren't dead - they even starved to death after a while. However, I do have a problem with how fast the disease spread between people. I mean, you get one drop of blood in your eye and 5 seconds later you're a raving lunatic completely out of control. Internal biological transport systems do not work that fast. It wasn't particularly believable. Really, everything in those movies was too fast - I don't like fast zombies.

[']['ear]

That's why I asked "fast or slow." The fast ones scare me more. Look at Zombieland and how easy Zombies are to handle if you're reasonably armed, fit and savvy. Fast Zombies, on the other hand (28 days later, I am legend) are terrifying, and could run down even the best athlete like wolves running down an elk.

[EyeKhan]

Its an entirely different kind of movie. Fast vs. Slow, that is.

[Hazir]

That suit zombie shot is too short to draw any conclusions yet about fast/slow zombies. The 'I am legend' creatures were still people, infected and curable.

[EyeKhan]

Though I haven't read the book, in a review it was mentioned the original story called the creatures vampires.

[Hazir]

Though I haven't read the book, in a review it was mentioned the original story called the creatures vampires.

That's right, in the book the creatures are vampires. I suppose they adapted the story for the film as that was centered around finding a cure rather than around survival.

[']['ear]

Its an entirely different kind of movie. Fast vs. Slow, that is.

That's why I brought it up!

Slow Zombie movies always have the protagonists wander into tight, enclosed spaces (apparently surviving the zombie apocalypse makes you into a moron). Fast zombie movies have the protagonists hiding the whole time, since exposure is death (unless they have the light-sensitive twist, which really helps plot development).

[EyeKhan]

That's why I brought it up!

Slow Zombie movies always have the protagonists wander into tight, enclosed spaces (apparently surviving the zombie apocalypse makes you into a moron). Fast zombie movies have the protagonists hiding the whole time, since exposure is death (unless they have the light-sensitive twist, which really helps plot development).

A good slow zombie story has the protagonist have to choose to get into that tight spot to do something important - like save the girl.

[Hazir]

I like how they did that in Day by day armageddon (?) ; the government was incredibly stupid and detonated nuclear bombs in infested cities. Thus creating millions of dead who were irradiated and because of the way they died both faster and less dumb than their traditional brothers and sisters.

[EyeKhan]

What movie is that??? I've never heard of it.

[Hazir]

It's a book by J.L. Bourne

[Hazir]

Seems like it's slow zombies so far. Though some of them appear to be quite fast at times

[EyeKhan]

Yes, so far so good. They seem to have a bit of awareness too - the way they were sniffing for live flesh...

Looks like from next week's previews the deputy's going back to get the White Supremecist. That's nice. I wouldn't, though. Yeah, he doesn't deserve to die of thirst on the roof of a zombie infested Atlanta department store, but that's how the cookie crumbles, IMO. Things are tough all over when the world's over-run by zombies. I like how Deputy's former partner's banging his wife now. Nice of them to keep it secret - though I'm not sure why. They have to assume the Deputy's dead, right? They trying to keep from traumatizing junior? Hello, the world's over-run by zombies. What's a little mom's getting nooky going to harm him? Going to be some serious drama when Deputy gets back, though.

[']['ear]

A good slow zombie story has the protagonist have to choose to get into that tight spot to do something important - like save the girl.

But why is the girl so dumb? Why is anybody so dumb as to go into, say, a storm sewer when zombies are around?

[EyeKhan]

But why is the girl so dumb? Why is anybody so dumb as to go into, say, a storm sewer when zombies are around?

Sometimes you gotta do dumb things to be the good guy. In the series so far, the Deputy goes into Atlanta thinking there's a safe zone there and looking for his Wife/Child. Well, what he doesn't know is Atlanta's been completely over-run by the dead and he finds out the hard way. Dumb? Not yet. So, lucky for him there happened to be a group of survivors, willing to help him, nearby in Atlanta when he got himself into trouble. The survivors were there to scavenge for supplies for their community camping outside the city. Dumb? Not yet, but pretty damn lucky. So, one of the survivors is a violent nut job racist who the Deputy ends up cuffing to a pipe on the roof of a building. It turns out all the noise the deputy made fighting zombies and getting rescued attracted a whole lot of zombie attention and the group of survivors is trapped inside a building the zombies are slowly busting into. In their haste to leave, they lose the key to the handcuffs and leave the guy on the roof. Dumb? Not yet. Pretty sensible if you ask me. Well, in previews for next week, the Deputy decides he needs to go back and rescue roof-guy.

Alright, now that might be dumb. But the Deputy has been consistent in character, in caring about people, even those already turned into zombies. He's got a powerful sense of right and wrong and of duty to the public. The writers set him up enough that going back to rescue roof guy in what amounts to a suicide mission is plausible, even if its more or less dumb.

I think the problem with a lot of dumb situations in horror film is laziness on the part of the writers. Here, in this series, they have first rate writers and directors and a network with proven high standards all of whom are going to insist on the highest quality story lines. So they can get their characters into and out of trouble without resorting to dumb or implausible short cuts. Shit happens every day to get people into trouble and its not always stupidity. Stubborness, pride, certainly, ignorance, of course - that makes the world go round - anger, resentment, jealousy and lets not forget duty, loyalty, training, and curiosity - it's not all bad, see. Humanity so flawed there's any number of reasons bad things happen and conflict develops. Resorting to developing the story's problem based on being dumb is lazy, pure and simple.

[']['ear]

Yes, most Hollywood types are pretty lazy. Reliance on CGI emphasizes that even more.

[Ominous Gamer]

Don't know if someone mentioned this yet, but Walking Dead got the green light for a second season.

[EyeKhan]

Yes, most Hollywood types are pretty lazy. Reliance on CGI emphasizes that even more.

The biggest problem I've seen with CGI is overkill. Big Effects films are just blah now because they've used it to death. Nothing's amazing anymore when everything is amazing stacked on amazing with a side of amazing all covered in amazing sauce. CGI's gotta be putting stunt people out of business right and left too. Kind of sad, really. There's going to be a backlash - the next big thing in film is going to be making it so nothing they do with CGI looks so impossible it had to be CGI. That's going to be a fundamental of good direction - you'll see.

Don't know if someone mentioned this yet, but Walking Dead got the green light for a second season.

Sweet. Off hand, do you know how many episodes are in a season? Is it 14?

[Hazir]

A second season already? Sometimes I really don't understand US programmers. Fine shows like Kings and Caprica get clipped like it's nothing and then a zombie series get the green light for a second season just like that? Don't get me wrong, I like Walking Dead so far, but it's difficult to see how you keep it interesting for more than one season.

[EyeKhan]

A second season already? Sometimes I really don't understand US programmers. Fine shows like Kings and Caprica get clipped like it's nothing and then a zombie series get the green light for a second season just like that? Don't get me wrong, I like Walking Dead so far, but it's difficult to see how you keep it interesting for more than one season.

Different networks, different audiences, different business models, different planning.

[Veldan Rath]

Where can I find this Awesome Sauce? I now have a craving.

[EyeKhan]

Where can I find this Awesome Sauce? I now have a craving.

Look again. It's Amazing Sauce.

[Veldan Rath]

Explains why I couldn't find it...

[Ominous Gamer]

A second season already? Sometimes I really don't understand US programmers. Fine shows like Kings and Caprica get clipped like it's nothing and then a zombie series get the green light for a second season just like that? Don't get me wrong, I like Walking Dead so far, but it's difficult to see how you keep it interesting for more than one season.

I'm betting the plots or screenplays (or whatever they are called) have already been written for Season 1, if they are as strong as the original airings, there is no reason to push back signing everyone on for a 2nd season. The longer you wait, the more of a following the show gets, and the more expensive the cast can get since they know they can get almost whatever they ask for.
Besides, the comic this is based off of has been going since 2003. Plenty of interest.