The only similarity between the book and the film is the title. Why base a movie on a book if you are not going to base the movie on the book. I loved world war Z (the book) and I knew that it was going to be hard turning it into a film, but they didn't....So disappointed.
It was based on the book, but then the script was entirely rewritten.
shareWhy base a movie on a book if you are not going to base the movie on the book.Because you don't do a movie any favours by remaining faithful to a book just because. What you do is take what works in cinematic form and then junk the rest. Pitt was obviously attracted by the idea of a zombie story on a global scale but so much of the book is so hopelessly unsuited to a cinema adaptation that it shouldn't be a surprise they virtually started again from scratch. What is a surprise is that so many posters on here profess amazement at all the changes. If they seriously think the book's narrator/protagonist who just sits and listens passively as a bunch of people relate their separate experiences needed nothing more than a visual tracing over for the film version then they are deeply, cinematically illiterate.
I didnt expect it to be a carbon copy of the book. I new, as you have pointed out, that the movie couldn't be exactly like the book. It just wouldn't have worked and like you said it would have done the movie no favours. I was interested to see how Brad would tackle this... he didnt. He scrapped everything. He used nothing but the title.
I am a fan of the book. I thought it was clever how the author, threw a series of short stories, lead the reader threw the entire global pandemic. You knew how the world reacted to the outbreak from beginning to end. I didn't expect Brads movie to show this. It was a single character story. I dont know what i expected, but i was open to artistic interpretation. I guess what i expected was for the movie to be based on the book... my disappointment is that it wasn't. It wrote its own story. It was just another brad is the hero movie...with zombies.
THEY KEPT NOTHING FROM THE BOOK. Not one single scene. Even the "zombies" are not real zombies (i.e. dead people crawling out of graves/coffins/hospital morgues).
They did not keep the book's core idea.
Stupid.
Someone below said WWZ could have been like Interview with the Vampire, where the movie is set in the present day, but flashes back to the actual events. YES that would have been a good adaptation, and at least it would be actual ZOMBIES (dead people).
You must not be very creative, pretty sure I could make a good movie with interviews of survivors interspersed with lengthy flashbacks. Shame this book got thrown away in favor of an awful script.
shareIt could have worked really well, if they used a few of the better short stories from the book, like was done in Creepshow, and had a past tense narrative like Interview with the Vampire telling parts of the story as they showed it.
shareAgreed, they should have chosen the best stories and gone with that. I was just disgusted when I realized that nothing in the book was in the movie, and then idiots say, "Oh well its hard to adapt a book to a movie..." Well, its hard if you don't even try!
shareOr instead of a movie take it to HBO or Showtime and actually film the Book as written with Brad as the Interviewer start with the Interview then to Flashback. Just have each episode a chapter and on longer more action based chapters make a 2 part episode.
sharepretty sure the movie would have been better if you had directed it!
shareI actually probably could :D and that is rather sad .... sigh I just wanted to see the battle for Yonkers dammit ..... or even Still towns ....gah
sharebattle of yonkers is the whole reason i went to go see that movie :<<<
shareRight!!!! that dawning moment when they realize aw damn this aint working we are *beep* I watched the Unrated yesterday and just went meh ....and started rereading the book and I am already totally absorbed. The movie half the time I was laughing going wth tsunami zombies ...really? Sigh maybe someday it will be a series ....one can hope or write a fereaking letter ....maybe 😂
sharethe tsunami zombies were cool and all, but i felt like the whole movie was just a demo for some new graphics program
shareWasn't Brad Pitt was just an actor in the movie not the writer.
I listened to the audio book and it would make an awful movie it would basically be people talking for 2 hours plus you couldn't get into the story as each person would only be talking for about 10-20 minutes. It wouldn't be a movie it would be a series of small stories it could maybe work as a tv show with each persons story being 1 episode.
No, no, man. The actors make up their lines as they go along. Everybody knows that.
(sarcastic humour of course)
'It's a work of art and there's really no "right" interpretation...' RDM
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He bought the rights to the book. His production company made it and he served as producer. Heck of a lot more than just acting in it.
he did and when he did the movie, he was so afraid it would ruin his career. he said this in an interview a while later. even before he saw the final cut, he knew the movie was horrible.
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i'm imagining sleazy corporate lawyers [<-- zombies?!] in a dimly lit back conference room, plotting strategy how to suck the life out of the books'media buzz, crucially Without Getting Sued. presumably the lawsuit defense strategy settled on was buying the rights to the book as cheaply as possible, riiight?
but that's not why i came here today. this gosh and golly is..
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back in the day i read Max Brook's zombie books. horror isn't my fave genre but i liked 'em anyways, solid visualizations. btw, both titles are surely available from your local public library: 1) The Zombie Survival Guide, 2) World War Z. Max also has published some "none dare call 'em comic books" / Graphic Novels to check out.
only today accidentally discovered the name of Mel and (may she rest in peace) Ann's sole kid. congrats Max, and thanks a lot for the immense joy your family has given the world.
weirdly, while imdb's bios for mom and pops do acknowledge a son neither cites him by name. what's with that?
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DrHorrible's Singalong Blog ('08): "Don't worry. Captain Hammer will save us."
I really dont get everyones issue with this not being like the book.
There are 3 things i love in life books movies and theatre.
As i didnt write world war z i have no feelings about how it is turned into a movie a book and a movie are two very differnt things.
what on earth does it matter if its differnt who should care except the author.
Besides which following the story would have made this film really suck.
Case in point in the book the zombies are slow.
Slow zombies are not scary nor are they very dangerous and they can do things like scale large walls and jump on helicopters.
The film is fine as it is
obviously, with a book like world war Z, the movie was not going to be exactly the same. as you have pointed out, it would have made the movie really suck. i new there would be artistic interpretation and i was very interested to see what they would do. however, the movie claimed to be based on the book. i dont think it was. the book very cleverly allowed the reader to know what happened across the whole of the world, from the beginning to the end of the war. As a fan of the book i was excited to see that world brought to life. i like fast zombies and was not at all put off by the trailer. but i was left disappointed. i think if brad wanted to make a zombie movie then he should have just made a zombie movie, but if you are using a very popular book, claiming that you have adapted it into a movie, then you should have some loyalty to the book and the fans of that book. glad you enjoyed it, need more zombie movies made i think.
shareThen you're going to hate every James Bond movie with the same title as the book.
shareI have not read any james bond book.... and i already hate most of the movies
Based on your complaint, you shouldn't like any of them.
shareBeing disapointed that a movie dosent do the book justice only realy affects the people who have read the book. As i have never read a James Bond book i would find it difficult to be disapointed by lack of comparison.
shareBut I'm telling you that none of the Bond films use any of the story points from the books - just the titles and character names. Now that you know that, you should be disappointed in any of the Bond movies you liked.
shareNO lol thats not how this works. I am dissapointed becasue i have read the book and the movie was in no way similar. If i hadnt read the book i would have been disapointed (becasue the movie sucked)but i wouldnt have been disaponted that it was in no way similar. if readers of the bond novels are disapointed by the movies then they have a valid point if what you are saying is true. But i cant comment on Bond.
I liked the movie. But I never read the book. So it's great for those of us that didn't read the book, just like the Bond movies you like are good to you because you never read the book. The moral of the story is, don't read the books! ;)
shareThat is good advice...sound logic :D
Ooooh I like the idea of making it an HBO miniseries where each episode goes into a flashback of the stories the interviewer hears.
I agree that this movie was too far removed from the book to have any real relation. They really just used the same title and scrapped the rest. That's doing a pretty big disservices to the book loves, luring them in and then not giving them any piece of what they enjoyed about the book.
I know that it's not always popsicle to totally faithfully adapt a book, makes sense since film and books are two different mediums. In books you can go into more detail, add extra characters and "scenes" to give the story more flavor, etc….In movies you have to get to the point quicker, remove extraneous things that are nice but unnecessary, etc….
HOWEVER this movie doesn't seem to have even tried to take from the book. I think it would've been interesting to see if someone could take it work it into a film in a creative way. Instead, we got a pretty generic zombie movie. Not a terrible movie, and there were some really cool visuals, but not terribly innovative like it could've been. I remember being pretty underwhelmed when I left the movie theater.