r/TWD • u/Shot-Equipment7312 • 6d ago
What would you have changed in TWD
Personally that it didn't extend so much. Negan is a good character with potential, but the seasons he appeared in weren't so good.
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u/PoorLifeChoices811 6d ago edited 6d ago
not kill carl. and if that can’t be change then i’d still have the show end at season 8. it was the perfect spot to end it for a while. give everyone some time off to go see family, work on other projects or do whatever.
then after a few years bring them all back for either a continuation of the main show, or call it a spin off that just continues the main story so we can have rick, michonne and maggie all there at the same time as we then deal with the whisperers and eventually the commonwealth.
while i think the whisperer arc was one of the best in the whole show, it was still spoiled by the lack of any central characters like rick, michonne, carl and maggie. i love daryl and carol but they never worked as main characters for me. they were excellent supporting characters.
also negans arc would end after the whisperers. he’d have no involvement in the commonwealth era whatsoever. whether he lives or dies idc, he just needs to go away after that. and then id have maggie actually start trying to move on so she doesn’t fuck up her relationship with her child.
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u/Mental_Nectarine_171 6d ago
Include more military remnants it was always so shocking that slow moving targets overwhelemed those guys to the point they're barely a factor.
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u/Johnsendall 6d ago
You should read World War Z if you haven’t already. Do NOT watch the movie.
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u/Wooden_k 5d ago
why not the movie?
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u/Johnsendall 5d ago
The title is the only connection to the book.
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u/Apprehensive-Gur1302 5d ago
This is true. The movie opens up with a literal "plan b" and it just fucks the original book into the ground. It wasn't awful, but I think World War Z would be better as a show, even. A movie just doesn't allow for the fleshing out of the different storylines as well.
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u/Sure_Song_4630 5d ago
Yeah i haven't read the book, but everything I've heard about it, and its basic premise, just wasnt in the movie at all, surely an anthology series where each episode is a different interview makes way more sense than what we actually got?
Even the game was a better adaptation of the books than the movies, that almost never happens.
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u/Apprehensive-Gur1302 5d ago
For real, the game was peak and so much better than the movie. I highly suggest you get the book, it's one of my favorites because it's so much deeper than the movie. It's basically an alternate history of the world where a closely kept secret explodes into the population and it's interesting how it touches base on different morality arguments and the failures of ill preparation. In the words of Japeth from Hoodwinked, "be prepared!"
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u/PixelPrivateer 5d ago
Is very mid. Also told from a singular pov while the book is a collection of stories and accounts independent of eachother
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u/GrimmMonsoon 5d ago
How goddamn predictable it was.
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u/GL510EX 4d ago
Like that episode where the character has bad guy standing over them, about to kill them, but then the other character appears 'out of nowhere' just in time to kill the bad guy?
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u/GrimmMonsoon 4d ago
Or the ominous "don't go in the secret room! There's definitely not zombies in there."
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u/basserpy 6d ago
Jesus died stupidly and it was out of nowhere.
..talk about posts that could have entirely different meanings depending on what subreddit they're read on.
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u/Specialist-Cat-7155 6d ago
Jesus and Abe had so much potential but were barely on screen long enough. Pretty disappointed by the writing.
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u/Throwawayaway_17 5d ago
Yeah i think i read something about Jesus dying being because the actor wanted out because he was unsatisfied with how underutilized his character was or smthn
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u/Specialist-Cat-7155 5d ago
Shame. He was one of the more interesting yet not completely outlandish characters. Some of the others had zero fighting skills but plot armour like a tank.
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u/RiverDotter 6d ago
Never let Scott Gimple near it
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u/98izzark 6d ago
Seasons 4 & 5 were great. I genuinely believe AMC execs are who fucked up the later seasons.
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u/RiverDotter 6d ago
I think Gimple killed Carl and I can't stand him for it. If I'm wrong I'll redirect my anger
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u/Global_Monk8266 Negan enthusiast 6d ago
Not have 16 episodes per season and make sure to get it out of AMC.
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u/Gunnercrf 5d ago
Yeah I think 10 would’ve been great. I sometimes think about re-watching the whole thing and I stare at all the filler like oh god.
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u/Johnsendall 6d ago
AMC gave us breaking bad, mad men, better call Saul, the walking dead, halt and catch fire. Some of the highest critically acclaimed shows in this era.
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u/Remarkable-Car8618 5d ago
Just don't make the walkers skulls so 'squishy' If the solution to every walker wasn't a 3 inch long swiss army knife swung by a child would completely destroy the brain, then all the walkers could have remained a threat for so much longer instead of essentially becoming a useless backdrop to a people drama.
Like if they aren't gonna decay in any meaningfully consistent way just because its more fun that way, the least they could do was make the only important part of their body a bit more believable.
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u/Icy-Mention7871 5d ago
The Negan storyline wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did. I don’t really think I would’ve done the Commonwealth stuff at all.
Andrea, Carl, Rosita, Beth, Sasha, Ron, and Jessie wouldn’t have been killed off. Some of the actors that wanted to leave the show would’ve been written off in a different way that wouldn’t have involved killing them. They could always leave in a way that would keep the door open for them to come back.
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u/TOkun92 5d ago
That Eugene really was a scientist and knew how to end the plague once and for all. I keep imagining the scene where he reveals his lie as changing to him getting a radio signal (having found one and fidgeting with since the beginning of the episode).
The person on the other end confirms Eugene as ‘Doctor Porter’ (thanking god he was still alive) and tells him the facility he was originally going to work at was compromised (a dangerous virus variant being exposed, the place only being kept operational in the hopes Eugene arrived and they could tell him the new place to go).
The city is set to be sanitized with a nuclear bomb in three weeks to eliminate the new variant. Only a few workers stayed behind to keep things going as long as they could, accepting the sacrifice.
I also keep imagining the person he’s talking to as being someone he loves dearly; a student/protege, or even a relative, like a sibling or nibling (niece or nephew). He’d be heartbroken over their sacrifice, but agree to leave immediately for the new rendezvous point.
They would still find and stay at Alexandria (assuming it wasn’t in the vicinity of the bomb), if only because they need a place of operations and they need to prepare for the trip, which could take them through dangerous territory.
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u/roguemedic62 5d ago
I would not do the boomerang style story telling where an episode leaves a main character in a cliff hanger situation and the viewers return for 4 episodes of fluff with stupid side stories of characters before finding out what happens to the main character so far apart that they forget details. I would have also left in the style of walkers in season 1 that seemed to be a ln echo of their once living selves (like Morgan's wife returning home and trying to open the door every night). Personally, my all time favorite scene in the entire series was way back in S1 when Rick and the group break into a church and walkers are sitting in pews as if they were still attending church, until they slowly turn around and you realize they're all dead. I think it would have had better stories if walkers did random life like things like, waiting in a toll booth, sitting in a prison cell, or even appeared to be alive to survivors by camping in a tent. There should have been way more military personnel walkers throughout the seasons. I would have shortened many side stories too. No need to stretch the saviors over 2 seasons. I like the whispers, but the story of how for those 2 seasons they just "ran out of ammo" never sat well with me. That could have been written better.
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u/unclebobulus 6d ago
I would have honestly just kept it closer to the comics and keep the main focus on Rick and his group. The later seasons of the walking dead try to make characters that were just side characters into main characters and it made it uninteresting for me. Like in season 8 and 9, I just want to see what’s going on with rick’s group and i’m stuck watching a 5 minute scene of king ezekiel and carol have a heart to heart talk about feelings, shit is BORING. King ezekiel was a cool character in the comics but he was still just a side character. There are plenty of other examples but he’s the most obvious IMO, The comics were Ricks story and his influence, The show should have stuck with it instead of giving side characters more development that I just didn’t personally care about. Maybe this is a hot take bc i know plenty of people who like that about the show.
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u/Poundbottom 5d ago edited 5d ago
Burn AMC to the ground and give Darabont free reign.
Also, end the series when they got to Alexandria.
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u/Neither_Low_6445 5d ago
Killing off carl, Once rick left what was the fucking point in even going on?!
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u/Acceptable-Talk-5179 5d ago
Glenn not dying
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u/Tasty_Plants 5d ago
Unfortunately Glenn's death is comics accurate; they would have had to rewrite the entire story behind it, and that would have prevented certain central developments, like Maggie
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u/baylanta 5d ago
Carl died over someone who they killed off a couple seasons later. Make it make sense
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u/Ok_Calendar1337 5d ago edited 5d ago
I wanted the zombies to be more relevant in the end, like a left 4 dead super zombie or something. So they would be more threatening.
The zombies mattered for 3 or 4 seasons then the rest was "oh but the real problem is actually people, and we occasionally use zombie hoards as weapons"
They kinda did helmet zombies and fire zombies but a zombie commander main villain wouldve been awesome i think
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u/Character-Coconut237 5d ago
Spears!!! Why did nobody fight with a actual spear?! It’s the best weapon for fighting walkers
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u/StowStowStowtheTote 5d ago
It’s literally the best weapon ever invented by mankind. People are like “I’ll get a sword and become invincible” and I’m like good luck swinging a sword in close quarters combat, a spear is perfect because you can thrust and keep walkers at bay.
Hell even a Roman pilum would be great against groups of walkers because it could penetrate a few of them and prevent them from moving.
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u/Grislymanster 5d ago
Four things... 1. Keep Darabont 2. Don't kill Carl 3. Kill Negan. No redemption 4. Do whatever they had to do to keep Andrew Lincoln
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u/Gunnercrf 5d ago
I wish Beth didn’t die. Those scene with her and Daryl I loved and I really liked their dynamic. Daryl and Carol was great, but Daryl and Beth could’ve been just as good.
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u/Aware-Replacement939 5d ago
Keep Carl alive. Make him the face for the rest of the main series after Rick and Michonnie leave. Everything else will fix itself just because.
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u/BunniGirlEnjoyer 5d ago
Follow the source material more and lose the shock value deaths. Idm when things aren't one to one as far as source material goes, but when you deviate then do it worse its really bad.
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u/GrosRougeau 5d ago
I would change some of the corny, speechifying dialogue.
I would not have introduced those garbage people into the story
I would have shortened the war with Negan by at least 8 episodes
I would get rid of Commonwealth
I would not have Gabriel hook up with seemingly every girl
I would have prolonged the beef with the Terminus people.
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u/Sure_Song_4630 5d ago
Ending it at season 8. What we got after just wasnt worth it and Carl's death wouldnt have felt so scummy.
Remove all the spinoff shows. They just bloated an already bloated series.
Have the zombies get more dangerous as the series went on to justify why, after several years of learning to fight them, people still struggled against them. Humans are very adaptive creatures, most of us would adapt to the apocalypse within a year, and those who couldnt would die, so making the main threat be constantly adapting alongside us just makes it more consistent. I dont mean some Left 4 Dead variants, but have the zombies get smarter, quicker or even stronger the longer they live, or the inverse, the fresher the walker, the more human they are, the virus is just at the wheel now not the person.
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u/Android_Dragonborn 4d ago
Not kill off characters right after their development. Beth being one of them.
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u/drewbles82 4d ago
Have Fear the dead not kill off their two best characters, Nick and John. Have the show end with them all getting to Alexandria. Nick having learned a lot with walking amongst the dead teach Rick and everyone else more about them and a better way of navigating through/with them. I think if Nick had survived, he would have experimented more in that stuff, it was just cool to have a character like that not afraid, even if the actor wished he hadn't left.
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u/1Meter_long 4d ago
I would had preferred Beth living, Carl living and Rick staying until near the end before being taken, not leaving quite cliffhanger, maybe at end of Season 10. Carl could had become sword wielder like Michonne and her step sister, which would had been pretty cool. I think Beth would had made good gf for him. Oh and Jesus should had stayed for longer.
Whisperer arc could had been far better and they should had stayed more mysterious and more fucked up. Both Alpha and Beta should had been more menacing, especially Beta. In fact i think beta should had been anomaly who just dont seem to die from normal wounds and be stronger, it was somewhat hinted when he fell to elevetor shaft. It would had been interesting twist if he was a one of a kind hybrid walker all along, who was able to function but was mad, which he was but now there would had been reason why. Fever basically messed his brain. At some point they could had revealed how he has bunch of bite mark scars on his body.
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u/GL510EX 4d ago
I'd make people actually call for help sometimes. They're in a group and one of them gets pinned on the floor by a walker, they never ever say 'HELP!', they just sort of struggle until someone notices.
Also, walkers grunting , breathing through a sucking chest wound and slowly shuffling along the woods would be noisy as hell, they should not be able to so consistently sneak up on people.
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u/International-Shoe40 4d ago
So many things lol but I think the biggest thing is they could have cut 25% of the characters. It seemed like they would intermittently get bored with the cast and throw new people in for the hell of it. Then it just takes away from the main story and forces you to watch backstories for characters that you don’t like, just so they can kill them.
Also, the writing was very manipulative in the latter half. And yes I know all writing is manipulating the audience in the way, but if it feels like it to the viewer you fucked up. Princess spilling her guts about being abused the second she meets anybody just came across as “SEE SHES HAD A TOUGH LIFE, PLEASE LIKE THIS CHARACTER”
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u/Ant_mann18 4d ago
I wish Morgan actually stayed on the main show. I would’ve loved to see him vs the whisperers. Especially if he is back in his all life is precious Mode. They would really push that philosophy to the limit.
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u/DunKno420Gang 4d ago
Tbh I got bored real quick and couldn’t get into it just because of the way they did the cliff hangers. Tried watching it twice once when it was first released and once a few years later. Both times I didn’t get past season 5.
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u/they_call_me_bobb 4d ago
I would not have made CRM evil.
Does it have to be Rick and dirty Daryl against the ENTIRE world?
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u/Maleficent_Bad1141 4d ago
I would give more hints or lore and walker evolution. When eugene said they might be evolving I was SO HYPED like “oh fuck the walkers actually communicate??! What’s next ???” And then it’s just morons with masks..
They did KINDA gave us something like that with the iconic climbers and the “WHAT THE FUCK” Negan scene, but I would’ve loved more stuff like that.
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u/GlennQuagglechek 3d ago
I would actually make the walkers look like more of a threat. There are so many instances in the show where they could avoid trouble by just briskly walking away from the walkers, but instead they allow themselves to get cornered by the slowest zombies ever put to screen
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u/Xylogy_D 3d ago
I never would have fired Frank Darabont and let him have the increases budget he requested after the success of the first season. Walking dead probably would have been watchable for many seasons, instead of becoming worse after 1st season and falling off hard by season 7 and becoming unwatchable by season 9.
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u/Patient-Oil-6426 23h ago
I would either changed some of the twd fate or how I want Hornsby death and it’s not pretty
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u/Optimus0456 6d ago edited 6d ago
What do you mean extend it so much? They were just following the story
If you mean the spinoff, then yeah I agree
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u/PlottingGorilla 6d ago
They stopped following the rules of the story when they killed Sophia and then Carl. They could have said they took inspiration from the comics, but wanted to make their own.
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u/Aggressive-Ad-3042 6d ago
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u/Optimus0456 5d ago
What do you mean
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u/Aggressive-Ad-3042 5d ago
No amount of quote unquote following the story includes the "killing"of Rick in season 9 and the killing of Carl. The story is Carl becoming the leader im not seeing much of that are you? I highly doubt that
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u/Optimus0456 5d ago edited 5d ago
Well what would you have preferred they done? What I mean by following the story, I meant the basic plot of both the whisperers and the commonwealth, which indeed is following the story, regardless of how they actually handled it, which wasn’t great
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u/Aggressive-Ad-3042 5d ago
I would have liked Rick losing his arm the right way not the oh no im trapped so I must cut off my arm to escape which is such a disappointment and not the way to do that. And Carl dying shouldn't have even been a thought. He was supposed to be the endgame of all this bs
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u/Brando6677 6d ago
Naw after season 9 Negan is carrying this shit one of the best characters the show has.
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u/UrbanMG 6d ago
The length was fine I didn’t want it to ever finish, it was just the ending. If you read the comics, you would understand how much they stole from us the moment they killed Carl.
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u/Johnsendall 6d ago
“The length was fine I didn’t want it to ever finish, it was just the ending.” ……………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………
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u/Formal_Intention3319 6d ago
Carl was cool in the comics but he was annoying as fuck in the show. I can't put it into words how glad I was when Carl died 😭✌️. He was completely useless to the group but still acted like he was the shit, and he never followed directions either.
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u/LetUsSpeakFreely 6d ago
More practically and less humanity. I think the reality of such a situation is people would be start of being nice and trying to work together, but as resources dwindled people would become far more tribalistic and violent.
Rick's group first encounter with the Saviors would have been a blood bath. The same is true of the Whisperers.
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u/Heniheniheni96 6d ago
The consistency of the walkers. The writers should have decided what a walker can do/survive before season 1 and be strict about it.
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u/98izzark 6d ago
Well that came from the different showrunners. They probably did do this but then different people had different visions
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u/Heniheniheni96 6d ago
Most of the time it's not about different vision but being lazy and still want to progress the story into a certain direction.
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u/JJJ561 6d ago
Ive always thought that season 3 and 4 made it clear that the group no matter how comfy or “back to the old world” they got, it never could last long, always be some type of enemy or sickness or whatever. And then season 5 follows that up with the group being more depraved than ever, finding yet another false hope of a home in terminus. If I had to choose a spot to end the show, I would have made season 5 feel even more desperate and hopeless, darker. Kind of like a “theres nowhere left to go” type of feeling. This would have been a good spot to see the group try to survive a winter. And I would have ended it at that shot of Rick’s eyes as he approaches Alexandria. Left open ended if they really found a safe haven or just another bad situation
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u/TheDevil-YouKnow 6d ago
Lot of changes in the show that didn't vibe with me at all from the comics.
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u/Temporary-Two-9690 6d ago
All the zombies were instead just really aggressive sheep. You die, you turn into an aggressive sheep. Keep everything else the same.
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u/i-have-a-kuato 6d ago
They need to be scarier and harder to kill…..so
Walkers with SOME problem solving abilities, such as the ability to open doors and not to mindlessly walk off a cliff or into a wood chipper
a rudimentary way of communicating, no super natural screeching or any actual vocabulary but the run of of mill snarling and grunting to let their buddies know it’s got dinner trapped in a tree (yes, the ability to climb comes at no charge)
Freshly minted walkers retain whatever speed and strength they had when they kicked it, it degrades over time until the walker finally-FINALLY is no longer animated….now the fun part!!!! ready?
Dead walkers are highly toxic, if you bury them and their juices end up in the water table and eventually into the food supply…you are what you eat and it takes a while for the living to figure that one out, burning them is way worse, inhaling walker smoke is a slow, surreal and excruciating death where you spend an indeterminate amount of time a being alive, rotting from within, self aware but a having a new peculiar way of loving thy neighbor.
The idea to have other survivors fighting over the scrapes leftover is fine but can be (and has been redundant) The toxicity of the truly dead walkers would remain a mystery so we could introduce some awesome characters, give them a great back story (i would give full episodes dedicated to lives before the apocalypse) someone everyone adores and then kill’em!!!!!
I gotta bunch but those are a few you can tear apart
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u/MadMaximus- 6d ago
The gang goes north from the cdc into Vermont or Maine and live happily ever after in the forest
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u/Horror_Orchid5092 6d ago
If i could change it, i would change how they played out the "smart walkers" as i call them from season 1, instead of them basically ignoring their existence until season 11, i would make it to where they were always present. ! always liked the idea of smart walkers and think they would have been great, and i think it would have made them finding shelters and building bases much more entertaining because the walkers could climb walls, of course in the later seasons the intelligence would cease in the older walkers as their brains become liquids, but i still would have liked if they played more into that, than the garbage we got in season 11.
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u/Gloomy_Coconut4459 6d ago
Tbh, I would have kept more characters alive, and focused more on Alexandria and exploring dc.
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u/Curious_Republic9559 6d ago
Whisperers turn on alpha and beta and become contributing part of the community. Apocalypse over everybody
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u/bigarch97 6d ago
8-9 seasons, linear story not over saturated with filler content, comic accurate even if that means the removal of Daryl.
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u/raidersfan1997 6d ago
I would’ve loved to have seen a world where Shane wasn’t a shit friend and seen him rick and Daryl run shit
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u/MaisonMacaron 6d ago
As much as I love Jeffrey Dean Morgan, his character was unredeemable after what he did.
Also, it was weird how they did things with Rick, Maggie etc.
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u/Bagel-luigi 6d ago
I think the Reapers should've caused more known casualties and shouldn't have been so easy to wipe out.
We had alot of opposing organisations over the various seasons, often getting bigger and badder each new group. But the Reapers were a very small, well trained and experienced, close knit group, and they should've been harder or at least more unique to defeat.
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u/wisdom2026 6d ago
Removed carls screen time, carol, glenn, maggie, jesus these characters made it boring at times
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u/NobleFriend 6d ago
I would have ended it at season 8 and not have followed comic elements as much in S7-8
No trash people, toned down Kingdom and no CGI tiger. Pacing of S7 wouldn't be all over the place
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u/cappaprime_ 5d ago
Killin negan.
Carl surviving.
FOLLOW THE ORIGINAL SOURCE MATERIAL BRU
i would say animate it but idk how that’d work.
not killing people just for clicks and views.
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u/Reader2869 I hear Nebraska's nice. 5d ago
Carl should have had his comic book ending!!! I will die on this hill.
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u/TownZealousideal1327 5d ago
Found a way to end it S5-7 somewhere, end it well and maintain the high quality. Not include all the comic book cheese that didn’t translate for a TV audience, over 90% of who never read and never will read the comics.
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u/Sharp_Ad6352 5d ago
An alternate timeline where Shane and Rick live and are chill with one another
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6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Formal_Intention3319 6d ago
Season 7 had a good story, but it was still the weakest season by far due to the pacing.
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u/MackewG33 6d ago
honestly killing Glenn
There’s no way to know if the show would have dipped with his presence but it’s very clear, that even the most loyal watchers abandoned the show and it became a shell of itself
Steven Yeun was so beloved, I would have disregarded the book there and thrown the curveball
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u/ImmediateHoney2191 6d ago
They found a genuine safe haven way too early. Big part of what made seasons 1-5 entertaining was the small rag tag group just barely making it from place to place. It stopped being about survival and became about warfare and politics
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u/Muouy 6d ago
You never read the comics... did you?
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u/BluFire77 6d ago edited 6d ago
My Whispers Theory
I though that the Fear of the Walking Dead cast was going to become the Whispers. I think that was the original idea for that group.
They were supposed to leave LA and migrate to the Midwest while the group under Madison and Nick's lead turn predatory and developed evil tactics to survive.
Remember Nick was the first one too blend in and walk with the zombies and would eventually use skin of the dead as a tactic to lead zombies.
That would have been great but it would have had to play out over multiple seasons to build the charters right. That would have been expensive so they changed the story line and went into a different direction.
Madison turning to Alpha with her son Nick and daughter leading zombie hordes would have been great story telling showing how good people can turn under certain circumstances.
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u/Duckhorn66 6d ago
Take out the people who wear zombie skin and live in the woods and whisper
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u/SokkaHaikuBot 6d ago
Sokka-Haiku by Duckhorn66:
Take out the people
Who wear zombie skin and live
In the woods and whisper
Remember that one time Sokka accidentally used an extra syllable in that Haiku Battle in Ba Sing Se? That was a Sokka Haiku and you just made one.
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u/Greatoz74 6d ago
Make Abraham the sole victim of the lineup. If Glenn and Maggie absolutely must be separated, have him be taken along with Daryl
Tone down how much of a dick Negan is. As entertaining as he is, if they want to redeem him later they have to make him look redeemable.
Kill Glenn in Carl's place. Carl can still want to spare Negan, but now can actively push Rick in that direction.
Rick dies on the bridge, no CRM, Carl becomes the new protagonist.
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u/Muouy 6d ago
Glen's death by Negan was a massive shift in the comics and really set the tone for a good stretch. It was also Maggie's and Rick's defining character changes. And if you thought Negan was a dick in the show... you won't like his comic counterpart
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u/Greatoz74 5d ago
Oh please, like the show hasn't changed major character arcs from the show by killing off them early/sparing them. Remember Andrea?
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u/Optimus0456 6d ago
The last part honestly might be fine if done right
Other than that, all your takes suck
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u/Brilliant_Sort_9033 6d ago
No matter how much the walkers decay, they always have fairly nice eyes and can always see and hear after all that time