The Walking Thread

[Mac_Guffin]

Wait, how far did you get up to after the time skip? It's a slow burn, but it's all building up to something. Did you get as far as finding out about The Whisperers?

Also, I felt like the show started teetering off around the second half of season 2. It kept me entertained, but the worst writing happened in season 3. Season 4 almost lost my interest completely until the midseason. This season has been the best recent one, especially in the second half.

[ED209]

Only just after the time skip I think. What happened was I had been chewing through the backlog of old issues, then the time skip coincided with me getting up to date, and I didn't get into the new routine. It was good up to then though. A lot more consistent than the TV show, which has been quite boring for a lot of the time IMO.

[Skinny Puppy]

I haven’t read the comics (in fact, I didn’t even know they existed until I read about them in another thread), but if they tell the story in advance, then I’ll stay away from them otherwise it’ll spoil the show for me. I like comics, but they are brutally hard to find around here.

I love all things zombie and even watch zombie movies that are made on a shoe-string budget. The Walking Dead is a top-notch show! Its only failing is the long, drawn out yapping in some episodes. Some of it, like character development, is necessary, but some scenes are there (in my opinion) just to fill out the time slot.

Overall though, it is a fantastic show and keeps your interest from season to season.

One quibble: I wish they’d run each season consecutively rather than breaking it into two parts.

[Mac_Guffin]

@Ed
I really like the current arc. Many are complaining about it developing slow, but this feels like some of the best development in the comic. I love reading all at once and seeing the progression of Kirkman's writing.
Plus, the new villains (Guessing it's not a spoiler to say there are new villains because that is the nature of a series like this.) are really interesting. Much like Negan and the Saviors were a new kind of threat, I like that these are too. The conflict is more of a cold war between the united communities and a group of zombie skin-wearing primitivists, whose numbers are unknown, but large.

@Skinny Puppy
Well, the show follows their outline, but they do change things, subtract things, and add things. Like the hospital arc was not in the comic at all. The arrow death of Denise in the last episode was Abe in the comic. The show doesn't have them go into DC for runs like they do in the comic.
If it still spoils too much, you can just read up until where they are in the show. If you bought the first 2 compendiums, you'd only get everything up until the conversation with Jesus about Negan.
If you wanted to read further, I'd say that in the finale, we're getting a remix of issue 100. After that airs, You could read until issue 100 and not have anything spoiled.

I hate the long drawn out stuff too. That stuff is never in the comic. If anything, early issues of the comic are too fast-paced and underdeveloped. AMC is cheap. It's why Darabont left. Plus, AMC wants to milk the show for what it's worth, so there's lots of filler.

[Mike_L]

Sneak peek at Negan and Lucille in the teaser preview of the season finale. Jeffrey Dean Morgan looks to be an excellent casting choice.

[Mac_Guffin]

There's also this image:

[Mac_Guffin]

Also, if you like spoilers, this is leaked audio of the last 10 mins of the finale.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0LBmMs1LNL0

[Mike_L]

I listened to the first three minutes... enough to confirm that it's authentic, but not enough to spoil it too badly.

[Mac_Guffin]

I usually hate spoilers, but because I read the comics and know the basic outline, I enjoy spoilers. Plus, this is almost right out of the comic... minus the fucks and a very colorful statement.

[Mac_Guffin]

My sister bought me this tonight.

[Mike_L]

Love those action figures.

There's a whole series of them based on the TV show, with the likenesses of the actors recreated in uncanny detail...





Don't know if they're done digitally (i.e. laser scans of the actors, then computer-aided milling or 3D printing)... or if they're just hand-sculpted by extraordinarily talented artists.

[Rachel Bronwyn]

What a fucking bore. There was no point to watching the season finale.

[Thomas Eshuis]

What a fucking bore. There was no point to watching the season finale.

Agreed.

[Mac_Guffin]

What a fucking bore. There was no point to watching the season finale.

I loved it up until the cliffhanger. That shit was cheap. They tried to defend it, but it's an obvious ratings ploy for next season. They took the tension right out of the scene.
When you read issue 100, it's like a gut punch. You see it all happening, and it's brutal.

I knew the spoilers for a few days before, so it didn't bother me as much as it bothered some people. I had time to process this shitty decision.

... or did you hate it for more than that?

[ED209]

What a complete bullshit cop-out ending. Such a cheap gimmick that basically insults the audience. I hate bollocks like that.

Oh well, now the season is over I can finally get around to finishing The Sopranos.

[chairman bill]

The big red-headed bloke is supposedly ex-military. So why is it that this so-called 'experienced' group are so fucking incompetent? FFS, some infantry minor tactics wouldn't go amiss.

[Mac_Guffin]

What a complete bullshit cop-out ending. Such a cheap gimmick that basically insults the audience. I hate bollocks like that.

Oh well, now the season is over I can finally get around to finishing The Sopranos.

I'm all for cliffhangers, but not ones that kill any tension the scene builds up. It's like pausing right at the end and coming back 6 months later. You lose the feel for it.
The defense of it pissed me off even more. It's insulting.
Should've ended like issue 100... and if it really needed a cliffhanger, I have an idea for one.
In the comic, after the issue Glenn is killed by Negan, it starts right where things left off, and Maggie punches Rick, calls him a coward, etc. She stops, and he asks why she stopped. Then Carl has the gun on her. they could've added a scene like that, with Carl pointing the gun at Maggie... or a remix with a different set of characters, depending on who got killed. Or... afterwards, one character starts punching Rick really badly. Rick could say "Kill me", and Carl could yell out not to, and we get one more punch and it fades to black, leaving Rick's fate unknown. That's a cliffhanger I could get behind.

[Mac_Guffin]

The big red-headed bloke is supposedly ex-military. So why is it that this so-called 'experienced' group are so fucking incompetent? FFS, some infantry minor tactics wouldn't go amiss.

When the show doesn't follow the comics closely (Everything was different up until Negan's scene. That was right out of the comic, with small differences like a lack of F-bombs, a vulgar joke, and one BIG FUCKING difference - no cliffhanger.), the writing sucks.
Abe is dead in the comic at this point, and they didn't go through all that. What happened was they were transporting Glenn and Maggie to the Hilltop, had to stop since they were losing sunlight and it'd be harder to see zombies in the road, and they surround the RV. No needlessly complicated bullshit.
The herd stuff was also unnecessarily complicated. In the comic, the shots from the Pete kill are heard by nearby scavenger types (who The Wolves are very lightly based on... and I'm baffled that none of them used the little pig line from the comic, being named The Wolves.) and they come and demand Alexandria to let them in. They get taken out fairly easily. The gunfire from both debacles draws in a herd, and they make part of the wall come down. Simple... great... but the show gave us that quarry nonsense.

[ED209]

The big red-headed bloke is supposedly ex-military. So why is it that this so-called 'experienced' group are so fucking incompetent? FFS, some infantry minor tactics wouldn't go amiss.

That's started to really bother me. It doesn't have to be like Heat but everyone just stands around right in the open the whole time, or strolls around in tight groups chatting away. Even the guard post by the gate of alexandria has zero cover, someone just stands up there completely exposed squinted in the sunlight the whole time. Nobody acts like there are marauding factions of heavily armed murderers everywhere.

[chairman bill]

You'd think the zombie apocalypse would be bad enough, but the writers seem compelled to add a huge dose of personal stupidity to most characters. They just do stupid things. Some of those stupid things are so stupid, really, really stupid people would see just how stupid they are & wouldn't do them. Some characters just deserve to get eaten.