At the risk of destroying the concentration of some of you for the entire day....
http://comicbook.com/2014/10/01/the-...q-photo-shoot/
At the risk of destroying the concentration of some of you for the entire day....
http://comicbook.com/2014/10/01/the-...q-photo-shoot/
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
That's nuthin'…
"That gum you like is going to come back in style."
Wow, that was the strongest season opener since season one. They pretty much put the foot to the floor and didn't let up. That scene with the trough - oh jesus.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
That was a fantastic season opener!! One of the best Walking Dead episodes period, really. Plenty of gore, plenty of action, plenty of suspense, and nicely written.
One surprising thing about it, as I think we were all assuming Terminus was going to last the whole season. But they took it down in one show. Now, we really have no idea where they are going to go next.
I'd love to see Rick attempt to exile Carol again. (As if!) I bet everybody else would side with her this time.
The scene where Tyreese beat the snot out of would-be child killer was awesome. But did he really kill him?
Looks like another Guv'nor is on the loose.
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
We were having problems with our cable all afternoon for some reason and exactly 8:55PM it conked out completely so did not get to see the episode. I did set the DVR to record when it was shown again in the wee hours of the morning and just had the chance to watch it. I agree, very good episode. This is going to be an interesting season.
Awesome season opener for sure. That was pretty damn crazy with the bat and throat slashes.
Pretty impressed with Carols amazingly accurate launch of a bottle rocket lol
"Who would have thought a whale would be so heavy?" - Moe Sizlak
TWD may be the greatest bad show of all time!
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
Brings new meaning to the expression "start the season off with a bang".Brutal opening 5 minutes and never let up. And the return of Morgan (after the credits) was a huge surprise.
I second all the kudos, altho I felt the throat slashing scene was pushing the envelope and just flat out gratuitous.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Wimp.Originally Posted by Hal...
I second all the kudos, altho I felt the throat slashing scene was pushing the envelope and just flat out gratuitous.
J/K, man.
Interesting, since they slash throats constantly in this show, only this time it was on living people, not zombies. Of course, don't forget we had Hershel get decapitated in the last season.I second all the kudos, altho I felt the throat slashing scene was pushing the envelope and just flat out gratuitous.
I think the fact they do keep pushing the envelope, that the show continues to entertain us. If the show wimps out, or just does the same thing, it would not be good in the long run. Look at season premier of Season 4, and they fell flat. They redeemed themselves on this Season 5 opener.
Interesting to see the different perspectives from those watching the show in "real time". I have no way to watch the current season - I just wait for them to come out on Netflix. Just finished season 4 last weekend. I don't have the same desire/need to have every episode deliver in a big way. Some episodes are more transitional. I just watch the next episode and usually it satisfies.
Also (having just caught up on some of the comments about Season 4 in this thread) I didn't focus on bad acting or "poor writing" (which in some cases I think is just a misunderstanding of the facts/details?)...but the young girl (Lizzy?) getting killed...it may be taboo for TV in some sense, but I'm always trying to put myself in the shoes of these characters. Given the situation there really are just no resources to deal with a wild card like her. If they were still at the prison maybe they could lock her up somewhere or supervise her 24/7. While out on the road she would have eventually gotten someone killed. The care she would need is something only afforded by a civilized society. At least that was my take.
Yes, of course you could argue that it wasn't well done, wasn't believable, etc. That will vary according to the viewer's suspension of disbelief...
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Another note from Season 4: It seemed like Beth was suddenly all grown up in Season 4. Before that I completely had the impression she was like 14 years old. Now she looks and dresses more like a grown woman and to me that contributed to a weird dynamic with Daryl because I was thinking that in his mind he couldn't completely accept her as an adult. She was certainly exhibiting a certain amount of innocence.
How old is she supposed to be in the story? I just looked the actress up on IMDB and she's 29! Now I don't feel like such a creeper...
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Wow! What a ride.
Great to see Rick and group get back to being super bad-asses. Carol must've gone to boot camp during the off-season as her military skills improved exponentially.
Duncan's going to make a Horns Emoticon!!!
I just re-watched Herschel getting killed and you're going to be surprised to learn that (1) he wasn't truly decapitated and (2) the actual filmed act lasted about a half second. The throat slitting scene in S5E1 was gratuitous which is "...uncalled-for; without reason, cause, or proof; unjustified." I can handle violence and gore. But when the director resorts to being gratuitous it's either an indication of a lack of imagination or of pushing the envelope... or both.
How many times have people said "the book was better"? Part of the reason for that is when you have to imagine something the emotional impact is far greater to the reader. Two of the most gut wrenching, violent yet non-visceral scenes I've ever seen in a movie were the brothel scene in Se7en and when Bette Davis gets beaten up in Marked Woman, a movie made in 1937! Not a single frame of violence is seen in either film and yet you have a much greater reaction because your mind fills in the details! How many haunted house movies have been made and how many are better than The Haunting? Zero? I wonder why.
Consider the movie Alien, a movie considered a classic and the best of the franchise, and then read this from Roger Ebert:
One of the great strengths of Alien is its pacing. It takes its time. It waits. It allows silences. It suggests the enormity of the crew's discovery by building up to it with small steps: The interception of a signal (is it a warning or an SOS?). The descent to the extraterrestrial surface. The bitching by Brett and Parker, who are concerned only about collecting their shares. The masterstroke of the surface murk through which the crew members move, their helmet lights hardly penetrating the soup. The shadowy outline of the alien ship. The sight of the alien pilot, frozen in his command chair. The enormity of the discovery inside the ship ("It's full of ... leathery eggs ...").
A recent version of this story would have hurtled toward the part where the alien jumps on the crew members. Today's slasher movies, in the sci-fi genre and elsewhere, are all pay-off and no buildup. Consider the wretched remake of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," which cheats its audience out of an explanation, an introduction of the chain-saw family, and even a proper ending. It isn't the slashing that we enjoy. It's the waiting for the slashing.
Hitchcock knew this, with his famous example of a bomb under a table: it goes off -- that's action. It doesn't go off -- that's suspense.
Yes, there's an incredibly graphic and visceral scene when John Hurt dies but how many others die in such a graphic way by the alien? None. Sure, Ian Holm gets his head knocked off but it turns out he's an android; we can accept a milky "blood" spurting out of his neck. For the rest of the crew the violence is more implied than shown and that only adds to the suspense which is what gets your imagination into overdrive. The death of Hurt sets up the possibility of violence but we don't actually see it and so the impact of the others' deaths is greater in our experience than had we seen them, thus, Hurt's death, while visceral, is not gratuitous.
One could argue that in The Walking Dead the first throat slash was the set-up. The only problem is that the blood spurts onto the camera lens which is not a point of view of any of the characters. The rhythmic spurting of blood from the neck as the heart continued beating was, I admit, a nice touch albeit over the top. But the whole thing was nothing more than splatter porn which, by definition, is gratuitous.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Hal... good points. However, I thought the graphic nature of the scene was commentary on the ruthlessness of the Terminians to demonstrate their rapid evolution from the altruistic communitarians they were "then" to the heartless cannibals there are "now". On many other shows such a scene could be labeled as gratuitous, but I give the producers and writers of TWD more credit than most and they have frequently used violence to make a point, develop a character, and/or support a concept.
Duncan's going to make a Horns Emoticon!!!
Huh. It seems to me it was exactly what needed to be shown.
"Hey, Ted, these guys were about to slaughter, they're from A & D cars, Right? Oh, Simon, how many bullets used? Better go count them after slitting some throats, make sure you get the form filled out in triplicate and put on Betty's desk before closing time". Meanwhile, Rick is frantic trying to figure something out until Carol saves their asses(it's television, what do you expect?).
The rules have changed(it's sort of like Calvinball nowadays) and these guys are cannibals. How is that going to be pretty, at all? It showed how far from civilized they are. They didn't care, it was just another day at the office for them.
That's the way I saw it. They became the monsters that captured them in the first place. Will Rick and the group also become monsters? Are they already?
Well, anyway, it worked for me. Made me squirm like a frigging(insert thing that squirms a lot).
@ Plasmatopia: Yeah, Carol & Tyrese had no choice but to kill Lizzie, as sad as it was. That poor girl had a serious disconnect in her head that couldn't have been dealt with in that world.
As for Beth, I think she's supposed to be around 20 in the show but I'm not sure exactly. She may come off younger than maybe she is as she may have been a bit sheltered by Hershel. I don't really know any of that but I'm guessing.
@ JE: Terminians LOL. They called them Termites on TD but I think I like yours better.
This reminds me of some comments made earlier about Maggie and Glenn. I think someone was saying they didn't care about seeing love stories, this series is just supposed to be all about zombies and gore. But I think that's missing the real fun (or part of it) of this series - the sometimes gut-wrenching suspense that just builds and builds. The first couple of seasons set the tone. You think there's an important primary character the writers would never kill off, but then they're gone. So the ones that do persist through several seasons you just start to wonder when they will die.
But I would have to agree with those who suggest the Maggie/Glenn story just isn't that compelling.
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Much more of a defense than is required. Hal has forgotten what kind of show he's watching. That is all.
Scott Gimple summed it up succinctly in Talking Dead: "Institutionalized evil." 'Nuff said.Much more of a defense than is required. Hal has forgotten what kind of show he's watching. That is all.
-=Will you stand by me against the cold night, or are you afraid of the ice?=-
This is a show that has had a main cast member's bowels dined on by walking corpses, and another main cast member's severed hand tossed at a supporting character (in the second episode, titled "Guts") so complaints of throat slashes are kind of...pointless. And let's not forget the lead character's neatly placed head chop at the prison.
Last edited by dropforge; 10-14-2014 at 06:02 PM.
Yeah, to complain about those throat slashes seems pretty silly to me with all that has gone on. Like I mentioned earlier, I have a bigger issue with Carol's amazing aim with a bottle rocket resting on a chain link fence
Keep in mind when I say "issue" I say that in the most "I really don't give a shit" sort of way.This show is a blast!
"Who would have thought a whale would be so heavy?" - Moe Sizlak
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