Scary Math

Naturally, when it was announced there was going to be a television series adaptation of the comic book The Walking Dead (the only book I continued reading when diminished resources forced me to drop comics altogether) I would be makingdamnsure I would be watching it. And naturally, given my love of the parent work, I would either love the show or hate it.

So far, I love the show though it does have some problems for me. One of these problems is the large cast of extra characters who didn't exist in the original. Some of them really feel like they were just thrown in to add filling to the episodes and this is so unnecessary when the original characters could all use a good bit more of on-screen development. I want to get to know TV-Glen, Andrea and Dale a bit more and have a lot less of the T-Dogs and Dixon brothers (though hurrah for a Boondock Saint in casting one of them) who never existed in the first place. There are too many new characters waiting to be introduced down the line for the viewers to be bogged down with a cast that shouldn't exist. My only hope is that all these extra characters exist so that there can be cannon fodder for some requisite producer-mandated zombie bloodbath.

I'm also finding myself very impatient. I've lived with these characters through about seven years now and they are so far past this stage in the story that, while I love revisiting them like this, I'm very antsy for them to get to future scenes and stories I love. Especially, ESPECIALLY with Carl. This actually leads to my first serious problem.

The Carl Problem.
Even if the six episode first season ends the way the six issue first storyline of the book ends, and I really hope it does. I am more eager than anything for that to happen and it would make damn good TV for the season to end on that particular event. Even if it ends there it still leaves us with the greater Carl Problem. In 77 issues of The Walking Dead barely a year has passed. There are far too many excellent stories and subplots of Carl's that just will NOT work if Carl ages too much. As this actor ages through the seasons he isn't going to be believable as the little kid he's portraying for too long and way too many of the best Carl moments will lose their poignancy if Carl gets too old season-to-season. What worries me is how this dilemma might be addressed by my second issue with the series.

The Frank Darabont Problem.
Honestly, Darabont has done a remarkable and stunning job adapting books to the screen. Books I love now movies I love. It's a rare gift and he does have it. But the motherfucker also changes shit and when he does it often really pisses me the fuck off (I'm done channeling Debra Morgan now). The man has shown a willingness to make dramatic changes that piss me the fuck off (I lied). Look no further than my archived review of The Mist for the most glaring example of this fuckery. Knowing this is Darabont means knowing that things are going to change. Not just because of the nature of television, but because it's the nature of Darabont to add/embellish/change shit up. I have a dark feeling that character who is destined to die very soon is not in fact going to die because the drama would be "better" with this character around. This is wrong; trust the source material. It's strong enough on its own. I have a darker feeling the answer to the Carl Problem will be 1. Assign future Carl moments to new young characters (no!), 2. Assign them to Carl regardless of how much he's grown (as stated, some of these issues would hold nowhere near the poignancy if this is the case), 3. Don't write them into the show (I'm going to go rogue here and say that Carl is the heart of the BOOK and doing this would be a horrible disservice).

The Carl Problem + The Frank Darabont Problem = Scares Me.

I will say this: they've done an excellent job making Lori the bitch she really grows to be.

Zombie

In Love With the '80s

Spoilers of 28 Weeks Later below.

Yesterday I finally got around to watching 28 Weeks Later (far too long since its premiere). Like it? Yes. Love it? Not so much. I really dug on how the severity of action was kicked up a notch from the last one. It has the best helicopter vs zombies scene in film to date. Up until the final reel it had a good amount of the social commentary I expect from good zombie movies: there were allegories for the fall of man in an "every man for himself" mentality (and the requisite examples of the importance of caring for others), overdone examples of the American way of handling problems by squashing them. And therein lies my first dislike: just how absolutely retarded did the writers have to make the US military in order to pull off the sequence of events in their plot? What idiot lets a civilian in alone with an infected? Why wasn't there automated containment? Although, I think my first uneasy feeling came about when I realized that the soldiers highlighted were pretty much the soldiers that would include Chris in their ranks: the medical squads. I actually had a momentary worry that Chris was going to end up getting attacked by zombies. Social commentary disappears in the final reel though, where the movie veers directly into the territory that Adj hates about zombie movies--it becomes entirely nihilistic as the plague of zombie infection is now spreading beyond England. The score for this film (which is the same as that of its predecessor) is one of my favorites as well. I really dig on that music.

Dig dug.

Remember when we were kids and most of the cool video games were two-player jobs? You'd have your pals over after school and team up to take down aliens in Contra or take turns trying to save Princess Peach? Lately I've been finding myself more and more displeased with the state of the multi-player video game industry. Nowadays it seems that all of the best games are single player (by best I mean most popular or best produced) or multi-player online only; the interaction with your pals aspect of gaming is dying as any human connection is weeded out in favor of ethereal connections with strangers on the internets. Yesterday this hit me hardest when Brian was over and we wanted to Xbox 360 and all we had available for two-player action was Tetris (which was still great, but not for hours of fun). Sure, the occasional rare GOOD multi-player game does still come out now and again--about one per fifty single player jobs and it's disheartening. Why even have 4-player capability built into the machine if most of the games won't even accommodate two?

Zombie

50 Book Challenge #14: Cell, by Stephen King. Ok: Stephen King. Zombies. Evil cell phones. Why didn't I read this when it first came out?

I really identified with the character of Clay, from his artistic origins to his driving need to find and save his son, the character really spoke to me. And he wasn't an asshat or a tool, which is refreshing; he was just stupid in the typical horror movie ways.

The character of Tom was great too. I think he might be the first gay character King has written that he hasn't killed off after making a caricature of him and/or turning him into a villain or asshole. He too was refreshing.

King has this tendency to ruin stories for me by tossing out one liners that let you know of a character's impending doom much later. For once, he didn't pull this trick and I love him for it. I really really hate knowing a character is going to bite it beforehand (which made the one main character death a bit sudden and shocking--great).

The italics might be my biggest gripe--only one main character bites it in this book (sure, you may mention the Head or Ray, but one of them is true-to-type dying next reel horror movie and the other was completely undeveloped respectively--we learn more about Ray after he dies than beforehand). That said, as much as I liked the characters, I guess another one (Denise? Dan?) could have bitten it in the climax.

I wish the zombies had remained more zombie movie nasty longer before transforming into flocks (though it became an interesting twist on the genre and went with the plot ok).

My only real gripe: that Clay actually finds his kid. Too unbelievable and too George rescues his wife at the end of It for me. I was glad though that King didn't let us know whether the reinfection as cure works or not. It's like he took out the last chapter of Dark Tower entirely instead of just urging us not to read it.

This was the first Stephen King book that's felt like a Stephen King book for me since Needful Things (Dark Tower series exscluded, as it's a different organism entirely).

One Week

It's been a long week and I've been a little busy here at casa Peterson. I've been a little flu-ey, but better now. Spent the week organizing my remaining comics and playing a little Dead Rising on XBOX360 (Drew, does yours freeze up every now and again? Mine does and it is annoying).

Trial news: the preliminary trial is set for the end of March, so a month and a half to prep Lash emotionally.

Last week my oncologist had me go for my yearly chest ct: I'm a-ok folks. No sign of remission.

I'm tired and literally have no idea what to say right now. I'll be back more regularly next week.

Oh, and finally, I've put the last of my comics up on eBay. Check them out or don't, but if you do bid, and win, mention this blog and I'll take 5 bucks off your total.