Sabado, Nobyembre 9, 2013
Of Gore, Death, Zombies and Amputated Limbs
So, I was looking for something to watch on Youtube and stumbled into this video from SDCC, San Diego Comic Con for the muggles who aren't familiar with it.
The video is a short footage interview of fans who attended the convention. The million dollar question?
Which is better, The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones? *dun dun DUN!*
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| Ricktator or the Mother of Dragons? |
I will try and share my insights to what show is a better watch, after the cut.
If you watched the video, you can really see the difference of age of the audience demographics. The Walking Dead fans that were interviewed consisted of kids to teenagers while Game of Thrones fans consisted of the older generation. Fangirls, Fanboys, Fankids, they were all there.
This may be factored by a lot of things, one of those reasons is perhaps viewing availability. Game of Thrones is made and aired by HBO, a well known cable channel, while The Walking Dead is shown in AMC is a sattelite broadcast channel, pretty much like ABS CBN and GMA here in the Philippines. Adults can easily provide themselves the luxury of having cabled television, while The Walking Dead is available to a wider and subsequently younger crowd than Game of Thrones.
A downside of having a wider viewership. Network restrictions. Here in the Philippines, we have MTRCB which regulates the programs and movies shown in the country. In the U.S, they have the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) which pretty much functions like the MTRCB. AMC, being a sattelitte broadcast channel falls into the regulation of not showing "indecent" material within the primetime slots of 6-10pm. So, the lack of sex in the whole show. HBO, on the other hand, can get away with the nudity and sex that is involved in airing George R.R. Martin's work, which has a lot more violence and gore in the books than the show, that's saying a lot since they cut off heads and hands in that show. In my opinion, The Walking Dead compensates well in terms of gore, intensity and over all look of the show. They didn't need to show sex to get the audience to watch, one of my frustrations with Game of Thrones that sometimes overplays the SexSells idea. This is what HBO also did with True Blood, which was originally a young adult book series, which turned into a hot mess of a show portraying blood addicts and sex depraved vampires. Not really something to waste 50 hours of my life to catch up watching. :( Eventhough I find Alexander Skygard really hot. He's not worth the potential headache. Just imagine Vampire Diaries with all of its characters are sex addicts and crackheads.
Another point to consider are the producers and the writers, the backbone of all that is good and worth watching in a TV show. Both shows are blessed with such a great material to start with. The Walking Dead, derived from a best selling graphic novel while Game of Thrones is the TV adaptation of the George R.R.Martin's A Song of Ice And Fire book series. There are some differences from the books and the TV shows as you will probably see from the slew of videos you can find about it on Youtube. They make or break a TV show. Specially something that is derived from an another medium. I can say that The Walking Dead, did a lot more alterations in the storyline than Game of Thrones. The show killed characters already that's still alive in the comics. Like Sophia and Andrea. They also inserted characters that aren't even in the comics. Case in point, Daryl and Merle Dixon. Those two are not in the graphic novel but is somehow integrated into the story. More characters, more people to manipulate into creating a better story. Game of Thrones varies in different ways from the books, by means of different characterization, character motivation and history, and sometimes they just scrap a character of the drawing boards. They disregard a character not add. A necessity, I imagine, since ASoIaF has a great abundance of characters they can kill off anytime they want. In this point, TWD is a little bit more unpredictable than GoT mainly because it totally segwayed from the plot of the Comic series.
3rd point of discussion, Theme. Both shows deal with the Humanity. Or what's left of it when the world as they know it goes to shit. Both tackle the thirst for power and love for Family in very different ways. One common factor though; The Undead. Game of Thrones being set in a medieval fantasy world takes the messy politics that is intertwined with Monarchy. So the politics side is pretty obvious. Who gets to be king? That's the great question. That is also the main plot of the first 3 books. Love for family can get a lot of interpretations, one leaping into mind is the Cersei X Jaime Incestous relationship, and all the shit that goes along with that storyline. The Walking Dead carries the same themes, but goes a little territorial rather than familial. Power and Dominance in a violent world plays a great part in the story line specially in season 3. Common ground are the zombies/walkers/ wights/ white walkers that is seen in the shows. The undead being the great calamity that strikes their worlds.
4th point of discussion, Character Death toll. Both shows kill characters off regularly, when I say regularly, they kill off 3 and up number of people per season. That's a lot. Beloved characters, main characters, kids, women, old men. No one is safe. When watching these shows you just realize that you're just waiting for characters to die and just somehow lose hope that one of them might actually survive. But as I mentioned earlier, TWD is a little more unpredictable than Game of Thrones when it comes to character death, killing them in random order and not entirely ruin the storg by killing someone off.
Lastly, 5th point of discussion, Actors and Directors. Both shows switch directors per couple of episodes, not unheard of in the TV entertainment industry, but the actors, this they just can't easily replace/change without weirding out the fans. Both shows are blessed with such great actors to portray the characters in the original works. In the Walking Dead, I think the most dedicated actors are the people who play the walkers that they kill, its such a hard job and they do it quite convincingly. But main characters wise, Andrew Lincoln carries the torch hands down. His portrayal of Rick Grimes who woke up fro his coma to see that the undead has wrecked havoc on Earth and that his family is missing or dead is heartbreaking and you just start to root for him.
Game of Thrones on the other hand has a full roster of actors at their disposal. Most of them Irish, Scottish and British actors. They do a great job in discovering a new face and showcasing their talent on television. Best actor in GoT, Jack Gleeson. He would really convince you that he is a Sadistic, whiny prick who is way to bored in his castle.
THE WALKING DEAD:
Pros: More Gore, More attachment to the characters, Great costume and make-up, more episodes than Game of Thrones, pretty girls naked, sex scenes, fight sequences & Supernatural stuff like magic and dragons.
Cons: Only Implied sex scenes, Torture scenes, Stress that is included when watching someone get torn up by zombies, character death.
GAME OF THRONES:
Pros: Sex scenes and Nude Scenes, more graphic, great costumes and CGI, Supernatural lore, insight of medieval times, insight of monarchy and politics, you get to learn a cool new accent watching and imitating the actors.
Cons: lesser episodes, having 10 episodes only per season. 10 months Hiatus. Character death, too many characters, Complicated for younger audiences. Includes sex scenes, too much of it. Did I mention, TEN MONTH HIATUS?!
Both shows has its charms and are both great shows to look forward to every season!
