I am a fan of Zombies and as such I am a big fan World War Z by Max Brooks. I was very happy to hear that it was being made into a Movie. Tonight I read some very bad news. That the movie's synopsis is nothing like the book!

Here's the official synopsis from Paramount: "The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself."

"As you can see, rather than taking place after the bloody Zombie Wars, this movie will be set during the beginning of the outbreak. And Pitt will be running around to try and stop it. So basically, it's every zombie movie ever made that no one saw. It sounds like this adaptation won't even be a shadow of the original novel. The synopsis reads like the producers cherry-picked a few battles and then wove them together around Pitt's character. This is disheartening, to say the least, and we're not alone in our disappointment. Plenty of folks feel the same way, and here's why they're pissed:"

Source: http://io9.com/5830389/world-war-z-movie-synopsis-is-nothing-like-the-book-internet-melts-down

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think there is any chance the Movie will be changed to be like the book?


Other links: http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/world-war-z-movie-causes-controversy-222651305.html http://collider.com/world-war-z-movie-synopsis/108530/

That stinks. The book was really entertaining.

[censored] [censored]. Damn.

I'll still see the movie, but this is a real shame. The book is a page-turner. I had a bad feeling about the movie when I first read that Brad Pitt is producing and directing it.

What exactly were people expecting? As it's written the book doesn't really lend itself all too well to the movie format, I mean they're basically a bunch of related short stories. Unless they decided to expand one or two of them into a full movie, there wasn't really any way of getting it directly translated to the big-screen. Making it a TV series would have worked far better.

You're right, sjvan. They wouldn't be able to do justice to the novel without making it a miniseries at the least. The scenes in Kiev and northern Germany alone could take up a half-hour or hour each.

I kinda saw this coming. Y'know, that it won't be a guy wandering around post-Zombie world interviewing folks and 95% of film being flashbacks.


But what I didn't see coming was that they completely revamped the plot. I'm sick of stories where one allegedly average person saves the world all by himself.


Unfortunate but I'm not going to slit my wrists because of this. Will watch it anyway.

The book wouldn't have worked as a traditional movie (though I'd have loved to see it as some sort of miniseries), but they could have at least referenced the book somehow. Maybe expanded one of the sections into a full movie or something. As it stands, it's yet another zombie flick.

Not upset about it, really, since I saw it coming. Not seeing it.

That svcks pretty fierce.. I really liked the book

Yeah I found this out last month when they were filming in Glasgow (boyfriend has some pretty sweet photos of the set and a car crash scene). I'm not sure why they're even calling it World War Z at this stage - it sounds like it could just be any zombie flick...

I always imagined the Movie would be alot like the book. I understand the movie could not cover everything in the book, but it could at least stick to the point that it would take place 10 years after the war. It would be like a documentary movie. Not a crappy actions movie where one man saves the world before World War Z. The movie is World War Z in name only.

It is a shame that Max Brooks sold out like that. He is working on the movie I believe.

I saw it coming purely on the fact that I've long known that Hollywood doesn't know how to read.

I had no idea a movie based on WWZ was even being made.

Disappointing. I had a feeling that a well done film adaptation of World War Z might really break the mold and stereotypes of 'zombie' movies and have the potential to be a great film (not even considering the zombie aspect). Now it just sounds like a boring Hollywood zombie flick we've all seen before.

When I heard about it I was hoping it would be a series of interviews that fade into flashback sequences and back again when certain questions were asked. I would have watched the hell out of that.

Okay, they murdured the plot- but, they had better get the zombies exactly right. They were the real stars of the book.

I actually thought the zombies themselves were more of a backdrop than a focal point. Like most good zombie stories, the interesting aspect of the story (to me) is the way people react to the slow, creeping, inevitability of the threat. It gives people plenty of time to freak out and turn on each other. Many global disasters could produce nearly the same drama, but the slow, relentless nature of zombies coupled with the horror of people you know transformed into rotting, mindless killers really sell the theme.

Saw it coming honestly. I will probably just wait until it eventually plays on television, if it ever does.

What did you expect? The majority of movies based off of books are ruined. I had no intentions of seeing the movie. Besides, it'd be real hard to make a movie based off of a book that was written like a series of "After Action Reports".

Doesn't seem like it would be very hard to me. :shrug: That's what flashbacks are for.

Taking a book that's intentionally written to be a semi-pragmatic perspective on a zombie apocalypse and turning it into "Brad Pitt saves the world from a billion zombies" seems like more work to me.

Honestly, I'd be fine even without flashbacks. Am I the only one who would watch a more literal documentary/series of interviews take on the story. Of course, it would really depend on the acting to pull it off, but I think that would be awesome.

I would've preferred a mini-series on television but adapting all the stories into one movie would have been far too long and complicated. I already knew they were going to change it and I'm still going to watch it. Hopefully the mini-series idea will be picked up soon afterwards though!

I really did love the book though, one of my most read. I think I've read it about four times now and I recently started reading it again, still as much as a page-turner as the first time I read it.

I thought that they would shorten the book. Pick some of the better stories from it and use it to base the movie on. Personally I feel most of the book could be put into a movie. It would be over two hours but I don't see any problem with that. What I did not expect was that they would ruin the whole point. The Zombie War happened and ended (for the most part) ten years ago and first hand accounts from survivors are gathered. The Movie is aparently before the Z war started, Brad Pitt will be trying to stop it. Hence the movie will be nothing like the book. Just in name only.



I would watch it. Something like "The Good War" but about the Zombie War.