28 is really the only series where sprinting zombies are legitimately terrifying because they're still mostly human, but they're right in that uncanny valley spot to be unsettling and the series never lets it's characters forget that which is the most important part.

They're fast without feeling ungainly, goofy, or like toss away monsters for the characters to knock down.

Every time there on screen we aren't allowed to forget they are a SERIOUS threat, not just because they are borderline superhuman fast and violent but relentless, and EXTREMELY infectious. You don't even have to be bitten.

The series succeeds in scaring you because the characters really do feel insignificant and outmatched at any point in time.

Managed to capture in the zombies AND on the people what 500 season of Walking Dead still can't.

How many masterpieces have been lost to time and circumstances because a bunch of rich thugs don't want to take a hit to their bloated checkbooks.

Can you imagine if Da Vinci, Van Gogh, or Monets works had all been "canceled" before being finished because some pompous investor decided it was taking too long and couldn't be used as a marketing gimmick?

The stormtroopers are effectively supposed to be the Empires equivalent of the Waffen SS.

Diehard fanatics who live and serve and die for the Empire.

I never really got that vibe from any stormtrooper until Bad Batch. The Imperial Officers always seemed scarier and more diehard than the stormies. It's always the Imperial Officers ordering whole sale massacres, cold blooded executions, torture, or complete planetary Annihilation.

It was never Vadar that seemed scary to me. Vader was imposing and certainly not someone you wanted to tangle with, but Vader was never as scary to me as Tarkin or Thrawn.

Tarkin casually ordered the obliteration of an entire planet, obliterated his own garrison, ordered countless purges and genocides without batting an eyelash. Without blinking actually, I don't know if I've ever seen Tarkin blink in any iteration.

And his cronies and subordinates are no better. The Officers, Governers, Moffs, and supervisors are the scary ones.

Which is a beautiful detail when you think about it.

The Empire has effectively proven you don't need indoctrinated soldiers. Just indoctrinated leaders and a dose of fear. They've learned from and eliminated any potential for another Pong Krell incident....that being the odds of heavily indoctrinated soldiers breaking programming and turning on their officers is null. They can order wholesale massacres and nobody questions. Nobody says a word.

"The thing I about the fall of the Republic is...how quiet it was"

The implications of this thematically are alarming...that a sufficiently terrifying and capable lion leading an army of sheep can command the sheep to terrible ends and brook no arguments, concerns, questions, or disorder in the ranks.

Neelie As a writer for TV shows, you think she "didn't" know about Battle Royale?

Before she created an arena full of children with adolescent romance and a twist "stick it to the man" ending? Where the arena was formed to punish a grievous public shortcoming? Where the candidates end up going back the next season even when they shouldn't be able to?

Suzanne is full of it.