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Are YOU Ready for "World War Z?"

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I was a huge fan of the book as well and I usually hate zombie based stuff. I'm hoping the movie is something different from your typical boring, formulaic zombie flick.
 
exo_doc said:
Oh hell yes! The book was really good, can't wait for the movie.
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Agreed. Although the movie seems different. No patient Zero, less thought more action and it's Pg-13. It doesn't look like it will be much different from that classic race against time horror thriller.
 
Muadib said:
I was a huge fan of the book as well and I usually hate zombie based stuff. I'm hoping the movie is something different from your typical boring, formulaic zombie flick.
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I'm not that big a zombie fan either except for the original B&W "Night of the Living Dead" and "Shawn of the Dead"(5 out of 5 stars for that one).
I really liked the first three episodes of "The Walking dead" but it went to crap after that.

Has anyone seen an early 70's made for TV flick called "Where Have All The People Gone?" It's on Youtube if you get the chance. It's kinda campy and had a budget of something like 52 cents....but ti's actually worth watching.
 
exo_doc said:
I'm not that big a zombie fan either except for the original B&W "Night of the Living Dead" and "Shawn of the Dead"(5 out of 5 stars for that one).

I really liked the first three episodes of "The Walking dead" but it went to crap after that.



Has anyone seen an early 70's made for TV flick called "Where Have All The People Gone?" It's on Youtube if you get the chance. It's kinda campy and had a budget of something like 52 cents....but ti's actually worth watching.
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Shawn of the Dead was fantastic because it was fun and didn't take itself as seriously as your typical zombie film, definitely an excellent movie. I can't really think of another zombie flick I actually enjoyed and I completely missed the whole Walking Dead thing mainly because I've never really been interested in zombies, so I kind of just wrote it off.
 
exo_doc said:
I'm not that big a zombie fan either except for the original B&W "Night of the Living Dead" and "Shawn of the Dead"(5 out of 5 stars for that one).
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Exactly! I loved the original "Night of the Living Dead" and thought "Shawn of the Dead" was pure genius. I could add that while "28 Days Later" wasn't a true zombie flick (more of a zombie sub-genre), I appreciated how they were able to give us a realistic zombie-like scenario and how they portrayed the breakdowns in civilization as its result. I didn't see any of its sequels because they seemed to me to be the typical zombie fare - ie, something I could watch on Chiller Channel. For the most part, I haven't cared for the genre and could go into the entire "horror vs. terror" debate about the reasons why. Simply stated, I think "ewww, gross" is a cheap way to elicit a response from a viewer. The truly scariest movies I've seen don't need blood and guts to tell a story and certainly don't need to rely upon a gross-out factor, even if a few bloody scenes are used..

Having said all of that, I'm now wanting to read this book and may see the movie. It seems like it has some potential for true terror combined with a whole lotta action.
 
Here's a good zombie movie:

I asked my wife if I'm becoming one of those nerds who hates every movie because it's somehow not good enough. She said I've always been like that, but more so now. So, as I mature into my bitter nerdhood, I have to say that I have very low expectations for World War Z. I loved the book, but the movie doesn't seem to have anything to do with the book. When I first heard they were adapting the book for film, I was excited. The book is a series of vignettes, apparently inspired by Studs Terkel's The Good War. It would have been a very unique style of movie, with a number of very cool short stories. Yes, it would have been unique, which means that Hollywood instead had to make a standard CGI-fest. "Well, our focus group shows that people like fast zombies. So the production team has decided we'll have superfast zombies. The fastest zombies you've ever seen. Human pyramids of hyperfast zombies."

"But that's not in the book!"

"Shut up! Our market research shows viewers want faster zombies!"

"But the script is shit!"

"Fuck you! We have Brad Pitt! You know what? I'm sick of your defeatist attitude. You're kicked off this team, and you're kicked off the Aquaman 4 production team!"

There are a number of scenes from the book that could have been brilliant, like the story about the Paris catacombs or the deep-sea diver. Instead we get faster, louder, bigger, more CGI, less plot and characterization.

I am bitter.
 
Like Konrad I'm a big fan of the book but to be honest it looks like they have made a right pigs ear of it. It looks like a horrible CGI mess - the whole point of WWZ is that the zombies move SLOWLY -old "skool" style... The battle of Yonkers ( a pivotal scene in the book) looks like its going to be reduced to a sub standard video game shoot 'em up scene and the beach evacuation scene set in Bangladesh... I hate to think what they have done with that.... C'mon guys if you're going adapt a really good story about zombies don't mess about with it eh?
 
campbell71 said:
Like Konrad I'm a big fan of the book but to be honest it looks like they have made a right pigs ear of it. It looks like a horrible CGI mess - the whole point of WWZ is that the zombies move SLOWLY -old "skool" style... The battle of Yonkers ( a pivotal scene in the book) looks like its going to be reduced to a sub standard video game shoot 'em up scene and the beach evacuation scene set in Bangladesh... I hate to think what they have done with that.... C'mon guys if you're going adapt a really good story about zombies don't mess about with it eh?
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Yeah, and to me the interesting thing about the slow zombies is that it's all a numbers game. Sure, you can take out one or two, but when there are mass numbers, you'll eventually tire. You'll eventually slip up. You won't see that one walking out of the creek, or the one that was cut off at the waist but is now laying in the tall grass. It's like running from a rising tide.

What I really like about the book are the faces of the war in different parts of the world, seeing how different cultures reacted to the menace. But I think what it comes down to for a production like this is always a question of what will appeal to the maximum number of viewers. There must be some kind of formula to reference, whereby something really original comes out (the World War Z book), it gathers a lot of fan attention, and then Hollywood/big media gets a hold of it and says, "You know what would make this really big?" And then they strip out everything that makes it original in order to gather the biggest possible audience. You see it happen with comedians. They start off edgy and that gets them noticed, then the industry grinds the edge off and sells a recognized product.
 
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