World War Z

With fast zombies that turn quickly, the opposition can grow and spread so fast that the only possible response is escape. I think the "We're Alive" podcast handles this scenario pretty well.

ranalin wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
Strangeblades wrote:

Has this statement been made yet?

Why did they buy the movie rights to the book when it is nothing like the book? The trailer looks great and I'm sure I will love the movie (I'm a sucker for zombie-anything) but what was the whole deal in acquiring film rights to Max Brooks' novel?

Great title of a book that got lots of press.

This; WWZ is a straight-up cash grab with nothing but the title in common with what was truly a fantastic novel.

I'd say that if you haven't read it and want to see the movie, read it after. I'll be skipping the movie, partly because I don't think a movie of any length could do it justice as others have said, and I'm not the least bit interested in a movie that has naught to do with the book, save the name.

Actually it started, like most things i'd like to assume, with the best intentions. The studio has jumped in on this to change it from what it started out to be.

When I first heard that they were making a movie out of WWZ sometimes last year, everything I'd heard was in line with what we saw in that trailer. So, call me old and cynical(heaven knows I feel it more and more every day), but I'm neither surprised nor really upset by this, but I'm certainly completely turned off by the movie.

As for why, while I think a low budget movie in the vein of the book could have done well, perhaps condensed some. Intersperse a few selected, perhaps rewritten interviews with action sequences of the actual war, and keep it to 2hrs 15min +/- 15min. You could even have Brad Pitt be the interviewer, and it'd be fantastic. Instead of Interview with the Vampire(and we all know that Louie was the real star, because eff Tom Cruise), it'd be like Interview with the Zombie Survivors.

Why do people complain that there are a plethora of zombie movies? How many action movies are there? You just pick your favorite and run with it.

Grenn wrote:

Why do people complain that there are a plethora of zombie movies? How many action movies are there? You just pick your favorite and run with it.

It's the same thing with zombie games. You can NEVER have too many zombies to shoot!

karmajay wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
karmajay wrote:
kazooka wrote:
Hobbes2099 wrote:
complexmath wrote:

Some of the scenes in that trailer are fantastic, like the one with the zombies all piling up trying to climb the wall. I'd really like to have seen an attempt at a movie in the format of the book though. I think it could be done quite effectively, but it would come across more as an indie film than the blockbuster the current one looks to be.

What you liked most is what I liked least. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the zombie representation of this movie feels "fake". I know how little sense that last sentence made.

I think one of the things that the "fast zombie" phenomenon does is evoke some real primal reactions about being chased by a large and hostile group of people. But the "swarm" behavior that we're seeing now goes into the uncanny valley in a bad way. Instead of a bunch of hostile people trying to chase you down and hurt you, it's this big quivering wave of faces falling over each other.

Yeah when it comes to zombie stuff, they have all the advantages so slow zombies give the humans a chance. No way humans make it if they are this fast. (Although in the movie I'm sure they'll pull some sh*t out of their a**..

How do you figure?

Humans have tool use, tactics, the ability to use terrain to their advantage, and the ability to coordinate and communicate with one another. All they would need is a bulldozer and a Jersey wall.

That's great when you have time and a trained force. With fast zombies an urban population is turned quickly before much can get down and now you have a million fast zombies running every where. A lot of tactics are made to discourage or stop a force when in actually this force would have to be utterly destroyed while they are running around full speed like in that clip.

Actually, no.

Militaries around the world are trained extensively in the utter destruction of opposing forces. In fact, a force that doesn't avail itself of the advantages of cover and concealment soon finds itself chopped into meat. For more evidence of this, just look up the history of Sir Beauvoir de Lisle’s 29th Division, the Newfoundland Regiment at the Somme, in which an entire regiment was chopped to meat in less than 20 minutes by what amounts to three belt fed machineguns. Toss in a 20' Jersey wall, modern firearms, and a couple crates of M67 hand grenades (especially when they bunch up so nice) and you have a rather nice experience grinder.

I usually don't watch any horror or zombie movies but I've read the original book has something to do with Israel. Is the movie loyal to that?

Watching movies about my country might be interesting especially if they aren't produced by local movie makers. I prefer the fantasy genre over the pseudo-documentry genre . If I remember correctly most successful Israeli movies are dramas which I prefer to avoid.

In the book, Israel basically walls off the entire country. I suspect this is what's in the zombie pileup scene in the trailer.

As for military tactics, part of the problem is that they've been developed for a human enemy. One that is at least marginally afraid of death, that dies when shot in the center of mass, etc. This comes up in the book as well, when defense lines are overrun in... NYC?

Grenn wrote:

Why do people complain that there are a plethora of zombie movies? How many action movies are there? You just pick your favorite and run with it.

I don't know that anyone's complaining about too many zombie movies. People are complaining that Hollywood is bastardizing a fantastic and much loved book into something that it is not.

AnimeJ wrote:
Grenn wrote:

Why do people complain that there are a plethora of zombie movies? How many action movies are there? You just pick your favorite and run with it.

I don't know that anyone's complaining about too many zombie movies. People are complaining that Hollywood is bastardizing a fantastic and much loved book into something that it is not.

I don't care if they bastardize the ideas the book presents, just don't call it World War Z.

complexmath wrote:

As for military tactics, part of the problem is that they've been developed for a human enemy. One that is at least marginally afraid of death, that dies when shot in the center of mass, etc. This comes up in the book as well, when defense lines are overrun in... NYC?

Battle of Yonkers. I was intensely frustrated with that part of the book; not because they got it wrong, but because the failure was exactly the kind of epic-scale political-stunt stupidity that is perfectly believable. :\

karmajay wrote:

As an aside, I was reading a zombie book the other day (I read them a lot) and it started out again with the normal population left wondering as city after city blinks out and borders close with no govt response and people sit in their houses wondering what was causing it. I thought "man would that happen in real life?" and was satisfied with a resounding no (in my head). People are attuned to zombies now. Look at the bath salts, the 1st thing people thought about were zombies. So, no one worry, no pandemic will happen on this generation's watch! :)

Ok Karma I got the one book in the hopper, but list me your Zombie book list. Need a break from Dresden and WH40K.

Paleocon wrote:
karmajay wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
karmajay wrote:
kazooka wrote:
Hobbes2099 wrote:
complexmath wrote:

Some of the scenes in that trailer are fantastic, like the one with the zombies all piling up trying to climb the wall. I'd really like to have seen an attempt at a movie in the format of the book though. I think it could be done quite effectively, but it would come across more as an indie film than the blockbuster the current one looks to be.

What you liked most is what I liked least. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the zombie representation of this movie feels "fake". I know how little sense that last sentence made.

I think one of the things that the "fast zombie" phenomenon does is evoke some real primal reactions about being chased by a large and hostile group of people. But the "swarm" behavior that we're seeing now goes into the uncanny valley in a bad way. Instead of a bunch of hostile people trying to chase you down and hurt you, it's this big quivering wave of faces falling over each other.

Yeah when it comes to zombie stuff, they have all the advantages so slow zombies give the humans a chance. No way humans make it if they are this fast. (Although in the movie I'm sure they'll pull some sh*t out of their a**..

How do you figure?

Humans have tool use, tactics, the ability to use terrain to their advantage, and the ability to coordinate and communicate with one another. All they would need is a bulldozer and a Jersey wall.

That's great when you have time and a trained force. With fast zombies an urban population is turned quickly before much can get down and now you have a million fast zombies running every where. A lot of tactics are made to discourage or stop a force when in actually this force would have to be utterly destroyed while they are running around full speed like in that clip.

Actually, no.

Militaries around the world are trained extensively in the utter destruction of opposing forces. In fact, a force that doesn't avail itself of the advantages of cover and concealment soon finds itself chopped into meat. For more evidence of this, just look up the history of Sir Beauvoir de Lisle’s 29th Division, the Newfoundland Regiment at the Somme, in which an entire regiment was chopped to meat in less than 20 minutes by what amounts to three belt fed machineguns. Toss in a 20' Jersey wall, modern firearms, and a couple crates of M67 hand grenades (especially when they bunch up so nice) and you have a rather nice experience grinder.

Mass, mobility, and overwhelming firepower are the key to large combat operations. However, I think the original book really does a good job with illustrating the mind of a soldier when an enemy (zombie) doesn't understand he is dead. Massed zombie attack with the Z's only going down when taking one to the head could easily break a unit.

Again, tactics are great but you are assuming the zombie outbreak happens in front of a well armed military group. When it happens in NYC or in the middle of a slum in India it is a no go. And then you have a million running zombies spreading out and biting more people.

All I'm saying is it is more manageable when more NON-MILITARY can get away and/or fight the things.

Hmm..here is what I can find on my Kindle:

World War Z

Day by day:Armagedden - Sporadic news reports indicate chaos and violence spreading through U.S. cities. An unknown evil is sweeping the planet. The dead are rising to claim the Earth as the new dominant species in the food chain.This is the handwritten journal depicting one man’s struggle for survival. Trapped in the midst of global disaster, he must make decisions; choices that ultimately mean life, or the eternal curse to walk as one of them. Enter if you will into his world. The world of the undead.

Beyond Exile: Day by Day Armageddon - Day by day, the handwritten journal entries of one man caught in a worldwide cataclysm capture the desperation—and the will to survive—as he joins forces with a handful of refugees to battle soulless enemies both human and inhuman from inside an abandoned strategic missile facility. But in the world of the undead, is mere survival enough?


The Gathering Dead (A Zombie Apocalypse Novel)
- The zombie apocalypse has begun, and Major Cordell McDaniels is given the most important mission of his career: lead a Special Forces team into New York City to rescue the one man who can stop the ghastly virus that reanimates the dead. But as a growing army of flesh-eating corpses takes over the streets and a violent storm renders airborne extraction impossible, McDaniels struggles to find a way out of the Big Apple. The odds of anyone getting out alive plummet further when slaughtered members of his own Special Forces team join the ranks of the gathering dead... with their military skills intact!

Feed Trilogy - The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED. NOW, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives-the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.

Necropolis Rising - It took thirty minutes for the city to die. But their hunger would last forever. The military has sealed the city. No one is getting in. No one is getting out. But a team of cyber-criminals have a job to do. A job that will see them receiving a huge payout if they succeed. Or a bullet if they don't. Once inside the city staying alive proves to be just as difficult as staying dead

Ex-Heroes - Stealth. Gorgon. Regenerator. Cerberus. Zzzap. The Mighty Dragon. They were heroes. Vigilantes. Crusaders for justice, using their superhuman abilites to make Los Angeles a better place. Then the plague of living death spread around the globe. Despite the best efforts of the superheroes, the police, and the military, the hungry corpses rose up and overwhelmed the country. The population was decimated, heroes fell, and the city of angels was left a desolate zombie wasteland like so many others. Now, a year later, the Mighty Dragon and his companions must overcome their differences and recover from their own scars to protect the thousands of survivors sheltered in their film studio-turned-fortress, the Mount. The heroes lead teams out to scavenge supplies, keep the peace within the walls of their home, and try to be the symbols the survivors so desperately need. For while the ex-humans walk the streets night and day, they are not the only threat left in the world, and the people of the Mount are not the only survivors left in Los Angeles. Across the city, another group has grown and gained power. And they are not heroes.

Ex-Patriots (Ex-Heroes Book 2)


Dead of Night: A Zombie Novel
- A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave. But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects. Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up. Hungry. Infected. Contagious. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang…but a bite.

The Remaining - In a steel-and-lead-encased bunker 20 feet below the basement level of his house, a soldier waits for his final orders. On the surface, a plague ravages the planet, infecting over 90% of the populace. The bacterium burrows through the brain, destroying all signs of humanity and leaving behind little more than base, prehistoric instincts. The infected turn into hyper-aggressive predators, with an insatiable desire to kill and feed. Some day soon, the soldier will have to open the hatch to his bunker, and step out into this new wasteland, to complete his mission: TO RESCUE AND REBUILD.

The Remaining: Aftermath

Green Eyes - A carnival worker dead of alcohol poisoning, Donnell Harrison has been reborn with new memories and a profound literary talent. To reconnect him to the world and make him pliant, the reanimation team employs Jocundra Verret, a therapist who has gained the trust of numerous subjects, but when Donnell finds his latent power to control energy, Jocundra shares his doubts about the scientists' goals. Together they flee on a quest to discover Donnell's true origins and potential, and ultimately to confront evil at the heart of a fabulous bayou dynasty, where Donnell must restore order among strange and brutal alternate worlds.

Area 187 - Almost Hell - In the year 2007 an accident at a clandestine U.S. government facility in rural West Virginia releases several test subjects infected with a necrotic virus. Within weeks the U.S. military and the Department of Homeland Security are forced to declare the bulk of the state under quarantine. Defensive lines are fortified and nothing is allowed in or out, damning those missed in the short period of evacuations to a living hell and locking away the real truth of the virus’ creation. The government transfers the responsibility of maintaining the quarantine from the military to the Department of Homeland Security, which christens it “Area 187"

The Rising Horde, Volume One (Sequel to "The Gathering Dead")

The Rising Horde, Volume Two (Sequel to "The Gathering Dead")

Mountain Man - Boomstick. Samurai bat. Motorcycle leather. And the will to live amongst the unliving. Augustus Berry lives a day-to-day existence comprised of waking up, getting drunk, and preparing for the inevitable day when "they" will come up the side of his mountain and penetrate his fortress. Living on the outskirts of a city and scavenging for whatever supplies remain after civilization died two years ago, Gus knows that every time he goes down into undead suburbia could be his last.


Safari (Mountain Man Book Two)

Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End - The dead rise…A mysterious incident in Russia, a blip buried in the news—it’s the only warning humanity receives that civilization will soon be destroyed by a single, voracious virus that creates monsters of men. Humanity falls…A lawyer, still grieving over the death of his young wife, begins to write as a form of therapy. Bur he never expected that his anonymous blog would ultimately record humanity’s last days. The end of the world has begun…Governments scramble to stop the zombie virus, people panic, so-called “Safe Havens” are established, the world erupts into chaos; soon it’s every man, woman, and child for themselves. Armed only with makeshift weapons and the will to live, a lone survivor will give mankind one last chance against…Apocalypse Z

2 series below - I've linked the 1st book for both you can look up others - these are a mixture of steampunk/zombie

The Doomsday Vault: A Novel of the Clockwork Empire - In a clockwork Brittania, Alice's prospects are slim. At 21, her age and her unladylike interest in automatons have sealed her fate as an undesirable marriage prospect. But a devastating plague sends Alice off in a direction beyond the pale-towards a clandestine organization, mad inventors, life-altering secrets, and into the arms of an intrepid fiddle-playing airship pilot.

Boneshaker - In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born. But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Guys, guys... Never Trust a Trailer. Plenty of great movies have had terrible trailers, and this one wasn't even bad, just edited for the action movie throng.

kazooka wrote:
Hobbes2099 wrote:
complexmath wrote:

Some of the scenes in that trailer are fantastic, like the one with the zombies all piling up trying to climb the wall. I'd really like to have seen an attempt at a movie in the format of the book though. I think it could be done quite effectively, but it would come across more as an indie film than the blockbuster the current one looks to be.

What you liked most is what I liked least. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the zombie representation of this movie feels "fake". I know how little sense that last sentence made.

I think one of the things that the "fast zombie" phenomenon does is evoke some real primal reactions about being chased by a large and hostile group of people. But the "swarm" behavior that we're seeing now goes into the uncanny valley in a bad way. Instead of a bunch of hostile people trying to chase you down and hurt you, it's this big quivering wave of faces falling over each other.

Yeah, I thought the massive zombie piles looked so horribly, obviously cg it was ridiculous. It simply looks wrong, and not in a good, freaky way, but in a terribly fake way. I mean, compare with this PS2 commercial, and how much more real the giant piles of people look in it:

I generally like Brad Pitt, but the trailer did nothing for me. And knowing the production was such a mess they brought Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard in to rewrite the ending and did seven weeks of reshoots doesn't help build excitement either.

ruhk wrote:
LtWarhound wrote:
Prederick wrote:

I think that's one of the only places left to go with the genre, a Zombie outbreak in a world already quite familiar with the zombie trope.

Try 'Feed'.

Or, you know, Shaun of the Dead.

Everyone panics for a couple of hours, then realizes that the zombies aren't really much of a threat if you keep your head, so they start using them as cheap labor and entertainment.

See the short film Spoiler for a slightly grimmer treatment of the same idea.

I would watch this as a TV series in a heartbeat.

karmajay wrote:

Hmm..here is what I can find on my Kindle:

...Big list of books

Soo...., any of those any good?

Happy Dave wrote:
karmajay wrote:

Hmm..here is what I can find on my Kindle:

...Big list of books

Soo...., any of those any good?

Maybe for $5...

The majority of them are good zombie fare. I really enjoyed Ex-Heroes and Ex-Patriots for some zombie/superhero mix up. Area 187, I think some others liked that in the book recommendation thread.

The Ex series is good. Just started The Gathering Dead and it strikes me as a sub plot to the trailers above. Opens in NYC, mass air lift by under siege military forces. Lots of frenetic action early on. I like it so far.

SpyNavy wrote:

The Ex series is good. Just started The Gathering Dead and it strikes me as a sub plot to the trailers above. Opens in NYC, mass air lift by under siege military forces. Lots of frenetic action early on. I like it so far.

Then you will really enjoy the sequels to it (The Rising Horde)

Haven't read it again in awhile, but was the virus in WWZ like the one in The Walking Dead, where everyone's a carrier and is reanimated on death?

Other than

Spoiler:

Larry and the salt block

in The Walking Dead game, I don't think I've seen an exploration of what happens when someone, say, dies of a heart attack while the group is sleeping, thinking they're relatively safe.

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:

Haven't read it again in awhile, but was the virus in WWZ like the one in The Walking Dead, where everyone's a carrier and is reanimated on death?

Other than

Spoiler:

Larry and the salt block

in The Walking Dead game, I don't think I've seen an exploration of what happens when someone, say, dies of a heart attack while the group is sleeping, thinking they're relatively safe.

Nope. Virus is transmitted through a bite or some other physical contact between the infected dead flesh and living human flesh. There was one story where a Russian soldier was infected when a jagged zombie arm pierced his skin thanks to the zombie's broken bones.

Strangeblades wrote:

Nope. Virus is transmitted through a bite or some other physical contact between the infected dead flesh and living human flesh. There was one story where a Russian soldier was infected when a jagged zombie arm pierced his skin thanks to the zombie's broken bones.

Yeah. The zombie stuff in WWZ is based on the fictional data in his Zombie Survival Guide. It's a virus in that it can only infect a living host, but once infected, death doesn't stop the zombie. The basic goal is for bites to be a means of passing the condition, and that basically requires blood flow to distribute the virus through the body. He leaves the question of how a virus could continue controlling muscles in a dead host unanswered. The other relevant issue is that because a long-dead zombie will lack liquid blood and such, actually hacking up a zombie isn't terribly dangerous. Bites are about the only sure way to contract the disease.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

Yeah, I thought the massive zombie piles looked so horribly, obviously cg it was ridiculous. It simply looks wrong, and not in a good, freaky way, but in a terribly fake way. I mean, compare with this PS2 commercial, and how much more real the giant piles of people look in it:

This.

I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
I guess we've trained our eyes and brains to recognize CG animation. It's not that the zombies look fake, it's that you can tell right away they're renders with little motion caption.

If you're going to make a zombie movie, feel free to cut costs any way you want, as long as you invest in the zombies.

complexmath wrote:
Strangeblades wrote:

Nope. Virus is transmitted through a bite or some other physical contact between the infected dead flesh and living human flesh. There was one story where a Russian soldier was infected when a jagged zombie arm pierced his skin thanks to the zombie's broken bones.

Yeah. The zombie stuff in WWZ is based on the fictional data in his Zombie Survival Guide. It's a virus in that it can only infect a living host, but once infected, death doesn't stop the zombie. The basic goal is for bites to be a means of passing the condition, and that basically requires blood flow to distribute the virus through the body. He leaves the question of how a virus could continue controlling muscles in a dead host unanswered. The other relevant issue is that because a long-dead zombie will lack liquid blood and such, actually hacking up a zombie isn't terribly dangerous. Bites are about the only sure way to contract the disease.

They had a heart transplant patient get infected because the black market heart they used most likely came from an infected kid in China. They also alluded to transfusions of infected blood (also coming out of China) being the source of unexplained outbreaks throughout the West. Since infection required a transmission of bodily fluid, hacking up a zombie could be potentially dangerous. If you had an open wound and some of the zombie's blood got into it, you'd get infected.

I like the diary format of the Day by Day Armageddon books, even if it's kinda been done a lot. It's probably due to the attraction to the outbreak phase, but the first book is better. Bourne is recently returned from deployment and is finishing the third book. We'll see, but I'm hopeful that some of the unevenness of the first two is due to writing as a real soldier without benefit of an editor. I'm skeptical, but the writing of a similarly military-employed KC Wayland (We're Alive podcast) gives me hope.

I read the sample chapter of The Remaining and it sets up well. If I ever get back to reading stuff, I'll probably pick it up.

How did the book World War Z go from regular-type people survival experiences to Brad Pitt becomes the world's only hope? It looks like Michael Bay got his talons on the script.

I will probably watch it at some point, but not until it is on cable.

I'm apparently the only one who thinks the movie looks more interesting than the book was. But I also thought the book was hokey and poorly written, so any deviation away from it isn't a bad thing.