# "World War Z" the Movie Thread (Open Spoilers!) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 18, 2013, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244 "2013-06-18T03:49:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/181 "2013-07-08T15:47:53Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Just how hard could it be to defeat an enemy that is brainlessly attracted to noise? > > And how does a plague spread all over the world, if it takes only minutes or seconds for a bitten person to become a zombie? > > Why did the giant Israeli security fence lack any kind of zombie detection gear or weaponry facing outwards? Why was there not an inner and outer fence? > > **Sadly, I spent much of the movie thinking stuff like that.** Same here. They showed the Israeli wall and apparently on the outside the zombies were swarming everywehre. Enough to build a tower up the side of the wall. But at the same time inside the wall they were receiving refugees from.. where?? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/182 "2013-07-08T15:57:44Z")
[QUOTE=Malthus] Just how hard could it be to defeat an enemy that is brainlessly attracted to noise? [/QUOTE] Hopefully not too much of a spoiler, but in the later part of the book, when the US goes on the offensive, one of the tactics they use is simply to have a soldier to to the roof of a cleared building next to an infested building and then just make a lot of noise so the zombies would come to the roof and fall off as they try and reach the soldier. Then send in a few troops to clear any that were trapped or unable to get to the roof for some reason and move on to the next one. > [@](#): > > And how does a plague spread all over the world, if it takes only minutes or seconds for a bitten person to become a zombie? Yeah, that’s a bit of a disconnect. One reason really deadly viruses like ebola don’t spread around the world is that they basically kill so quickly. Something like what happened in the movie, even assuming that when it started out there was a bit longer incubation, just seems so unrealistic. Of course, in the book you had much longer incubation periods, so you’d have the population fleeing to supposed safe refuges and then there being outbreaks within those safe havens that would then infect those areas, since you couldn’t tell the infected from the clean (several countries in the book finally decide to basically cut most of the population loose and let them fend for themselves instead of trying to protect so many, especially when they couldn’t tell the infected from the clean until it was too late). Most likely this is what happened to the bulk of the North Korean population, at least that’s the speculation, as no one knows (in the book). > [@](#): > > Why did the giant Israeli security fence lack any kind of zombie detection gear or weaponry facing outwards? Why was there not an inner and outer fence? Pretty stupid. Why didn’t they build a defense in depth? Basically, just dig a deep hole around the place with fences and barbed wire, perhaps filled with some sort of inflammatory agent so that if the zombies rushed the first defenses they could be periodically barbequed and the defenses reset. Plus, watch towers all around with machine guns and snipers, perhaps with automated flame throwers as well? Seems fairly simple. OR…you could just wall in the population and hope for the best, with perhaps the odd helicopter flying about just in case. 😛 > [@](#): > > Sadly, I spent much of the movie thinking stuff like that. Generally I pick movies apart on the ride home. While I’m watching it, unless it’s really, really bad I just go with the flow. Some of my favorite movies have HUGE plot holes in them, and I’ve spent hours mentally picking them apart afterwards. But I still enjoy them while I’m watching them, and in most cases will watch them again and again if they come on one of my satellite channels later on. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/183 "2013-07-08T16:29:05Z")
> [@interface2x](#): > > It’s a little more complicated than that - [This article](http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/06/brad-pitt-world-war-z-drama) has a pretty detailed run-down of the development of the movie. It’s worth a read. From that article - > [@](#): > > From the start, Forster’s approach to the material clashed with Stra czyn ski’s. “Marc wanted to make a big, huge action movie that wasn’t terribly smart and had big, huge action pieces in it,” said Stra czynski. “If all you wanted to do was an empty-headed Rambo-versus-the-zombies action film, why option this really elegant, smart book?” This is, in my opinion, exactly what went wrong between the book and the movie. Cost overruns for huge battle scenes? Don’t do huge battle scenes, you idiots! As others have said, do _one_ huge battle scene (the Battle of Yonkers), and do it right to get a real feeling for how overwhelming the zombies are, but make the rest of the movie small and thoughtful. Long, endless, costly action scenes are boring, anyway. Gah. Hollywood has disappeared so far up their own assholes, it’s a wonder they make _anything_ worth watching. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Dollar\_Tallboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Two\_Dollar\_Tallboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Dollar_Tallboy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/184 "2013-07-08T16:42:01Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > From that article - This is, in my opinion, exactly what went wrong between the book and the movie. Cost overruns for huge battle scenes? Don’t do huge battle scenes, you idiots! As others have said, do _one_ huge battle scene (the Battle of Yonkers), and do it right to get a real feeling for how overwhelming the zombies are, but make the rest of the movie small and thoughtful. Long, endless, costly action scenes are boring, anyway. Gah. Hollywood has disappeared so far up their own assholes, it’s a wonder they make _anything_ worth watching. This pretty much sums up my thoughts. I guess they figured the title alone would be enough of a draw to get people to see it and screw actually adapting the book. I hate it when movies are edited by focus groups, but how hard would it have been to send a couple of interns to a comic con to survey people about what they would want to see in a WWZ movie? Do the studios not conduct any market research anymore? ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/185 "2013-07-08T16:51:49Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Zombies are not an existential threat. Did you see the movie? These ones were. Every major population center was seeded, and the infection moved at the speed of a sprint (or even faster if they got onto vehicles). It looked like the world went to about 70% zombie in a matter of hours. > [@Malthus](#): > > And how does a plague spread all over the world, if it takes only minutes or seconds for a bitten person to become a zombie? They did a super-bad job of explaining this in the movie, and the explanation doesn’t actually make much sense anyway, but the claim is that the incubation period was much longer for the first few victims. Long enough that they spread throughout the world via air traffic, then basically erupted from every major population center at the same time. Of course, we then see that Israel still has air traffic going until Jerusalem falls. Which doesn’t make any sense at all. If they build a wall to keep zombies out, but leave the airport inside the wall and keep running planes, then they should have been overrun from the get-go like anything else. When I was watching it, I kept thinking that the confusion on incubation time was a result of massive rewrites and no one in the production able to enforce a consistent and coherent vision for how this was supposed to work. One of the problems with the zombie genre is that neither fast (incubating) nor slow (walking) zombies could actually pose an existential threat. The 28-days later/WWZ movie zombies have too short an incubation period to spread overseas. Slow walking zombies are simply not enough of a threat to people in the longer term. You need to have some carriers who take a long time to zombify. Such a thing was speculated about in WWZ, but never actually shown, which is pretty terrible film making. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/186 "2013-07-08T18:06:09Z")
> [@Two\_Dollar\_Tallboy](#): > > This pretty much sums up my thoughts. I guess they figured the title alone would be enough of a draw to get people to see it and screw actually adapting the book. I hate it when movies are edited by focus groups, but how hard would it have been to send a couple of interns to a comic con to survey people about what they would want to see in a WWZ movie? Do the studios not conduct any market research anymore? Unfortunately it worked for me, I liked the book and I like Brad Pitt so that was enough for me to shell out on a cinema ticket. I prefer to go into a movie ‘cold’ with as little knowledge of it as possible _(which vastly improves the experience in my opinion)_, and I didn’t think it would actually be possible to make a bad movie of World War Z but they managed it. > [@interface2x](#): > > It’s a little more complicated than that - [This article](http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/06/brad-pitt-world-war-z-drama) has a pretty detailed run-down of the development of the movie. It’s worth a read. Thanks, haven’t read it yet but I will. > [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > From that article - This is, in my opinion, exactly what went wrong between the book and the movie. Cost overruns for huge battle scenes? Don’t do huge battle scenes, you idiots! As others have said, do _one_ huge battle scene (the Battle of Yonkers), and do it right to get a real feeling for how overwhelming the zombies are, but make the rest of the movie small and thoughtful. Long, endless, costly action scenes are boring, anyway. Gah. Hollywood has disappeared so far up their own assholes, it’s a wonder they make _anything_ worth watching. Agreed, I thought the Battle of Jerusalem was actually pretty well done but it was no Battle of Yonkers… 😉 > [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Did you see the movie? These ones were. Every major population center was seeded, and the infection moved at the speed of a sprint (or even faster if they got onto vehicles). It looked like the world went to about 70% zombie in a matter of hours. I think the movie was extremely badly paced, it went from ‘alls well’ to ‘oh my god we’re all going to die’ with nothing inbetween, in the age of the internet and satellite TV I think you’d at least hear rumours that something strange is going on, especially if you’re someone from a former career as Pitts character was. But I may have missed something in the opening part of it. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/187 "2013-07-08T18:11:14Z")
The question remains: did Madagascar close its ports? 😃 [/Pandemic game reference] ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/188 "2013-07-08T18:24:35Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Hopefully not too much of a spoiler, but in the later part of the book, when the US goes on the offensive, one of the tactics they use is simply to have a soldier to to the roof of a cleared building next to an infested building and then just make a lot of noise so the zombies would come to the roof and fall off as they try and reach the soldier. Then send in a few troops to clear any that were trapped or unable to get to the roof for some reason and move on to the next one. Or just have a really loud clapper moored offshore, in very deep water. 😃 > [@](#): > > Yeah, that’s a bit of a disconnect. One reason really deadly viruses like ebola don’t spread around the world is that they basically kill so quickly. Something like what happened in the movie, even assuming that when it started out there was a bit longer incubation, just seems so unrealistic. > > Of course, in the book you had much longer incubation periods, so you’d have the population fleeing to supposed safe refuges and then there being outbreaks within those safe havens that would then infect those areas, since you couldn’t tell the infected from the clean (several countries in the book finally decide to basically cut most of the population loose and let them fend for themselves instead of trying to protect so many, especially when they couldn’t tell the infected from the clean until it was too late). Most likely this is what happened to the bulk of the North Korean population, at least that’s the speculation, as no one knows (in the book). That would spoil the ‘hum de dum, off to school today … OMG ZOMBIES!’ thing in the movie, I guess. 😉 > [@](#): > > Pretty stupid. Why didn’t they build a defense in depth? Basically, just dig a deep hole around the place with fences and barbed wire, perhaps filled with some sort of inflammatory agent so that if the zombies rushed the first defenses they could be periodically barbequed and the defenses reset. Plus, watch towers all around with machine guns and snipers, perhaps with automated flame throwers as well? Seems fairly simple. > > OR…you could just wall in the population and hope for the best, with perhaps the odd helicopter flying about just in case. 😛 For that matter, the current Israeli border wall actually makes a better and more sensible defence than the one shown in the movie! 😃 > [@](#): > > Most of the barrier (over 95% of total length) consists of a “multi-layered fence system”.[33][34] The IDF’s preferred design has three fences, with pyramid-shaped stacks of barbed wire for the two outer fences and a lighter-weight fence with intrusion detection equipment in the middle. Patrol roads are provided on both sides of the middle fence, an anti-vehicle ditch is located on the West Bank side of the fence, and a smooth dirt strip on the Israeli side for “intrusion tracking”. > > Some sections (less than 5% of total length) are constructed as a wall made up of concrete slabs up to 8 m in height and 3 m in width.[35] Occasionally, due to topographic conditions other sections of the barrier will reach up to 100 m in width.[36] Wall construction (5%) is more common in urban settings, such as areas near Qalqilyah and Jerusalem, because it is narrower, requires less land, and provides more protection against snipers. In all cases there are regular observation posts, automated sensing devices and other apparatuses. Gates at various points are controlled by Israeli soldiers. > **[West Bank barrier | Structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_West_Bank_barrier#Structure)** > > The barrier is described by the Israeli Defense Forces as a "multi-layered composite obstacle", parts of it consisting of a 9 metres (30 ft) high concrete wall, while other stretches consist of a multi-layered fence system, with three fences with pyramid-shaped stacks of barbed wire on the two outer fences and a lighter-weight fence with intrusion detection equipment in the middle; an anti-vehicle ditch; patrol roads on both sides; and a smooth strip of sand for "intrusion tracking". > Where the m... > [@](#): > > Generally I pick movies apart on the ride home. While I’m watching it, unless it’s really, really bad I just go with the flow. Some of my favorite movies have HUGE plot holes in them, and I’ve spent hours mentally picking them apart afterwards. But I still enjoy them while I’m watching them, and in most cases will watch them again and again if they come on one of my satellite channels later on. I was along for the adrenaline ride, in part - I mean, what’s not to like about running from zombies? - But _too_ much silliness has the undesireable side effect of jolting my brain out of its happy popcorn-fueled adventure movie haze. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/189 "2013-07-09T16:45:04Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > I think the movie was extremely badly paced, it went from ‘alls well’ to ‘oh my god we’re all going to die’ with nothing inbetween, in the age of the internet and satellite TV I think you’d at least hear rumours that something strange is going on, especially if you’re someone from a former career as Pitts character was. But I may have missed something in the opening part of it. I agree. And, no, you didn’t miss anything. The pacing was terrible and the explanation about the incubation period changing was only barely offered. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/190 "2013-07-10T04:55:22Z")
> [@Two\_Dollar\_Tallboy](#): > > This pretty much sums up my thoughts. I guess they figured the title alone would be enough of a draw to get people to see it and screw actually adapting the book. I hate it when movies are edited by focus groups, but how hard would it have been to send a couple of interns to a comic con to survey people about what they would want to see in a WWZ movie? Do the studios not conduct any market research anymore? I don’t know what’s going on in Hollywood. I suspect that it is a fairly small, insular group, and they’re so busy blowing the same smoke up each other’s asses that they are completely out of touch with the people going to see movies. > [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > \ > One of the problems with the zombie genre is that neither fast (incubating) nor slow (walking) zombies could actually pose an existential threat. The 28-days later/WWZ movie zombies have too short an incubation period to spread overseas. Slow walking zombies are simply not enough of a threat to people in the longer term. You need to have some carriers who take a long time to zombify. Such a thing was speculated about in WWZ, but never actually shown, which is pretty terrible film making. I think the best solution to zombie infection questions is from “The Walking Dead,” where you have infections from bites as well as every human being re-animating when they die from any cause. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/191 "2013-07-10T06:36:27Z")
Overall I liked the movie. I thought it was evocative of a zombie apocalypse- I don’t really want to see a zombie movie that takes place in one neighborhood, or in one city, but the whole world. And the cloak of invisibility thing was a twist. The characters really weren’t taking glee in blowing away zombies- they may have been strange or sometimes shallow as characters, but they didn’t seem to let go of the notion that the zombies were sick _people_, and treated them as gently as circumstances allowed. That said, I 100% expected to see the Battle of Yonkers. And yeah, the development of the zombie plague was shrunk down to nothing- in the book it played out over quite some time and was a story buried under the cynical, fake vaccine Phalanx, which made the people think this new plague was nothing to fear… Ah well. I guess the perfect zombie movie hasn’t been made yet, but I’ve seen worse than World War Z. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/192 "2013-07-10T15:58:40Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > \ > > Ah well. I guess the perfect zombie movie hasn’t been made yet, but I’ve seen worse than World War Z. You have Netflix too, eh? Man, those one star zombie movies are something else! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/193 "2013-07-10T16:41:03Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I think the best solution to zombie infection questions is from “The Walking Dead,” where you have infections from bites as well as every human being re-animating when they die from any cause. I liked the solution given in a book called \* Autumn \* by David Moody. In this world 99% of the population of the world drop dead in a matter of minutes everywhere on the planet leaving the survivors in shock and alone. A few days later a large percentage of the dead stand up. They start barely able to move but over time they become more mobile. This gives the survivors some time to organise etc. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244/194 "2014-02-10T19:59:07Z")
Just saw it over the weekend on DVD. I’m not particularly a zombie-movie fan. I hadn’t read the book and I enjoyed the movie - some very tense, scary moments. I would definitely have liked to see one big set-piece battle, the military vs. the zombies. But I liked the ending, all in all - hopeful but not “ho-hum, all’s well.” Several times in Phildelphia they showed zombies intentionally headbutting car windshields and windows to break in - would a skull actually withstand that kind of force? Nice in-joke: the new Doctor Who, Peter Capaldi, appears in the Welsh lab at the end as… a W.H.O. doctor. > [@Loach](#): > > …The zeke was not in the bathroom. That was the elevator to the below deck storage. I assumed one got into the wheel well while it was taxiing or the pilots were figuring out where to go. I just didn’t buy that it would remain quiet until the stewardess opened that door, though. It would’ve been moaning and howling and scratching to get out, I think. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-z-the-movie-thread-open-spoilers/661244.md?page=9)