Should Zombies be Animated?

Perhaps this is a confusing question as we know that all Zombies are by nature already reanimated - what we're referring to in today's question is whether Zombies in film or Television ought to be analog or digital - human (sort of) or CG effect. Why are we asking this question? Well, there's lot's of reasons:

  • We're bored
  • We like Zombies
  • We're concerned about the over-commercialization of Zombies (it's getting almost as bad as Christmas)
  • We saw a trailer for the new Brad Pitt film World War Z. (Z for Zombie, get it).

Here's the preview:


These zombies look like bugs - what's up with that?

They don't provide us a lot of close ups on the Zombies themselves but we can tell from the clip that there's some serious CG going on with all those Zombies piling up more or less like ants. This does not mean we won't go see the movie - there is no doubt that we will. However, we do have concerns. Do any of you recall Will Smith's I am Legend from a few years back? We were pretty excited about that movie until we got in there and started watching the 100% CG Zombie things doing just a lot of ridiculous crap. Those special effects ruined what might have otherwise been a decent movie (not great one, but a least decent one).

There's nothing like the real thang, baby...
Now it just may be that in a couple of years computer animation software may become sophisticated enough to fully mimic the look and feel of real-life human extras made up to be undead Zombies.  The question is - what do we lose when this happens? Can we have truly great Zombie flicks without that personal touch we've all come to know and love? We don't want to sound like Luddites here - but we're not buying it. We'd like to start the keep Zombies human movement and we'll kick off our crusade with our ten reasons why Zombies should not be computer animated.

Please take an animated breath-mint
10 Reasons to keep Zombies Human

  1. Unemployment is bad enough, we don't want to put all of those extras out of work - think of their families and the little Zombies at home!
  2. Zombie makeovers could become a lost art or at least might become prohibitively expensive.
  3. Zombies should not be behaving like werewolves, sparkly vampires or other video-game like creatures that can crawl up walls and do backflips and other such nonsense. These guys are dead - they can't be in better shape after they croak, right?
  4. We need Human Zombies so we can train new generations of haunted house temps.
  5. An animated Zombie will never have the same pathos and motivation as a human zombie - longing for brains and flesh as well as their past lives.
  6. We should always be able to outrun the average Zombie - this is a long-standing rule broken by films like I am Legend and 28 Days Later. Fast Zombies are a bit like Lance Armstrong taking drugs and transfusing blood during a race - no fair - time out!
  7. Zombie extras (and all their friends and family) buy tickets to see themselves in the show (or tune in to TV and boost ratings) - the loss of this Zombie viewership would be devastating to Hollywood. 
  8. Playing a Zombie is an inalienable American right - we read that somewhere - perhaps in the West Virginia state constitution. Doesn't matter where we saw it - and we will fight for that right. 
  9. Because Zombie acting proves that there's life after death - well, sort of (maybe it's life after your career dies, we're not sure).
  10. And finally because Zombie(ness) is the final stage in human evolution and we shall not be denied (a preview of) our destiny. 
We've hoped that we've convinced you of the righteousness of our cause... We are a nation of the Zombies, For the Zombies and By the Zombies - etc. etc. 



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