CaptainFoamerang

Originally Posted by Arnabas

So, now that we know we won't be seeing it in the show, anyone care to spoil me in regards to the "nice but small" interactions of Sophia and Carl?

Originally Posted by Mystic_Fortune

I'm asking you who you think should have been attacked and bitten by a zombie last night. Clearly you have it in for someone, because you don't think the assault on the barn should have gone so 'smoothly'. Maybe Shane should have gotten bitten, that would have been delicious irony.

Originally Posted by Mystic_Fortune

I've not actually read the comics, but from what I gathered from reading peoples posts is in the comic there are more people near the barn doors when the zombies get out. In the show we see only Shane is close enough to the barn to be in danger. They open fire before the situation gets out of their control. It was clear the survivors had the advantage over the shambling zombies.

Originally Posted by Mystic_Fortune

Well obviously Zombie Sophia being the last one to shamble out of the barn was for dramatic effect, rather or not it hit it's mark is debatable. As far as Shane unleashing the zombies from the barn. Better to have them pour out of the barn in mid day light one by one and have everyone gun them down than to have the barn break open at night when they can't really see it coming and aren't prepared.

Originally Posted by CrazyJerseyan

Absolutely and I agree, constructive criticism is where its at. If you and one other person are talking about how badly the show is being butchered with the majority in the thread saying they feel the opposite...may just have to look at what it is that you expect from this production is all.

I encourage you to continue to watch and post, variety is the spice of life and what gets these lively discussions flowing. It just seems to me that you dont really like the show based on your comments.

Originally Posted by CrazyJerseyan

Its pretty obvious some in the thread dont enjoy the show. If you continue to base the show on the comic as points of contention, Id say that you will not ever enjoy the show. Why torture yourself by continuing to make comparisons and keep coming to the thread with opposing views based on all of the dissatisfaction? If it was me, Id call it a wrap and go back to reading the comics again.

Im pissed that Tyrese and his crew may be replaced by T-Dog (he showed up once this episode? boooooring, go ahead and kill him already), but Im able to look past it all and enjoy the concept that this show is only loosely based on the comic.

Originally Posted by MentalMaden

Foamy, I always find your opinions interesting even when we differ (which is often, I know).

Breaking away on a bit of a tangent I kind of wonder what you think about this season of Dexter (given your avatar).

Originally Posted by Lothic

It's actually kind of funny that I'm sort of defending the TV show considering how much I've ripped on it in these forums. You should have seen how merciless I was on it last year during its first season.

That being said it's obvious that what makes for a decent TV show is going to be different than what makes for a good comicbook issue. The structure of the story has to conform to the type of media it's being presented on. In some ways I agree that there are elements to the TV show that are very clearly "shoe-horned in" just for the sake of trying to come up with something that fits nicely into one-hour segments. But I don't really see that as a particular failing of this show as much as the general limitation of what you can and can't do with a typical chunk of TV show time.

Are there things the comicbook did much better than the TV show? Of course there are. I would simply argue that conversely there are things the TV show has been able to do that they could never dream of in a comic book format.

Originally Posted by Lothic

To me it's almost like the comicbook has been a sort of "CliffsNotes" version to the TV show, which is weird considering the TV show is supposedly based off the comic.

Originally Posted by Lothic

The TV show better explained in a more satisfyingly dramatic way:

Rick's escape from the hospital.
Rick's encounter with Morgan and son.
Rick finding the group and their time near Atlanta.
The purpose of Shane as a dramatic foil to Rick. Shane lost his cool and got shot by Carl all in like one single page of the comic.
Carl getting shot by Otis was resolved in like just another page or two of the comic.
The zombie barn's discovery and resolution was handled in all the wink of an eye.

Basically the comic's format blows past most every opportunity the TV show has seized upon to have actual meaningful dramatic sequences worth caring about. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the writers of the comicbook but it really comes off as the best effort of the way a 12 year old might write such a story. One more time the TV show, for all it's faults, actually managed to flesh out many of the points in the comic that fairly lacking in the depth department. *shrugs*

Originally Posted by Furio

Umm...Lothic is talking about the barn scene in the comic and the barn scene in the show and the differences between them. What Andrea and Glenn did days earlier have no bearing on the differences in the respective barn scenes.

Originally Posted by Lothic

In the comic they had opened the barn door with the idea that they were ready to toss the new one in. At that point the zombies took advantage of the situation and made a break for it. In the TV show Shane opened the door before Hershel and Rick even had a chance to toss the new ones in.

Since they knew Shane was threatening to open the door they had a few reasonable moments to get ready for them to pour out, thus the "fish in a barrel" TV scenario. The only reason the "chaos" happened in the comic was that Hershel didn't expect them to charge and they lost control of the situation, thus no "fish in a barrel" setup.

I really don't see how these differences reflect on the "intelligence level" of the characters in either media version. *shrugs*

Originally Posted by Dark One

I thought it might've been Herschel's wife and step-son that were coming out rather than Sophia.

Originally Posted by Lothic

I would actually argue that the TV show, even with it's relatively limited plot focus, has filled in a number of gaps in the comic that were not exactly reasonable or well-paced. Let's just say I'm glad I didn't start reading the comic until -after- I'd seen the TV show and leave it at that.

Originally Posted by Furio

It was totally in keeping with Shane's character for him for handle the situation the way he did. And seeing as the episode ended before the smoke had even cleared from Rick's pistol, I'd say it's a bit premature to say there were no consequences.

Originally Posted by Chyll

I disagree with this. That was a great scene, maybe different in the comic, but well done. (assuming you mean the table/kitchen discussion)

Originally Posted by Lothic

I'm not sure how fast a person reads the comic has much to do with the "pacing" of the story as presented. If the comic only gives you a few panels of text to cover something that needs to be further covered for better dramatic effect then it doesn't really matter how fast a person reads.

I'm by no means trying to argue that the TV show is the unqualified "better" version of the story. But I do believe it's been better able to handle many of the "dynamics" of the plot by being able to delve into some parts of the story that the comic merely glanced over. Again I favor the idea that the two formats can serve as complementary to each other. I simply prefer to enjoy the strengths they both bring to the table.

Originally Posted by Lothic

I'm pretty sure TV Hershel has also vaguely mentioned some excuse along the lines of "not enough resources" but that was as weak a point as it was in the comics considering they've got a huge farm with which to grow food and they could always scavenge for supplies in the nearby towns.

Basically my main problem with the comic is that many of the "critical dramatic points" are sped through with just a few pages or even just a few panels to cover them. While it's certainly true the comic has managed to present more "story" than the TV show has it conversely doesn't really adequately cover most of it. Compared to the TV show it's just a blinding blur of story points with very little depth.

I could entertain the idea the the TV show has the opposite problem: it sticks to relatively few plot points and cover them far too much. But this is why I like both formats so far because they each have a different focus on the story that makes up for the other's weaknesses.

Originally Posted by Furio

Her being last out is to be expected. She's the smallest one, not likely to be able to push her way to the front when Shane's stars making all that noise opening the door. The pause before her showing up is obvious dramatic effect, though.

The only way the barn zombies are dangerous is if they mange to escape when no one's watching. Breaking the barn open in front of all those armed people is probably the 2nd safest way to deal with them, but the *best* way of dealing with them while making his point to Hershel. Them limping out in broad daylight from only one possible direction, like Black Friday shoppers at Wal-Mart in front of a literal firing line....they posed as much threat as fish in a barrel.

Originally Posted by Lothic

I'll grant you that Sophia coming outside as the last lone zombie so they could all make sure to pay extra close attention to her was a little bit "staged" as far as the writing of the show went. It might have been interesting if she just charged out during the general frenzy of the breakout and things were so chaotic that they didn't even realize she was among them until the end.

But still she served as the lightning rod to provide clear laser-like focus to all the arguing and bickering all the people we going on about whether it was the question of whether "zombies are people too" or whether they should stay or leave the farm. None of that mattered anymore when they were faced with the stark unavoidable reality of the ZA embodied in that one little girl. She served as a turning point in the story, the point when any vague hope that there would be any chance that things would ever "get back to normal" were finally crushed.

That's what made the moment so powerful -despite- the slightly ham-fisted writing.

Originally Posted by Lothic

I think the problem both the comic and TV show has had is that neither of them has really given us a clear-cut LOGICAL reason why Hershel wanted Rick's group to leave other than he just arbitrarily wanted them to. Yes it's his farm and he can make the rules, but still after Rick made the obvious good case that the two groups could work together better than apart Hershel still couldn't come up with a good counter-argument to that.

I think we're just suppose to believe that Hershel's full commitment to his delusional idea that "zombies are people too" is suppose to adequately explain every motivation he has as a character and it's just hard, as the audience, to buy that point of view. *shrugs*

Originally Posted by Lothic

I've now read enough of The Walking Dead comic to see the major differences between it and the TV show.
So far I don't have a problem with it because I'm liking both for different reasons.

Yes you can rightly say the TV show is "based" on the comic but the two stories are clearly becoming their own stand-alone retellings of the same overall story. A recent big example of this kind of thing working really well is HBO's True Blood which is based on the Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels. After four seasons of TV shows the TV "version" of that story is now very different from the original novel version. But it works because even though they are different they both have strengths and weaknesses that complement each other. In fact in interviews Charlaine Harris has mentioned that she likes all the new things the HBO TV show has done because it makes the story a surprise even to her.

I don't have any problem that The Walking Dead TV show and comic are starting to diverge more and more. I'm already finding things about both versions that I like better than the way the other version handled things. And besides if by some miracle the TV show was able to be an exact clone of the comic then anyone who's read the comic would be completely bored because there would be nothing new to see.

Originally Posted by CrazyJerseyan

Different strokes for different folks...Im still enjoying the show. I guess you wont be commenting in this post when the show picks back up in Feb since you're not liking it?