Zombie thread

[wufwugy]

I'm honestly just so glad that Rick carved that guy open when he did. Cinematographically, I would have liked to have done it a little differently, but that's only a nitpick, and the real good thing about it is the storytelling, and they did that pretty much perfectly. They NEEDED Rick to make that kind of decision as soon as it became clear the guy was okay with getting Rick killed (pushing him into the zombie)

I was afraid it was just gonna be more talking and rationalizing and not doing anything. But instead they cut the guy open exactly how he should have been. Finally something of meaning in the story

[Penneywize]

The lumbering, rotting zombie needs to be replaced by something more sophisticated (but not necessarily more believable IMO, just more conducive to consistent storytelling)

Meh I just watched Land of the Dead on a whim (can't recommend) and, don't know if you saw that one but the zombs in it were sort of evolving / becoming more intelligent, using tools and shit. It didn't do much for me, in fact it all came across as somewhat comical.

The opening scene of the movie has a sort of TWD-ish town sequence where zombies go about doing things they used to know how to do, and there's this fucking band of zombies (literally, as in a musical band) trying to play their instruments. Come the fuck on.

That aside, if we accept that making zombies more intelligent is not the way to go, and making zombies stronger and faster isn't interesting enough, then what's the plan? And how can it be pulled off without zombies not being zombies anymore

It seems to me that good storytelling based on human-driven plot lines are the only real way to go. Spicing up zombies won't have any really lasting appeal, there's really just nowhere to go with it. I suppose this is the route TWD has taken, although the writers probably haven't pulled it off as well as it can be done. The thing to bear in mind here is that zombies don't make good villains, they're not antagonists to the characters in the story. They're more like the environment, exerting outside pressure on the characters, perhaps driving the story forward, but not affecting relationships between the characters (unless you count killing someone off as affecting relationships between characters...).