Star Wars & Sc-Fi Talk

So I finished watching the 3rd season of the Walking Dead.

I have to say, this is the best season ever. Gone were the pointless melodrama of the previous two seasons. No more arguing about petty crap. When things do flare up, it's over some pretty serious issues.

The only gripe I can find is that this transition happened largely off-screen. I did not at all expect this kind of character transformation based on the ending of Season 2. For example, Lori just seemed to accept the fact that Rick killed Shane in self-defense. If this had been Season 2, that alone would've been a 6-episode argument.

I love it that the show is finally exploring the real issues of surviving in a devastated world. No more petty love triangles, what's at stake now is how to survive. I loved Carl in this season. He's shaping up to be one bad-ass survivor. His conversation with Rick in the last episode over his shooting of a surrendering enemy soldier shows how far the series (or the characters) has evolved.

The series has also taken a small but definite step toward "fantasy-action" with Michonne. Rick killing zombies with a hatchet is bloody and gory, but it's nothing compared to Michonne's graceful dance of death. I am somewhat irked by the fact that all the characters, including Michonne, referred to her katana as a "sword". Realistically, I think most people would call it a "katana" and not a "sword".

Finally, it's also interesting that in this season, the zombies have ceased to be the main threat. Humans are shown to be far more dangerous than the zombies. Judging from what I know of the comics, I wonder if this is the direction the show will take. I'm not sure how I feel about this though. While it offers some pretty interesting avenues to explore, I miss the whole "overwhelming hordes of undead" schtick of the first 2 seasons.

[video=youtube;vP0cUBi4hwE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP0cUBi4hwE[/video]

F-35's vs Bugger swarms...

Oooh boy...

solarz said:

So I finished watching the 3rd season of the Walking Dead.

I have to say, this is the best season ever. Gone were the pointless melodrama of the previous two seasons. No more arguing about petty crap. When things do flare up, it's over some pretty serious issues.

The only gripe I can find is that this transition happened largely off-screen. I did not at all expect this kind of character transformation based on the ending of Season 2. For example, Lori just seemed to accept the fact that Rick killed Shane in self-defense. If this had been Season 2, that alone would've been a 6-episode argument.

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What else could she do? Rick was her husband, the father of her son and the leader of the group. She couldn't make a big fuss about it even if she wanted to. And the world was a different one than what we have now. So people can't be judged by the same morality. I think this is simply a natural progression of things. At the beginning, people still used the same old way of thinking, thus all the arguing about nothing. then people began to accept that things were different and their behavior changed accordingly. Additionally, people got so used to the bad things happening to them, they got desensitized.

solarz said:

The series has also taken a small but definite step toward "fantasy-action" with Michonne. Rick killing zombies with a hatchet is bloody and gory, but it's nothing compared to Michonne's graceful dance of death. I am somewhat irked by the fact that all the characters, including Michonne, referred to her katana as a "sword". Realistically, I think most people would call it a "katana" and not a "sword".

Click to expand...

Actually, not many people know the term "katana" even today. People simply refer to it as the "Japanese sword". If you ask people on the streets what it's called, I can guarantee you that 8 out of 10 will tell you it's a "Japanese sword". So it would actually be strange if everyone in the movie started calling it by its correct name.

solarz said:

Finally, it's also interesting that in this season, the zombies have ceased to be the main threat. Humans are shown to be far more dangerous than the zombies. Judging from what I know of the comics, I wonder if this is the direction the show will take. I'm not sure how I feel about this though. While it offers some pretty interesting avenues to explore, I miss the whole "overwhelming hordes of undead" schtick of the first 2 seasons.

Click to expand...

How much more can you say about the "overwhelming hordes of undead"? If you keep focusing on the zombies, people will get tired of it soon since they are simply mindless zombies and there is only a certain number of ways that you can kill or get killed by them. It would become predictable real soon... On the other hand, it's the human that is so utterly unpredictable and potentially generates suspense. To be honest, I was getting a little tired of it at the end of season 2 when they simply moved from one place to the next and things became a little predictable. My interest was renewed in a big way when the Governor showed up in Season 3. IMHO, suspense only comes out the quality of the antagonists in a story. The more intelligent the evil is, the better the story becomes. What's suspenseful about killing mindless animals? But you want to know what Rick and the Governor want to do to each other next. This is what makes it an exciting series.

Falling Skies Season 3 is about to start! It sounds like an exciting season. A third kind of alien showed up at the end of season 2 as soon as the humans blew up a major weapon system of the "overlord". People have been wondering which side the third alien will be on. Why did the overlord so desperately try to keep them from landing on Earth?

vesicles said:

What else could she do? Rick was her husband, the father of her son and the leader of the group. She couldn't make a big fuss about it even if she wanted to. And the world was a different one than what we have now. So people can't be judged by the same morality. I think this is simply a natural progression of things. At the beginning, people still used the same old way of thinking, thus all the arguing about nothing. then people began to accept that things were different and their behavior changed accordingly. Additionally, people got so used to the bad things happening to them, they got desensitized.

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Yes, I agree completely. However, we can clearly see that by the end of season 2, those people were still stuck in their old mentality. I just wished that this change was shown on screen. I.E. Lori finally realizing that her petty crap is dumb and dangerous. (You'd think she'd realize that after crashing the car in Season 2.)

Actually, not many people know the term "katana" even today. People simply refer to it as the "Japanese sword". If you ask people on the streets what it's called, I can guarantee you that 8 out of 10 will tell you it's a "Japanese sword". So it would actually be strange if everyone in the movie started calling it by its correct name.

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Really? Is this a regional difference then? I've heard the term "katana" used ever since I started watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the early 90's.

How much more can you say about the "overwhelming hordes of undead"? If you keep focusing on the zombies, people will get tired of it soon since they are simply mindless zombies and there is only a certain number of ways that you can kill or get killed by them. It would become predictable real soon... On the other hand, it's the human that is so utterly unpredictable and potentially generates suspense. To be honest, I was getting a little tired of it at the end of season 2 when they simply moved from one place to the next and things became a little predictable. My interest was renewed in a big way when the Governor showed up in Season 3. IMHO, suspense only comes out the quality of the antagonists in a story. The more intelligent the evil is, the better the story becomes. What's suspenseful about killing mindless animals? But you want to know what Rick and the Governor want to do to each other next. This is what makes it an exciting series.

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The undead are the backdrop to the setting. When it's just survivors vs zombies, we get to see how the survivors interact with each other, how they cope with the loss, the horror, and toughen up or break apart.

When it's survivors vs survivors, the zombies become almost immaterial. Aside from the first few episodes of S3, you could have taken the zombies off-screen altogether, and the plot would've stayed largely the same.

I guess my underlying peeve is still the fact that we went from a ragtag band of survivors by the end of S2 to a toughened, tight-knit group at the start of S3 without really seeing how they got to that point.

solarz said:

I guess my underlying peeve is still the fact that we went from a ragtag band of survivors by the end of S2 to a toughened, tight-knit group at the start of S3 without really seeing how they got to that point.

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Yeah, I guess they wanted to emphasize the difference between the battle-hardened Rick's group and the spoiled people in the town under the Governor... Note that seasons are not meant to be continuous. At the end of S2, Andrea just met Michonne, but they had spent the entire winter together at the beginning of S3. So the character development wouldn't be linear as well. I've noticed an emphasis on how tough Rick's people were in S3. The Governor's people were shocked how Glen took care of a zombie in only a few minutes with both of his hands tied to a chair. And also, the Governor couldn't believe it when he heard the Rick's group cleaned up the prison single-handedly. I think that was a decision made by the production that the focus of the S3 would be the toughness of Rick's group.

You should be happy...

vesicles said:

Yeah, I guess they wanted to emphasize the difference between the battle-hardened Rick's group and the spoiled people in the town under the Governor... Note that seasons are not meant to be continuous. At the end of S2, Andrea just met Michonne, but they had spent the entire winter together at the beginning of S3. So the character development wouldn't be linear as well. I've noticed an emphasis on how tough Rick's people were in S3. The Governor's people were shocked how Glen took care of a zombie in only a few minutes with both of his hands tied to a chair. And also, the Governor couldn't believe it when he heard the Rick's group cleaned up the prison single-handedly. I think that was a decision made by the production that the focus of the S3 would be the toughness of Rick's group.

You should be happy...

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article said:

We are going to amp up the threat of the walkers, because they've started to seem like a manageable threat. They are *not* a manageable threat.

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Yeah man, that's exactly what I'm talking about!

The "Walking Dead" are referring to the people still alive not the zombies so the show and graphic novels' popularity is because of the character relationships. I believe it was said the show was always about how people are more dangerous than the zombies.

These cable shows are going to be more about characters. It's already past half way on Game of Thrones and it's still a lot of setup.

Here's details on season 4 of The Walking Dead from Kirkman himself. Not sure how some of you will like it since there's not really any mention of zombies.



Here's an interesting story that's 8 months old.