Comic book readers know that Negan from The Walking Dead loves to drop a few expletives and now his full speech filmed for the TV show will be available…
Negan’s arrival on The Walking Dead during the season 6 finale was not only dramatic, but it signified a huge shift in the direction for the show going forward.
In the comic book, Negan has a very similar impact as he lays waste to Rick Grimes and his survivors and he’s the kind of enemy that’s nearly impossible to defeat because he’s smart, tactical and well organized.
One other characteristic that Negan has from his comic book roots is a very, very colorful vocabulary where he regularly drops “F” bombs like he’s reciting an old Andrew Dice Clay routine.
Now as popular as Negan became in the comic books it was hard to imagine how the TV series would adapt the character considering his expletives would be kept to a minimum thanks to censors on cable TV.
Well, Negan still make a huge debut during The Walking Dead season 6 finale but if you want to see and hear the real version of his speech, ripped directly from the comic books, you’ll have to pick up the blu-ray when it comes out in August.
“We had to shoot two versions — we had to shoot the Blu-ray version, which had a lot of the swearing and a lot of Negan’s colorful language, and then we had to shoot the broadcast version,” Executive Producer and Director Greg Nicotero said about the scene. “So when you get the DVD or the Blu-ray version, that will have the full Negan speech from the graphic novel.”
You can check out a page from The Walking Dead issue No. 100 to see what Negan really sounds like when he’s speaking to Rick and the other survivors.
According to Nicotero, there’s always a battle to try to push the envelope with the language used in the comic book versus what ends up on TV.
Still, Negan’s debut was just as powerful as ever but he definitely enjoyed shooting the real version straight from the comic books for fans to see on the blu-ray.
“We’re still bound by our standards and practices. We had tried to get away with it when Rick was in the train car and he says, “They don’t know who they’re screwing with.” The options hurt the sequence. We didn’t want to take away from that moment.
“Even when I did my director’s cut I actually put the Blu-ray cut of the scene into my director’s cut because I thought it was so powerful that I wanted Kirkman and Gale and everyone to see what the sequence looked like with the momentum of Negan’s speech in there. I know Jeffrey (Dean Morgan) and I both kind of preferred that version, it just felt better to be able to say swear words.”
So make sure you pick up The Walking Dead blu-ray on August 23 to find out what Negan really said to the survivors.
H/T: EW
