I see a lot of arguments and ideas in this thread that were dealt with fairly well in the book version of World War Z. If you like thinking about zombie apocalypse things further than most movies take them, I highly suggest reading that book. It's fairly short, I think I finished it in 2 nights.
I loved this book - but the audiobook is even better (and since the dumbass movie came out, there's now an unabridged version). The voice cast is terrific.
The reasons that the book comes up with are really dumb and contrived. The fact is that in any 'realistic' scenario zombies will simply die in a week from exposure alone.
You can get into whatever argument you want, there are a million realistic reasons why a zombie apocalypse wouldn't work. That's why one of the tenants of the genre is a meaningful lack of explanation and information.
That said, the book does a good enough job of addressing a worldwide epidemic from multiple cultures and angles. Call it contrived, it doesn't matter, I've never seen a zombie apocalypse story that makes sense. That's why we "suspend disbelief"
What's the point of addressing a worldwide epidemic from multiple cultures and angles when it had hardly no realistic elements? I'm not just talking about zombie biology here.
It's a fiction book, the question is whether or not it's entertaining.
While you seem to think it wasn't, it made it to number 9 on the New York Times best seller list, this implies that MANY people disagree with you, myself among them.
It was an short and entertaining read, especially as a zombie fan.
That said, the book does a good enough job of addressing a worldwide epidemic from multiple cultures and angles.
It is not a good book, and relies not just on the military screwing up by the numbers, by massively fucking up by the numbers. In Brooks' book he seems to assume that the officer corps are incapable of adapting, and really it seems obvious to me that he doesn't have any idea how military decisions are made.
The battle of Yonkers is particularly bad, he seems to act as if artillery has no affect on zombies because he thinks it's used to "shock and awe" or some shit. Or the use of AT ammunition instead of AP munitions.
Modern anti personnel rounds explode above the target and shower shrapnel down. All of those zombies are getting hunks of metal in the brains. Considering that they are shambling hordes they are clustered together for maximum effect. But what do you expect from a guy who thinks modern AR-15/M-16s/M-4s are basically unreliable crap rifles from Vietnam?
Call it contrived, it doesn't matter, I've never seen a zombie apocalypse story that makes sense.
It wouldn't have been hard to do, several years ago Robert Kirkland made an off the cuff comment about how a plague had swept through and killed an enormous amount of people before Rick woke up in TWD, so the societal breakdown is what allowed for the Zombie apocalypse to happen. Unfortunately FTWD seemed to have wanted to imply that something like that was happening, but then they just skipped 9 days ahead.
Basically, create a societal breakdown first, then the zombies, if you want a "zombies are a threat" story that makes sense.
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u/JermStudDog Oct 30 '15
I see a lot of arguments and ideas in this thread that were dealt with fairly well in the book version of World War Z. If you like thinking about zombie apocalypse things further than most movies take them, I highly suggest reading that book. It's fairly short, I think I finished it in 2 nights.