Not sure I understand your criticism regarding the plot? Zombie movies don't tend to have much of a plot, which is one of the reasons I don't tend to like them - fighting zombies tends to get boring after a while, not to mention gross - not the most entertaining villains on the planet. At least this one is focused on survival more than just chopping up zombies.
True, but that's exactly it; a good zombie movie will make that work - for 90 minutes. (And many of them manage a lot more plot than TWD has had so far.) If you want to make a series of it, you need to come up with more of a story to tell than just "The zombies are still after us, run, shoot, scream!" If you compare this to, say, Stephen King's The Stand (which it's similar to in a lot of ways), there's an actual plot apart from the survival, we get to know what the characters want, their differing motivations matter, conflicts arise between them, etc. To me it feels like TWD just started, and it's already over (for the next 11 months, at least). Too much of what's happened is either standard romantic subplot that every single series does (often better), or standard zombie plot that in six hours hasn't been further developed than NOTLD managed in 90 minutes. The characters are underdeveloped, we have a hero who is (so far) almost never wrong and clearly is the one we're supposed to be cheering for simply because... That's not to say it's too late to make a great series of this, though Darabont's decision to fire his entire writing staff and have freelancers piece s2 together doesn't fill me with confidence. It's still a well-made series, and I applaud it for daring to be about guts and blood and despair and back-to-the-wall survival, but... it would be nice if that wasn't all it had going for it. Either give me a character drama or a tight plot.
I keep wondering what's up with AMC, all it's dramas are incredibly sexist.
I would say Mad Men isn't in itself sexist so much as a story about sexism (among other things). Whereas TWD just seems to pay lipservice to it for five minutes and then has the big strong men take over and protect the wimmens without seeing any inherent problems in that.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-12-13 10:59 am (UTC)True, but that's exactly it; a good zombie movie will make that work - for 90 minutes. (And many of them manage a lot more plot than TWD has had so far.) If you want to make a series of it, you need to come up with more of a story to tell than just "The zombies are still after us, run, shoot, scream!" If you compare this to, say, Stephen King's The Stand (which it's similar to in a lot of ways), there's an actual plot apart from the survival, we get to know what the characters want, their differing motivations matter, conflicts arise between them, etc. To me it feels like TWD just started, and it's already over (for the next 11 months, at least). Too much of what's happened is either standard romantic subplot that every single series does (often better), or standard zombie plot that in six hours hasn't been further developed than NOTLD managed in 90 minutes. The characters are underdeveloped, we have a hero who is (so far) almost never wrong and clearly is the one we're supposed to be cheering for simply because... That's not to say it's too late to make a great series of this, though Darabont's decision to fire his entire writing staff and have freelancers piece s2 together doesn't fill me with confidence. It's still a well-made series, and I applaud it for daring to be about guts and blood and despair and back-to-the-wall survival, but... it would be nice if that wasn't all it had going for it. Either give me a character drama or a tight plot.
I keep wondering what's up with AMC, all it's dramas are incredibly sexist.
I would say Mad Men isn't in itself sexist so much as a story about sexism (among other things). Whereas TWD just seems to pay lipservice to it for five minutes and then has the big strong men take over and protect the wimmens without seeing any inherent problems in that.