Re: I read this post, and other than the Walking Dead bits, I have no clue what you're trying to say
Cannoli Send a noteboard - 17/12/2012 12:06:16 PM
Is "Warm Bodies" related to zombies? Or are you only talking about zombies in the sense that any faceless mass of groaning creatures with hardly enough brain activity to power a light bulb might be classified as "zombies?"
Both, maybe?
Because I've never heard of "Warm Bodies," and as with most things that I haven't heard of I simply don't care about it, not even enough to type it into google and discover what it is you're talking about. But that isn't entirely laziness on my part, but simply that I'd much rather talk about Walking Dead, which I love.
Okay, let's do that.
You made some good points about it, and I agree with most of them.
We're off to a great start. The appeal of the zombie genre is in a more interesting version of the apocalypse. With any other apocalypse scenario the problem occurs, passes, and humanity is left to pick up the pieces and rebuild. The zombie apocalypse is one of the few where the apocalypse spreads in a way that is noticeable and understandable to the average person, and slow enough for it to be truly devastating. It is also one of the few where rebuilding afterward is next to impossible, because the whole world is against you. But at the same time, the situation is not so hopeless or one sided that the remaining humans die, or the audience loses interest because things are too hopeless.
EXACTLY, that is the point I was making about that. But I think there is more to this genre, and even The Walking Dead specifically, than simply violence - although it does help. Season 3 would not be anywhere near as good as it is if we hadn't all seen seasons 1 and 2. It is the contrast, and the fact that these characters have changed so greatly that makes it a pleasure to watch them act like efficient killing machines. If they were this way from the start, it would be old and stale. Furthermore, while I think season 2 was far too slow, and Lori was a despicable and annoying character and human being, I think questions of inter-group politics and relationships, morality, etc, all have an important role to play in the genre. The problem with season 2 was its pacing, and that the characters paid too much attention to the foolishness of people like Dale for it to be believable. Not the existence of such foolishness itself. Without those elements I may as well be watching any other show where one group brutally kills multitudes of other creatures/monsters/people. The appeal of the zombie genre is in the balance between pointlessness and mere hopelessness, and the way this new environment forces everyone to adapt to it.
Warm Bodies threatens both those lessnesses. If it succeeds, Hollywood will jump all over that approach, and try to make "Twilight with zombies" rather than working out the zombie apocalypse angle. Imagine season 2 of the Walking Dead, but Rick has a teenaged daughter instead of a wife, and she's dating a zombie and does all sorts of stupid and counter-indicated actions, and keeps being right, because of rom-com immunity, and when all is said and done, the stupid and annoying characters are made right, because they twisted the rules of the world so out of whack that something so absurd could come to be.
The point of zombies is that they are the walking dead, and the point of dead is that it is final. Not curable by teenage romance (which is the shallowest and most ridiculous and by any honest comparison, emotionally AND rationally, the least powerful form of love [are more accurately, "hormonal sensation mislabeled as love" ] ).
And for the record, I actually liked season 1 of Walking Dead, although I found the nursing home group rather implausible.
It was a short season that waffled between ups and downs like that. Most people don't even remember that scene much, because it's buried in the other conflicts in the episode and the attack on the quarry camp.
Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
"Warm Bodies" must be stopped.
- 13/12/2012 04:09:26 PM
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The book is good
- 13/12/2012 05:38:50 PM
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It's a story about feelings. You can really only do that with a book. *NM*
- 13/12/2012 06:57:03 PM
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I read this post, and other than the Walking Dead bits, I have no clue what you're trying to say
- 14/12/2012 01:02:17 AM
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Re: I read this post, and other than the Walking Dead bits, I have no clue what you're trying to say
- 17/12/2012 12:06:16 PM
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