[Merle Dixon]

Living Dead Grrrl, on 03 January 2012 - 02:02 PM, said:

Thank you. I'm sick of correcting people about how they're not actually ZOMBIES in 28Days/Weeks. Come on people it aint that hard to understand.

As for the topic question I've already thrown in my thoughts in the other older topics just like this one...

hmmm, they eat humans, you turn infected once bitten...and you dont die unless you get a head injury and dont die from starvation as fast, plus you decay. i mean if theyre not zombies there PRETTY DAMN CLOSE to zombies lol.

[Living Dead Grrrl]

Merle Dixon, on 03 January 2012 - 03:55 PM, said:

hmmm, they eat humans, you turn infected once bitten...and you dont die unless you get a head injury and dont die from starvation as fast, plus you decay. i mean if theyre not zombies there PRETTY DAMN CLOSE to zombies lol.

Thats not totally correct. The infected from 28 Days/Weeks can die by other means then a head injury. Strangulation, broken neck, blood loss, organ damage, etc. and they'd starve to death just like any body else. Plus they do not seem to 'eat' their victims rather they seem to be inflicting pain on them just as savagely as their minds have turned.  

Certainly they're close (There's enough similarities) - but they're not the reanimated dead zombies - they are a loose sene of the word 'zombie'. The films do fall into the zombie sub-genere of horror - just like The Crazies which we know are not zombies. Both fit nicely into the epedemic catagory. If anything they have more in common with the defintion of the Haitian religon zombie. (a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness/self-awareness - yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli.)Only they dont really fit this either as the 'zombies' are not being controlled by anyone.

Also on a side note, the Romero zombies (at least through Land this seems to be backed up) do not infect the living with zombieism. George Romero discussed the mechanics of his zombies in interviews - and he says zombies in his movies do not infect the living - but that the bite is lethal to the living and when they die from the bite are subject to the radiation that animates the dead.

[Merle Dixon]

still it doesnt take a normal person 4-5 months to starve. theyre not typical zombies but its the closest thing we got with evidence of starvation. so its safe to say they would be somewhat similar to TWD zombies no?

[Lizeroo]

Major Tom, on 01 January 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:

The Z life expectancy varies widely among writers with estimates as low as 1 year, and as high as 50 years.

How do they justify that? I know that we're not exactly dealing with reality here, but it'd be nice if they acknowledged a realistic life expectancy for corpses moseying around in the sun.

[Major Tom]

Lizeroo, on 03 January 2012 - 07:38 PM, said:

How do they justify that? I know that we're not exactly dealing with reality here, but it'd be nice if they acknowledged a realistic life expectancy for corpses moseying around in the sun.

You have to understand that to some writers, their zombies are totally supernatural,as in throw science out the window.  They are essentially ghosts with a body. The Mummy stories are examples of this.

For writers that try to offer some reasonable explanation, the most common device I have seen is that the body of the zombie is so toxic, the microbes that cause decay can't live on their body. This slows down the process substantially. They also explain that they last longer in dry vs humid climates and freezing extends their usefulness indefinitely. If I recall correctly World War Z used all of these explanations and predicted the zombie life to average 10 years.

The microbe explanation makes a lot of sense to me.

[Major Tom]

Merle Dixon, on 03 January 2012 - 03:55 PM, said:

hmmm, they eat humans, you turn infected once bitten...and you dont die unless you get a head injury and dont die from starvation as fast, plus you decay. i mean if theyre not zombies there PRETTY DAMN CLOSE to zombies lol.

Merle,my friend, you need to watch 28 Days again. You are wrong on several counts. The 28 Day infected starve in the same time frame that a human does. They talked about it in the movie. They are resistant  to pain but anything that kills a uninfected human, kills them. They do not rot.

It is a rabies type infection. They are not zombies by any stretch.

[Tron]

Merle Dixon, on 03 January 2012 - 04:20 PM, said:

still it doesnt take a normal person 4-5 months to starve. theyre not typical zombies but its the closest thing we got with evidence of starvation. so its safe to say they would be somewhat similar to TWD zombies no?

they died, 28 DAYS LATER, or there about, hence the movie title, if that helps at all .. lol ..

[Merle Dixon]

TheLCM, on 04 January 2012 - 02:57 PM, said:

they died, 28 DAYS LATER, or there about, hence the movie title, if that helps at all .. lol ..

you obviously didnt watch the movie. he wakes up 28 days later and is around for like a week. then it says that they start dieing off 2 weeks later. dont think a regular human can last for 50-60 days without much food or water

[Major Tom]

Humans can survive from 4-8 weeks without food, depending on their physical condition. 3-5 days is the max without water. See the link below.

In the movie, the infected are subjected to the same limitations. Water is readily available to the infected so starvation would be the normal way for them to die.

As I recall, in the final scene it showed the infected starting to die off.


Survive without food

Edited by Major Tom, 04 January 2012 - 07:19 PM.

[Major Tom]

Major Tom, on 04 January 2012 - 07:12 PM, said:

Humans can survive from 4-8 weeks without food, depending on their physical condition. 3-5 days is the max without water. See the link below.

In the movie, the infected are subjected to the same limitations. Water is readily available to the infected so starvation would be the normal way for them to die.

As I recall, in the final scene it showed the infected starting to die off.


Survive without food

Also, the Wiki, for 28 Days Later, specifies that starvation was the solution for eliminating the infection

28 day wiki

[Tron]

Merle Dixon, on 04 January 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

you obviously didnt watch the movie. he wakes up 28 days later and is around for like a week. then it says that they start dieing off 2 weeks later. dont think a regular human can last for 50-60 days without much food or water

i said there about .. i might have to re-watch, it's a really good movie .. but yeah if i recall he wakes up after all the shit hits the fan, and i dont think he's around that much longer after, i know theres a caption towards the end when he's in cabin and sees the plane .. but i forget what it says .. but u do see the infected starving .. im sure google cud probably tell you, but im sure it's not 4-5 months as you stated twice dude ..

[Merle Dixon]

i guess yall are right. i said 4-5 months with no evidence. i just guessed cause it took close to 5-6 months for the US army to take over the island

[StrollingDead]

"The Road" never says, just describes a bang and a flash that could be either a nuke or a meteor.

"The Postman" they don't sink that far, and in the final scene have come back ridculously fast.

One question would have to be the origin of the virus- would it still somehow be endemic?
Somehow lurking in a source, able to break out again?

[VulpesInculta]

Yes they wouldn't taste good either

[Slick0413]

I know the world they live in now is full of fresh zombie corpses but after say a year or 2, would the bodies of the zombies be so decayed that they would cease to be able to walk and eventually fully dead after the brain decays?

They are still dead human bodies and without any functioning organs or nutrition, they would decay like any normal dead body.

[SkunkWorks]

I assume they would decay, some already look decayed.  The way Glen's walker broke in half at the well they must be.  Can't say how long they would last, but as long as there is some brain stem left the things might keep moving.

[tewkewl]

The shows producers have been pretty cool about this!  At the end of episode 12, where we see the herd.  we notice many of the zeds are noticeably more "anorexic" than the swamp zombies we've seen.  they are much more skeletal.  it's cool that they showed that.  But to answer your question.  the answer is YES.  folks could wait it out. but since everyone is infected, anyone that dies can start a new epidemic... so it's a constant danger. people would be forced to sleep with their doors locked (all sleeping separately) with doors that have windows.  that way, if someone dies while sleeping, they wouldn't be able to eat the others while they sleep.

[swordhandler]

In very hot climates the rate of decay would be quicker than it would be in somewhere with a colder climate. However, with the revelations coming out on the show that you turn into a walker when you die and the bites just speed up the killing process, there's still the chance that when you or others around you die, that they'll turn into walkers.

Even if there's a group walled up in an area where they grow their own food and rear their own meat, as soon as one of the group dies from whatever cause, you'll have a walker problem.

[Major Tom]

Slick0413, on 14 March 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

I know the world they live in now is full of fresh zombie corpses but after say a year or 2, would the bodies of the zombies be so decayed that they would cease to be able to walk and eventually fully dead after the brain decays?

They are still dead human bodies and without any functioning organs or nutrition, they would decay like any normal dead body.

Not necessarily, decay and deterioration is caused by microbes and insects etc. If the virus inhabiting the dead body is sufficiently toxic it would kill the microbes and insects, thereby retarding decay.

This is just one of many theories on zombie lifespan. TWD has never said anything one way or another. In other zombie films or books, estimates range from 2-50 years, if they even address the issue

[Serenity@sea]

Like it has been said, it is a vicious never ending cycle. Which makes it all the more terrifying to me. Unless they show the walkers falling down dead from starvation or decompossing, we will never know what kills them (except for trauma to the brain, of course).

[Creeper]

We also know that when they eat living things, it slows down their decay(this was said about why the zombies in the barn were being fed, right?).  So unless all the livestock and animals in the world are also all eaten, there would be plenty of zombies that would continue to "survive" for some time.  Plus, if bicycle girl can still function when she is essentially a skeleton and that is it, they would still be dangerous even when their bodies are wasted away.  If all her other organs appear to be gone, why hasn't her brain decayed completely?  Maybe whatever it is infecting them preserves the brain enough to keep it from decaying completely.


Plus, like others have noted, if everyone is infected, there will ALWAYS be walkers, everytime someone dies.

[MarieBonCoeur]

Tron, on 02 January 2012 - 03:14 PM, said:

i dont think those were zombies, just humans infected w the rage virus .. they were still alive, n starved, thats why they died 28 days later ..

It was called "28 Days Later" because the protagonist, Jim, was in a coma and awoke 28days after the outbreak began. Not because it toook 28 days for the infected to die. Just saying....

http://en.wikipedia....i/28_Days_Later

[organ grinder]

I always wondered this:

we've frequently seen zombies attacking in groups. unless someone... well, everyone (all the Zs) got bitten and managed to escape and seek out safety from Zs before they reanimate, how is it that the world is so populated with zombies? I figured that many people would have been devoured and ripped apart way beyond being able to reanimate? surely not everyone got bit and escaped all the other zombies only to become one later? just a thought

and when they start running out of people to snack on, would they start to cannibalize one another? they'd never last if that were the case. a z can't just chase down a squirrel every time they're hungry and with more zombies than people, dinner isn't guaranteed!

we saw in s2e12, zombie shane (and randall) moved much faster and were obviously "fresher" than the other zombies. Theres no way they'd smell like the others because the body doesn't rot, decay, and stink in a matter of minutes. would their fellow zombies turn to them to eat them because they're fresher? I dont think a zombie would recognize a person as one of their own based on just the grunting noises and stammering around. as we kinda saw in season ones "guts."

and if thats the case why isn't everyone acting like a zombie?

[lastman2012]

if the show is ever cancelled, the rate of decay will increase exponentially.

[Judari]

organ grinder, on 15 March 2012 - 04:45 PM, said:

I always wondered this:

we've frequently seen zombies attacking in groups. unless someone... well, everyone (all the Zs) got bitten and managed to escape and seek out safety from Zs before they reanimate, how is it that the world is so populated with zombies? I figured that many people would have been devoured and ripped apart way beyond being able to reanimate? surely not everyone got bit and escaped all the other zombies only to become one later? just a thought

and when they start running out of people to snack on, would they start to cannibalize one another? they'd never last if that were the case. a z can't just chase down a squirrel every time they're hungry and with more zombies than people, dinner isn't guaranteed!

we saw in s2e12, zombie shane (and randall) moved much faster and were obviously "fresher" than the other zombies. Theres no way they'd smell like the others because the body doesn't rot, decay, and stink in a matter of minutes. would their fellow zombies turn to them to eat them because they're fresher? I dont think a zombie would recognize a person as one of their own based on just the grunting noises and stammering around. as we kinda saw in season ones "guts."

and if thats the case why isn't everyone acting like a zombie?

I asked this question just yesterday in another section of the forums. The response was the majority from people with heath difficulties (heart, kidney, cancer, etc) who would not get needed medical attention needed to survive. Also considering how many characters of the group contemplated suicide, that could make up larger numbers. Another one which I find likely, just less likely to account for the number of intact walkers is people in small groups could get bit but someone else dispatch the walker before they can get devoured. Either through pity or abandonment the bitten person is not killed and is turned into  a walker.

To answer your second part, a theory of mine would be like bears and certain animals will not eat "dead" prey same can be applied to zombies. I'm thinking regardless of outward smell, once it takes you over you release this pheromone that makes you appear unappetizing to other zombies, just a nature of the virus. Like when Glenn and Rick covered themselves in zombie guts, when Rick hid under the Zombie at the school or  (spoiler for Michonne)

Spoiler

Michonne, she travels with "pet" walkers which makes other walkers less likely to attack her.