The Walking Dead (AMC + Darabont) - Page 3

I'm not completely sold on Lincoln as Rick Grimes, but that may just be my inner comic geek looking desperately for something to nitpick. He just feels so far "off" from the comic book character. I understand that Darabont and co. are painting a different Rick, though.. so I'm certainly not going to storm off in a huff and not give this show a fair shake.

I actually rather enjoyed it. Providing this gets a longer second season, and seasons beyond that, this could be a fantastic slow burn type of a show, watching society and sanity slowly ebb away in the face of impossible odds.

I hope ratings warrant a nice, long run for this show. PLEASE last long enough for the prison finale, I SO want to see if Darabont has balls THAT big!

Does amc have an HD channel?

I've only read the first volume of the comic, and that was a while ago, so remind me: what was the rationale for going into the city in the comic? Whatever it is, having Rick go there out of ignorance was a really nice change, much more tense and probably more logical.

Seeing that half zombie reaching upwards...I didn't expect the show to be so poignant.

They had me at "Zombie kid picks up her teddy and then gets shot in the head."

Holy shit this was great. Loved seeing legit Atlanta city scenes, and the horse feast was brutal. I never thought I'd see a zombie apocalypse tv series, this is life in marvelous times.

The show really got me when the kid broke down crying seeing his zombie mom come back to the house. Quite possibly the best pilot since Lost.

The pilot episode was better than most feature length zombie movies. Just spectacular all around. Very cinematic, and packed much more of an emotional punch than I was anticipating.

The worst thing I can say about it is a few of the commercials were inserted in awkward places. So, yeah ... fucking awesome.

And my 13-year-old self would have been blown away over how much gore 36-year-old me gets to watch on regular ol' cable TV.

A TV show about zombies on the same channel as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, with Gale Ann Hurd and Frank Darabont producing. How do you FUCK THAT UP?

Boardwalk Empire nuked its expectations with a brilliant pilot and hasn't broken the momentum yet.

So I just started it, goddamn. Imagine if Leone had directed a zombie movie. The rough cinematography especially adds to the vintage quality of it. I don't think anyone could be better than Frank Darabont, who made the best movie of the 90's and has his roots deeply grown in horror (the best Nightmare sequel, the Blob remake) and his pedigree is exactly what we need for a zombie TV show, and it's not just because The Mist was a masterpiece as a monster movie and a morality tale.

LOVED the opening scene. No crazy camerawork or anything, just the reveal and BAM! No big fanfare, just a zombie getting shot.

Also, the British Andrew Lincoln completely disappear into Grimes reminds me a lot of how Dominic West went from stately Brit to fully embodying a drunken, burnout detective on The Wire.

Thank you, Frank Darabont. This might end up modernizing horror on television the same way Seinfeld changed sitcoms and The Sopranos made pay cable subscriptions a worthy investment.

I'm pretty sick of zombies and stopped reading the comic pretty quickly, but this pilot was very well directed/acted and held my interest for 90 minutes. I'll keep watching.
And I feel for that horse.

She goes from being stomach-turning and terrifying to utterly tragic in two brief scenes. I was stunned at how much her death scene affected me.

The half woman was the highlight. A beautiful little story within the story, and probably the best designed zombie I've ever seen.

Thoroughly disappointing. Impressive FX work and zombie kills, but retreading almost every zombie cliche within the first our didn't do this show any favors.

The last scene in the tank saved an otherwise mediocre pilot, though.

Loved the episode, and how there was almost no music, save for the Brian Eno sounding music during the sniper/half woman being shot sequence. That was the big tear jerker sequence in the entire pilot. Even more so than Rick's "Wake up! This is a dream!" breakdown.

I agree with Hunter in that it seems like a western. It also reminded me a lot of The Mist. Looking forward to the next 5 episodes.

It's funny, they went balls out with the gore in this but two hours before they premiered Snyder's ReDawn and cut out every little snippet of blood and gore they could find.

It's an amazing pilot. I definitely agree with the western sentiment. It's pretty obvious they're milking that, with the whole "sheriff rides his horse into town to lay down the law" deal going on in the last 15 minutes.

I hope they can keep it up for the next five episodes. I have great confidence that they will. The one thing that's nice about the short season is that they don't have any episodes to waste on non-events so every episode should (hopefully) further the plot and/or characters and not just be a wank off.

I know I'm looking way too far ahead but I'm excited for the second season when Tyrese and Michonne show up.

Pretty fantastic stuff, although I'm kind of dreading the whole "Why did you sleep with my wife?" storyline. Hopefully, they can dispense with that quick enough.

I'm amazed at how much gore they got away with. That was some hard R stuff they were showing.

How to establish tone: Within the first 2 minutes kill a small child.

I enjoyed that heartily, as did the group of friends who joined me to watch it with me.

The scene with the father attempting to shoot his wife was very affecting, and incredibly well acted.

Best pilot since Lost.

That tank scene, jesus.

I actually left an awesome halloween party early just to watch the premier. It looked great in HD. Not much else to say that hasn't already been said. Some terrific acting, it's shot beautifully, and some nice character work. I was surprised how emotional it was. Next week's episode looks to be just as good.

And hearing Glen over the tank's radio at the end put a smile on my face.

"Hey, dumbass... You in the tank. Can you hear me? Cozy in there?"

Great ending.

The creep factor for the hospital was on point, loved the disturbingly long pale fingers reaching through the bulging DON'T OPEN DEAD INSIDE doors and the scene where he's lighting the matches as he navigates the pitch black stairwell had me on the edge of my seat while alone in my apartment with the lights off.

I think it was pretty much the same - Morgan tells him that there are refugee centers set up by the army etc.

LOVED the following the helicopter to turn a corner into a crowd of zombies.

And yeah, that scene with him lighting matches in the stairwell was awesome. It almost made it scarier that nothing attacked him. I was expecting it the whole time!

I can't believe they blew a little zombie girl's brains out in the first five minutes. I'm really curious about the rules for basic cable gore now, because that pilot tops Breaking Bad's second episode in terms of gratuitous splatter.

This was much better than expected. There's some definite borrowing/homage going on, but so long as they keep the focus on character, this will be a KEEP ALL EPISODES on my DVR.

I loved pretty much every single thing about that debut. And I'm not ashamed to say I cried a little too.

Pretty great. Looking forward to the Darabont regulars to start being woven in. Plus, a friend of mine got to be a featured zombie soldier, so I'm excited to seem him stumble across the screen at some point.

Have they announced the viewing figures for the first episode?
I hope show is a big success.

Great show, LOVED IT. How great is it, that we are getting a zombie TV series. Man, flipping awesome.

The car alarm scene at night got to me. That was some creepy shit.

I really love everything about the zombies. They are not slow, but not fast,... and they seem to still have a level of intellegence. The little girl grabbing her teddy bear, or the wife turning the door nob. Also like that they are attracted to noise, and I think smell. Can't wait till next week.

The wife stuff was pretty strong, and I felt terrible for the kid.
My only nitpick, is the commercials, because I don't want to be taken out of the mood with a damn Progressve Comercial. I'm just so spoiled from Showtime, and HBO.

That was the only really awkward part of the whole episode. I hope they can turn it into something positive (for the show.) Otherwise, a great debut.

Wow, just awesome. I love how the first scene is basically there to tell us: "Yeah, we're going to be shooting little girls in the head. You in or out?". That Tank Scene? So beautifully done; I don't know if I've ever felt such overwhelming dread for a protagonist who was obviously going to survive. One of the best things about the first episode was that no one seemed to do anything headshakingly stupid. All of the peril seemed legitimately encountered without having to resort to cheap tricks.

As a last note: Can we refrain from any mention of the graphic novel in this thread if possible? I know the series will be deviating heavily, but even reading allusions and hints to future plot points makes me a cringe a bit. I'd like to go into this as fresh as possible.

Can't believe all the haters on other boards, this thread is refreshing. Glad to see people actually refering to the series are methodical, instead of boring (which I'm hearing alot of on other boards).

The helicopter scene was so well done, when he turned that corner, and there they were, i actually said "oh shit".

I've read the comics, and the departures so far have been spot on. I'm hoping for more honestly, I think the comics are overrated, and poorly written, but that's just me.

Agreed about that opening scene. Children monsters...especially zombie children--always seem to creep me out the most. Both Dawn films had them, and they were brutal to watch....

Amazing how the half-zombie lass both drove home the humanity and the loss thereof of the creatures. Can't wait for more of this.

Basically sums it up for me (though I actually stuck with the comic for about a year and a half).

Pretty cool how the most decomposed, inhuman, zombie is the one we relate to the most. Major props to Lincoln and Darabont.

I've read the first collection of THE WALKING DEAD, but haven't gotten to the rest, so I have no idea how the writing goes. But as far as the show goes, I hope they deviate from it, except maybe in the widest scope of the story.

See, I know the general consensus among most of us is that zombies are done, but myself, personally, I can't seem to get enough of them. Love the games, love the movies, love the books, and I adore this TV show. To me, there's something weirdly romantic in a world just wiped off the chalkboard like that, and where the lines that are so confusing now suddenly become clear. No bullshit phone bills, house payments, and your relationships suddenly become simplified and defined. I admire the scope of the show and so far I like the characters. I do hope the whole love triangle thing plays out quickly. That was a cliche moment in the book and it would be in the show.

But yeah, I hope the show deviates from the book. I like these characters so far and I hope we see more of Morgan and Duane.

Here's the "sneak peek" of next weeks episode entitled, Guts

http://spoilerwatch.blogspot.com/201...neak-peek.html

Where was Laurie Holden? Did I miss her?

I think she was the blonde woman at the camp? Not sure.

I think that's her in the video I posted...

She doesn't show up until the second episode. The girl at the camp was Emma Bell, playing her sister.

Loved it. Thought it could have used maybe one more bit of zombie mayhem, but that's a nitpick. Oh, and the beat in the tank when he goes to shoot himself was too quick. Besides that, near perfect. Really liked Lincoln a lot. And the dialog was more naturalistic than I was expecting. Great stuff.

Argh, I just loved everything about that. The fluidity between him gazing up in resignation - to him immediately climbing up into the tank just felt thematically perfect to me.

Edit: Yeah, I cherry picked the only minor gripe you had in an otherwise praising post. I just loved that moment so much.

Come on, man...

http://chud.com/articles/articles/26...E-2/Page1.html

No, I'm with Sebastian here. The execution was a bit off.

He's resigned to shooting himself until he all too quickly notices an open hatch right above him that he someone didn't notice before. It felt a little off. Would have worked better (and been more believable) if the hatch was closed (and somewhat hidden) and he noticed a lever for it right before pulling the trigger.

It's a nitpick to be sure, but a valid one.

It may play better for me on a second viewing.

This was THE event of the year for me. I'm only nitpicking to balance out my fanboy gushing.

Would you be looking above you after crawling under a tank, with zombies closing in on you? I thought it was perfectly believable, and shows just how close to the edge these characters are at all times.

Also, I happen to know they were busting their asses in the editing room to get this out on schedule. I wouldn't be surprised if the editing is a little tighter on the DVD release.

The horse was okay, right?

Yeah, maybe. But the way that one particular shot was composed didn't do the scene any favors. ("Oh, hey, there's a completely open hatch right here just two inches from my head! I don't have to shoot myself after all!")

But, again, there were so many amazing, perfect things going on all over this episode that I'm certainly not going to waste too much time nitpicking one shot.

Six days is too long to wait for episode two.

Is it just me, or were the blood effects surprisingly spotty? It stood out more because the kills were otherwise flawlessly executed, but the blood ranged from okay-looking to pretty bad...

No, the horse was delicious.