World War Z - The Movie - The Thread (Don't judge a book by its cover)

[DarkSpyda04]

I could tell from the very fricken TV commercial that this movie would suck eggs because all I saw was Michael Bay explosions, camera switching every half a second, bodies falling, guns firing, Brad Pitt, more bodies falling, more explosions, bodies flying out of a plane, Brad Pitt, and a bus being toppled over followed by bodies flying everywhere. And you tell me not to judge a book by its cover. You are far too lenient for your own good. Now, I wanted to avoid the movie so badly but I ended up being dragged along to see it at the drive-in. I could not bare to watch it; so bloody boring. The only entertainment I could find was pointing out flaws and taking extended bathroom breaks. It's more fun to excrete the contents of my bowels than to watch this movie. Let's start cracking down on some of the things that went wrong.

Spoiler:

show spoiler

Now, I'm sure we know from basic science that women and children are completely and utterly helpless. I mean, seriously, whose ever heard of a women that does anything but scream and panic? It's crazy thoughts. Crazy thoughts I tell you! I guess we're lucky to have some random guy that we barely get to know as a character that meets disaster everywhere he goes to save the world. It's even better because he somehow miraculously crawls away from every incident without a scratch. You know what we call this? A plot shield. Why it must be a wonderful thing to have. I don't even know why he runs away from zombies when they come his way because with his luck they'd freeze solid in an attempt to scratch his beautiful face. I know, let's throw Brad Pitt in a horde of zombies. Maybe he'll act like a grenade and blow them up. Then we can pick him up and throw him at the next wave. Rinse and repeat until all the zombies are gone. Nobody will even have to lift a finger.

Oh, and did I mention that there is no character development? Well... yeah, well there is kind of no character development. Because people don't ever learn things and grow. People don't ever make mistakes but survive to learn how to correct those mistakes on the next attempt. No, people are quite static and never change.

Sure, Brad Pitt's life is "perfect", plane crash and getting pierced by the wreckage aside, but he's still the super jackass that only agrees to help humanity in exchange for his family's safety, indirectly gets a latino family killed by dragging the zombies' attention to their hiding place, has his phone on so it attracts a bunch of zombies so a guy dies directly as a result of his carelessness, fails to stress the importance of keeping your finger off the trigger to the doctor guy, chops some woman's arm off in hopes he doesn't have to waste a bullet on her, ignorantly lectures a guy who's lost his kid to what used to be his wife about family values and loss, etc.. [edit] Almost forgot that he's also, despite seeing looting/pillaging/violence quickly, to not only steal someone's RV, but to also shoot and kill another human being

And despite all that he still lives happily ever after without learning a single thing from his journey. Love it. You're right about him not being the perfect character that I'm making him out to be but you're only proving my point that he's generally a flat character that doesn't change and the writers don't even try to make him change. The point that alexdz makes about the movie being predictable coincides with my next point.

It really sucks to know exactly what's going to happen next. You want to be surprised and SEE where the movie is going next. But you know Brad Pitt is always going to survive so you never worry when he's in danger and you already know that everyone around him who he doesn't know is probably going to die so once again, no surprise when non-protagonist people fly out of a plane soaring through the air. The writers failed to take advantage to the audience's expectations to throw a situation we wouldn't see coming. If we grew comfortable with the protagonist surviving, they could always flip it on its head and kill his wife. AMC's The Walking Dead has no difficulty killing off characters we grow to love and it's something I love about the show. Not only would we not expect something like this, but it develops and shapes the character whose grown accustomed to his lifestyle. Just imagine what kind of emotional response Brad Pitt's character might have to show if he got a phone call that his wife or children died. Now that would make the movie interesting.

Now as for the CGI argument, I wouldn't complain about it. As I see it, bad CGI is just there as another thing to complain about if you didn't like the movie to begin with. However, what if it's a really good movie that has bad CGI? Does the movie suck just because it doesn't please you visually? In 28 Days Later the pan out views of the city looked fake but all other aspects of the movie were flawless, especially compared to a movie like Quarantine. I think I'd shut my mouth about something being visually appealing and instead judge it if it has a cruddy plot or little character development. I think everyone's just a tad bit spoiled about the need for everything seen visually to look like real-life. I think it's just as needless in video games when a game like the N64 title "007 Goldeneye" is still fun to play.

And another thing. I see a lot of people who were lambasting 28 Days Later and L4D specifically because they feature fast zombies. Let me say that this is a dumb argument just like the argument about pretty graphics. To me, it's a bias similar to gay-bashing. Just because a zombie movie has fast zombies doesn't make it a bad zombie movie and just because a zombie movie has slow zombies doesn't make it a good zombie movie. I've seen zombie movies with slow zombies and zombie movies with fast zombies that were equally terrible. Vise versa. To me, so long as it's a good movie is what matters.

Finally, allow me to suggest a superb movie to wash away the crap that Hollywood smeared all over your face. A 2008 independent horror thriller that you probably have not seen called "Pontypool". It's some real fear of the unknown stuff and the concept is pretty hard to grasp on the first view, almost like Inception.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wId1z7Sy4F4

[alexdz]

Well, it was as bad as I expected. PG-13 movie, nothing I haven't seen already, boring characters, incredibly predictable. What a waste for an adaptation, I hope that HBO picks it up in the future for a series close to the book.

[PROTOBOY]

I didn't watch it, I don't like running zombies, except by Crimson Heads of course

[Carnivol]

I found that stuff in the spoiler tag a bit of a nice change, for the sake of variation in the genre, I mean:
Spoiler:

show spoiler

Sure, Brad Pitt's life is "perfect", plane crash and getting pierced by the wreckage aside, but he's still the super jackass that only agrees to help humanity in exchange for his family's safety, indirectly gets a latino family killed by dragging the zombies' attention to their hiding place, has his phone on so it attracts a bunch of zombies so a guy dies directly as a result of his carelessness, fails to stress the importance of keeping your finger off the trigger to the doctor guy, chops some woman's arm off in hopes he doesn't have to waste a bullet on her, ignorantly lectures a guy who's lost his kid to what used to be his wife about family values and loss, etc.. [edit] Almost forgot that he's also, despite seeing looting/pillaging/violence quickly, to not only steal someone's RV, but to also shoot and kill another human being[/edit].

Brad Pitt's pretty much a villain/asshole who saves the day as a side-effect of his own egoistic survival plan.

Would love to see two things for the evt. BluRay release, though;
-Unrated/extended scenes
-Alternate cut(s) (since they apparently reshot a lot, down to completely different endings and altering various plotlines, to the point where it sounds like they might've had more than just a couple of different movies/cuts assembled - A strangely reoccuring theme with Brad Pitt centric movies that lasts about 2 hours or more.)

[Kei_M]

From what I remember from the movie.

The idea, the zombies, all of that was fine to me. But. Did anyone like the cast? Because I sure did not.

Spoiler:

show spoiler

Brad Pitt's life is perfect. Even in the zombie apocolypse, nothing bad happens to him. His family survives and is extracted to Safe Place, USA. He's barely injured throughout the film. The vaccine he just randomly picks happens to be the vaccine to the virus. He saves the world from zombies and I found that incredibly boring. Part of what makes me love zombie fiction is the tragedy that comes from it. There was no tragedy here, it was an excuse for Brad Pitt to be awesome. Yawn. I'm sure the book is better.

[Carnivol]

So, just saw the film. Whilst not exactly the most mindblowing thing ever or anything, I'd have a hard time saying it was bad, and the stuff going on in the movie "mostly" makes sense (as far as the concept of zombies making sense goes). The only things I'd say stands out is ...

Spoiler:

show spoiler

the usual sound thing that's always dumb as shit in movies and games, where for some reason "enemies/threats" gets aggrevated by sound, but conveniantly posess the magical ability to distinguish between friendly and dinner sounds... but only to a certain degree in this movie, so it gets partial bonus points for that. Also, there's a little thing they avoid, like the plague, which is strange ... since they have no fucking problem trampling one another and just "piling up" on shit.

Either way, still not read the book, just browsed a few pages of it in the book store, and ... well ... judging this film by its trailer/name/whatever, is like judging a book by its cover. Suck it, haters.

[Wrathborne]

Curious. Reading a book actually sounds more and more tempting (and not as an alternative to the upcoming movie - gonna see that too. Regardless...unless the Asylum Pictures logo suddenly pops up somewhere )

Say what you will about Sylum, they would have had this shit done a long time ago., and probably be about as good as the actual film :/

[Vito]

I highly recommend the book.

[Carnivol]

The book (and the survival guide) goes into a lot of detail as to why they don't and can't act like the movie ones, which is why I'm somewhat annoyed - it's one thing to change stuff, it's a bit different to look, see then do the exact opposite.

Curious. Reading a book actually sounds more and more tempting (and not as an alternative to the upcoming movie - gonna see that too. Regardless...unless the Asylum Pictures logo suddenly pops up somewhere )

[Darkmoon]

I'm just pointing out if I don't act choosy, I end up watching a ton of crap stuff, buying crap games or reading crap books. I can't afford to do that. I don't have the time or the cash. And no, no weirdness or hard feelings. I simply disagree with you fairly strongly.

Think the exact opposite zombie to what you see in the trailer, and you get the version in the book. They're the traditional zombie - relatively slow, unintelligent but ridiculously durable (only brain death kills them - decapitation leaves a snapping set of teeth around) to the point where countries that have cold winters have a problem of zombies de-frosting every summer and re-starting outbreaks. The closest the World War Z zombies and the movie infected (honestly, they don't look like they're zombies, but rage virus infected) is they both tend to move in packs. One zombie spotting another is much more likely to follow that zombie than not, and if they see another zombie trying to get in to a building they try too.

They don't run, leap or make giant human waves. They don't make giant swaying pyramids where the lowest zombies would be reduced to a meaty jam either - they will climb over each other's corpses to get you, but aren't mobile enough to pile up like that. The book (and the survival guide) goes into a lot of detail as to why they don't and can't act like the movie ones, which is why I'm somewhat annoyed - it's one thing to change stuff, it's a bit different to look, see then do the exact opposite. I honestly think they're not even using zombies, since they look so much more like rage virus infected.

And yeah, there's a second trailer out, although it's pretty similar to the first trailer - they only show the zombies rushing through crowds, dragging helicopters to there death, making pyramids of rotting people - that sorta thing.

[Carnivol]

Yeah...even the author says the movie is nothing at all like the books. And honestly? It looks awful. Giant swarms of zombies making mounds to grab helicopters? Not really good for me, but eh. You have plenty of cash - I have o choose what I wanna spend it on. Personally, though, I'd spend it on this;

http://www.amazon.com/World-War-Oral.../dp/B000IJ7IE4 - Audio Book

I work day and night, literally. Done so for years. Part of the problem "being me" Not trivializing your position as a family man (I envy it - truly), so hope there's no hard feelings or weirdness going through the air here now, since economy was suddenly brought up. I snap. I hate. I do. Actually having my first ever real vacation since I finished school nearly 10 years ago starting this weekend (and it's only from one of my two fulltime jobs).
Is there a new trailer for the movie? Only "piling" stuff I saw of the zombies in the first trailer reminded me of how insects, locust and pests (ants, termites, rats, etc.) pile up to achieve/reach/bridge something and I thought that looked kinda neat (and very much plausible) concept wise. Always feel that most things "zombie/infection" related in media doesn't exactly delve deep enough into natural behavior concepts like parasitic behavior, hive mind, phenomenons like "rat kings," etc... How're their behavior in the book? Traditional stuff?

[Darkmoon]

Problem is that this is all part of the past @changing/multi-diversity in the cast. Back then it was a problem and Star Trek stood out in that regards. Today ... diversity is not a problem ... not the way it used to be, anyway. Today you see the complete opposite in regards to diversity. Productions basically being hurt because they need "Token Black Guy" or "Marketing indicates chicks digs Indians, so add more teepees." Same thing you see with the whole sexuality discussion for video games. (Funnily enough, despite being very forward thinking in many ways in terms of social structure, there were still many ... contemporary elements present in The Original Series, shit people surely would've taken series issues with today if they were still present in the new movie series.)


Also, dunno if you've seen the new one yet, but people nagging about one of th emain characters not having racial trait X is pretty silly, considering how the movie's got something I've honestly never seen in a movie before ... about half-way through the movie, the bridge of the enterprise gets a new staff member (non-talking role, but somehow manages to sneak in more screen time than probably even Robocop got in the movie), this bridge member gets to sit next to the Captain for the duration of the movie and is not an alien, but some sort of space trucking lesbian that's dark skinned black, bald, chubby ... dyke-ish ... and I honestly couldn't call Into Darkness a White Washed movie with that stuff present in it without ending up feeling like I'm the biggest and most ignorant little purist cunt in the whole Milkyway Galaxy.

Anyway, there's at least plenty of people who like the new ones for what they are, just like anyone just as vulcan klingon to the previous ones for what they were too, but people seriously need to stop looking for shit to bitch about for the sake of bitching without paying attention to everything else that's going on.

I'm sure it does have diversity - that such a major and important character got white washed is still a problem though, and I personally feel, extremely disrespectful. But if you're fine with the movie, cool. I'm not, so I'm not giving them any money.

And diversity is still a massive problem. You can google the effect that TV's having on non-white, non-male kids because so many of the best characters are white dudes. It's not as big a problem, but it really is still an issue.

My local book store doesn't have audio books
(Shocking twist; I'm handicapped and incapable of reading stuff on paper)
But, really, even if the movie borrows the name/concept/whatever from a book; I think people seriously need to stop always rating/seeing these things as "how faithfull an adaptation is this?" and instead start with "Is this gonna be a good movie?" (Sure! It sometimes DOES SUCK that you basically gotta pull some tricky cards out of your sleeve to get people to look at your product, but I think the Bioshock Infinite guys did a pretty good job justifying these sort of "dirty/non-fan appreciated" tricks in one of the interviews regarding the game's cover art.)

Yeah...even the author says the movie is nothing at all like the books. And honestly? It looks awful. Giant swarms of zombies making mounds to grab helicopters? Not really good for me, but eh. You have plenty of cash - I have o choose what I wanna spend it on. Personally, though, I'd spend it on this;

http://www.amazon.com/World-War-Oral.../dp/B000IJ7IE4 - Audio Book

[Carnivol]

That's the thing, Carn - Star Trek did change people's lives. It was one of the, if not the earliest televised portrayal, that non-white people could be something other than servants and criminals. And the Gene Roddenberry had to fight, tooth and nail, to do it. Nichelle Nichols was so badly treated by the studio producers she wanted to quite - the only reason she didn't was Martin Luther King himself begged her to not, because she was pretty much the only representation of a coloured person, let alone a coloured woman, in a real position. There's a whole laundry list of people, actors and scientists, who list the show as inspiration for what it did. I know it's cheesy sci-fi - but it had a real impact on a lot of people. And it got whitewashed. Which is a real pisser.

Problem is that this is all part of the past @changing/multi-diversity in the cast. Back then it was a problem and Star Trek stood out in that regards. Today ... diversity is not a problem ... not the way it used to be, anyway. Today you see the complete opposite in regards to diversity. Productions basically being hurt because they need "Token Black Guy" or "Marketing indicates chicks digs Indians, so add more teepees." Same thing you see with the whole sexuality discussion for video games. (Funnily enough, despite being very forward thinking in many ways in terms of social structure, there were still many ... contemporary elements present in The Original Series, shit people surely would've taken series issues with today if they were still present in the new movie series.)


Also, dunno if you've seen the new one yet, but people nagging about one of th emain characters not having racial trait X is pretty silly, considering how the movie's got something I've honestly never seen in a movie before ... about half-way through the movie, the bridge of the enterprise gets a new staff member (non-talking role, but somehow manages to sneak in more screen time than probably even Robocop got in the movie), this bridge member gets to sit next to the Captain for the duration of the movie and is not an alien, but some sort of space trucking lesbian that's dark skinned black, bald, chubby ... dyke-ish ... and I honestly couldn't call Into Darkness a White Washed movie with that stuff present in it without ending up feeling like I'm the biggest and most ignorant little purist cunt in the whole Milkyway Galaxy.

Anyway, there's at least plenty of people who like the new ones for what they are, just like anyone just as vulcan klingon to the previous ones for what they were too, but people seriously need to stop looking for shit to bitch about for the sake of bitching without paying attention to everything else that's going on.

Local book store. The movie looks shit.

My local book store doesn't have audio books
(Shocking twist; I'm handicapped and incapable of reading stuff on paper)
But, really, even if the movie borrows the name/concept/whatever from a book; I think people seriously need to stop always rating/seeing these things as "how faithfull an adaptation is this?" and instead start with "Is this gonna be a good movie?" (Sure! It sometimes DOES SUCK that you basically gotta pull some tricky cards out of your sleeve to get people to look at your product, but I think the Bioshock Infinite guys did a pretty good job justifying these sort of "dirty/non-fan appreciated" tricks in one of the interviews regarding the game's cover art.)

[Darkmoon]

But man, if I expect Star Trek to change my life or somehow provide me more than just an evening of dumb cheese, stereotypes (or their prototypes), and mindless fun ... I don't even

That's the thing, Carn - Star Trek did change people's lives. It was one of the, if not the earliest televised portrayal, that non-white people could be something other than servants and criminals. And the Gene Roddenberry had to fight, tooth and nail, to do it. Nichelle Nichols was so badly treated by the studio producers she wanted to quite - the only reason she didn't was Martin Luther King himself begged her to not, because she was pretty much the only representation of a coloured person, let alone a coloured woman, in a real position. There's a whole laundry list of people, actors and scientists, who list the show as inspiration for what it did. I know it's cheesy sci-fi - but it had a real impact on a lot of people. And it got whitewashed. Which is a real pisser.

Now, where do I sign up for the end of the world?

Local book store. The movie looks shit.

[Carnivol]

Regarding diversity and Star Trek Into Darkness; There' one thing it does in regards to diversity that is absolutely disgusting. It's trying so hard to be diverse for the sake of forcefully being diverse (beyond the main "crew/cast"). Dunno if anyone noticed, 'cause it's easy to miss if you blink, but everytime there's a sort of "reaction" scene and they do a bunch of short facial close ups of various people in any given location, there'll ALWAYS be some random new alien species getting a facial close up shot. Also, those overly long shots of Benedict's face every time he was around were ... cumbersome. But man, if I expect Star Trek to change my life or somehow provide me more than just an evening of dumb cheese, stereotypes (or their prototypes), and mindless fun ... I don't even


Now, where do I sign up for the end of the world?