Episode 189: World War Z!

[Gilberto]

Sean, Greg and Andrew talk about World War Z and This is the End as a study of comparative apocalypse and survival strategy. There's also some talk about Star Wars, Game of Thrones and Superman, so have a drink ready.

Episode 189

[malus]

TVAMD! An opposing opinion approaches!!! <3

This movie actually made me mad. Mad, like a dog. Not angry, like a person.

I am the kind of movie go-er that completely gets absorbed by movies. I just go to have fun. I am not one of those analytical types that is huffing and puffing the whole way through the movie because things, “don’t add up”, or I’ve already figured out who the killer is, or someone is using a gun the wrong way.

I’m not a movie critic. I just enjoy movies that are fun.

That said, (big disclaimer, right?) I had a hard time with this film.

Maybe my expectations were too high? Or, I just thought I was going to go see a ZOMBIE film?

Hollywood has proven once again that if you throw a big name actor and $200 million of CGI at a monster I will gladly queue up at midnight the night before release and pay $7 for greasy popcorn.

I left disappointed and feeling sorta cheated. Was there ANY story here?

Here are a few questions that the movie should have done a better job answering for me:
-Who the hell exactly was Brad Pitt’s character and why was he so important that the U.S. Gov’t had to risk one of their few last precious resources to go get him off a roof?
-Why does Brad Pitt, who is some sort of crack, in and out, commando, (IDK, I guess he’s like Hannibal from the A-Team?) have to be practically blackmailed to help, during the apocalypse, by threatening to use his family as zombie chow? Is this to illustrate how evil the gov’t is? (Pls be aware that I was raised on the leftist coast and also distrust the gov’t but isn’t this trope tired yet?) This whole thing is STALE. Ref: Women in Refrigerators.
-What was the narrative purpose of adopting the little brown child? Did Angelina have something to do with the script? (For anyone that worries, I come from an interracial family, I’m not being mean, promise!- it was just weird in the context of the story.) Maybe little brown children are the new people in refrigerators?
-Where did the zombies come from? How long do they last? Do we know anything about them?
-You have this billy-bad ass nation of Israel that basically nukes fishing boats when they are feeling Pms-y and while they can build a virtual great wall of China around Israel, they can’t defend it from one teeth on legs falling over? Really? I’d like to talk to the 10th man about napalm, nukes, canals, trench warfare, Idk…bird netting?
-Who else survived the plane crash? Did anyone find it odd that only Brad Pitt and his companion were able to limp through a zombie infested Wales after they blew a GRENADE up in an airplane?
-Does the ending feel weird? Explained well enough? Like what if I had a really bad sinus infection? Would that do it? Or has it gotta be freaking SARS? I hears SARS wasn’t actually THAT bad. What about mental instability? Couldn’t they just tell I was too nucking futs to bother with?

I have more questions, but I think it’s on the movie to explain these things. Unlike in Prometheus, where I will gladly make up the other half of the movie IN MY MIND, because I want to like it and because I love Ridley Scott and his Alien mythos. And to a great extent I’m willing to do that for this or any other movie, but shouldn’t WWZ have been a “check your brain at the door” movie, more in keeping with summer blockbusters like Iron Man?

Here is what I did like:
-LOVED the traffic jam in the beginning and the resultant chaos.
-I liked a LOT of the ideas that were presented in the movie that unfortunately never got fleshed out, like Israel being smart in advance and preparing and being ok, at least for like 30 minutes until after Brad Pitt got there. (Arya Stark?) He has some epically bad timing but that’s what makes it a movie.
-BEST PART OF THE MOVIE: Virologist shooting himself in the head. Win. I am not a morbid person, but that was funny.

I wish I could get my money back and send it in to TVAMD. I enjoyed your podcast more than this movie, and didn’t feel cheated in the end, even though Andrew can’t maintain a connection. Just felt like a bunch of half realized good ideas, and old action/ zombie movie clichés, thrown into one great big bowl and tossed about with Pitt vinaigrette. I felt myself going, “Ok, Next, Ok, Next…….”. You’re right!- JUST like a video game! Build up to the end boss, ok, next level. It was strangely exciting and boring at the same time and by the end, I almost wanted to see that snapper take Brad Pitts face off. REBOOT! NOW GOD MOADE!!!!

Compare two other zombie movies you mentioned to this one. I am Legend, and 24 Days Later. Let’s agree that I am Legend may have been one of the most worthless movies ever made. Ugg. God, I hate that movie, I don’t like Will Smith, they slaughter a sacred cow, (they killed the dog, ONLY John Carpenter can get away with that, duh), and the CGI was LAUGHABLE. WWZ follows the IaL model, big name actor, (IIRC, Cillian Murphy was still pretty unknown at the time), lots of special effects, CGI up the ying yang, shitty story, and an “Us vs. the Monsters” direction. It wasn’t scary. It wasn’t anything. I know people who like it, but I won’t drink with them anymore. I’d much rather watch Omega Man with you damn dirty apes.

Ok, now look at 24 Days Later. 24D scared the piss and tears out of me. In fact, I’m going watch that again tonight just to make sure I’m not overstating myself. Incidental CGI, like blood drops splattering into eyes. Some semblance of a story. Most important to a zombie movie, IMHO, a zombie movie is about “Us vs. Us”. That’s what these other movies seem to be lacking. That’s what, to me, was so compelling about these cold war monsters and zombie/ alien/ body snatcher films, was that, what we were fighting, was us. In IaL, and in WWZ, that’s TOTALLY gone from the narrative. It’s there, only because the monster Du Jour happens to be a zombie. It adds NOTHING to the story. You could CGI in the alien bugs from Starship Troopers and it wouldn’t change the story one bit. Could be the Alien Xenomorph. Slimer from Ghostbusters. Wtvr.

The original Romero, Night of the Living Dead? ONLY the ZOMBIE. Us. That was the whole movie. That was the whole story. In 24D, that was the movie. Was there anything more chilling than when that lady slaughtered her own partner before he raged out? While he begged for mercy? That movie was a claustrophobic nightmare. Physically and psychologically. I guess I think a zombie is an intimate monster, one that gets up inside you before it tears you apart. In the WWZ book, most of society dies not to zombie bites but to depression. People just give up. That’s what a zombie is. It’s an animated body with no soul. The WWZ movie was a zombie.

Ok. So WWZ was an action film. Fine. Was it a good action film? IDK. I guess I’ll DL it later and watch it again and try not to be such a sourpuss. "Game over man! Game over!"

A FINAL NOTE- (wow! I am sorry to sound off like this! What crawled up my hoo-ha today?)
On helicopters.
No.
I am convinced that helicopters only look like a great zombie plan BECAUSE movies with big budgets LOVE to spend money on them. I think that there is some rule in Hollywood that any movie that costs over $75 million dollars to make MUST include a helicopter.
Living on the coast, my zombie apocalypse vehicle is the pontoon party boat. I can walk to the Intercoastal waterway from my house. I will stock it with my small arsenal of rifles, shotguns, bows, arrows, pistols, and beer. I plan to float right on out to the Bahamas. What could possibly go wrong on a pontoon boat full of small caliber carbines and beer?
I think you should revise your escape plan friend.
<3

[Gilberto]

All excellent points.

I think I went in with a lower expectation, expecting this to be an action movie blockbuster take on zombies, which it was.

They could have offered more background to explain why Brad Pitt was someone they inherently believed would be an ace zombie commando even though no one had ever encountered them before. It might be enough to accept that most everyone else was killed pretty much immediately, but a little character development would have been nice. And I agree that his reluctance to help when the world was clearly ending was contrived.

No real opinion on their adopted brown child, except to wonder if he would have been given a spot on the aircraft carrier just because they brought him along.

I think you're right about the "family in peril" being the new Women in Refrigerators. Most movies, even horror movies, these days are built around a threat to family or children specifically, indicating that the target audience of these films (or more likely the filmmakers themselves) is on the rise. Your average 18 -24 year old doesn't give a damn about people's families or their kids because they don't yet have any of their own.

The device of every place going to Hell as soon as Brad Pitt gets there is an obvious action movie convention. The story would work better without it, but they wanted every set piece to have a heightened element of suspense to drive the movie forward. Same goes for why he and his friend are the only ones who live simply because they're principal characters. I forgive it as a movie thing, but you're right that it is not forgivable from a story perspective.

The sad truth is, and I have said this before, is that zombie movies are essentially over. The embrace of zombies by the mainstream has brought them into blase' fare like action films and the Walking Dead TV show, but nothing drives the genre forward anymore.

The two most important zombie movies of the last ten years are the two that brought zombies into the mainstream and gave us fast zombies to boot. Those are 28 Days Later, which officially gave us fast zombies even though they were not technically the living dead, and the Dawn of the Dead remake, which was clearly influenced by 28 Days Later and married the fast zombie concept to the traditional zombie genre. WWZ is basically a bigger budget larger scale version of the DOTD remake, giving us an outbreak of epic proportions. But those epic proportions rob us of the intimate character interplay that is essential to telling an effective zombie story.

I'm a little confused about the resolution too. Infecting people with viruses temporarily camouflages them from zombies, but at some point they will have to be cured of those ailments or that will kill them anyway. It's not a home run remedy for avoiding zombies. There's a reason they don't want to infect you; because you're already at death's door anyway. I do think it's a neat idea, but it could use a deeper examination.

I will not accept that helicopters are anything other than total salvation, however. This goes back to the low budget days too. In the original Day of the Dead it's a helicopter that gets them out of harm's way. It's not as practical a solution as I'd like, because everyone doesn't just have access to helicopters, but I still think that's the best bet. The only comparable low budget solution is dirt bikes.

Boats seem like the way to go (where water is available), but based solely on how they've played out in movies, I have to remain dubious. Every time they try to escape by boat it goes horribly wrong. I'm not saying it wouldn't work, but the research thus far doesn't support it.

[malus]

Ugh!

First, I wrote the above post in a hurry to get to my Granny’s house and called Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, by accident, in my post! How confusing!

I meant, Night of the Living Dead. I’m sorry!

So, I’m going back now to edit that for clarity. Derp. DAMMIT!

Second, Sean- are you pulling my leg about the whole success of helicopters in zombie movies thing?

I have a reputation for being REALLY gullible! So I am confused!

Just in the movies we were talking about, in IaL, Will Smith loses his family in a helicopter crash. In WWZ, the Israeli military helicopter is brought down by a zed ant pile, and in 28 Weeks later, the movie ends with a helicopter crash.

I’d like to reference the “HellishCopter” trope- (or any of its sub-tropes: Helicopter Flyswatter, Helicopter Blender, or the Short Lived Aerial Escape)

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HellishCopter

A few monster movies where absconding in the Helicopter did not pay off in the end: Aliens, Avatar, Jaws 2, Cloverfield, Godzilla, Predator, and Aliens vs. Pred., etc…

"Watch enough action movies, and you soon realize that the only thing more dangerous than being on a helicopter is wearing a V-neck Red Shirt or being the slutty girl in a Friday the 13th movie. They've been described as 50,000 parts flying in close formation."

Now let’s go back to the dumb mistake I made earlier, - DAWN of the Dead.

Ok, so there. There was a successful Helicopter. AT FIRST. But that was Romero, and he had a message. He wasn’t really constructing a battle plan against zombies.

I need to say, I only saw the 1978 version.
I should really see the remake before commenting, but let me throw some ideas out before watching it. (DLing 2004 while I type.)

In Dawn, I think Romero’s message changes from a comment about the anti commie hysteria of the 50s and 60s to a commentary about his disgust with the ever increasing growth of the consumer society of the 70s. You have the social problems of Vietnam and Nixon, but also the shallow culture that brought us Disco and the mall. So he asks questions about what's really important, at that time, in the face of possibly impending doom. The protagonists are literally looking at zombies on one side of the mall glass, and dressing up in fancy clothes on the other! Their original plan was to take that helicopter and escape to the mythical north, away from this corrupt place where they would be safe, (like draft dodgers?) but they get seduced by these material things. They could have left at any time, but they stay for the goodies. They are their own undoing. The helicopter is the symbol of hope. They’re constantly toying around with it, but never leaving. Remember, it was Francine learning to fly the helicopter that brought the bikers that let the zombies into the mall to kill our Heroes.

I also think it’s interesting that the original ending written for the movie meant for Peter to shoot himself in the head and Francine to suicide herself by running her head into the helicopter blades. The HELICOPTER blades specifically. No survivors. The final shot was to show the helicopter blades slowly winding down after the battle showing that the gas tank was nearly empty anyway, a comment, I think, on Romero’s feeling about hope for our nations soul.

Ok! Thanks for the discussion! WOW! I guess I needed to get that OUT! Sorry to go on so! I just finished DLing the 2004 version of Dawn! I did not know it was Zack Snyder. Duh again!

I will have to go comb the forum and see if you guys have some thread theory crafting anywhere on what to do in case of real SHTF scenarios. So far mine basically includes turning out all the lights and having deep meaningful conversations with my cats! ;D

I hope my stash of microwave popcorn does not run out. Oh, wait. Microwaves run on……

[malus]

OOooooooooh!

Just finished Dawn of the Dead 2004.

NOW I SEE your point about the BOAT! ;D

Hrmmmm.... reconsidering the pontoon party barge!

[Gilberto]

Yeah, aside from the aircraft carrier, which was mostly self-sustaining, the boat idea breaks down because eventually it has to take you to land.

Also, water zombies are not to be discounted. In House of the Dead the zombies swim and in Lucio Fulci's Zombie, it actually fights a shark underwater.

[Gilberto]

I see some of your point about the helicopters, but I still think overall they are a benefit more than a liability.

In Predator, the helicopter airlifts them out of a nuclear crater. That's pretty helpful.
Even in Cloverfield, where they get swatted down, they were still better off for having gotten on it. Maybe. Seems they would have died a lot sooner.
In Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead helicopters are still the best way of getting around.

Aside from I Am Legend and Jaws 2, most of the time you see helicopters not working out it is because they're being used offensively instead of simply for rescue. In WWZ they're attacking zombies with helicopters, so inevitably one's gonna get pulled down. In Die Hard the FBI guys go on an attack run against the terrorists and they of course get taken down. In Aliens the airship is going in because they want to blast the aliens, but I guess you could make the argument either way, since it's purpose was airlifting the marines out after the attack.

But there may actually be a deeper message when it comes to helicopters and how they're used.

It's probably just that there is no guaranteed method of getting out. Maybe dirt bikes are the better way to go.

[malus]

Thank you for this lovely gem, I hadn’t seen it in many years and it brightened up my day:



Zombi 2, is the ultimate “Island Zombie” movie isn’t it? Other than Pirates of the Caribbean, I can’t really think off the top of my head of any other watery zombie flicks. ;D The interwebs suggest Shock Waves, from 1977. I’ll have to IMDB that. *EDIT- I JUST IMDB'd this movie- before I even read any further, Peter Cushing and NAZI ZOMBIES. That is all. How quickly can I DL this?

“most of the time you see helicopters not working out it is because they're being used offensively instead of simply for rescue.”

That’s a GREAT point!

Maybe that’s the lesson right there? You got to know when to hold ‘em, and know when to GET ON THE CHOPPA!

It really is the stupid things people are doing with them. You are absolutely right. That said, I think if I’m in a zombie movie and my best/ last option is to run to the top of a very tall building and wait for a helicopter, I’ve already made a string of bad decisions.

I’m with you on the dirt bikes. You talking Enduros, or Mopeds?

Really, I’m more of a bunker down in disasters kind of person anyway. Just think I’d like to face impending doom in the comfort of my own home:



And then there are the those simple rules to follow:



So if Zombie movies classically reflected our societal fears or concerns, and you were going to come up with your own movie now, what would it revolve around?

Fear of ideological differences and racial tension like in Night of the Living Dead, Consumer Society like in Dawn of the Living Dead, breakdown of the nuclear family like in Zombieland, (am I stretching?), modern male identity in Sean of the Dead, (now Im waaay out thar!)?

[lynn]

Oh man, you had to bring Tropes into it? Now I lost half my day!
I think we can all agree that movie helicopters are great, it's really down to the monster as to how they go. I mean, they don't tend to do well against some monsters... sea creatures in particular seem to be strong against sharks, but if there was a helicopter ready to go you'd totally take that option. The thing I like about them in zombie movies is that you're probably going to be stuck somewhere unable to get to your flight plan, so you're most likely going to end up on the top of some sort of building, in need of rescue. And if you've got a movie chopper it can probably do loop-the-loops and dodge stuff and go cold and you can totally fall out of it and it will catch you, and any old person can pilot them. In real life they take a good half-hour to start up and you really need an experienced pilot and they're not good in dodgy weather conditions... but in real life I'm pretty sure a shark couldn't eat one, so it might even out.
I like boats too, and probably best would be to get some sort of floatation device then lash you some zombie corpses to the outsie, Watchmen-style, that may repell any swimming zombies and also sharks and things. Might hinder your fishing operations though, gotta be careful with how you do it. I think if you had a big military grade vessel that you could trick out, maybe get you some plants and animals on board and stuff, if would be better than a chopper in the long-term capacity as a base-of-ops.
Unfortunately I can't comment on the movie because summer movies are like Nuclear radiation in Australia; they get here last.

[lynn]

Oh, and what I forgot to mention about Cloverfield is that the chopper actually is a great method of getting away, they just leave it too late and they forget about the aquatic monster rule. If you watch the blu ray you learn that the hot chick in heels gets away that way, as well as many other unnamed characters before our heroes attempt it. It specifically mentions that the pilot who dies in their crash saved butt-loads of people before he was unfortunate enough to try to save the dudes antagonising the beast by shouting out it. Come on, after it's already been shot at with some massive gun-things? That's just rude.
Actually I might comment on WWZ, just based on what you've said and what I've read about the whole hail mary at the end being infect yourself and the zombies won't eat you, but it really seems to me that if zombies have a sophisticated enough sensory array to know when their food source is infected too badly to consume then we really should be putting them to better use medically. They could be a great quick screening device for hospitals, just so the doctor can tell if they need to do further testing cos their patient is in danger. Do they do drugs as well? They could be better than sniffer dogs at airports, whose accuracy is questionable. Really these zombies have a range of functions that I don't believe the government is utilising at all.

[Gilberto]

I didn't see Zombie 2 or Shock Waves, so I guess I need to get on the stick. Dead Snow had Nazi Zombies too. That one was pretty awesome.

I guess any offroad-capable dirt bike will work. They just need to be able to maneuver through obstacles like abandoned vehicles and prone humans.

We may have discussed the difference between slow and fast zombies in terms of the message. Slow zombies were about paranoia and man in conflict with his fellow man in the face of an overwhelming threat. I think fast zombies are more overtly about our fear of epidemics, so it's more about self-interest than it is character conflict.

The resolution in WWZ is a little hard to swallow because they don't explain it well enough. It was a neat idea, but they treat it like "problem solved!" What else can zombies do if they can smell any form of sickness? That is a good point. What else can they do?

[malus]

Hey Guys! Hey Lynn!

Sorry to be off for a bit! Crazy summer vacation!

Lol! at your idea of sniffer Zombies Lynn! That was one of the best parts of Sean of the Dead for me, the end, where they show the aftermath of the Zed invasion, where we are callously enjoying pitting Zombies against each other in game shows, etc... I'm thinking you may be on to something here!

Oh, BTW! - Just watched SHARKNADO. Guess what the finale included? That's right! Salvation by helicopter. Results? Lets just say, "Mixed". I don't want to ruin the epic conclusion of this SyFy gem for yall! <3

Please do sacrifice the bandwidth to download this one. It's worth watching Los Angeles being flooded by a "Hurricane", (aren't they Tsunamis when they occur in the Pacific?), and terrorized by water spouts full of man eating sharks. Also, please count the number of times, on average, the character Nova, pumps her shotgun before shooting it. She got up to four Kuchuck-Kuchucks, at one point. There may be a drinking game in this.




Edit- Oh, and BTW, Sean, skip SHOCK WAVES, - meh.

Meh, at best. And that's after my glowing, made for basic cable TV with Tara Reid and Ian Ziering, SHARKNADO, movie review.

[lynn]

Oh yes, I've seen Sharknado. It's a complete gem of a movie. Apparently it was intended to be bad, but it's like a great movie, those things happen by divine intervention a bit, it's a bit of film magic that makes something a truly great or truly horrific invention. It's bad beyond the level that a mortal can plan. Are you joking about the Tsunami bit? That's a Tidal wave wherever it is, a Hurrican where I live is aka a Cyclone. The tornados filled with angry snapping sharks defy all logic. The way they "kill" them defies logic and science, but is very Captain Kirk, so I approve. The ending got the biggest incredulous laugh from both me and my husband. There is no way to make sense of this movie, so I think a drinking game is possibly the best plan for watching it. But there's so many options; drink every time the lighting changes? Dead in ten minutes. Drink every time the level of the water changes? Maybe you'll survive half way. Every scientific inaccuracy? You won't even get past the first scene. Even if you drink every time there's a massive logic error in procedures you won't make it through the movie, not even counting the little errors...

[Gilberto]

I keep missing this one. I heard it even got released in theaters for a midnight showing here in the US because there was so much buzz about it. Supposedly it's on demand but I haven't found it.