Q: You've directed episodes in all three seasons. How does this season compare to the first?
A: There's a little bit of first season peaking through this season. In the first season it seemed like everything we were doing was new and there was a lot of discussion about who was going to live and who was going to die and what kind of tone the show was going to take. This year the same thing was introducing Woodbury. We were always asking the same questions: How self-sufficient do we make it? What are the citizens like? What kind of power does the town have?
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I hope at least from now, this show would concentrate more on Zombies and Bigger issues rather than Love triangles and personal issues of survivors. It's fine to have some scenes based on personal issues, but unlike first and second season I want this show to move at a faster pace with better action sequences.
ReplyDeleteAgree this coming season should focus on bigger issues--LIKE THEY'RE SURROUNDED BY ZOMBIES! I'm glad they're finally off that farm, which made them all so comfy-cozy. I did like the first season, though. For the most part, there was a better awareness of their predicament and some great zombie fights.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's what the series is about - the issues of the survivors. (and I'm not trying to be a smart-ass, please don't think that.) The comic book, it's the same way as the TV series. They hardly, if ever, interact with zombies anymore. The dangers they're dealing with regularly now are the humans who are left alive. And what's happening with each other. Woodbury is a precursor to all of that.
ReplyDeleteSo, they never try to solve the problems of the zombies anymore?
ReplyDeleteThe problems are still there, but with the way they've been set up since ... maybe the 70s (issue 101 released earlier this month), it's not been as vital. It's hard to explain it without dropping a million spoilers, and those might potentially be spoilers for later seasons of the show. As spoiler-less as possible - yes, there are still zombies and hoardes, but they are no longer the main threat to the survival of Rick and his group. The living people are more dangerous than the dead. Zombie encounters have dwindled to a few flare ups over the last 30 or so issues.
ReplyDeleteBut Kirkman warned people at the very beginning this was not a story about zombies. He was always wondering about what happened to people and their struggle to survive in the world AFTER the credits of a *Dawn of the Dead* flick. He wrote in his introduction to the first trade paperback, "I want to explore how people deal with extreme situations and how these events CHANGE them". Then, later, he writes, "This is not a horror book [...], this book is more about watching Rick survive than it is about watching zombies pop around the corner and scare you. I hope that's what you guys are into." He's said the show was the same idea, just in a different medium.
Interesting. I definitely except something more than Love triangles, as the personal issues of survivors. Especially in the second season I found the issues silly sometimes. And there was negative reaction from fans because they stayed at the same place all through the season, which was fine with me. Above all my major complaint is the pace of the show. I want it to be a bit faster and want some more action.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see the focus of the second season being on love triangles so much as the internal conflict each character was struggling with - which was deciding what type of person they wanted to be. Do you hold fast to your ideals, like Dale, or adopt a kill-or-be-killed outlook like Shane? Most of the triangles were just a device to highlight that conflict. Lori's choice wasn't really about whether she loved Rick or Shane more. It was a conflict between the two outlooks, and deciding how she wanted to live and raise her son in this new world. Same with Andrea/Dale/Shane. That storyline was about Andrea changing.
ReplyDeleteI like the heavy focus on the characters. While I like action too, there are only so many zombie fights you can see before they become boring.
I personally don't think a nineteen year guy like me, can actually understand the depth of these issues. Honestly, I would go with Shane and I felt he was right all along the series. One just looks for survival of themselves and their family in a post-apocalyptic, not think for hours and days together whether to kill or not. Nobody can take a risk of benefit of doubt in that mess. I think this show killed the wrong person. I personally hope they would show the negative effects of Rick's decisions in the coming seasons.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, people reading comic books, is the series coming to an end at least in the comic books?
*I personally hope they would show the negative effects of Rick's decisions in the coming seasons.*
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, if they stick to the comics in some fashion in future seasons, they will. IN SPADES.
* is the series coming to an end at least in the comic books?*
Kirkman's made no indication he plans to end it any time soon. He is also writing another series, but I doubt it will affect his continuing with TWD. TWD is his bread and butter at the moment. He's pulling double duty writing the book and exec producing (and writing one ep a season) for the series. With the new storyarc he started in the last four or five issues, I can easily see him continuing at least that arc for another two years. (One issue releases each month.)
I recently reviewed S2, and, as a whole, it doesn't have a pacing issue. When viewed on a week to week basis, it does feel as though it's "slow". In reality, IIRC, about a week or two passed during the entire second season, so for them to be on Hershel's farm for as "long" as they were, it's not difficult to believe. And if people think that was a long time in one place, wait until the prison storyarc, which begins this coming season. But the personal problems/human drama will never be sidelined. It's the nature of the story Kirkman (and Mazzara and Co. with the series) wants to tell and explore.
ReplyDeleteThe number of zombies is finite, whether or not any of the survivors remaining in the world are turned. Whether it's being killed by living people, exposure to the
elements, gradual decomposition or the simple fact the living will
better fortify themselves in communities and cut off the food supply
leading to "starvation", as time goes by, there will be fewer zombies to contend with. Deaths in the comic lately, they're almost always non-zombie related, since the last major flare up. It's only
through through the
stupidity of those who haven't been on guard as long as Rick and Co.
are most survivors killed.