So in my previous blog post I mentioned that one of the reasons I’d been away from my blog for so long was that I had too many other things going on in my life. Well, one of those things (which has sucked up hours and hours of my life) is the video game Red Dead Redemption. This has to be one of the most engrossing and fun games I’ve ever played (a close second would be Borderlands, which is just way more fun than any game has a right to be). Red Dead Redemption (referred to hereafter as RDR for brevity’s sake) is based on the Grand Theft Auto game engine (and made by Rockstar Games, the same creative minds behind the GTA games), so if you’ve ever played any Grand Theft Auto, you’ll have a good idea as to the basic gameplay. The big difference, of course, is that RDR takes place in the Wild West instead of the gritty streets of modern America.
This western setting is a big part of what drew me to this game over the GTA series (which I would like to play at some point, but I’m not as excited to play them as I was RDR). One interesting twist that I hadn’t expected when I first bought the game – it actually takes place in 1911, so it’s a much later western era than I had expected (which is one of the themes of the story – the idea that modern technology/society is bringing the days of the “wild west” to an end).
Here’s the background of the story – you play John Marsten, a former outlaw who walked away from his gang after they left him for dead. He got married, had a son, and started a new life for himself with a small ranch. But his past has come back to haunt him – government agents are holding his family hostage, and will release them on one condition – John must hunt down and kill the three members of his former gang.
We begin our adventure in the territory of New Austin, which is basically a southern US desert environment similar to Texas or New Mexico. In the opening scenes of the game, you are shown the location of one of the men you are supposed to kill – he and his new gang have taken over an abandoned Army fort. His men shoot you, leaving you seriously injured, but you are rescued by a woman named Bonnie who runs a ranch in the area with her father. Your first goal of the game (well, as far as the main storyline of the game anyways) is to figure out how you’re going to get into the fort so you can kill your former friend.
Unlike most games of this sort, which generally feature a linear storyline that you move through with very little deviation, RDR features an open-world concept (inherited from the Grand Theft Auto games) which is pretty unique to Rockstar Games. While I don’t have enough experience with other companies’ games to make a definitive statement, from various reviews I’ve read and comments I’ve gotten from more die-hard gamers than myself, no other company has come close to duplicating the open environment that you find in GTA and RDR.
And so, instead of moving directly from one story point to the next, what you have here is an open map that you can explore at your leisure. And what an amazing map it is! The graphics are fantastic (I was surprised at how much fun I had just riding my horse, randomly exploring the landscape and enjoying the view). But more importantly, the game is rich in gameplay opportunities completely separate from the main storyline. There are all sorts of animals you can hunt and plants you can pick (and there are specific tasks to accomplish that allow you to move up through ten levels of such skills as hunting, survival, and sharpshooting). There is also a “treasure hunter” skill that you advance through by tracking down hidden treasures throughout the map (at each treasure location you find a cache of gold, and a map giving hints to the location of the next treasure).
You can take bounties in town, and then go track down the criminal on the bounty and either kill him or lasso him, hogtie him, and bring him back to the sheriff’s office (you get more money for bringing them back alive). And there are all kinds of people that you’ll encounter as you travel around. Most of them will ignore you as they go about their business, but often they will interact with you in various “world events” (as the game calls them). These are usually quick, simple encounters, such as someone who’s just been robbed, and wants you to chase down the thief and return whatever was stolen (usually their horse or wagon), or saving someone from bandits, or from a pack of wolves. Another common encounter features someone coming up to you asking for help, but then pulling you off your horse and trying to steal it (an obvious nod to the car-jacking that is such a core part of GTA).
Last time I checked my stats, I want to say I’d encountered almost three dozen unique world events (and a total of several hundred world events – most of the events are encountered numerous, numerous times over the course of the game). However, nothing says you have to complete these events, so if someone challenges you to a duel, or tells you his buddy is about to be hanged and he needs your help, and you’re headed in the opposite direction, or in the middle of trying to do something else (or you’ve simply run into that event enough times you have no interest in spending time on it), you are free to just ignore them and continue on with what you were doing.
The game also features longer, more involved side missions called “stranger missions”. These involve more time and effort than the simple “world events”. They also really showcase both the brilliant writing of the game, and the wicked (and very warped) sense of humor of the writers. For example (spoiler alert – skip this and the next paragraph if you’re planning on playing through the game and don’t want to read specifics on the stranger missions), in one mission you meet an old man who asks if you can help him gather flowers for a bouquet for his wife. You then get a mission to gather a certain number of three different types of plants (which are scattered across the map, so there’s a fair bit of travel involved in gathering them all. But that is one of the great parts of the game – nothing says you have to complete the mission right away, so you’re free to travel the map doing other things, and just get the flowers as you run across them, and then when you have them all you can get around to going back to the old man to complete the mission). When you return to the old man with the flowers, he takes you into his house to give them to his wife – at which point you are introduced to her desiccated corpse, which has clearly been dead for a while (but her husband very much interacts with her as if she were still alive).
This sort of dark humor and these kinds of bizarre encounters are very common throughout the game (for example, in another stranger mission – titled “American Appetites” – you’re given the task of trying to find a series of missing persons. What you discover (which shouldn’t come as a surprise, based on the title of the mission), is that the missing people have all been eaten by a cannibal). If you appreciate this sort of humor, you’ll really enjoy the many side stories in the game.
In order to move through the main story of the game, you bring up your map, where you’ll see indicators as to the locations of the main story events. To activate a story event, simply travel to the location shown on the map. Generally there are two or three story threads that run concurrently through sections of the game. You can do all of one then all of another, or you can jump back and forth between them. For example, after Bonnie rescues you at the beginning of the game, she takes you into town to get some medicine for your injuries, and tells you that the local marshal may be able to help you on your mission. From this point there are now two story indicators: one for Bonnie, located at her ranch, and one for the marshal, located at his office in town. Each has several missions that you complete in a set order, moving you forward through the story. Bonnie's missions are all related to ranching activities, and work as nice tutorials to help you learn how to do such things as ride your horse and properly use your lasso, whereas the marshal’s missions are all combat related. But while each person’s missions go in a set, linear order, you can do all of Bonnie's missions, then all the marshal's missions, or vice versa, or you can go back and forth between the two.
When these sets of missions are completed, you then open up access to three new characters. Again, each has a series of missions you complete with them, but you have the option to do all of each person’s missions one after the other, or you can bounce back and forth between the different characters, completing a mission for one, then doing a mission or two for another, then jumping back to the first. And of course as you’re completing these missions you are free to take time out to complete stranger missions, to complete the tasks required for your various skills, or to simply wander the map looking for random encounters.
As the story unfolds, you eventually unlock two other map areas – the first is in Mexico, and the second (called West Elizabeth) features a Great Plains area (complete with a herd of buffalo) and a forest/mountain region resembling the Northwestern US. Each new zone unlocks new stranger missions, new treasure locations, new animals and plants, and new people and places to encounter, as well as new events for the main storyline. There are literally hours and hours and hours of things you can do to occupy yourself, including playing such mini-games as poker, black jack, horseshoes, and arm wrestling. And as I mentioned before, the writing is just incredible. Not only is the main story really engaging and well-written, but the various side stories are also really well done. And the characters you encounter throughout the game are all colorful, well-developed, and for the most part very memorable individuals.
And just when I thought I couldn’t enjoy the game more (and released just before I finished the main storyline, so the timing was perfect), Rockstar released a major new single-player update for the game: Undead Nightmare. As the name implies, this drops your characters right in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. And like the main game, the update is brilliant. The main story is pretty straight-forward: John Marsten's are bitten by a zombie (at which point John is forced to tie them up and board up his house so they can't get out). John then sets out to discover what has happened and how to stop it. Along the way he helps to secure the towns and settlements, while encountering many of the main characters form the original game.
As far as general gameplay goes, Undead Nightmare plays in much the same ways as the original: you have your main story missions, plus various side missions (appropriately called “survivor missions” instead of “stranger missions” like they were in the main game). There are new treasures to go after, and new tasks to accomplish to advance through the levels of your hunting and sharpshooting skills. But instead of the survival skill that you had in the main game (which required you to gather various numbers of different plants), you now have the goal of finding and breaking the Four Horses of the Apocalypse (I first encountered (and consequently broke and rode) Pestilence, and I’m currently riding around the map on War, which is just unbelievably cool).
While I’m not necessarily a huge fan of the zombie genre, it is one I enjoy (I’ve played a number of zombie video games that were lots of fun), and Undead Nightmare really delivers. Zombie encounters are exactly what you’d expect – really easy when there’s only a couple of zombies, but suddenly really, really difficult when you make the mistake of getting in the midst of a large group of them. And I love the wild west setting (which is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in a zombie game, movie, etc.). One of the interesting twists that the western setting gives you is zombie animals -- you see undead horses and cattle roaming around, and have to fight off undead grizzlies and mountain lions.
About the only complaint I have with the game overall is some of the controls (this is definitely one area where I would say Borderlands is very much the superior game). There are times that it is difficult to get your horse to do what you want it to, and I find myself way too many times crouching when I triy to run because of how they did the crouch. Now admittedly, I’m sure that many of these problems are as much my lack of hand-eye coordination as they are actual problems with the controls themselves (and I’m sure if I were more of a die-hard gamer I wouldn’t have some of the problems that I do). But that’s still the main thing (really, the only thing) that I find annoying about the game, and the big area where the game could be improved.
I loved the original story, and can’t wait to finish Undead Nightmare to see how it plays out, and I look forward to future expansions to the game (as well as the inevitable Red Dead Redemption 2, although I’m sure that’s a ways away). In conclusion, if you’re a video game player at all, and you like a good western, then this is a must-play game. And even if you’re not, I still cannot recommend this game highly enough.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Thursday, November 04, 2010
The More Things Change . . . .
Seems like forever since the last time I updated this blog (although 3 ½ months is certainly a much shorter gap than the almost 3-year break I took previously). The problem has been a combination of being busy with too many other things, and having a hard time getting motivated to write. In effort to address at least the motivation issue, I’ve decided to make a slight adjustment to the nature of ye ol’ blog, somewhat inspired by my previous blog entry. Instead of doing just a movie-centric blog, I’m going to expand the content to include movies, TV shows, comic books, novels, video games, music, horticulture (okay, maybe not horticulture); in other words, whatever random topics happen to catch my attention and inspire me to write. And with the change in format, comes a change in title. I’m taking the title of my previous blog entry and turning it into the title for the entire blog – “And Now For Something Completely Different . . . .” (and if you don’t know where that particular line comes from, well you’ll just have to look it up. Oh, and shame on you!).
For our first entry of our new and (hopefully) improved blog, I’m going with a spooky, post-Halloween theme (I’m only a week late, which for me is pretty good). Topics for discussion today include one old movie, and one brand new TV show. So last night I watched an old supernatural horror/thriller made way back in 1983 – The Keep. I picked up this movie partly because I love the cast, and partly because I vaguely recalled enjoying it the first time around (sadly, it doesn’t play as well 25+ years later, but it’s still not too bad a movie). The first surprise that I got as the opening credits rolled was that it was written and directed by Michael Mann (of Miami Vice fame). This certainly isn’t the type of movie you’d normally associate with this director (this is, however, one of his very early films).
The movie takes place in the mountains of Romania during World War II. A Nazi army captain, played by Jürgen Prochnow (an actor I’ve always really liked), is given orders to garrison his soldiers at a mysterious and forbidding stone keep blocking a pass through the mountains. After his men begin to die horribly one by one, a group of SS soldiers is sent in to deal with the problem, led by Gabriel Byrne (another brilliant actor). Other great actors in the film include Ian McKellen as a Jewish scientist brought in because of his knowledge of the keep, and Scott Glenn as a mysterious stranger who knows the secret of the keep. As the movie unfolds, you quickly learn that the keep was built to imprison a powerful evil that is desperate to escape its prison.
The visual effects for the movie are really cheesy, especially by today’s standards (and were probably at least a little cheesy even by ‘80s standards), and both the writing and acting have their weak, silly moments. What the movie really has going for it, though, is atmosphere. There’s an eerie, spooky feel that the movie maintains throughout, even during the cheesier scenes. Especially impressive is the keep itself, which really does look like it was built to hold some ancient evil. The other thing the movie really gets right as far as atmosphere is the music. The score was done by Tangerine Dream, a new age/electronica group that not only have done several excellent soundtracks (over 60, I was surprised to learn on Wikipedia), but have also done some great non-soundtrack albums (if you like electronic music, that is).
As I was watching the movie, the wannabe filmmaker in me (oh, if only I’d gotten into film in high school, instead of computers) really keyed in on the music. I don’t think I can over stress just how important a part of a movie a good score/soundtrack is. The right music can make an indelible impression on the viewer, forever tying the music to the film in the viewer’s mind. Ennio Morricone’s scores for Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns is a perfect example of this; and who can forget Mike Oldfield’s theme song for The Exorcist?
Other musicians whose scores I really enjoy include Vangelis (who won the Oscar for Best Original Score for Chariots of Fire, as well as scoring Blade Runner and 1492: Conquest of Paradise for Ridley Scott – both phenomenal scores), Graeme Revell (who’s done dozens of great movie scores), and of course the brilliant Danny Elfman, who was the front man of Oingo Boingo before going into movie scores. He’s probably best known for his work with Tim Burton (having done the scores for all but two of his movies), but has done films and TV shows too numerous to mention.
But enough talk about music for today (although in some future blog entry I’m sure I will return to the topic of movie music) – let’s get back on track with our post-Halloween theme. At the beginning of our show I mentioned a brand new TV show. The show in question would be AMC’s The Walking Dead, which premiered on Halloween night. As the name implies, this show is about a zombie apocalypse (and thus, not for everyone). It is based on a very successful comic book series (one which I haven’t read yet, so no idea how good the original comics are, or how close the show is to said comics). I have to say, while not perfect, I loved the pilot for this show! Of course, the fact that it was written for the screen, directed, and executive produced by Frank Darabont (director of such classic films as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) probably has a lot to do with that.
Okay, let’s play TV/film critic for a moment, and get the negatives out of the way first. Sadly, there were a few aspects to the story that I found a bit derivative/predictable. The main character awakens from a coma in a hospital to find it completely abandoned, which feels a lot like the opening to 28 Days Later. This same main character later heads for Atlanta, which is supposed to be a safe haven protected by the military where the CDC is busily working on a cure, only to discover the city is filled to the brim with zombies (this is such a standard part of most zombie films as to almost be cliché, but it’s hard to be too upset about its inclusion, because it is such a standard that it almost wouldn’t feel right to NOT have it). The big story aspect that really disappointed me, though, is the tried and true “love triangle” – the main character’s former partner (both were deputy sheriffs) and his wife have assumed that he’s dead, and so naturally have become romantically involved. This is one of those silly story complications that has just been over-used to death. I’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out here before I pass final judgment.
Other than these few slightly weak story points, though, I absolutely loved this show. The cinematography and editing are both especially excellent. You really get to see just what a television show can accomplish when it’s done with cinematic sensibilities (clearly one of the advantages of having a film director on board as the main creative force behind the show). Let’s start with the opening scene. We see our main character, a deputy sheriff, leaving his vehicle and walking down a deserted highway carrying a gas can. Abandoned vehicles litter the street. He reaches a gas station, where we see a small, hand-written sign reading “No Gas” and more abandoned cars. Our hero hears something, and moves towards the noise. Looking under a car, he sees a pair of slipper-clad feet, and a small hand reaching for a teddy bear. Moving around the car, he sees a young girl walking slowly away from him. He calls out to her. She stops, then slowly turns around. Not surprisingly, she is a zombie. As she begins to move towards our hero, he hesitates for a moment, then pulls his sidearm and puts a bullet through the middle of her forehead. We watch her body fall backwards to the ground, then cut to opening credits.
And right there the show lets you know very bluntly and boldly (and surprisingly graphically, especially for a basic cable channel) exactly what it’s about. I loved it. Before the opening credits even roll, you’ve got a really good idea what you’re in for (so if it’s not your type of show, you’ll know it right from word go, and can change the channel before investing any real time watching). After the opening credits, we jump back in time to before the zombies arrive, where we see the main character sitting in his squad car with his partner (same guy who ends up involved with his wife later in the show). After a brief conversation between the two men to let us get to know a little about them, they become involved in a post high-speed chase shootout that leaves the main character seriously injured from a gunshot wound.
When the hero awakens in a hospital bed an indeterminate amount of time later, he finds the hospital both deserted and completely trashed (including dead bodies in the hallways and a line of bullet holes along one wall). He comes across a padlocked door spray-painted with the words: “Don’t Open. Dead Inside.” Finally he stumbles outside. The camera stays close in on him, focused mostly at his feet. You see him walk past a dead body wrapped in a sheet, then another, then another. The camera then pulls back to an overhead shot, where you discover there are dozens and dozens and dozens of dead bodies stacked up in rows outside the hospital. It is incredibly well shot and edited together to really hit you with the impact of just how many dead there are. It is one of the best scenes in the show, and I loved how it was done.
Things are pretty standard from there as he is saved from zombies by a pair of survivors, who explain to him what’s been happening (in brief, at least – they don’t go into as much detail as I would have liked; specifically, at no point does the man ask what date it is or how long the zombie plague has been going on, which in my mind at least is one of the first questions I’d be asking if I'd just come out of a coma – especially if I'd come out of it into such a bizarre and unbelievable a scenario). He leaves the pair to head off to Atlanta, where as mentioned above he discovers it is overrun by zombies. One interesting twist is that after his car runs out of gas, he finds a horse, and ends up riding into Atlanta on horseback, which had a retro western sort of feel that I liked. Of course, things don’t work out so well for the horse (but I’ll leave the details of that to your imagination).
And that’s about where the first episode ends. In the scenes of upcoming episodes, we see our hero connect with a group of survivors in Atlanta, while at the same time his wife, son, and partner are in the wilderness with other survivors also trying to stay alive. Based on what I’ve seen so far, this show has the potential to be really, really good, and I can’t wait to see the next episode. Of course, as the one review on the show that I read pointed out, The Walking Dead is likely going to have to pull in an entirely different audience from that of AMC's other hits Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and if it doesn’t it could have a hard time staying on the air (which would suck). We’ll have to wait and see how it does.
And thus concludes my return to the blogosphere. With any luck, by expanding the concept of my blog to go beyond the realm of just movies, I’ll be able to stay motivated/inspired enough to actually update the stupid thing on a more regular basis. Until then, “Be seeing you.” (another quote you’re just going to have look up if you don’t know where it came from)
For our first entry of our new and (hopefully) improved blog, I’m going with a spooky, post-Halloween theme (I’m only a week late, which for me is pretty good). Topics for discussion today include one old movie, and one brand new TV show. So last night I watched an old supernatural horror/thriller made way back in 1983 – The Keep. I picked up this movie partly because I love the cast, and partly because I vaguely recalled enjoying it the first time around (sadly, it doesn’t play as well 25+ years later, but it’s still not too bad a movie). The first surprise that I got as the opening credits rolled was that it was written and directed by Michael Mann (of Miami Vice fame). This certainly isn’t the type of movie you’d normally associate with this director (this is, however, one of his very early films).
The movie takes place in the mountains of Romania during World War II. A Nazi army captain, played by Jürgen Prochnow (an actor I’ve always really liked), is given orders to garrison his soldiers at a mysterious and forbidding stone keep blocking a pass through the mountains. After his men begin to die horribly one by one, a group of SS soldiers is sent in to deal with the problem, led by Gabriel Byrne (another brilliant actor). Other great actors in the film include Ian McKellen as a Jewish scientist brought in because of his knowledge of the keep, and Scott Glenn as a mysterious stranger who knows the secret of the keep. As the movie unfolds, you quickly learn that the keep was built to imprison a powerful evil that is desperate to escape its prison.
The visual effects for the movie are really cheesy, especially by today’s standards (and were probably at least a little cheesy even by ‘80s standards), and both the writing and acting have their weak, silly moments. What the movie really has going for it, though, is atmosphere. There’s an eerie, spooky feel that the movie maintains throughout, even during the cheesier scenes. Especially impressive is the keep itself, which really does look like it was built to hold some ancient evil. The other thing the movie really gets right as far as atmosphere is the music. The score was done by Tangerine Dream, a new age/electronica group that not only have done several excellent soundtracks (over 60, I was surprised to learn on Wikipedia), but have also done some great non-soundtrack albums (if you like electronic music, that is).
As I was watching the movie, the wannabe filmmaker in me (oh, if only I’d gotten into film in high school, instead of computers) really keyed in on the music. I don’t think I can over stress just how important a part of a movie a good score/soundtrack is. The right music can make an indelible impression on the viewer, forever tying the music to the film in the viewer’s mind. Ennio Morricone’s scores for Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns is a perfect example of this; and who can forget Mike Oldfield’s theme song for The Exorcist?
Other musicians whose scores I really enjoy include Vangelis (who won the Oscar for Best Original Score for Chariots of Fire, as well as scoring Blade Runner and 1492: Conquest of Paradise for Ridley Scott – both phenomenal scores), Graeme Revell (who’s done dozens of great movie scores), and of course the brilliant Danny Elfman, who was the front man of Oingo Boingo before going into movie scores. He’s probably best known for his work with Tim Burton (having done the scores for all but two of his movies), but has done films and TV shows too numerous to mention.
But enough talk about music for today (although in some future blog entry I’m sure I will return to the topic of movie music) – let’s get back on track with our post-Halloween theme. At the beginning of our show I mentioned a brand new TV show. The show in question would be AMC’s The Walking Dead, which premiered on Halloween night. As the name implies, this show is about a zombie apocalypse (and thus, not for everyone). It is based on a very successful comic book series (one which I haven’t read yet, so no idea how good the original comics are, or how close the show is to said comics). I have to say, while not perfect, I loved the pilot for this show! Of course, the fact that it was written for the screen, directed, and executive produced by Frank Darabont (director of such classic films as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) probably has a lot to do with that.
Okay, let’s play TV/film critic for a moment, and get the negatives out of the way first. Sadly, there were a few aspects to the story that I found a bit derivative/predictable. The main character awakens from a coma in a hospital to find it completely abandoned, which feels a lot like the opening to 28 Days Later. This same main character later heads for Atlanta, which is supposed to be a safe haven protected by the military where the CDC is busily working on a cure, only to discover the city is filled to the brim with zombies (this is such a standard part of most zombie films as to almost be cliché, but it’s hard to be too upset about its inclusion, because it is such a standard that it almost wouldn’t feel right to NOT have it). The big story aspect that really disappointed me, though, is the tried and true “love triangle” – the main character’s former partner (both were deputy sheriffs) and his wife have assumed that he’s dead, and so naturally have become romantically involved. This is one of those silly story complications that has just been over-used to death. I’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out here before I pass final judgment.
Other than these few slightly weak story points, though, I absolutely loved this show. The cinematography and editing are both especially excellent. You really get to see just what a television show can accomplish when it’s done with cinematic sensibilities (clearly one of the advantages of having a film director on board as the main creative force behind the show). Let’s start with the opening scene. We see our main character, a deputy sheriff, leaving his vehicle and walking down a deserted highway carrying a gas can. Abandoned vehicles litter the street. He reaches a gas station, where we see a small, hand-written sign reading “No Gas” and more abandoned cars. Our hero hears something, and moves towards the noise. Looking under a car, he sees a pair of slipper-clad feet, and a small hand reaching for a teddy bear. Moving around the car, he sees a young girl walking slowly away from him. He calls out to her. She stops, then slowly turns around. Not surprisingly, she is a zombie. As she begins to move towards our hero, he hesitates for a moment, then pulls his sidearm and puts a bullet through the middle of her forehead. We watch her body fall backwards to the ground, then cut to opening credits.
And right there the show lets you know very bluntly and boldly (and surprisingly graphically, especially for a basic cable channel) exactly what it’s about. I loved it. Before the opening credits even roll, you’ve got a really good idea what you’re in for (so if it’s not your type of show, you’ll know it right from word go, and can change the channel before investing any real time watching). After the opening credits, we jump back in time to before the zombies arrive, where we see the main character sitting in his squad car with his partner (same guy who ends up involved with his wife later in the show). After a brief conversation between the two men to let us get to know a little about them, they become involved in a post high-speed chase shootout that leaves the main character seriously injured from a gunshot wound.
When the hero awakens in a hospital bed an indeterminate amount of time later, he finds the hospital both deserted and completely trashed (including dead bodies in the hallways and a line of bullet holes along one wall). He comes across a padlocked door spray-painted with the words: “Don’t Open. Dead Inside.” Finally he stumbles outside. The camera stays close in on him, focused mostly at his feet. You see him walk past a dead body wrapped in a sheet, then another, then another. The camera then pulls back to an overhead shot, where you discover there are dozens and dozens and dozens of dead bodies stacked up in rows outside the hospital. It is incredibly well shot and edited together to really hit you with the impact of just how many dead there are. It is one of the best scenes in the show, and I loved how it was done.
Things are pretty standard from there as he is saved from zombies by a pair of survivors, who explain to him what’s been happening (in brief, at least – they don’t go into as much detail as I would have liked; specifically, at no point does the man ask what date it is or how long the zombie plague has been going on, which in my mind at least is one of the first questions I’d be asking if I'd just come out of a coma – especially if I'd come out of it into such a bizarre and unbelievable a scenario). He leaves the pair to head off to Atlanta, where as mentioned above he discovers it is overrun by zombies. One interesting twist is that after his car runs out of gas, he finds a horse, and ends up riding into Atlanta on horseback, which had a retro western sort of feel that I liked. Of course, things don’t work out so well for the horse (but I’ll leave the details of that to your imagination).
And that’s about where the first episode ends. In the scenes of upcoming episodes, we see our hero connect with a group of survivors in Atlanta, while at the same time his wife, son, and partner are in the wilderness with other survivors also trying to stay alive. Based on what I’ve seen so far, this show has the potential to be really, really good, and I can’t wait to see the next episode. Of course, as the one review on the show that I read pointed out, The Walking Dead is likely going to have to pull in an entirely different audience from that of AMC's other hits Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and if it doesn’t it could have a hard time staying on the air (which would suck). We’ll have to wait and see how it does.
And thus concludes my return to the blogosphere. With any luck, by expanding the concept of my blog to go beyond the realm of just movies, I’ll be able to stay motivated/inspired enough to actually update the stupid thing on a more regular basis. Until then, “Be seeing you.” (another quote you’re just going to have look up if you don’t know where it came from)
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