The Walking Dead Season 4

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Dream, May 6, 2013.

  1. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

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    Oh, please, no more Governor. And, please, no trying to one-up the Governor.
     
  2. the G-man

    the G-man Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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  3. theenglish

    theenglish Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Just finished getting caught up on the season. The final four episodes were absolutely great. Once again, I thought that the story arc played out nicely and in the spirit of the comics without really being identical to the comics. We still have most of the cast surviving so they can return at a later date.
     
  4. Alpha Romeo

    Alpha Romeo Vice Admiral Admiral

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  5. the G-man

    the G-man Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    As noted previously

     
  6. DarthTom

    DarthTom Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    ^^ In terms of a deviation from the comic book, I don't think Daryl is going anywhere anytime soon. The actor and his character are as popular if not more with the fanbase than even Rick is.

    Other observations:

    *Daryl's reaction to Carol's departure was a little odd albiet he didn't have much time to reflect since the attack happened so quickly after Rick informed him

    *Will Daryl and Beth end up getting together?

    *Did they kill off Judith? I'd be surprised if they killed off an infant even as brutal as this show has been. There has to be some, 'hope,' for the TV show IMO to survive long term.
     
  7. Admiral James Kirk

    Admiral James Kirk Writer Admiral

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    I wasn't necessarily worried about Daryl until I started reading Compendium Two. It occured to me that if they do the Hunters storyline that he could end up taking Dale's place in that story. Would certainly be a surprise. It doesn't help that Abraham Ford is being introduced and he very much is Rick's right hand man in the comics.

    I don't think so. I think Daryl and Carol will be playing out the Dale/Andrea/Ben/Billy storyline from the comics.

    I don't know why I'm convinced that Daryl will be playing the Dale part in these storylines but I am. I will say he's much cooler than Dale ever was.

    If this plays out like the comics "hope" is just around the corner. Or least from where I am in the Compendiums it appears to be.

    Rick's usually wrong so probably not. ;)
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2014
  8. Robbiesan

    Robbiesan Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    This won't be a popular post, for many zombie fans are not 28 Days Later fans, but I think that form of zombie would have offered so much more for The Walking Dead.

    Given the comic book depiction of The Walking Dead, it's unlikely that this would have ever happened. But there are rather limited and nonsensical things that result from zombies portrayed in the shambling mounds of goo that happen currently.

    Probably the most fearsome thing that could occur would be a genetic mutation of the virus, prion, or bacteria that's caused the contagion. Then you'd have the infected (which is everyone but only taking over at death), show signs earlier and accelerated. An intelligent "walker" versus a walker with minimal consciousness would be more frightening.

    If you've read the comics, some might agree that the level of the grotesque need not be depicted as the show doesn't have to precisely follow the comic.

    Any survivor post-apocalyptic events is going to have to deal with no food, no clean uncontaminated water, a critical pragmatic factor that has yet to be address in a sensible way of continuity of species.

    Any medically trained person shakes their head at the absurdity while still enjoying the show. I would think a lot of military folks likewise cannot believe the tactics of the survivors. The military overrun, but these folks surviving...what???
     
  9. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    The zombies themselves are almost never the point of a good zombie story. The point is how disparate people react (both positively and negatively) when taken out of their element and into an extreme survival situation. Even in '28 Days Later', the focus was squarely on the small group of survivors, not how cool or threatening the infected were.

    Honestly, the use of Romero style walking corpses over "rabid humans" is really just an aesthetic choice on the part of the storyteller. If you want a high octane, frenetic action based story then the latter suits quite well. However in the case of TWD, some of the major themes are stillness, isolation and a desensitisation to the horror of it all. As such, the former is a perfect fit.

    Plus there's the title...it's called 'The Walking Dead', not 'The Sprinting Infected'. ;)
     
  10. shivkala

    shivkala Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The nature of the virus is that everyone is infected. One person dying starts the whole thing. Which makes highly populated zones extremely dangerous (Atlanta, for example).

    I think smaller groups are the ones more likely to survive.
     
  11. Robbiesan

    Robbiesan Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Actually since everyone is infected based upon changing upon death, the chances are very high of mutation, which means the vectors of acquisition are likely to change to airborne and waterborne quite easily. Have we seen any circumstances of animals being infected? So far I think only deaths.

    Medically the whole premise is a complete conundrum. And believe me, I've had this discussion with lots of medically trained folks from grad school and beyond. The most plausible theory might be a prion based disease like BSE i.e. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. That or Kuru.

    It's rather sloppy for a mythos with such a large following.

    The inherent problem with The Walking Dead is the bodycount necessary to inflect a thrill. You put someone in peril, then they manage ...just barely to kill them or evade them.

    Then in successive seasons, you have to have the protagonist find unique ways to dispatch them with various weapons.

    Then you have them kill far more, I guess because they're better killers from experience.

    Then what? Silly scenes where Carl mowes down hordes of zombies with his Dad. That's a true father and son moment.

    They've painted themselves into a corner if bodycount is the way to thrill us. This is why mutation of an intelligent walker is far more plausible. If plausible can be used within a mythos where rotting flesh still allows ambulation in the absence of a lack of aerobic respiration to produce adenosine triphosphate (they don't breathe).

    They don't truly eat based upon the creator. The walkers still have some semblance of residual humanity from their lowest brain functions and so eat because they once ate. He actually one described them literally passing the consumed flesh directly through and not undergoing metabolic or excretory functions at all. So basically the walkers have no ability to generate energy to produce ambulation.

    It makes no sense.
     
  12. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

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    fiction, it's fiction.
     
  13. Robbiesan

    Robbiesan Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Perhaps...but it's not intelligent fiction. It's fiction for mass appeal, which in of itself is hysterical.

    Romero's had scenes which openly mocked zombies in shopping malls, as if Americans are so stupified that they shamble along and buy things because that's what living is supposed to be. Now that's sharp, but just mowing down zombies is not.

    Sorry, any fiction that doesn't explain it's mythos by creating rules which is based upon some reality is sad. And I'm a fan of the show.

    As a country boy of numerous skills acquired by rural life (think Daryl but in no way with his zombie dispatching ability), then most of the survival depicted doesn't make sense either. Practically all of the things trained folks would do to improve their lot are not being done.

    So from practically every aspect: medicine, rural skills, military tactics, etc it just doesn't make sense.

    Even better, you have people dressing up as zombies and shambling across streets as an event, which is seriously making me question folk's motives. After all, the zombies are mindless automatons. Who would want to be like that?
    [​IMG]
     
  14. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

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    The zombies are internally consistent to the show. As long as they keep to that I can ignore that they're - you know - medically impossible. If you can't , then I would recommend also avoiding most other speculative fiction including Star Trek, Star Wars, Tolkien and pretty much anything that portrays magic.

    As for the group's survival skills, I think you'll find numerous criticisms we've made in this thread regarding that aspect. You're not the first.
     
  15. Robbiesan

    Robbiesan Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Based upon watching every episode, one gathers that practically 95% of Americans have fallen to the walker pathogen. If a walker can't die, needs no water or food to sustain life, can continue to produce movement sufficient to kill in spite of the absence of those things, then there is no hope of survival.

    What would have made more sense would be a percentage of the population having a pathogen, outbreaks, fighting, constant instances of this happening, being overrun, etc.

    Now if you're a writer and you escalate it to the degree on the show, then where do you go from there?

    Since the walkers are not intelligent, merely using the least amount of brain activity (we've seen less than anything which would even keep breathing going much less the homunculus of the brain), then it should be fairly easy to trap them. That however is at odds with the military being overrun.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_homunculus

    It's potentially possible that synaptic activity is happening by an unknown method. Regardless without the homunculus activated, no biting, no walking, no wailing about with your arms.
    [​IMG]

    It would be great if the situation is not a 95% rate of walkers. Please let that be so, otherwise it will be mindless shooting and whipping out a samurai katana.

    By the way, it takes quite a bit of skill to severe the cervical vertebrae that make up the neck. It's a bit ridiculous to expect that a person without training could do this, But that's fairly typical of American martial arts depiction, an irritating thing to someone who actually owns and trains with a katana.
     
  16. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

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    You're just going to have to get used to the fact that the zombie plague is a fictional disease on a fictional show/book. As long as internal consistency is maintained there's not much point in trying to figure out how it would work in reality.

    How do you know the character hasn't trained with a katana? It's not like there aren't plenty of practice targets. We don't encounter Michonne until at least 6 months have passed since the outbreak. Plenty of time to get good at decapitating slow moving targets.
     
  17. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah you really don't need that much training to use a sword. At least not when your opponents are unarmed, unarmoured and tend to shuffle. Mostly you just have to be careful not to lop off your own ear or something. Indeed I think you'll find most sword training revolves around not letting the other bugger stab you first. Not really a factor here.

    As for Michonne, IIRC her backstory in the comics she was a lawyer of some description and the sword belonged to her weirdo sword fetishist neighbour. I think there's also some mention of beig on the fencing team in collage but don't quote me on that.
     
  18. Robbiesan

    Robbiesan Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Your insistence that there's no point is rather amusing since that's practically the reason so many people discuss Star Trek either from the plausibility of stories or science.

    Making a fictional story plausible even though it's different than reality is what makes it science fiction. Otherwise it's fantasy. If that's the case, then why no kangaroo pouches on the walkers, and making them able to sing acapella or some other nonsense. It would be as random.

    Sorry, if you've ever used a sword, especially a katana where the sword grip is actually different than a standard weapon grip, and unless one knew anatomy, had precision and accuracy, and discipline, I doubt in six months one could decapitate another being.

    In Japanese history, under the relative calm of seppuku, a second person would finish the samurai who was committing ritual suicide. There are examples of mistakes by trained swordsmen, as well as people being especially chosen for that responsibility. All of whom had regularly trained with the katana and perhaps for many years even decades.

    That's actually seen in Western Europe as well with special executioners.

    I say it's BS. It looks good in a comic book and on the screen. There are very few people who actually take classes with a real katana. They'd be in very small class sizes. It's extremely implausible. On the other hand there are lots of students who study sword related arts like kendo and aikido and so use the shinai in the former discipline and the bokken in the latter. Neither are sharpened but blunt instruments.

    Even in Japan, there's a handful of practioners, with perhaps less than a thousand in the last decade.

    The cultures of the Earth's people are rich and diverse. Likewise are the sciences. It's not hard to find creative consultants and do the research and create a better mythos.

    EDIT: I can recall being in class, and my instructor complaining that we all looked liked we were chopping wood instead of wielding a weapon. Anyone can wield a sword, but not accurately and precisely. It actually is not a weapon at all for a beginner. It's also not like Western sabre fencing. That would be the closest thing that might be taken regarding fencing in the USA.

    And because someone always asks:
    [​IMG]

    A prone still target is far different than a moving target that's fighting back. Look here at what's involved regarding the spacing between cervical vertebrae.
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2014
  19. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    Bloody hell mate, you really need to get out more. And coming from me, that's really saying something.
     
  20. Robbiesan

    Robbiesan Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Are ya asking me out? Flattering but I'll pass.