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Adaptation of World War Z to Suck

By Steven Lloyd Wilson | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (34)

worldwarz.jpg

In a great horror novel, there are a handful of set piece scenes that stick in your head long after putting the book down. The thing in the bath tub, navigating the tunnel out of New York City. These are the images that seer into our brains. What made World War Z so exemplary a horror novel was that the central conceit of being a collection of oral testimonies allowed the entire novel to be a series of these scenes. No overarching characterization, the plot arch of the book only apparent implicitly in the organization of the scenes. Just gut punch horror scene after gut punch horror scene.

Naturally the movie adaptation is eschewing that approach in order to make it suck. The following is the plot synopsis now floating around for the film:

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. Enos plays Gerry’s wife Karen Lane; Kertesz is his comrade in arms, Segen.

I understand where they’re coming from, I mean they landed Brad Pitt, they can’t very well have him on screen for just one or two scenes, because that would involve actually having the courage to respect the source material.

(source: SlashFilm)










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Comments

Between this and RobP's article about The Walking Dead, I'm about ready to Falconcockpunch everybody.

Posted by: admin at August 11, 2011 10:10 AM

My boyfriend proposed my favourite idea for this. Pick writers and directors, give them each a section of the book and their own small cast and crew. Let each one film it in their own style, using the unique style of each section of the book etc.

Obviously, create, where require, smoother transitions between sequences,but ultimately leave it up to the groups themselves. You'd get one guy doing sprawling, cinematic city scapes on high end cameras, one dude filming it all on his iphone, another guy gettign Guillermo Del Toro about it and creative nightmare fuel........

as it is we get a zombie action movie

Posted by: Nadine at August 11, 2011 10:11 AM

Nadine, that is most excellent. Reminds me of Paris, Je t'aime, and why it worked.

Posted by: Rest In Peace at August 11, 2011 10:19 AM

Fuckin' Z. Couldn't just make it a anthology of fucking stories could you you fucking fuckfaces. You had to fucking fuck it up because you don't fucking give a flying fuck. Hey, you wnat to tell a fucking story using fucking non-linear vignettes that reveal the fucking plot slowly and hold the fucking viewers fucking interest? A little movie from a few years back called PULP FUCKING FICTION set the bar for this exact fucking story. You fucks.

Posted by: Mrcreosote at August 11, 2011 10:21 AM

I'm pretty fucking tired of the living writing novels and movie scripts that misrepresent the dead as shambling, flesh-eating ghouls out to destroy humanity, and never show the human side of being a zombie. I don't think you can accurately portray the lives of dead people unless you've been dead yourself, which is impossible because writers obviously aren't dead (making an exception for Stephenie Meyer's brain). So we get a bunch of stereotypes about the walking dead ("the other") while the living are of course portrayed as the heroes and champions.

Apocalypse THIS, ya bunch of lifeists.

You make me sick.

Posted by: , at August 11, 2011 10:22 AM

Respecting the source material! That's funny. They own that they can do anything they want they paid for it. You people still dont understand! To maximize a movies money making potential you need a recognizable brand and a big star. Since this is an unproven brand then you have to lean on the big star. It's not like it's a sequel, remake, reboot or reborquel! So if your paying Pitt 25 million he's gonna be in every damned scene. And he needs a love interest too. Someone younger and cheaper of course.

Posted by: logan at August 11, 2011 10:27 AM

Fuckin' A, Mcreosote.

And if any film deserves the format proposed by Nadine and her boyfriend, this is it.

Posted by: lubeg at August 11, 2011 10:29 AM

Why would you DO this?!

I agree with Nadine. I would watch the shit out of that.

Posted by: twig at August 11, 2011 10:31 AM

Sigh. I was looking forward to reading the book but have now lost all respect for the author - selling those rights is akin to leaving your baby on the Kardashian's doorstep.

Posted by: cinekat at August 11, 2011 10:35 AM

Nadine,
Like Paris, Je t'...ah, fuck! I Got Bit By A Fuckin' Zombie!?

OK, refreshing...well, fuck Rest In Peace, why you gotta go and bring up references I'm about to reference just before I reference it?

God damn ,*, that was fucking priceless. If I may add to your work:
Now, you may look at that and feel that you, as a living, are being denied something, and you are. You don't know what it's like to be dead, and you never ever will. I'm sorry. You just don't get to have everything. Be content with thousands of years of uninterrupted living. - John G.

* - the poster ","

Posted by: pissant at August 11, 2011 10:37 AM

*fist-bumps pissant*

Well done, good sir!

Posted by: , at August 11, 2011 10:48 AM

GODDAMMIT!!!!! This could have been so fucking awesome if they had just stuck to the fucking premise! You could have Pitt in between each nightmarish vignette, but NOOOOO. He has to be in every fucking second of the movie (I have no idea whether to blame him or just the scum sucking studio).

No fighter pilot chick. No mansion full of celebrities. No zombie detecting dog (that could be a good thing, since that chapter FUCKED ME UP). None of those incredible moments.

Just Pitt, running around with a cute broad with explosions in the background going off in slow motion. Great.

Posted by: Kala at August 11, 2011 10:52 AM

But the novel does travel all over the world following how different cultures tried to solve the zombie epidemic. So they eliminate the interviewer and make it present action. That doesn't mean it's going to suck automatically. Brad Pitt's production company (the company that bought the rights to the novel based off the review copy) has been working on this film for a long time. I have faith.

Posted by: Robert at August 11, 2011 10:58 AM

If I don't see a demonstration of the Eel and the Sword there are going to be issues.

Posted by: Mrcreosote at August 11, 2011 11:00 AM

Am I the only one that doesn't think this is the end of the world? (pun intended)

A good movie, based on source material of a different medium, will have to adapt that source material to the new medium. If it doesn't, it's just not going to be as good as it could because it is, by definition, limiting itself.

Telling a story in novel form has its advantages, disadvantages, and limitations. Likewise for a movie.

Wasn't there a post on *precisely* this topic not too long ago?

That's what makes Neil Gaiman so effing great. Coraline, the book, is different from Coraline, the movie. He also has a graphic novel called Coraline, and you know what? I bet that's different too. A novel is different from a movie. He knows how to use the medium to best tell his story. And hopefully, the people behind WWZ know that too.

Chances are, the screenwriters realized that filming it as it was written wouldn't work on the silver screen. And so they adapted it. Good for them.

And you know what? I don't see how changing the storyline so that there is a connecting character will necessarily exclude the horror scenes that Steve Wilson is talking about.

And as far as gut punching, the best chapter in the book wasn't even a scene witnessed or experienced by anybody. It was the horror of speculating what in the hell had happened in North Korea.

Plus, Brad Pitt! He's smart, he's an incredible actor, and for the most part he makes good movie choices. What's not to like? I can't wait for this movie, and I'm glad the people behind it mustered some creativity in not limiting themselves to the format the book takes.

Fuck you all, bitches!

Posted by: Natalie at August 11, 2011 11:03 AM

Here you hypocrites (quote from Daniel Carlson, he writes better than I do):

Every adaptation is going to be just that: a change, an abridgement, a reworking of text to fit a visual medium. That’s an inherent part of the process, not a negative side effect of it, and to cite the existence of such changes as failures is to miss the point entirely. Every film or TV series adapted from a book has to be given a chance to stand on its own, and it has to be judged not on its fidelity to details in the source material but on how it tells a story. Film and television are graphically oriented spaces that convey emotion and intent with the juxtaposition of images; books are able to get fully inside the heads of multiple characters and narrators in unique and dazzling ways. They will always and ever be different, and that’s a good thing. ....

The question we have to ask ourselves when watching an adapted work is not “Did they get all the details in that I think they should have?” but “Did they tell a good story, and tell it well?”

Posted by: Natalie at August 11, 2011 11:23 AM

The sewers in Paris were 1000x worse than anything in N. Korea.

Part of the brilliance of the book was the organixstroytelling. I think the anger springs from the fact that it translate quite nicely into a movie-a movie that didn't just shamble and moan through the typical tropes of the genre. Brad Pitt is a good actor, but this screams violently for an ensemble, not for a star vehicle. I'm willing to wait to see what is done, but this really, really feels like we're getting the ScyFy version of this story.

Oh, and fuck y'all too!

Posted by: Mrcreosote at August 11, 2011 11:25 AM

"organic storytelling" sorry 'bout that.

Posted by: Mrcreosote at August 11, 2011 11:26 AM

Man, the portion of this book with the girl from Wisconsin whose family flees to Canada will absolutely haunt me forever. I really hope they find ways to incorporate at least some of these vignettes into the story.

Posted by: baboocole at August 11, 2011 11:42 AM

The problem is when, as SLW says, the form of the piece is the function. World War Z worked in a punchy, contained style - it was linked stories, not as much a novel.

I do trust Brad Pitt but reworking it from that sort of thing into a standard narrative - even if it is done well, it's 'zombie movie' not World War Z.

Like the first hour of Will Smith Makes Movie With Vampires was good, or that I really enjoyed Will Smith Makes Movie with Robots And Starts Off the Movie With a Shower Scene but by no means were either of those things I Am Legend or I, Robot and both missed the point pretty much completely.

I want what made World War Z good. Not just a good movie about zombies.

Posted by: twig at August 11, 2011 11:43 AM

Since when is BRad Pitt an incredible actor? You're confusing him with Daniel Day Lewis or Sean Penn.

Posted by: d at August 11, 2011 11:57 AM

I think this adaptation will be very similar to the adaptation of The Road. Not the worst movie ever, but falls short in depicting the heart-wrenching abject despair of the novel, and how could it? Sometimes the medium destroys the message, sometimes, somethings should remain as they are. This is one of those times.

Posted by: tar at August 11, 2011 12:09 PM

But having an overriding narrative (which WWZ had in the narrator traveling from place to place) does not mean that we don't get the Canada story or the rich people walled away in suburbia or even the original infection story. These could be the scenes that are connected by Brad Pitt traveling all over the world to try and stop the epidemic. Instead of being "oh, and people were doing this over here but let's focus on my story," it could very well be that we get thrown into the middle of the chaos of some of these scenes. That's intriguing to me.

Are people really saying that the only good thing about WWZ is that the book was a series of interviews? Cause that's really what it sounds like the complaints are.

Posted by: Robert at August 11, 2011 12:11 PM

Somebody edit this article, please. It hurts my brainnnnssssss....

Posted by: RudeMorgue at August 11, 2011 12:21 PM

DICK PUNCHES FOR ALL OF THEM.

*headbadger*

Posted by: figgy at August 11, 2011 12:33 PM

Robert, it could be done well, but you know it won't be. It will be Brad Pitt thinking about his wife, and everything will be from Brad Pitt's point of view, and frankly, how expansive can one point of view be with this story? The amazing thing about the book was how it covered all kinds of people and situations, and their personal reactions. How personal can the stories get if you have one character "racing around" fighting government types and yelling earnestly at people?

I could be wrong, but my immediate reaction is that, from that description, the movie will entirely miss the point of the book and become just some other zombie movie.

Posted by: figgy at August 11, 2011 12:40 PM

But, you could be right. I hope so, anyway.

Posted by: figgy at August 11, 2011 12:41 PM

What? Goddamn't. Fuck it all.

Posted by: DeistBrawler at August 11, 2011 4:13 PM

Especially sad since Pitt proved in Babel that he was willing to do small roles in ensemble pieces, and to do them well. People just won't give them to him. Sigh.

Posted by: sprophet at August 11, 2011 4:25 PM

That sounds nothing like the book. I also heard ther were not gonna include Yonkers or underwater Zombies either. I also heard that they were going to change the definition of the feral (sp?) children. They have the script over at IMDB. The things I've read sucks.

I wasn't planning on watching it anyway

Posted by: Candy at August 11, 2011 5:00 PM

I'll tell Alex his idea is a winner and we'll make our own fucking version of the film.

Who's in?!

Posted by: Nadine at August 12, 2011 5:04 AM

I'll tell Alex his idea is a winner and we'll make our own fucking version of the film.
Who's in?!

Nadine,
Your friend has a pretty good idea. However, your "Who's in?" bumps it up to brilliance. You need to organize this. Use the internets to find talented but unknown filmmakers (there have got to be a few hanging out at Pajiba). Of course, it will have to be free since someone else owns the rights. Anyway, hop to it.

Posted by: pissant at August 12, 2011 9:56 AM

World War Z sucks anyway, a bunch of awkward offensive stereotypes and cliches

Posted by: C. J. at August 20, 2011 12:49 AM

fantastic post! Thanks for the upload, I really enjoyed reading it! Keep up the good work champ!

Posted by: game fudge at September 11, 2011 2:21 PM