The Walking Dead: The Television Series

KillerGremlin · 03-23-2012, 07:11 PM

No no no, I should have clarified my original statement, because I think I caused some confusion.

The scene where they hack up the zombie in the comics wasn't comedic at all. I need to go dust off my comic, but I believe it was just Rick and Glenn in the comic.

What I'm saying is that the whole "hacking up the dead guy/zombie" scene is ultra violent and kind of absurd. It's the type of violence that is very difficult to make work in live action because it's comic violence.

My opinion is that if you are going to take something that violent, and that absurd....you need to put a comedic spin on it to juxtapose the violence. Here are some contexts where a scene like that might work:

Real Life - yeah, I have friends who are going on to be doctors, so they take real college-level anatomy where you dissect donated cadavers. Everyone I know who has taken these classes has a sense of humor about, and strongly dissociates.

In Horror, by the villain - I don't think anyone would have any questions or concerns if Leatherface or Jason cut somebody up.

Comic Violence - One reason why Sin City has not budged from my top 5 comic films is because it is one of the few comic films that actually feels like a comic book. And because of that....scenes like this work:

Comedy - If you are going to show a bunch of characters chopping somebody up, juxtapose that shit with some dark comedy. Dead Set did that brilliantly

My issue with the scene in the Walking Dead where they were cutting up the zombie is that it was not properly juxtaposed with comedy, and it wasn't comic enough. Now....maybe if you had REALLY GOOD ACTORS you could make that scene work in a realistic context....but I just felt like the scene was uncomfortable, and unintentionally funny because it was awkward.

The scene wasn't funny at all in the comic. It was pretty dark. It just didn't work as a dark scene on the show because it was awkward and unintentionally funny. To fix that issue, you can do what I cited in my above examples: juxtapose with humor, or be comic-like.

KillerGremlin · 03-23-2012, 07:21 PM

I'm trying to dig into my ultra-violence memory bank. I can think of realistic examples, like the Beach Scene from Saving Private Ryan. Very serious, based on a historic and real event....so that's an example where guts spilling out worked on a realistic level.

But then you have movies like Kill Bill, where Uma Thurman is dismembering people and limbs are flying everywhere. The whole scene in Vol. 1 is juxtaposed with various film techniques, and it's actually darkly comedic as well.

I'm just saying...I think the writers/director on the Walking Dead are supposed to be doing their job, and they are not. If you are adapting a TV show, you need to decide what stuff from the comic book works on live action TV, and you need to decide what does not work. The scene where they were axing up the zombie did not work, because the acting was not up to par, and it was awkward and uncomfortable. They could have simply fixed the issue by throwing in some dark humor or by leaving the scene out altogether.

I'm of the opinion that the scene was awkward, and it was funny not because it was intentionally funny, but because the acting was so bad and it was so awkward. That's not a nice criticism I'm making either.

Edit: There is a reason why comedy and horror are best friends. 99% of horror movies feature some form of humor, be it dark social commentary, or over-the-top, B-movie gore.