Cracked Cracks the Zombie Apocalypse

[SAMAS]

I gotta admit, I didn't even think of a couple of these:

Let's pretend for a moment that zombies are real (as if half of you weren't already daydreaming about that very thing). Have you noticed how most zombie movies take place only after the apocalypse is in full-swing? By the time we join our survivors, the military and government are already wiped out, and none of the streets are safe.

There's a reason the movie starts there, and not earlier. It's because the early part, where we go from one zombie to millions, doesn't make any sense. If you let the creeping buzzkill of logic into the zombie party, you realize the zombies would all be re-dead long before you even got a chance to fire up that chainsaw motorcycle you've been working on. Why?

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_18683_7- ... z12aYXYLgy

[weemadando]

Yeah, I read the piece a while ago. I like the point about their only method of reproduction and food source also being their apex predator.

Evolution says no.

[Zixinus]

Also there is one thing that almost all zombie films and shows and whatever forgot to mention: how will a zombie know who is infected and who is not? Why would zombies, who are defined as being brain-dead, know that they should gang up on survivors as opposed to another zombie?

If you think about it that way, you'll soon figure out that the problem would be really that of the disease (who catches it), not mobs of monsters.

[Stark]

Wait wait wait... did someone just write this? And someone thought it was newsworthy enough to post?

Hasn't everyone known this for decades?

[Srelex]

Yes, it's cracked thinking they're clever for stating the obvious again.

[Shroom Man 777]

Man, I wonder if butt-hurt zombie survivalist internet fatties will raeg at the Cracked site like that moron did to Shep. I cannot wait for the die Cracked sets its sights on TVTropes.

Their 5 reasons you want zombie apocalypse thing has good points too. Especially when the #1 reason is basically "fatty nerd lol".

It would be great to see an anatomically correct decaying zombie with all sorts of flies and maggots on it and shit. That would be fucking gruesome.

[Ilya Muromets]

It would be great to see an anatomically correct decaying zombie with all sorts of flies and maggots on it and shit. That would be fucking gruesome.

They wanted to do that with Left4Dead, with the game developers researching different types of skin diseases and necrotic effects on skin. They got too grossed out and decided that too much realism would just have the game players puking instead of playing.

[Shroom Man 777]

What a bunch of pussies.

I would not have any compunction against doing that. Why is it that those who want to do it so hardcore end up ending up sanitizing it so they can play around with their dick-fantasies in safe and sane sanitary standards? Fuck that. If they let me do it, I would've had zombies vomiting out their internal organs so the inside-out stomachs would envelop people and externally digest them and liquefy them, and then the zombies would unhinge their jaws and swallow their stomachs - and the entrapped melting people - back inside their orifices. The zombies can vomit their digestive tracts out of both ends too! At the same time!

[Vendetta]

It would be great to see an anatomically correct decaying zombie with all sorts of flies and maggots on it and shit. That would be fucking gruesome.

The only fiction I can think of where zombies undergo realistic decay is the Felix Castor series, where zombies are just posessed corpses and have to go to extreme lengths to not decay (far from eating brains, the sensible zombie eats nothing, because eating anything invites in bacteria, and that means decay).

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Also there is one thing that almost all zombie films and shows and whatever forgot to mention: how will a zombie know who is infected and who is not? Why would zombies, who are defined as being brain-dead, know that they should gang up on survivors as opposed to another zombie?

With all the problems zombies face, that's actually pretty far down the list. Max Brooks, whatever other shortcomings his works face, does make a lot of mentions on how many studies were conducted to try and determine just how zombies differentiate their prey. Hell, Shaun of the Dead even had the characters successfully impersonating zombies for a while.

Even so, there are plenty of plausible explanations. Many living things, including humans, have their behaviour strongly influenced by pheromones that don't register on any conscious sensory level. I don't have a link, so take this with the salt you'd take with any unevidenced claim, but I recall experiments being run in airport bathrooms where a certain toilet stall was marked with trace amounts of a specific pheromone, and about ninety percent of males who entered the bathroom unconsciously avoided that stall, even if no others were open. It's not that much of a stretch to assume that the zombie infection causes the body to release a pheromone that registers as 'not-food' to other zombies.

[keen320]

Didn't Max Brook's Zombie survival guide answers #7, 6, and... 6 (apparently Cracked can't count)? I think the basic answer was that Zombie meat is poisonous to just about everything, and animals instinctively avoid zombies. #6 (2) though, was addressed as a major weakness of zombies. The problem in World war Z was, if everyone runs to where it's cold, you don't have enough food to support them.

I thought of another problem with 5(4?), the only people who are infected by bites are those who are bitten and then get away. If the Zombies eat you, there won't be enough left to turn into a zombie.

[aieeegrunt]

There was a 28 days later comic book I skimmed that had a hilariously stupid explanation for why zombies don't mess with other zombies. Apparently the smell of perfume and deoderant is what prompts an angry kill frenzy. This leaves the obvious plot hole of why recently infected wouldn't promptly shred each other. It was some good comedy though, one guy survives in infected London by bathing in rain water. Some other guy pisses him off, so he dumps a barrel of perfume on him and the guy gets rush mauled L4D Boomer vomit style.

The pheromone explanation is probably the best one, although it still doesn't explain why Infected Don shredded his carrier wife when it's strongly implied that she only survived because the other infected were ignoring her.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

The article's sorta... superfluous. A majority of the points *are* addressed in many zombie movies/books/whatever. Sure, the answer often boils down to "A wizard did it", but it's still addressed to some extent. Max Brooks was kind of hilarious with this: Why don't zombies turn into mush after they're frozen? Why don't they disintegrate in water? Why don't their muscles vaporize after a certain amount of exertion? Why doesn't anything eat them, ever? We don't know, they just don't.

The main problems facing zombies have always been the simple ones: Humans are extraordinarily good at killing things, zombies are slow, easy targets, and the disease in most presentations simply spreads too slowly and obviously to be effective.

The pheromone explanation is probably the best one, although it still doesn't explain why Infected Don shredded his carrier wife when it's strongly implied that she only survived because the other infected were ignoring her.

Yeah, well, that movie was chock full of gaping continuity errors. How do we contain the possibility of another infected outbreak? Umm... herd all the survivors into a badly lit basement that, apparently, has an unguarded, unlocked back entrance directly connected to the hospital!

[Uncluttered]

Man, I wonder if butt-hurt zombie survivalist internet fatties will raeg at the Cracked site like that moron did to Shep. I cannot wait for the die Cracked sets its sights on TVTropes.

/Sigh
I blew my fuse at Shep because he insulted a close friend. Not because he talked about zombies.
If my friend had written about carebears and shoes, I might have reacted the same.....

Honestly. It was a mistake on my part. I took the trolls bait.
(If I hadn't responded, I'm sure a moderator would have taken care of his comment.)

Back to the topic. In the case of WWZ, a contrived plot device had to be used to spread the disease. Organ legging, fake vaccine, and stupid infotainment media.
It is all tongue-in-cheek. Much like turbolasers, warpdrive, and the carebear stare; you have to suspend disbelief to enjoy it.

The sad thing is, that whenever you write something that requires authority to be a little ignorant, or stupid, it's not unrealistic.

[Uncluttered]

What a bunch of pussies.

I would not have any compunction against doing that. Why is it that those who want to do it so hardcore end up ending up sanitizing it so they can play around with their dick-fantasies in safe and sane sanitary standards? Fuck that. If they let me do it, I would've had zombies vomiting out their internal organs so the inside-out stomachs would envelop people and externally digest them and liquefy them, and then the zombies would unhinge their jaws and swallow their stomachs - and the entrapped melting people - back inside their orifices. The zombies can vomit their digestive tracts out of both ends too! At the same time!

I would pay money to see this game, let alone play it.

[Zixinus]

The problem with pheromones is that what happens when it rains? Or there is a strong wind? Or in an area that has strong enough dust to block noses? What about survivors that had zombies all over them in blood, vomit and god knows what else? What about wild areas where various pheromones by various flowers and animals are abundant?

Actually, if you create a virus to be transmitted by any bodily fluids (if not air) and allow it a high incubation time until you have a sudden change to a psychotic madman, that would be more scary. Imagine a world where you can literary can't tell whether the person next to you or across the subway might suddenly turn into a cannibalistic madman that will relentlessly attack anyone in sight.

[SeaTrooper]

Yeah, well, that movie was chock full of gaping continuity errors. How do we contain the possibility of another infected outbreak? Umm... herd all the survivors into a badly lit basement that, apparently, has an unguarded, unlocked back entrance directly connected to the hospital!

When I first watched 28 Weeks, the gross continuity errors weren't the first issues I had with it. Rather, WTF was that Cmdr thinking? They've got a lovely big facility, isolated from the rest of London and presumably re-built to their own specifications, and yet that bloody basement was the best they could do for a freaking saferoom!

I didn't automatically go down the 'stupid fuckers incompetent' mental-path, but instead figured the US must have a reason. Whether it was bio-weapons research (for which more infected would be valuable), or simply killing off as many poms as possible. That basement was only the start. Note the teams running around London who were shooting and flaming anyone they found, even when blatantly non-infected.

But, no. Whacking the infected as fast as they could, napalming and fuel-air bombing everywhere they could, just didn't fit the requirements to maintain a 'healthy' infected population for research. And then absolutely failing to look after a kid who was apparently immune to the virus! Fucking insane. At the point where the girls take off in a car that's just been roasted, I'd come to the conclusion that the whole aim of the US response was... getting rid of witnesses. That was the only explaination I could think of that seems to fit what we see.

Please, if anyone can think of a better motivation for the mass murder of infected and the obviously non-infected alike, I'd like to hear it.

[Oskuro]

What a bunch of pussies.

I would not have any compunction against doing that. Why is it that those who want to do it so hardcore end up ending up sanitizing it so they can play around with their dick-fantasies in safe and sane sanitary standards? Fuck that. If they let me do it, I would've had zombies vomiting out their internal organs so the inside-out stomachs would envelop people and externally digest them and liquefy them, and then the zombies would unhinge their jaws and swallow their stomachs - and the entrapped melting people - back inside their orifices. The zombies can vomit their digestive tracts out of both ends too! At the same time!

Soooooo... Postal with a zombie theme then?

Regarding how Zombies identify their victims, funny how magic-powered zombies smelling your soul turns out to be more consistent that whatever the scienty-based zombies supposedly do.

On the other hand, Zombies might lock on to things that move but don't smell heavily of decomposition, so people with poor hygiene will inherit the earth!

[Uncluttered]

The problem with pheromones is that what happens when it rains? Or there is a strong wind? Or in an area that has strong enough dust to block noses? What about survivors that had zombies all over them in blood, vomit and god knows what else? What about wild areas where various pheromones by various flowers and animals are abundant?

Actually, if you create a virus to be transmitted by any bodily fluids (if not air) and allow it a high incubation time until you have a sudden change to a psychotic madman, that would be more scary. Imagine a world where you can literary can't tell whether the person next to you or across the subway might suddenly turn into a cannibalistic madman that will relentlessly attack anyone in sight.

Well then. Now I see the movie in a whole new light.

I can imagine that maybe, the person who planned the resettlement was some sort of fundamentalist or eco terrorist.

Hell. maybe the original radical ecos from the first film, were put up to it.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

The problem with pheromones is that what happens when it rains? Or there is a strong wind? Or in an area that has strong enough dust to block noses? What about survivors that had zombies all over them in blood, vomit and god knows what else? What about wild areas where various pheromones by various flowers and animals are abundant?

Hell, I don't know. Maybe it's just a very local thing. Zombies go after each other until they're within a few feet and suddenly the pheromone signal goes off... which also explains why they tend to gather in hordes. Maybe the pheromone is actually something living people produce, which stops getting produced after zombification, which means it doesn't matter how much zombie-guts someone has on them, if they're still alive, they'll still be attractive. Maybe it's magic. There's really no explanation that covers all zombie movies/books/other media, we just have to approach it on a case-by-case basis, try to maintain SoD, and when zombies magically overcome organized militaries just throw our hands up in the air and say, "A wizard did it".

[Ritterin Sophia]

Hasn't everyone known this for decades?

Steel yourself, this may come as a surprise to you Stark, but the average person walking the streets is an abject moron. So no.

[adam_grif]

Lacking magical zombie IFF, all zombified people simply turn on each other and eat each other. And unless they just kind of bite people, then leave them alone, they will never turn into zombies because they will die from their gruesome injuries and be unable to move. The best is when zombies don't have to breathe, or can take bullets all over and keep coming.

Idiots like Max Brooks did a great disservice when they started coming up with made-up science bullshit to explain their zombies, because now I have to deal with morons who think that it's PLAUSIBLE. Ungh.

Zombies are just magic, end of discussion.

[PainRack]

The problem with pheromones is that what happens when it rains? Or there is a strong wind? Or in an area that has strong enough dust to block noses? What about survivors that had zombies all over them in blood, vomit and god knows what else? What about wild areas where various pheromones by various flowers and animals are abundant?

Actually, if you create a virus to be transmitted by any bodily fluids (if not air) and allow it a high incubation time until you have a sudden change to a psychotic madman, that would be more scary. Imagine a world where you can literary can't tell whether the person next to you or across the subway might suddenly turn into a cannibalistic madman that will relentlessly attack anyone in sight.

So.... Left for Dead huh?

The comic apparently made it possible that the Survivors themselves were spreading the virus around.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Honestly. It was a mistake on my part. I took the trolls bait.
(If I hadn't responded, I'm sure a moderator would have taken care of his comment.)

They wouldn't have and I don't see why you think they would.

You said something stupid, numerous members of the board told you how you were wrong, you ignored them and continued to peddle the same crap the others had previous refuted, Shep called you stupid for saying it and why it was stupid down to every painstaking detail to impress upon you why the events are impossibly stupid. If you have read the board rules then you'd know that it's hardly against them to insult someone who is ignoring evidence counter to their statements.

[DudeGuyMan]

Oh jeez, everyone needs to get off Brooks' ass. We know zombies aren't realisitic. He knows zombies aren't realistic. But it's a story and it can be more fun if you pile on some detail that makes it a little easier to suspend disbelief.

I've read way too many straightfaced discussions around here of how lightsabers and FTL travel work to take all this "Someone applying a thin veneer of science to obvious fantasy? I'm outraged!" herfblerfing seriously.