With the premiere of AMC's new zombie survival series Fear The Walking Dead, many fans of its parent show, The Walking Dead, might fear that the new series will offer the same kind of story, setting and characters as the original and not be worthy of their television viewing time.
However, AMC assures viewers that Fear The Walking Dead is very much its own series, with new types of characters, a completely different setting and even a different kind of story.
Those involved with the creation of the show have said as much, but exactly how will the series keep viewers entertained and create a new story in a world that's already familiar to fans of The Walking Dead?
Here's how Fear the Walking Dead differs from its parent show.
Fear The Walking Dead is a prequel to The Walking Dead.
Long before Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead woke from his coma, the zombie apocalypse began. But exactly where did it begin? And how? Fear the Walking Dead actually begins as the zombies first start appearing and shows a world that isn't yet thrown into chaos and apocalypse, but just on the brink of that. The characters in Fear the Walking Dead must deal with this virus that creates zombies as it happens all around them.
"I think the most surprising thing about this show for fans is that we'll be pointing out all the things that we glossed over on the other show," said showrunner Robert Kirkman to IGN. "I think having Rick wake up from his coma was certainly a fun dynamic and a great way to open the original show, but actually watching civilization crumble around these people and getting to experience them learning how to adapt in a much faster way, and with much more danger and much more uncertainty, is going to make this show very different."
However, the show's creators have made it clear that is not an origin story: we still don't know how the virus started and how it spread.
The setting is different.
While The Walking Dead takes place in and around the Southeastern U.S., Fear the Walking Dead takes viewers to the other side of the country, to Los Angeles. This means that, visually, Fear The Walking Dead will look completely different from its parent show.
Not only that, but most scenes of The Walking Dead take place in wooded areas. However, Fear the Walking Dead revolves around the city of LA and it's surrounding area, meaning that the show's backdrop is urban, rather than rural. The entire look and feel of the new series is different.
The Comic-Con trailer makes this apparent:
There is no source material for Fear The Walking Dead.
Although The Walking Dead finds inspiration from a comic book series, Fear the Walking Dead is a story that went straight to television. There are no Fear the Walking Dead comic books (although we might expect to see them after the series premieres), so the entire story is one that hasn't been told yet.
The zombies on Fear The Walking Dead look different.
Obviously, zombies didn't always look like the oozing pus and blood monsters we know from The Walking Dead. In fact, at one point, they were just humans who got sick and eventually mutated into their zombie forms. We'll see these early stages of zombies on Fear the Walking Dead, and they will look completely different from what we're used to seeing on the parent show.
"They're not going to be as decayed, and they're not going to be as monstrous, which is going to make the violence in the show and the different things that happen that much more startling," said Kirkman to IGN. "Because we're going to be dealing with a much more human walker."
Not only do the zombies on Fear the Walking Dead look different, though – there are also fewer of them.
The story revolves around an extended family.
In The Walking Dead, events bring random people together in groups to survive. In Fear the Walking Dead, we'll see a story revolving more around family. That changes the dynamic of the storytelling in the series from what we're used to seeing in The Walking Dead.
"Because it is something of a slower burn, we do get to steep ourselves in this incredibly dysfunctional, blended family dynamic and in the problems and conflicts of that family," said executive producer Dave Erickson to The Star. "Ultimately, that's where the story's going to start. When we get to season two it's going to be how have things fractured for this family and what's different. That will be our starting point and then there are zombies."
There is no obvious leader for the group of survivors.
On The Walking Dead, Rick, a former police officer, quickly steps up and takes charge of the group of survivors. However, there is no clear-cut leader in Fear the Walking Dead and none of the characters have any experience with the law or authority positions.
"What if there's not such an obvious leader?" asked executive producer David Alpert at San Diego Comic-Con. "What about someone who's an English teacher, or a guidance counselor, and they're having problems just dealing with the day-to-day-of living? Their lives are coming apart a little bit at the seams – when the world is good – and then you add on top of that the zombie apocalypse."
Even the music isn't the same.
One of the things that distinguishes Fear the Walking Dead from its parent series is its score, composed by Paul Haslinger. Because the series revolves more around the emotional aspects of the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, the music had to reflect that. These people still have hope of surviving, and that's reflected in the hopeful tones of the music that accompanies each scene, unlike the score for The Walking Dead, which is more full of despair.
Fear the Walking Dead premieres on AMC on Aug. 23.
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