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World War Z- What book?


Usually when you buy the rights to a book, you assume that the movie is going to be based on the book. Hollyweird is known for taking liberties but in this case they threw away the book and rewrote it.

 

The only thing that the two have in common are zombies, a mysterious plague that causes them and the United Nations. That's it.

 

WWZ-book_zps65607f63.jpg

 

 

Max Brooks originally wrote World War Z in the style of Studs Terkel's The Good War. It was a collection of stories told by the veterans of World War II. It had their voice and was an oral history. A critically acclaimed history told by the people that had fought in the war and survived. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_War

 

Brook's book followed this design. It took place in the future. It interviewed survivors of the zombie war and told their story. It was collected by a minor functionary of the UN.

 

wwz-movie_zps415c4bbf.jpg

 

Of course that was apparently too difficult for Hollywood. They threw it all out the window. They made a zombie apocalypse movie that shared the name World War Z.

 

Of course in its own right, it's not a bad movie. Brad Pitt stars as a retired United Nations troubleshooter. When the zombie apocalypse breaks out, he goes back to his old job. He travels the zombie infested world in search of answers. As a movie, I give it a C+.

 

However- it loses the entirety of what made the book special. You don't get the characters voice. You don't get the characters. All you get is your typical Hollywood adrenalin-pumping thriller with little or no message or staying power.

 

Read the book. You'll get more out of it. Wait for the movie to hit NetFlix.

  • Like 2

8 Comments


Recommended Comments

Sasha Distan

Posted

I have decided to watch the film and in my head call it something totally unrelated.  i think it might by a fairly good zombie movie. but you're right, it seems to have bugger all to do with the book, and the book rocks.

 

apparently there is an audio version of the books which is really intense, i haven't managed to get my hands on it though. shame.

LJH

Posted

At Sasha: a rocking Zombie book the musical LOL. At James: thanks for the review.

JMH

Posted

I have decided to watch the film and in my head call it something totally unrelated.  i think it might by a fairly good zombie movie. but you're right, it seems to have bugger all to do with the book, and the book rocks.

 

apparently there is an audio version of the books which is really intense, i haven't managed to get my hands on it though. shame.

 

 

There are two different versions of the audio book out there... the one that came out when the book did and the extended version that came out with the movie.  Like with the original version the extended one has nothing to do with the movie but includes a lot of pretty good side stories/ interviews in it.  Felt sort of cheated when the later version came out as I bought both.

Sasha Distan

Posted

why thank you you kind people!

Fishwings

Posted

Now I'm interested in the book!

 

Honestly though I thought the movie was extraordinarily well done, especially for a zombie movie. Bigups for that

JamesSavik

Posted

Now I'm interested in the book!

 

Honestly though I thought the movie was extraordinarily well done, especially for a zombie movie. Bigups for that

 

Because most "zombie movies" look like they were made in some jr high kids basement. They did do a good job on the movie from a technical standpoint.

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