AMC's The Walking Dead opened with Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) shooting a little girl, who was clutching a stuffed animal, right through the head. The camera didn't shy away from it, either. Director Frank Darabont chose to show the poor girl splayed out, fully zombified, with a puddle of blood from her gunshot wound. The message couldn't be clearer: nothing is sacred. The rabid readers of Robert Kirkman's comic know this after 70+ issues (if you haven't read them, pick up the collected trades and follow along with the show. I promise it'll be fun!). I can't imagine a better way to kick off one of this year's hottest upstarts.
The hour-and-a-half premiere was perfectly paced for me at slow and steady. Anytime a comic finds itself adapted, I worry about pacing. One of the downfalls of several comic book adaptations is the tendency to cram too much into too little. Spider-Man 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Iron Man 2 all spring to mind. The Walking Dead, however, has the benefit of two masters of pacing: series creator Robert Kirkman and director Frank Darabont. I couldn't ask for more talented folks than these guys for a show that'll be as character driven as this. The first episode, Days Gone Bye, laid that foundation; while we'll get to see plenty of zombie slaying, that's not the point. Rick is. So are his wife Lori and his son Carl. His friend Shane, too. It's about people like Morgan and his son Duane. It's about humanity and how it handles the end of civilization.
What struck me most of all about this episode was the humanity. We jump into the story at the same time as sheriff's deputy Rick, confused and possibly naive about the new world. He meets Morgan and Duane who, in spite of the dangers to themselves, take Rick in. There's that pesky humanity, creeping in while the rest of the world burns. Rick extends some, too, sharing about half of the sheriff's ammo and guns. But where do we really catch a glimpse of it? The look on Rick's face at the start of the show when he takes aim. Morgan, alone upstairs with the rifle. When Rick takes the time to find the legless zombie. These are the moments I remembered Monday morning. As the season goes on, it'll be these moments that define the show.
You know what else I want to talk about? Of course, how could you? That was a ridiculous question. I want to talk about the amazing set design. Burned out cars have become a staple in zombie-lore. We have plenty of those here, and in all the right places: on the highway, at the gas station, abandoned in zombie-infested Atlanta. But what we also have, car-wise, is a plethora of military vehicles in varying degrees of disrepair. It may be obvious to state it, but it's a subtle way to show that time has passed. There was a response and it failed. Nowhere is that more clear than in the hospital. When Rick first wakes up and walks into the hallway, it looks only empty. But then we get the flickering lights and broken doors. Blood splatters and puddles. Bullet-ridden walls and ceilings without, well, a ceiling. And finally, we get two doors, chained and locked up, with "Don't open, dead inside" scrawled across it. Boom! Mood set. Without dialogue or action of any kind. Amazing work.
The Walking Dead couldn't have asked for a better reception. It premiered on Halloween night, on a channel known for its wonderful programming. There've been no missteps in the marketing and promotion, from Comic Con to commercials. That showed when AMC had its highest ratings EVER. The real test, I'd say, is how the show does this Sunday. I think The Walking Dead will rise to the occasion.
Final Verdict: 9.37 out of 10 Head Shots. I haven't been more captivated watching TV since the last time TBS showed Titanic.
The hour-and-a-half premiere was perfectly paced for me at slow and steady. Anytime a comic finds itself adapted, I worry about pacing. One of the downfalls of several comic book adaptations is the tendency to cram too much into too little. Spider-Man 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Iron Man 2 all spring to mind. The Walking Dead, however, has the benefit of two masters of pacing: series creator Robert Kirkman and director Frank Darabont. I couldn't ask for more talented folks than these guys for a show that'll be as character driven as this. The first episode, Days Gone Bye, laid that foundation; while we'll get to see plenty of zombie slaying, that's not the point. Rick is. So are his wife Lori and his son Carl. His friend Shane, too. It's about people like Morgan and his son Duane. It's about humanity and how it handles the end of civilization.
What struck me most of all about this episode was the humanity. We jump into the story at the same time as sheriff's deputy Rick, confused and possibly naive about the new world. He meets Morgan and Duane who, in spite of the dangers to themselves, take Rick in. There's that pesky humanity, creeping in while the rest of the world burns. Rick extends some, too, sharing about half of the sheriff's ammo and guns. But where do we really catch a glimpse of it? The look on Rick's face at the start of the show when he takes aim. Morgan, alone upstairs with the rifle. When Rick takes the time to find the legless zombie. These are the moments I remembered Monday morning. As the season goes on, it'll be these moments that define the show.
You know what else I want to talk about? Of course, how could you? That was a ridiculous question. I want to talk about the amazing set design. Burned out cars have become a staple in zombie-lore. We have plenty of those here, and in all the right places: on the highway, at the gas station, abandoned in zombie-infested Atlanta. But what we also have, car-wise, is a plethora of military vehicles in varying degrees of disrepair. It may be obvious to state it, but it's a subtle way to show that time has passed. There was a response and it failed. Nowhere is that more clear than in the hospital. When Rick first wakes up and walks into the hallway, it looks only empty. But then we get the flickering lights and broken doors. Blood splatters and puddles. Bullet-ridden walls and ceilings without, well, a ceiling. And finally, we get two doors, chained and locked up, with "Don't open, dead inside" scrawled across it. Boom! Mood set. Without dialogue or action of any kind. Amazing work.
The Walking Dead couldn't have asked for a better reception. It premiered on Halloween night, on a channel known for its wonderful programming. There've been no missteps in the marketing and promotion, from Comic Con to commercials. That showed when AMC had its highest ratings EVER. The real test, I'd say, is how the show does this Sunday. I think The Walking Dead will rise to the occasion.
Final Verdict: 9.37 out of 10 Head Shots. I haven't been more captivated watching TV since the last time TBS showed Titanic.
As far as hurting demonic/supernatural children goes, the movie AMC aired directly before THE WALKING DEAD was Zack Snyder's remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004) in which the first zombie that the viewer and the protagonist encounters is both a little girl and a zombie and she gets taken out pretty quickly (I think she's thrown across the room).
ReplyDeleteSecondly, in David Slade's sinister and obsidian 30 DAYS OF NIGHT (2007) another little girl--this time, technically a vampire-- gets held down while she is killed by an axe.
Let's be honest: the show was confident and pretty and the flash bang effect in the tank was uber-cool, but The Walking Dead's pilot only had one platinum thread: turning Morgan's (played by Lennie James) wife into a zombie that looked more haunted than re-animated, against whom the human characters merely cowered. Otherwise it ripped off 28 DAYS LATER to a dumb degree.
(You can say that it was true to the comic, but the comic doesn't really become interesting until the 3rd volume or so, "Life Behind Bars.")
See--I'm gonna have to disagree. Yes the show and 28 days later have similar openings, but, in my opinion, the pilot for The Walking Dead was given a completely different tone and feel than 28 Days Later. I feel like the main difference lies in the study of the main characters. I never felt like 28 days later was about Cillian Murphy's character. Maybe it was for the first 20 minutes, but after that it morphs into it's own thing. The pilot of The Walking Dead was very much Rick-centered, and dealt with his initial reaction, and then trying to be able to maintain his humanity (as Joey mentioned) in this new world in which he finds himself. Note the scene where he bashes his first zombie in the head with a shovel outside of the house where Morgan and Duane are squatting--he lurches in pain due to his gun-shot wound, but you get the sense that there's more than just physical pain there. It's emotional pain, a mental barrier that he has never crossed. He's never been that violent with something. He may have shot at people, but shooting at people from afar and bashing someone's head in with a shovel are very different things.
ReplyDeleteAnd youre examples of a kid being killed were only in feature films--and let's be serious, the girl in Dawn of the Dead get's handled rather tamely (in the genre of zombie films being thrown across a room is basically the equivalent of being nudged in the shoulder. For TV, this kind of violence is absolutely unheard of. Which is the point--this show is going to break boundaries and push the limits (sometimes maybe even break them) for what is socially acceptable to be on cable.
I'll argue there's a huge difference between tossing a little girl down a hallway and closing the door on her (which is how it happens in Snyder's DotD) and shooting a little girl through the forehead. Namely, in one instance, the little girl is still running around as a zombie—we see her hop back up and then get to hear her banging on the door. In the other, we see the bullet hole, body splayed, blood pouring out (would zombie blood pour out or congeal? I can't imagine it being very liquidy).
ReplyDeleteI've only seen 30 Days of Night once and don't remember much of it, so I'll trust you. But I'll contend that my point remains: Rarely, if ever, do we see a children, demonic or supernatural, get offed. You've given me 30 Days of Night to add to a list that contains The Walking Dead. Are there many other mainstream examples? I'd love to know.
Yeah, the whole waking up in a hospital is straight out of 28 Days Later. I'd have to rewatch the movie and show back-to-back, but how else do you think The Walking Dead ripped off 28 Days Later? I feel like minus the hospital thing, which is (as you know) merely a means to get us and Rick on the same level, these two stories are nothing alike. Totally different feels, totally different attitudes, aesthetics, and intentions.
Are you two serious? The pilot and 28 Days Later are identical twins-- specifically because the English actor who portrays Rick has a dodgy southern accent.
ReplyDeleteThe initial reaction from both Rick and Jim (Cillian Murphy) to the deaths of the infected/zombie, the black character charged with the burden of delivering exposition (and does Rick not have NetFlix? He couldn't have been aware of zombies at all), the fact that the first infected/zombie that the main character kills in 28 DAYS LATER/WALKING DEAD was a child (Jim kills that kid in the gas station) and are both Jim and Rick a re viscerally afflicted with vertiginous emotions, both Rick and Jim are taken in by a parent/child pair. There are simultaneous shots of the joys of a depopulated world (the shower scene in WALKING DEAD/the shopping scene in 28 DAYS LATER). Jim stumbles from the hospital to the church where there is writing on the church doors and walls, and piles and piles of bodies.
The aesthetics/porn of destruction are super similar in both. The only noticeable difference between the two are the sublime and snarling downbeat soundtrack of 28 DAYS LATER and the lugubrious, stark silence of THE WALKING DEAD.
Let's just have a little perspective: the zombie survival-horror subgenre has been or is almost exhausted-- LAND OF THE DEAD, THE CRAZIES, 28 DAYS LATER, FIDO, DEAD SET, WORLD WAR Z, ZOMBIES OF MASS DESTRUCTION, LEFT 4 DEAD, DEAD RISING. The only difference that THE WALKING DEAD can boast (and should) is that it will be really interesting in 3 or 4 episodes time when he have to see a human society operate on the second wrung of the food chain.
Umm--I'm pretty sure no one in 28 days later had a southern accent. So I don't really know where you were going with that.
ReplyDeleteAlso--I didnt know that you couldn't take a shower in a world that wasn't overrun by the undead. In The Walking Dead's shower scene, it was the first shower they had taken in days--thus the "joy". COMPLETELY different than the shopping scene in 28 days later...
As for the piles of bodies--Dawn of the Dead (1977) had a scene like that in the opening too--would you say 28 days later ripped off that scene too?
I think you're connections are pretty big stretches.
But then again--film is subjective so...
Also--the first zombie that Rick kills is not the little girl, that's just the first one we see. The first zombie that Rick kills is the one outside the house (he smacks it in the head with a shovel).
ReplyDeleteThe porn of destruction (awesome phrase, by the way, because that's exactly what it is) is similar in every zombie movie. Every apocalyptic movie, too. We could find visuals in 28 Days Later that George Romero used decades earlier. So yes, I agree that there's visual similarities. But replace The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later with The Road and Zombieland, Escape from New York and The Crazies.
ReplyDeleteIt always bugs me when a character doesn't know what a zombie is. I think it's because we've been living in a society that reveres the undead (just look at that list you put together in probably less than a minute). But whatever, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief. I mean, Jim had the same reactions in 28 Days Later (you could argue they weren't technically zombies, but I'd call shenanigans). Actually, I think most protagonists don't know what a zombie is when they see their first one. That's another running theme in the zombie genre.
Moments that resemble each other does not an identical twin make. IF we are strictly comparing Days Gone Bye to 28 Days Later, they are tonal on different sides of the spectrum. It'd be wrong to compare them in that regard, too, as one had a beginning and an end, and the other is serving as a beginning. These two properties have different feels, so even if they have a scene that reminds you of another, it was likely played for another emotional response. When we see Jim and co. in the grocery store, that's after Jim watched Selena hack off Mark's arm, it's after a daring rescue in the streets. When Rick, Morgan and Duane are taking their showers, it's after weeks of not showering, it's after we see maybe 2 zombies killed. David already hit on the difference in first kills, and it's worth mentioning the placement of the kills: we're nearly halfway through Jim's story when it happens. We are genuinely at the start of Rick's when it happens. Again, this is why it's unfair to do a straight comparison: The Walking Dead has the benefit of more airtime to tell its story.
The killshot is the first thing we see in Days Gone Bye. So it's not a chronological issue, but narratological one. Darabont obviously decided for the audience to absorb that information first and foremost to show that the cauterization of Rick Grimes' character was already taking place (it's why 28 Days is more effective). It undercuts what the rest of the episode is about.
ReplyDeleteDavid, I actually think both DAWN OF THE DEAD and 28 DAYS LATER rip off pictures of the liberation of Dachau: http://furtherglory.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/dead8.jpg
Probably 28 DAYS LATER was intentionally referencing DAWN OF THE DEAD. But THE WALKING DEAD doesn't seem to have the imagination to pull off anything but pointing at other zombie fiction.
I'm glad you two loved the episode so dearly, but I think you're missing the point. Boyle & Company reinvigorated all the zombie tropes (even while borrowing the waking up from a coma to find the world completely changed, which Alex Garland admits to stealing from DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS, but probably has its roots in folks legends stemming from Rip Van Winkle and farther back to the Book of Revelation), creating a fuel that our culture has completely depleted, and THE WALKING DEAD doesn't seem interested in doing anything as stimulating.
The connection between accents comes from the fact that Andrew Lincoln's a british actor and has a shitty southern accent.
Anyway, the second episode is already better than the pilot. Robert Kirkman said of the comic that the wanted it to last as long as freakin' possible. The medium mirrors the message: survival at any cost. Quantity over quality (which really comes through in volumes 5 through 8 of the comic).
I guess I just dont see the connection with the accents. You said: "The pilot and 28 Days Later are identical twins-- specifically because the English actor who portrays Rick has a dodgy southern accent."
ReplyDeleteSo I'm curious who in 28 days later has a southern accent? Wouldnt there need to be someone with a "dodgy southern accent" in 28 days later in order for it to be "identical twins" with The Walking Dead?
Or is your connection the simple fact that both Cillian Murphy and Andrew Lincoln are British?
Didn't Rick think riding into Atlanta on a horse when thousands of cars were obviously trying to get out wasn't the smartest idea? I couldn't get over that.
ReplyDelete