The Matrix v. The Walking Dead

A couple of Mondays ago, I was randomly watching G4's nightly broadcast of Attack The Show! (it was on before four straight episodes of Lost) and someone had asked the show's hosts an interesting question - Would you rather live in the real world in The Matrix or in The Walking Dead world?  And because I liked this question so much, I decided to answer it for them.  Let's do this:

The Matrix

It depends on when you would be living in this world.  Is it directly after the end of the third movie?  Or is it a couple of generations after the third movie?  Let's say you were one of the survivors of that big battle in the third movie and you now have a truce with the machines.  That would mean that you would probably still be living underground with no fresh air and living off of some sort of paste-looking food.  This would obviously suck, but at least you will not be worried about being killed everyday by flying murder machines.  But over time, the humans would eventually move above ground and finally have some fresh air to look forward to, however, you will then be living in a world that has been destroyed by war and neglect.  On top of that, the sky has been "scorched" and if that problem could have been solved, it probably would have been fixed by the machines by now, so obviously you will never see the sun again.  So, as you can see, I really don't think it would matter when you lived in this world, both would suck in their own way.  The upside to living in The Matrix universe is that you would have some pretty cool technology at your disposal like those physics-defying ships and you could always just plug into The Matrix if you wanted to fly around or bang supermodels.  Also, you would not have zombies and those damned machines coming after you at all times of the day, but who is to say that the machines would continue the truce when they eventually need humans to power themselves again.

The Walking Dead

Zombies bite.  And that has a double meaning.  If you lived in The Walking Dead universe, you would never be safe because you are either being stalked by brain-eating zombies or some jerk-off humans trying to steal your resources.  Another downside is that you are reduced to walking everywhere or riding horses because while there are cars, it is kind of like living in the Mad Max world when it comes to gasoline and it is extremely tough to come by.  However, there are a couple of upsides, the first being that you can bask in the sunshine everyday if you felt like it.  Another upside that is kind of dark is that you get to kill zombies.  Basically, if you have somehow survived the initial zombie apocalypse, you would then be living in a video game and get to shoot zombies in the head whenever they attack.  That may be somewhat disturbing, but it is also something any video game lover has always wanted to do and living in The Walking Dead universe would finally afford you that opportunity.

Conclusion

At first, I thought this was going to be a landslide in favor of The Walking Dead, but now that I think about it, I'm not so sure.  Basically, would you rather live in a shitty world where the sky is permanently fucked up but you wouldn't have to worry about being killed by robots all the time?  Or would you rather live in a world as normal as it is going to get but constantly looking over your shoulder for flesh-eating zombies?  It truly might be a toss-up, but I'm going with The Walking Dead because of the sunshine and because it is perfectly normal behavior to blow off a dead guy's head.

"Yeah, you wouldn't have to worry about the machines anymore, but this is what you would have to look forward to....forever!"