World War Z: Not World War Z

[Loki]

Link

For fucks sake this is not Max Brooks' World War Z.

All the problems compared to the book:

Spoiler: show

-WWZ is a collection of interviews following the Zombie Apocalypse of survivors. Anything from soldiers, an internet Otaku, World Leaders, film makers, and just regular people. There was no guy driving his family around and then somehow helping save people after getting draft? I don't fucking know what Brad Pitt is doing.
-WWZ had perspectives from a lot of different nations. While the trailer shows Brad Pitt going to a lot of different locales, that's not really the same.
-WWZ has the classic slow zombies which die when you destroy the brain. They also rot over time and get frozen during the winter. These look like SPEED/RAGE ZOMBIES from 28 Days or Left4Dead. Becoming a zombie only happens after you're bitten. You then die and whatever is left that hasn't been eaten reanimates. The zombies in this movie look fairly whole. Not half eaten. They also seem smart enough to climb? Jump? Lots of stuff they really shouldn't be able to do.

Looks god awful. Everyone should just read the book and skip this terrible film. I know I'm showing you guys the trailer and then telling you not to see it, but I'm only showing you the trailer to compare it to the book.

[Amras.MG]

Wasn't planning on seeing it. However, I have to hand it to them that the special effects of thousands of humans piling on top of each other to scale walls and flood stuff is really really unsettling. Good job with throwing money at that, I guess?

[swampert28]

I was planning on reading the book, but decided that it probably was another one of those books that has no thought put into it, plus zombies, but I may reconsider. I did as well see the trailer, and thought "yippee, another americanized production". As well, I found it kinda weird how some zombies could take down a helicopter.

[deoxys]

lol

[Loki]

Originally Posted by swampert28

I was planning on reading the book, but decided that it probably was another one of those books that has no thought put into it, plus zombies, but I may reconsider. I did as well see the trailer, and thought "yippee, another americanized production". As well, I found it kinda weird how some zombies could take down a helicopter.

It's a book filled with stories of heroes, survivors, and people who make hard decisions. It also has military analysis of how the fictional zombie takeover happens, the general aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, and how people are now handling a world with zombies.

Max Brooks actually writes very good zombie books. Zombie Survival Guide is extremely detailed and insightful despite being a guide for a fictitious apocalypse. His comics are also very well written stories about zombie attacks of the past and how people survive and how people ignored it as something more logical, like rabies or insane cannibalism.

[DaveTheFishGuy]

Film in being worse than the book shocker.

On a serious note, I saw the trailer for this the other night and a) I'm getting fucking sig of Zombie Apocalypse stories and b) I had no interest to see it at all. Nothing. Not even a 'Ooh, that looks cool, might check that out'.

[Jerichi]

I saw the trailer when I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness (it was the only trailer actually; go go tiny Northern Michigan theaters!) and I was like "This looks weird." I didn't remember WWZ being about Brad Pitt being As Gritty As Possible. For a majority of the trailer, I didn't know what it was, and it didn't look like a zombie movie at all. It reminded me a lot more of War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise than it did of anything even remotely zombie themed, like I Am Legend.

It really sounds like they wrote a script entirely different from the book and slapped the WWZ name on it. I haven't even read the book but from what I know secondhand about it, it seems my analysis is spot on (and Wikipedia's chronicle of the creative conflict seems to suggest that as well).

[DaveTheFishGuy]

Originally Posted by Jerichi

It reminded me a lot more of War of the Worlds with Tom Hanks than it did of anything even remotely zombie themed, like I Am Legend.

I might have actually found War of the Worlds palpable had it been Tom Hanks starring, instead of Tom Cruise ruining it.

Also I agree. Had I not known that this was a Zombie story, I wouldn't have known. It's never stated in the trailer or explicitly shown that they're Zombies - it just looks like some mass terrorist/protest sort of thing.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by DaveTheFishGuy

I saw the trailer for this the other night and a) I'm getting fucking sig of Zombie Apocalypse stories and b) I had no interest to see it at all. Nothing. Not even a 'Ooh, that looks cool, might check that out'.

I've never cared for zombies. [/hipster]

Originally Posted by Jerichi

I saw the trailer when I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness (it was the only trailer actually; go go tiny Northern Michigan theaters!) and I was like "This looks weird." I didn't remember WWZ being about Brad Pitt being As Gritty As Possible. For a majority of the trailer, I didn't know what it was, and it didn't look like a zombie movie at all. It reminded me a lot more of War of the Worlds with Tom Hanks than it did of anything even remotely zombie themed, like I Am Legend.

It really sounds like they wrote a script entirely different from the book and slapped the WWZ name on it. I haven't even read the book but from what I know secondhand about it, it seems my analysis is spot on (and Wikipedia's chronicle of the creative conflict seems to suggest that as well).

Luckily for the original creator, and damningly for Hollywood, we live in an era where it's easier than ever to spread the word (and the supporting evidence) about this sort of fraudulent practice.

The thing is, some of Hollywood's most iconic or greatest productions have been rather unfaithful to the original novel or tale. Frankenstein ... Dracula ... Jurassic Park ... half of the Disney catalog (e.g. Alice in Wonderland, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 101 Dalmations) ... so while it's easy to jump aboard the "Let's Hate WWZ! " bandwagon and proclaim it the next Starship Troopers (oh God ), I think we should all consider that the product, unethically marketed though it may be, might be an entertaining adaptation in its own right.

But yeah, it's probably going to suck.

[Jerichi]

>I might have actually found War of the Worlds palpable had it been Tom Hanks starring, instead of Tom Cruise ruining it.

That's what I get for posting less than 10 minutes after I wake up.

[Loki]

Originally Posted by IGN Review

Beyond the international settings and the concept of depicting how different world governments would react in such a situation -- North Korea's solution to the infestation apparently is to pull all of its citizens' teeth out! -- the film doesn't bear much resemblance to Brooks' book. And that's fine as long as fans know that going in, as that highly episodic tale didn't even have a main character to center a movie around (it really would've made more sense as a TV miniseries anyway).

Link

I wish this was a TV or a Web Series and not this terrible movie.

The review says it's an okay action/thriller, not a horror film.

[Trepie]

As soon as I heard Brad Pitt was cast in it, I gave up on it being anything even remotely close to the book. The book was awesome, the movie is just another big budget wasted on a single high profile actor "Saving the world" which isn't even the point of the book. The book was more about what was left of humanity struggling to hold onto life against a never ending swarm of dead people and learning to deal with their new lives in the post zombie apocalypse world. Really bummed they couldn't do better then Brad Pitt saving the world story.

So I won't be seeing it until it's out on Dvd or blue ray. There's a lot of cool movies coming out this summer and this is just not what I would have expected from such a well put together Zombie novel.

[Loki]

Well of course Brad Pitt was cast. He owns the company that made the movie -_-;;

So from what I've read, Max Brooks sold the rights to Brad Pitt around 2007, but was allowed no input for the movie. J. Michael Straczynski wrote the original script, which Max Brooks actually approved of as a nice way to make his book more cohesive. Brooks admitted his book doesn't make a good movie, but Straczynski's script somehow made it work. The script was leaked in 2008 and actually had good reviews!

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

An early script was leaked onto the Internet in March 2008. Ain't It Cool News review of the script called it "[not] just a good adaptation of a difficult book [but] a genre-defining piece of work that could well see us all arguing about whether or not a zombie movie qualifies as 'Best Picture' material". The review also noted the film appears stylistically similar to Children of Men, following Gerry Lane as he travels the post-war world and interviews survivors of the zombie war who are "starting to wonder if survival is a victory of any kind."

That sounds awesome! Of course no distributor would make such a movie and they rewrote the script in 2009 to this awful mess. People have revealed that even after they started filming, the script was still in shambles and the ending is horribly incoherent.

[Mercutio]

Let us never speak of the Starship Troopers films.