"World War Z Zeds" Topic

Some of you already decided to pass on WWZ because it had little or nothing to do with the excellent book by Max Brooks, but what do you think of zombies behaving like ants and building pyramids? Is it heresy because it's such un-Romero-like behavior? Or is this a natural development in the scheme of zombie evolution?

link

Who knows? Honestly, it was a change that didn't need to happen. The story of WWZ was fine just the way it was, IMO. This change was simply unnecessary and done to make the move more "cool". Too bad really.

Book was excellent. Should have done the movie that way. Will still see it as it looks cool.

I think it is just a dumb idea

It would have been better off as a HBO series.

S-T-U-P-I-D! But will see it cause my boys insists.

They are not bees or ants are they??? Person who came up with the idea is too young to understand.

This movie is an abomination.

Another movie on my "not to watch" list …

Nope, not watching it either. The fake-looking zombie swarms turn me right off. Why not just remake The Blob (again)?
IMO, zombies seem like an inherently low budget enterprise, scariest at a personal level with no-name actors and mostly physical-FX. Toss some makeup on the extras, find a place to film and action!
For Hollywood to glom onto the trend they had to find a way to spend bazillions of dollars on a celebrity name and CGI that looks cack. Gotta find a way to make it into a spectacle, with a minimal script so it will play well overseas.

There is a zombie novel called 'Meta-horde' by Sean T Page that has similarities with this film, certainly more so than World War Z…

Stephen Speilburg and George Lucas were predicting the demise of the 'blockbuster'. 100-200 million plus budgets
coupled with shrinking audiences are a factor. The sheer cost
of production forces the investors to hedge their bets with
sequels and formulaic scripts that please testing audiences.
HBO and AMC are starting to be the new venues for story telling. My point is that WWZ may re-surface in a more familiar form.

No one likes fast Zombies, but I am going to the first show time today to see it.

I actually like the fast zombie concept and my wife and I will be seeing it Sunday.

Saw it today. Grew up loving zombie movies (and still do). I was a bit disappointed in reading some of the hater reviews a few weeks ago, but I thought it was a great movie in that the fast-movers left me with more of a feeling of helplessness than had they been lumberers. Looking back on my fav of all time (Dawn of the Dead), I now feel an outbreak like that would be a lot easier to deal with (especially in countries that allow private ownership of firearms). This movie depicts something that spreads like a firestorm. Great ending in my opinion too in that a lot of different sequel scenarios are possible or it could conclude satisfactorily.

BTW, if I recall the book had swarms in the SW United States desert battle.

I just came from the theater a scant two hours ago.
The book and the movie have nothing in common except a title.
The movie was boring as heck. There are Plant vs Zombie levels that were more suspenseful than any scene in the movie.
Chinese censors have nothing to complain about.

To get back to the OP, the zombies are not a hive mind. Based on he trailer they are all trying to get to the warm bodies on top of the wall. They just pile up until you get a pyramid. They're not working together, they just all want the same thing.
Not sure why people are so hung up on the swarms as, to me, they're the best representation of fast zombies yet. Masses of individuals with no thought whatsoever for their own safety climbing over each other to get to the meat.
Having said all that, I have yet to see the movie.

Good movie. A- in my 'book':

link

I'm with ya 28mm Fan. I can see a sequel (if there is one) being more of an adaptation of the book. Kind of like Interview with the Vampire except each part of the story is a different interview. Would make for a hell of a long movie though.

This could be where Irish Marine's idea of an HBO series would be very interesting IMO.

Just saw WWZ today. Not bad, not great.

Seems to me that the movie has the wrong name. It seems to be about an 'intelligent' virus that takes over human bodies to spread itself to new hosts. The Z's are only interested in biting and NOT eating their victim. It should be WWV for Virus.

The "swarming" of the zombies in the WWZ movie is explainable through the concept of "emergent behaviour". They don't instictively form piles, swarms or pyramids. Their individual behaviour *results* in the creation of those piles, swarms and pyramids. I thought it a novel application of the concept – and I am a *big* fan of the book. The movie sort of takes place in the book timeline…sort of.

I missed how the baseball bat ended up in Wales.

zombies that dont eat you? pfftt…someone needs to learn what a zombie is

I very nearly fell asleep watching this thing.

"zombies that dont eat you? pfftt…someone needs to learn what a zombie is"

I'm guessing they would eat you, it's just that the bitten person turns SO quickly that there's no time to be consumed.

The definition of a zombie is someone who doesnt have their own mind, or ate mindless. I would say that if all rational thought is removed and you don't do what's needed to look after yourself to survive then you would pretty much because zombie, whether that manifests itself by being slow and dumb or a sprinting freak, and as a result of a virus or watching too much Jeremy Kyle, almost anything is up for grabs story wise really.

I'm firmly a TWD Walker fan (please hurry the up October) and the definition in my book of zombies are slow and stupid. But I also love 28 days/weeks (and hopefully months) later too.

They explain the use of the term "zombie" for the infected in the movie as being a translation of a term from a message from India describing basically walking dead, not because they ate people. It was called human rabies in the news reports in the beginning of the movie. Rapid animals don't eat their bite victims, but do bite them.

How would zombies that eat you ever result in more zombies?

IDK, seems to me fast zombies+efficient attacking (not eating so much as a quick bite and move on) is really the only plausible way to have a major zombie outbreak in the first place. Otherwise they're just too easy to stop.

The 'zombies' in WWZ don't eat brains or stop to feast on their victims. They bite to infect, then move on. It takes exactly 12 seconds for the bitten person to turn into a zombie.

In this sense, the zombies in WWZ behave like viruses. Their aim is to spread like wildfire (or go 'viral'). This may not fit your narrow Romero zombie (or Hollywood zombie) definition, but zombies are actually quite varied in culture. The African and Haiti concepts of zombies are quite different from the west's.

And as '28 Days Later' and the 'Dawn of the Dead' remake proved, even Hollywood zombies don't have to remain 'static' (pun intended).

I'm generally all for exploring new elements to existing tales, but IMHO, running zombies violates the core and central premise of the implicit horror of a zombie.

I'll just turn it over to Simon Pegg to explain.

link

About the pyramid thing, that's actually in accordance with the book. The chapter about the Air Force officer shot down describes how she wakes up after spending the night in a tree to see her hide position surrounded by zombies. She says the ground was too soft for them to "ramp up" to get to her.