Fucking love WWZ and this is not it, I'm going to find and rape whoever came up with this, with a pineapple, no lube, and when I'm done I'll insert a chainsaw into them, also analy.
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The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself. Enos plays Gerry's wife Karen Lane; Kertesz is his comrade in arms, Segen.God damn it. The thing that made World War Z special -- and the thing that makes The Walking Dead special, for that matter -- is that it's not about the zombies, it's about the people. WWZ makes it a global history, where we get to see how a zombie invasion shaped society in general and various places in specific. It's not about one soldier who trots the goddamned globe fighting zombies. That's just another goddamned regular zombie movie, albeit one with a broader scope. Is it really that hard for Hollywood to wrap their heads around a zombie story that isn't a shitty action-horror film? Grr.
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This is how I felt (in reverse) when I saw War of the Words(1955) then heard the radio show, then read most of the book. A damn action movie with a chin and his bitch!
World War Z is not about zombies, its about the worlds reaction to an epidemic that makes all current squabbling seem absolutely petty.
You know why they did this, Rob? Two words: Resident Evil. Nuff said.
Oh, and one more word: cunts. Because they're cunts who can. That is all.
Well, this synopsis doesn't necessarily preclude the film from being more about the people than about the zombies. But no, it doesn't look promising. Hey, maybe they're just using this synopsis to get people to come out to the movie, thinking it's one thing and then selling them something deeper/more challenging. Kind of like how Observe and Report was sold as Paul Blart: Mall Cop and turned out to be one of the darkest, most fucked-up comedies of the last few years.
Karen Lane??...
What, would her cousin Lois who works at the Daily Planet be a competitor for her husband?
....fucking Hollywood!
Bah. World War Z Sucked.
There. I said it.
It was like he thought of all of these cool things that he could do with zombies and rather than do anything with them and the world he created, he just wrote a page or two about each and slapped em together. I'm the only person I know that felt this way though, and my grapes are renowned for being sour.
I respectfully disagree. WWZ is a survivalist fantasy book that focuses on the HOW people survived, but lacks serious characterization; Everyone in the book is two-dimensional and isolated in their own tale. It's not a zombie story at all; The zombies are just a generic enemy.
If anything, this will be an improvement to the book because it gives the characters something to do besides talk to an interviewer about the past. If you want that, just get the audiobook. I don't see how you'd get an audience to sit still for two hours of people talking about how they already beat the zombies. You want the whole movie to be flashbacks? Gods, how tedious.
WWZ is War of the Worlds in past-tense, with zombies instead of aliens. I really don't think it deserves the credit it gets, and I think the only way you can make a movie out of it is if you move the zombie invasion to present-day instead of past-tense.
I kinda get what you're saying. However, I also think there are other ways to tackle the source material with respect and not completely selling out. I was thinking that they could try the "District 9" approach, in which where they have people recount the tales of Wikus van de Werwe and have it as kind of faux biography deal. That could circumvent the whole "two-dimensional" and "isolated in their own tale" issues that you brought up.
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Ah, who am I kidding? This is Hollywood we're talking about here. "Respect" is not in their dictionary and selling out is pretty much their fucking entire business model. You know what, just forget I said anything. FML
I guess they were scared to make a movie called World War Z and not make it about killing zombies.
I started reading WWZ and this are really disappointing news. I was hoping for a really good movie.
Based on what i've read so far, this could've been a completely different zombie movie, more about the characters than the gore. Not that i'm complaining about the gore, we all need a little bit of zombie gore in our lives.
Is Max Brooks okay with this change, or did the studio just buy him out and shit all over his original concept?
The diary format works for novels. Not so great for movies. For one thing there's not a whole lot of dramatic arc in WWZ; it's a series of different people telling snippets of their stories. A movie that stuck to that format would be like a two hour flashback episode. Flashback episodes kinda suck.
Basically a change like this was inevitable.
I think World War Z would've been a great television series rather than a film. They could've done it in a documentary format with occasional flashbacks, that would've been amazing.
I'll be... back. I have a friend who these big shot Hollywood chaps will be very interested to meet. It's been fun being the real me for a while, TR, but in the words of Betty White, "Motherfuckers gotta learn!" If anyone asks, I'm knee deep in Maxim cover girls! *slides down Batpole*
The porn parodies are closer to the source material then any big budget movie has ever been. This is the world we live in.
Ah man that's a shame I really loved World War Z's framing device even if some of the stories were hit and miss. Oh well zombies are zombies and with Brad Pitt it could still be pretty good.
My hope is that this film is depicted as a faux-historical documentation (for those who have read the book, think the propaganda films that were heavily 'fudged' in order to build hype) via title and/or credits cards. If they add some minor touch like that, every frame of 'action' would be acceptable to me.But remember: this is a big budget, Hollywood zombie film with an A-list star. That in and of itself is pretty damned remarkable.And, we WILL be seeing the Battle of Yonkers!!
I'm not sure if they're sticking with the Straczynski script that was leaked a couple of years ago, but it sure sounds like it. It is exactly the opposite of the book. In the script I read, the whole movie leads up to the main character talking to an army general about the "mysterious" battle of Yonkers that no one wants to talk about because it was such a major butt-kicking by Zed. It the book, the battle of Yonkers was totally played up by the military to show that the government had everything under control. Heck, Todd Wainio even says it in his interview that they wanted to show off the big green kill power and news choppers were all over the place.
I was sooo looking forward to this movie until I read the script. If they're sticking with that...I probably won't even bother seeing it.
Why even use the same title if you're not using the book?
I read the (a?) Straczinski script a while back, and while it did butcher the book a bit, that synopsis sounds nothing like what I read.
TC
it's what the "people" want. In regards to losing shows like Firefly, and Jericho...it's all about the viewers, and because audiences (most notably American) are so mentally retarded and incapable of embracing new ideas and stories. most amazing, relevant, thought provoking and original shows end up failing because (just like movies and music) the "people" can't allow themselves to be subjected to anything new.
Its funny how 96% of fandoms best shows are made by mentally retarded Americans. Odd really.
Indeed. Much of the dumbing down of movies is due to the studios' perception that its necessary for international distribution. Apparently, the studios have no faith in OUR intelligence or those in foreign countries.
I am not disagreeing that most people are morons. I AM arguing that Americans are not any less intelligent than other countries. That was really my point.
I will remind you what the top grossing film of the year is: Transformers 3. TRANSFORMERS 3. So yes, the masses cannot or just don't want to handle anything thrown at them that will hurt their poor little heads. The husband, a film-enthusiast, went into great detail about how companies will buy a screenplay and then decide how it will make the most money. Unfortunately, it usually involves dumbing it down until it no longer resembles the original product...giving the movie the benefit of the doubt that it actually required dumbing down and wasn't stupid in the first place... Studios are concerned with profits, not art.
It was a general statement that was no less incorrect than calling the majority of viewers retarded and incable of embracing new ideas.
I think you're over-reacting a bit. There's nothing here indicating it's going to be a "shitty action-horror" movie- if they have him travelling all over the world it could easily follow the book in portraying the myriad different responses to the zombie pandemic, just with a central character linking them all.
Although that said, it is a bit annoying to have the multi-national and diverse cast of the book being replaced with yet another white American man......
And to be honest I always thought the novel would work better as a TV show, but that's obviously never going to happen.
I always thought it would be brilliant as an on-going comic series. To the best of my knowledge it's not (and Walking Dead has kind of cornered the market on on-going comic series featuring zombies), but that's really the only other medium that would allow a lack of main characters, lack of consistent setting, etc.But a TV show would work better than a movie IMO. Also, as someone mentioned on another forum, a Ken Burns-esque epic documentary would be perfect
Yeah actually a faux documentary would be great with interviews mixed with stock footage of zombie events, that way it'd faithful to the books style and make it more cinematic.
Yup. Said this from day 1: make it a TV mini-series/on going series... this book cannot, in it's originally written form, be turned into a 2 (even 3!) hour, Hollywood-type film. Too bad, 'casue like everyone else here has said, the book is FAN-TAS-TIC!!!
Of course. That would be the right way of doing this movie. Hollywood is very rarely known for doing the right thing in situations such as these.
The zombie fad never even really caught me, and I am disappointed.
Because the book is great!
