World War Z book and movie....

[RadioRaheem84]

After reading some of the book and excerpts, it seems like it's well crafted but clearly written by someone with liberal bourgeoisie outlook on politics and war. It was written by Max Brooks who when interviewed said that he saw the zombies as terrorists (as well as any natural disaster) and that the biggest fear gripping people today is "extremism".

Israel is made to look good in the book as well as in the movie, my god does Israel look like a champ in the film and it's only downfall being that it was too accepting of others. :rolleyes:

While he decries government ineptitude and bureaucracy he still gives legitimacy to these institutions which he believes are our best hope. Again it's mostly individual ineptitude or groupthink that causes any havoc.

Again this is one of those books where you can imagine the end of the world but never the end of the nation state or capitalism.

[BIXX]

I personally really liked the book from a non-political standpoint. For me, it was more about the stories of the individuals, which the movie appears to have failed at. Seeing as it was only about Brad Pitt going around and having long hair. In the book it was a series of interviews, which I think was what made it great.

[Le Communiste]

Book was great
Movie wasn't about the book

Was good though

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I've read the book as well. It's actually a really good read.

Brooks says he was inspired to write the novel after reading a book called "The Good War", which was a collection of oral accounts of WWII. Almost all of the book is told as a collection of interviews between the narrator and survivors of the zombie pandemic. It's an especially effective narrative device, and its a pretty serious indictment of American imperialism (one of the interviewees is the former Vice President, who comes off as a REAL turd). The U.S. Military even tries to use Cold War military tactics to fight the zombies (yeah, guess how that turns out.)

[RadioRaheem84]

Well I never said the book wasn't a good read, in fact it's an excellent well written story. The point was it's politics.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I haven't seen the movie, but the advertisments make it look pretty unappealing. From the Ads it seems to take the approach I hate in disaster movies (it seems more like a disaster movie where the disaster happens to be a zombie plague, rather than a zombie movie). A team of experts try and warn the President or other governments to take appropriate action! Jeezus, is it 1954 - do we still have to have team of experts/expert scientist narratives in our disaster movies? A ground-eye view of disasters seems much more interesting and frightening and so it would have been nice if they picked a different focus from the book.

As far as zombie-politics go, I tend to go with the classical or Romero takes: zombies as allegory for wage-slavery (or chattel-slavery which is the origin of New World zombie myths); or zombies as allegory for a society that has become senseless (Romero's mindless compulsion zombies that stand in for unthinking consumerism or patriotism or whatnot).

[Pirate Utopian]

I think the book is brilliant but the trailers for the movie look like shit, especially with the giant zombie pile ups.

It looks like Roland Emmerich doing a zombie film.

[d3crypt]

The movie was pretty good. Haven't read the book though.