MovieChat Forums > 28 Days Later... (2003) Discussion > Did The Walking Dead Copy this Movie?

Did The Walking Dead Copy this Movie?


sorry if this has already been covered.

i had first seen this movie long ago when it first came out as a kid and man was i terrified, but i just rewatched it for the first time and after becoming a big The Walking Dead fan, it dawned on me that TWD seems to have ripped this entire movie, which i wouldn't be surprised about at all.

wake up in a hospital during a zombie outbreak
saved by some people
goes to find family
word of a cure/safe haven
go to the safe haven, find nothing and *beep* goes awry

the first season of TWD seems, to me, to be a direct rip from this movie. it doesn't make me like either any less, just it's interesting to see how you can totally rip something, tweak it a bit and become hugely popular.

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The Zombies seem more aggressive in 28 days and one drop of their blood will turn you. People in the Walking Dead get blood all over them (and probably in their mouths and eyes when they are hacking them ect) and they don't turn. I was surprised in the scene where Selena is hacking that guy that just turned in Jim's house that the blood didn't splatter in her mouth or eyes! Love both this movie and the Walking Dead!

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its a slightly different situation in the walking dead. Everyone already IS infected, but the virus remains latent until the host's death , which explains why the survivors can get away with getting blood in their eyes/mouth/etc.

"Don't talk to strangers...unless you want to meet anyone...ever"

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The coma plot device keeps reappearing because they want to drop a relateable character directly into the fictional world they've created. It also allows the protagonist to ask the questions the audience needs to know.

People keep mentioning resident evil. What they haven't mentioned is that Alice gets amnesia early in the film. If Alice knew everything that had happened and what everything did you wouldn't have as much suspense and you'd have a harder time justifying exposition. Same principal.

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[deleted]

And they might have ripped off George Romero's movies or some other earlier zombie movie.

What's with anime/asian film fans who seem to assume that those movies are originals in their genre?

Most movies released in the last 20-30 years are either inspired by an earlier movie/tv show/etc or are an adaptation of a novel (which could be inspired by an earlier novel/movie/tv show/etc)


Let's face it, everything rips off everything else, nothing is entirely original

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I think once you have seen one Zombie apocalypse movie you have seen them all, in that there is a large percentage of zombies and a much smaller percentage of survivors intent on further survival.


The difference is believability, special effects, characterization and acting. The Walking Dead scores on all points and frankly I think is superior to the majority in the same genre. Although I have to applaud World War Z just because the Zombies moved like lightening and that was seriously scary.

But as for copying - how do you copy something that is done over and over again?

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'wake up in a hospital during a zombie outbreak '


That's the one that can't be ignored. I'd seen the film already when I first read the comic and I couldn't believe it :P

I think that the rest are just what comes naturally once one decides to build such a story.

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The similarities in the points you brought up didn't really bother me, though I thought 28 Days Later executed these things better.

What really caught my attention, though, was the laziness in some of the soundtrack music for The Walking Dead Season 1, which oddly enough doesn't seem to have made it into the soundtrack release, or at least I don't think it has. The specific song I remember being either blatantly ripped off from 28 Days Later or copied as a tribute to the song in 28 Days Later, is the music used in the third episode of the first season of TWD when Rick is reunited with Lori and Carl outside of Atlanta.

Here's the song used in 28DL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCQ937L9slc&index=19&list=PL118AD9ADA54875D6

And here's the scene in TWD (Spoilers, kind of. Sorry for the poor quality, it's all I could find.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl07xgwQrAQ

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holy crap, seems like walking dead really is inspired by this film series
i have no doubt about that

both are great though and i refuse to compare them

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I believe it was a coincidence. People have similar ideas all the time, and if a writer was toying the premise of having the protagonist wake up to discover the world had effectively ended, waking from a coma would spring to mind quite quickly.

As for the other elements you thought TWD copied, they're fairly common tropes in this type of story.

Robert Kirkman says he didn't see 28 Days Later until after he'd started on The Walking Dead, and I actually believe that.

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TWD is based on a graphic novel. Not sure when that first came out but maybe 28 ripped off THAT novel?

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