World War Z

[Numtini]

One of my favorite books and since they decided to rewrite JMS' script, which was supposedly fantastic, I've had a very bad feeling. The trailer is out and it's not looking good to me. Doesn't seem to be anything but action and they've changed the zeds to be runners.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/HcwTxRuq-uk

Edit by Trippy: embedded player friendly link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcwTxRuq-uk

[Ironwood]

You mean there wasn't a thread ?

 

[Lakov_Sanite]

Wow, looks like shit.

[Zetor]

All I know is that they were shooting this movie in the forested area right across from our office building. I think we saw some zombies shambling around, too - though it's hard to tell in Budapest. A++, would watch again.

Also, I bet this story about the Hungarian ELITE ANTITERRIST SQUAD confiscating weapons from Pitt&Co will be more interesting than the movie!

[Rishathra]

On its own merits, it looks pretty interesting, and I've always liked Brad Pitt and never understood the hate.  As an adaption of the book?  Shite.

[Shannow]

What.
The.
Fuck.
Was.
That?

How does that have ANYTHING to do with the book? Fast zombies? Oh fuck me. Fuck you Brad Pitt and fuck you Hollywood.
Fuck fuck fuck.


Fuck.


Now why don't you release a Ender's Game trailer with him shooting aliens with a laser gun to really ruin my day.

[DraconianOne]

Even taken on it's on merit as a "using the name of" rather than a "adapted from", that trailer looks awful. I only read JMS's 2nd draft and it was fairly faithful to the tone of the book even if it played up allegorical parts a bit more but I get the impression that the story has changed beyond recognition now. I quite like Mike Carnahan's work but it's the Lindelof factor and constant reshoots that make me doubt this will be any good.

[Lakov_Sanite]

It's not that the zombies are fast, they are unrealistically fast. They look(likely intentionally) like a swarm of locusts but that is not was makes zombies scary at all.

[Mrbloodworth]

I have not read the books. This does look epic, but as people have said, they say its not like the books at all. But, zombies like ants, rather interesting. Ants on meth that is. Its like the ragers from 28 days later, on meth!

[Shannow]

Well someone was on meth when they made this movie, thats for sure.

[DraconianOne]

I should add that in JMS script, he does explicitly mention a zombie as "moving fast" and describes the battle scene in the trailer (what should have been the Battle of Yonkers but was relocationed) as "the tide of Zombies washes over the defenders."  I guess as a lot of it seemed to be an allegory for Hurricane Katrina and the Bush government's response, that's unsurprising.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I get that, I mean on an intellectual level I get what they are doing with the zombies and I don't even disagree entirely that is could work but it's like they cranked the speed up just a notch too far such that they hardly seem like anything that was once human.   The basic horror in anything zombie related is that they are, or were human, it's their human qualities and the constant reminder of our own mortality which is the real scare.  Even in 48days zombies were scary because they reminded us of what we could become(drugs or psychosis whatever) the zombies weren't a stand-in for death but they were still an aspect of humanity that we feared.  Just going by the trailer these zombies just seem so...fake?

[Shannow]

and it looks like Pitt's character is spending a fair bit of time with the Israeli army? aka the one country in the book that DOESN'T have a zombie problem?

[Ironwood]

Well, that's who I'd like to be with too.

"Hey, chaps, not having a problem ?  Can I come in ?"

[Threash]

I have not read the books. This does look epic, but as people have said, they say its not like the books at all. But, zombies like ants, rather interesting. Ants on meth that is. Its like the ragers from 28 days later, on meth!

Read the book.

[Mrbloodworth]

and it looks like Pitt's character is spending a fair bit of time with the Israeli army? aka the one country in the book that DOESN'T have a zombie problem?

Why do they not have a problem?

I have not read the books. This does look epic, but as people have said, they say its not like the books at all. But, zombies like ants, rather interesting. Ants on meth that is. Its like the ragers from 28 days later, on meth!

Read the book.

I have some of his other works.

[Ironwood]

Read the damn book.

 

[lamaros]

I found the book to be... underwhelming and contrived.

Is it made clear that the people there were the zombies, or the people running away from the zombies? It was all a bit of a empty mess of a trailer.

[Ironwood]

I'd imagine it's all one and the same thing once the swarm catches up to you.

[Hawkbit]

I haven't read the book, but will likely change that soon.  I've been meaning to read it for years, and it always falls off my radar.  However, like virtually every movie made from a book, I'll read the book and decide to never watch the movie because of what terribleness they've done in the movie trailer. 

Fast zombies are wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong. 

There are many things that make the zombie concept truly scary, but the core concept is the feeling of being overwhelmed by an opposing force.  Night of the Living Dead, the original.  Being trapped in a farmhouse, simply trying to barricade it fast enough, and failing.  That's what made it scary. 

The only good part of the War of the Worlds remake that Cruise did was the part when things get out of hand in the crowd of people and other people started taking their car.  It's that slow building meltdown to an  overwhelming situation that makes zombies scary. 

And this movie trailer looks like it misses the mark on that regard, to me at least.

[murdoc]

If this movie was called anything other than 'World War Z' I'd have been pretty interested based on the trailer.

But that was not WWZ.

[Lantyssa]

Fast zombies are wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong. 

I'm calling zombie bullshit on that, you know?

[Salamok]

They were fast in I Am Legend.

edit - I agree with what you are saying though, the super human aspects of zombieness should consist mostly of a total disregard for self harm combined with an insatiable hunger that drives their every thought.

[DraconianOne]

They weren't zombies in I am Legend.

[Ironwood]

I just think that fast zombies are a different form of horror than slow zombies.

The fucking methed up zombies in this trailer look as if they don't even give you time to be scared.  They swarmed like a nuke, ffs, so what's the point of even running ?

I still think this whole idea of 'slow zombies just aren't a threat' is utter bullshit also.  It's about the confrontation of inevitable death in the same way as vampires are about sex.  Hell, 28 days later was more a vampire movie to me than a zombie move (and even more of a straightforward apocalypse movie.)

Though I will say that the Dawn of the Dead remake was ok, even for having fast ones.  I think mostly because it was about a seige, so speed wasn't that much of an advantage anyways.

This thread will now be all about rambling about zombies.  Also, how fucking obvious George Square looks in that trailer.

[Ironwood]

They weren't zombies in I am Legend.

You guys posted while I was typing.

They were Vampires in I am Legend, in the same way 28 days later were vampires.

We need a new class of 'not dead infected chaps' which is what they REALLY were.

[DraconianOne]

Ghouls? Liches?


Grunks?

[Ironwood]

Grunks works for me.

[Hawkbit]

They weren't zombies in I am Legend.

They were Vampires in I am Legend, in the same way 28 days later were vampires.

For the record, I am 100% OK with the way they were portrayed in both because they weren't zombies.  It's the Dawn of the Dead remake bullshit I can't stand.  Zombies climbing fences, running, climbing on a fucking parking garage ceiling.  Utter shit. 

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2004/03/dead_run.html

[Ironwood]

Ach, you can't argue for sense in a medium where the dead are walking (or running).  You just can't.

Sure, you can say which one you enjoy most, which is what I do, but you can't really say 'they're not zombies'.

They're dead folk reanimated in a mindless way.  Fast or slow, they're zombies.

[DraconianOne]

I'm leaving this here because I think it's interesting even if I don't agree with it.

Simon Pegg rails against fast zombies in Charlie Brooker's Dead Set

Most relevant line really is "it is absurd to debate the rules of a reality that does not exist."

[Salamok]

Most relevant line really is "it is absurd to debate the rules of a reality that does not exist."

But if we were to start debating the rules of the reality that does exist we would all become most depressed.

Also how can he call something a reality and then say it does not exist!

[Shannow]

"Death is a disability not a superpower"

Well I guess that depends....

[HaemishM]

I thought the trailer was decent, but I have absolutely no attachment to the books.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Best part of that from Pegg

However (and herein lies the sublime artfulness of the slow zombie), their ineptitude actually makes them avoidable, at least for a while. If you're careful, if you keep your wits about you, you can stave them off, even outstrip them - much as we strive to outstrip death. Drink less, cut out red meat, exercise, practice safe sex; these are our shotguns, our cricket bats, our farmhouses, our shopping malls. However, none of these things fully insulates us from the creeping dread that something so witless, so elemental may yet catch us unawares - the drunk driver, the cancer sleeping in the double helix, the legless ghoul dragging itself through the darkness towards our ankles.

Really sums up why zombies should inspire dread, not just fear.