Like I said, I definitely understand your motivation not to, but they really are amazing stories. With TWD, it's hard to spoil anything for yourself because they've been taking such a different approach to characters and major events (I imagine part of this is so they can surprise the comic fans). I have no idea how WWZ will be, but it's a while before it comes out and before its sequels go to work.

11/9/2012 9:34:27 AM

it's okay. i have a 3 month old now & don't have time to read much of anything anyway

11/9/2012 9:44:22 AM

Try the audio book. Each chapter is a relatively standalone interview that ranges from 20mins-1hour. Can listen to those on drives to wherever.

Honestly I think the audiobook was much more compelling than the paperback, and the voice actors were for the most part excellent. It was abridged so its missing 3-4 chapters, nothing huge I just went back and read those.

There used to be a site with audio samples but its gone.


Also, Mark Hamill. Because Mark Hamill is in everything. Iirc he played a character alluded to as Howard Dean

[Edited on November 9, 2012 at 11:15 AM. Reason : .]

11/9/2012 11:14:20 AM

Quote :

"why would i intentionally ruin a show i am very much enjoying & a movie i could potentially enjoy? if the adaptations are as awful as everybody makes them out to be, then it'd just be stupid to read the original text first."

I actually agree 100%. Wait to see the movie. If it's a good adaptation, then great. If it's not a good adaptation but is still good, then you have the book which is pretty good. And if it's a bad adaptation and is not good, the book is still there. If you read the book and really like it, you will most likely just think of how the movie could have been rather than how it is.


I will second the audio book though for anyone who may be interested. It has a really good cast.
Alan Alda, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, John Turturro, Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins. And a bunch of others who do a really good job.

[Edited on November 9, 2012 at 12:04 PM. Reason : audio book]

11/9/2012 11:54:57 AM

Dur bump

1/3/2013 4:51:18 PM

the movie looks so far gone form the book that you might as well not even use it as a source material anymore. Its apparent from the trailers that some of the most basic plot lines of the book have been changed so there shouldn't be anyone afterward complaining about how "the movie was nothing like the book"...that should be obvious going in. I'm really hoping this can free people up from spending 2 hours comparing a movie to the book and just enjoy it as a separate art form.

1/3/2013 5:48:07 PM

bttt

5/9/2013 7:18:59 PM

In the book, the zombies weren't sprinters. In the movie, they seem very much like sprinters. Did Mel Brooks just release the rights to the title of his book and not the contents?

5/9/2013 7:57:04 PM

I don't think that's the issue so much as the people behind the movie not caring too much about the contents and structure of the story apparently.

Hopefully the trailers are extremely misleading in a lot of ways. But I don't know how I could be misinterpreting that zombie ladder up to the helicopter. The squandered potential is both sad and frustrating.

[Edited on May 9, 2013 at 10:59 PM. Reason : .]

5/9/2013 10:56:45 PM

I'm sure it's already been mentioned in this thread, but an HBO miniseries would have been perfect for this

5/9/2013 11:29:57 PM

indeed (on both accounts). It could have really destroyed genre expectations too if done right. And much more so than The Walking Dead.

[Edited on May 10, 2013 at 12:35 AM. Reason : .]

5/10/2013 12:35:19 AM

Not exactly news:
http://www.blastr.com/2013-5-13/world-war-z-novelist-says-movie-kept-his-title-and-thats-it

To be fair, the title of the article is a little mis-leading. Brooks does essentially say those words. But he also says he hasn't seen it and he didn't read the script when offered. He's basing it largely on his experience in hollywood --- I think most people are aware, but if not.. his dad is Mel Brooks. Well, that experience.. and he probably saw the trailer.

[Edited on May 14, 2013 at 1:17 AM. Reason : .]

5/14/2013 1:15:17 AM

Pg-13

Lol

5/19/2013 12:33:12 AM

The first reviews from the U.K. premiere are showing up. Not good at all from the few I've read so far.

One also mentioned something i didn't know, or at least don't recall, there were multiple and very long (2 months) reshoots..... which usually do not coincide with a movie being "good."

6/3/2013 11:09:02 AM

^ i remember reading there was a good portion of the movie that had to be reshot which many feared would send the production into so much red, they were liable not to recoup the money once it released. typically, that does not bode well for the audience.

6/3/2013 11:13:27 AM

This thing got pushed back an entire year AFTER principle photography was done. It's bad. Accept it.

6/3/2013 11:18:45 AM

I've seen reports that estimate that the movie will need to earn $550 million just to break EVEN. Could/should go down as the biggest flop ever.

6/3/2013 11:20:04 AM

Too bad. Fuck you Hollywood for screwing up my favorite book!

6/3/2013 11:54:53 AM

There was one story with fast zombies though, I do have to mention that. The one where the main character (forget his name now) is talking about entertainment journalism and how much money was in it. So not everyone was slow, unless I'm mistaken on it.

6/3/2013 5:09:24 PM

saw it last night, not as bad as i was expecting. the pg-13 rating hurt it though IMO

6/22/2013 11:09:46 AM

just saw it. yea they clearly had to edit away from the rated-R which kinda sucks, but i liked it. had terrible expectations from all the production drama, but turned out better. still wish we had a mini-series or something based on the book though.

also, ending could've been worse haha:

http://m.movies.com/movie-news/world-war-z-original-ending/12638

6/23/2013 4:24:50 PM

wow, i wonder how long it would've been if they kept that original script

6/23/2013 5:03:24 PM

haha 3 hr epic.

6/23/2013 5:03:46 PM

Saw it tonight and enjoyed it. The first hour was very fun action and thrill. It slowed down a bit after the plane scene but after reading the original ending synopsis, i think they did well to reshoot.

6/23/2013 9:54:52 PM

I came out of this movie not hating it like I thought I would. I didn't love it either, primarily because it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the book aside from the name. Very disappointing in that regard. I feel like the end was rather anticlimactic, though. I was expecting more to happen after the events in the WHO facility.

6/24/2013 12:27:56 AM

Whoa that other ending is crazy. Am I the only person that enjoys unhappy endings?

6/24/2013 1:29:05 AM

This movie sucked.

The problem with a large scale movie, is that it has no focus. in trying to show big epic battles, and small scale close quarter traditional horror style scares, the movie loses focus. It does neither one well. It rushes through everything. It doesnt go into detail on anything, there is no character development, and the large scale battle scenes are rushed, and without focus. The movie just jumps around so much, its hard to give a shit

6/24/2013 5:47:22 PM

Fine as a summer popcorn flick. Terrible as a representation of the novel's complexity and thoughtfulness.

6/24/2013 8:53:53 PM

high time you children got over zombie stories

6/24/2013 9:02:02 PM

It's high time you choked on a cock.

6/25/2013 3:00:57 PM

Should of been a PG movie. The raptor zombie made me laugh. It was an alright movie.

6/28/2013 1:28:34 AM

Just saw the movie, way better than the book IMO. 9/10

6/28/2013 10:27:20 AM

I agree, much better than the book.

6/29/2013 5:07:24 PM

What made it better? I thought the book was excellent, but I've run into a few folks that didn't enjoy it/couldn't finish it.

6/29/2013 5:09:39 PM

Some people probably just didn't like the fact that it was presented in a non-standard narrative fashion.

6/30/2013 9:04:23 AM

Never read the book, really enjoyed the movie. The virus and the zombies themselves were much more like they were in "28 Days Later" which I like better than slow-moving brain munchers.

After knowing that the movie wasn't really supposed to have much to do with the book I'm surprised people are still complaining.

Also, this wasn't just about Brad Pitt running around shooting things. There was almost a detective feeling to his character that I liked watching.

7/2/2013 8:02:17 PM

I liked the movie, but thought it just kind of ended. The only things that were in common between the book and the movie were the Israel rule of 9/10, but that's to be expected since it's "common knowledge" and the fact that Israel was one of the most adapted/North Korea was relatively quick to respond.

I like both as stand alone pieces, but it's hard to throw them as complementary. I think what would've been cool would've been having Max Brooks interviewing Brad Pitt or say this is the story of Gerry - would've been a nice tie-in to fit the novel.

I did enjoy it, but think a rated R version would've been 100x better because that could've brought a lot of the story arcs in the book into play (different grenade aspects, blown off legs, etc). Hopefully there will be some extras to show some of the alternate scenes that were cut.

7/6/2013 3:39:32 PM

When Brad Pitt throws the grenade on the plane, it should have been preceeded by him standing up and declaring "I am sick and tired of these motherfucking zombies on this motherfucking plane!"...that alone would have been worth another star.

7/7/2013 10:18:14 PM

I saw it this past weekend and it definitely wasn't bad as a complete stand alone story. It didn't seem nearly as disjointed as I thought it may considering such extensive re-shoots.

Overall, it was entertaining. It does just kind of end/is somewhat anti-climatic because it just doesn't seem like the big, exciting part at the end is meant to actually be the end. But they did have plans for this to possibly be a trilogy from very early. That "it just kind of ends" things could also be from the re-shoots. I know the ending was changed drastically, but I have no clue if it would have been similarly abrupt or not obviously.

7/8/2013 9:02:57 PM

Just finished the book and although I really enjoyed it...I feel like it would be kind of difficult to make into a really good movie. But I probably just don't have the imagination to see these things.

I still want to see the movie but might have to wait for dvd.

7/9/2013 10:52:07 AM

I didn't like the book. It's like a dawn of the dead fanfic completely with Mary Sue characters and even countries. I just didn't think it was well written. He needs to stick to non-fiction.

7/9/2013 11:31:24 AM

Really? This would be pretty sophisticated fanfic. Which parts of the book do you think were poorly written?


Just to be clear; simply not liking something does not mean it was poorly written.

[Edited on July 9, 2013 at 1:17 PM. Reason : .]

7/9/2013 1:16:25 PM

Stepped out at lunch to go see it, and thought it was VERY entertaining. The character development was pretty good, however, if this is really going to be a trilogy, they could have spent more time on it.

I didn't read the book, but is Gerry a character? Does he work for the UN in the book, or was that just the liberal media trying to make them look good?

Quote :

"When Brad Pitt throws the grenade on the plane, it should have been preceeded by him standing up and declaring "I am sick and tired of these motherfucking zombies on this motherfucking plane!"...that alone would have been worth another star."

I would have lost it.

7/10/2013 3:11:37 PM

^ no, the book doesn't really have that character.

The book is a series of interviews. There's a U.N. investigator writing a report on the outbreak, the panic it induced, people surviving, people learning to fight back, the efforts to do so by both governments and individuals, the resolution, the clean up, the adjusting back to semi-normal life, etc. That guy is going around interviewing people, starting with the outbreak all the way up to it's over and they're trying to get back to normal, rebuild, etc.

It's all AFTER everything is over. It's just told chronologically based on the order of the interviewees. You never find out about that guy's experiences during WWZ. And he doesn't encounter any of the stuff himself. He only hears/records what others have to say about it.


So I don't think it's the producers/writers (i'm not quite sure why you lumped the film industry in with the media... perhaps because are news programs are so far removed from journalism) trying to make the U.N. look good so much as it was a (very loose) common thread to the book.

And perhaps also to make so it's not a situation where this one country is trying to save the entire world. For ex., this American guy is going to figure this all out and save the entire earth).

Also regarding the trilogy. I think that was more of an after thought. There was almost 2 months of re-shoots after they finished the film. A lot of the film is different than it was originally intended.



If they make a sequel, I kind of hope they bring in a different main cast to tell the next segment of the story. That would be a little more in-line with the book and make it less of the one guy saving everyone/figuring everything out thing that I don't like about it personally.

[Edited on July 10, 2013 at 5:39 PM. Reason : .]

7/10/2013 5:32:14 PM

i imagine the whole 'trilogy' business dovetailed with the original non-rewritten ending (which, based on the article i posted a while back was awful) it seemed like it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger.

though i did read it got picked up for sequels because of how well it did, so who knows. would be cool if they didn't try to make it a summer blockbuster action movie and brought it closer to the book, but who knows. sequels will probably wind up being mediocre, but i'm sure they'll still get my money

7/10/2013 6:45:46 PM

Have you seen it yet? It wasn't as obviously open as the original ending, but it's far from conclusive.

7/10/2013 8:27:03 PM

the zombie virus will "evolve" and the people infected with lethal but treatable stuff will be just walking through the crowd, bashing heads, shooting the shit about what they are going to do with their 50 acres of farmland...

then the horde will just suddenly attack them, you will see them getting ripped apart, blood and entrails going everywhere, then the camera pans up to a billboard...

KFC: come in today and see why fresh is better

7/12/2013 6:16:44 PM

9 minutes in and I already hate it

9/17/2013 12:58:04 AM

^ you've pretty much already seen the best of it

9/17/2013 1:05:44 AM

LOL

9/17/2013 1:08:40 AM