Testing Chat IV: A New Hope

[weemadando]

So the humble bundle thing is now doing ebooks
http://www.humblebundle.com/
has anyone read any of these, and are they any good?

The first collection had some excellent titles, I want to be confident that their curation has continued.

[Djinnkitty83]

Oh also, rejoice, in that if the movie took some inspiration from the source material, it managed to take only the good / interesting bits and pieces and left out the rest.

For example, the military is portrayed as competent, but overwhelmed. No battle of Yonkers.

On the one hand, I liked that the ten-second conversion time sidestepped the military issue: If one zombie got into a crowded area of a city, even if you could completely mobilize in just ten minutes, you've probably already lost a majority of the city by that time.

The flip-side is that it represented the one area of the movie that strained my suspension of disbelief. The zombies convert in ten seconds, or if dialogue is to be believed, in ten minutes at the longest. Yet when talking about the spread of zombies, whatshisname was saying that international flights were what got them to all continents. I find that hard to believe: Ten seconds or ten minutes, anyone infected with that zombiebug is going to convert waaaay before the flight's over, and raging superzombies taking over planes is the kind of thing that makes the destination country enact a very quick quarantine around the landing area at least, or just shoot it down over the ocean to be safe.

Whatever, the plot resolution device if you want.

One thing I really liked about the movie is that the zombiebug was literally a macguffin. It was never explained or defined, it could have been a virus, bacteria, a weird allergic reaction, or evil gods giving supernatural pokes to those infected. It didn't need to be defined, its purpose was to drive the plot and characters forward, expressed in the form of angry dead things biting people and turning those people into more angry dead things. The movie obviously borrowed from Romero in that regard and avoided a whole lot of explanatory hassle, which I can appreciate.

Likewise the cure didn't need to be explained. It wasn't any specific vaccine, it was far more symbolic in fighting the undefined nature of the infection with an undefined antidote of making you appear unsuitable for infection. This way you don't leave an opening for thousands of angry nerds jumping up and down screaming about the scientific implausibility of it.

----------

Overall I think I liked the atmosphere of the movie most. More than any other zombiefilm I've seen, it seems to capture the essence that, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, no matter where in the world you go, you will never be fully safe. It captured that part of the horror element perfectly in my opinion.

[timmy]

You guys know that when it comes to movies I'm easy to please, right?

I didn't get into it. Did not capture me. Spent the whole thing very much aware I was watching a film that just barely tried to be connected to its source material.

And Yonkers didn't bother me. I bought into the artistic licence of that bit. The later talk about resource/kill ratio helped.

[weemadando]

The fast turning thing is precisely what made the Rage virus self-quarantining. The lack of an incubation period and rapidity of going fully symptomatic means that you aren't even going to get a chance to BOARD a flight, let alone turn on board.

It sounds like WWZ zombies should suffer from the same issue. But... don't? Or is there a plot event that lets them get on board?

[timmy]

In the movie, there is an actual, shown instance of that. Of course, that wrecks the whole plane. Unlike in, say, the book, where the infection is treated with the same gravity that swine flu, bird flu, and potentially ebola can be transmitted: when it is discovered too late. Hell, the pandemic first arrived in South America due to the organ black market.

[Djinnkitty83]

I didn't get into it. Did not capture me. Spent the whole thing very much aware I was watching a film that just barely tried to be connected to its source material.

This is what gets me. I'm making an assumption here, but how could anyone go into this film thinking it's going to be like the book after seeing the previews? My first thought upon hearing about the movie was that if it stayed true to the book, it would have to be at least three to five movies long or it would be an overcrowded, confused mess. Then I saw the previews and actually felt relief because I knew they weren't going to make it anything like the book, which meant it stood a chance of being a decent zombieflick.

I went in with no assumptions other than that it was going to be a zombie movie that happened to have the same name as a book, and I wasn't disappointed.

[timmy]

You are making an assumption, because I recognised the fact that the book would have been translated properly as a ten part HBO series done by the team who brought you Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Or whatever. Point is, I knew this to be the case going in to the cinema, and tried to have an open mind. But instead of even trying to make a WWZ movie, they made 28 Days Later But With Americans Mostly.

[Djinnkitty83]

Even so, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. They did it pretty well, though they toned down the interpersonal conflict and toned up the worldwide apocalypse. Similar themes but with different foci.

[xon]

Oxy. Post took forever to go through for some reason.

Hmm. Wierd.

I've moved the database store to a faster storage device (which I've been meaning todo for a while). Hopefully shouldn't happen again unless it is a networking derp.

[timmy]

Even so, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. They did it pretty well, though they toned down the interpersonal conflict and toned up the worldwide apocalypse. Similar themes but with different foci.

If you went into a restaurant and ordered a steak, and they served you fish but insisted on calling it steak, would you feel that they were being disingenuous or that they were making fish more marketable, or that it didn't matter because the point was that you were hungry?

[Oxymoron]

The trailer promised me action and thrill.

I was served action and thrill.

[Losonti Tokash]

Oxy. Post took forever to go through for some reason.

Hmm. Wierd.

I've moved the database store to a faster storage device (which I've been meaning todo for a while). Hopefully shouldn't happen again unless it is a networking derp.

I think it was just networking issues. I just moved and don't have internet back up yet, so I'm using my mobile data network which doesn't always work so well out here.

[Flagg]

Even so, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. They did it pretty well, though they toned down the interpersonal conflict and toned up the worldwide apocalypse. Similar themes but with different foci.

If you went into a restaurant and ordered a steak, and they served you fish but insisted on calling it steak, would you feel that they were being disingenuous or that they were making fish more marketable, or that it didn't matter because the point was that you were hungry?

You'd have a point if steak had been advertised. It was not. It was clear months before release that this was WWZ in name only.

[Big Orangutan]

It really bothers you when people don't like Britain, doesn't it?

You missed out my "American" alongside the "Anglo" .

I'm no mindless patriot and I'm glad that the British Empire has mostly been discontinued and America being stuck in its outmoded Cold War mind set has really causes many avoidable problems in the past ten to fifteen years, but I am bothered when the criticism or dislike directed at the two nations veers into propagandistic gibberish.

Nation states are impersonal corporations/administrations and it's wrong to judge them like people and apply morality to them, when they do many objectively bad things to sustain and defend themselves (like spy on other nation states they're on comparatively friendly terms with). And America over compensating in recent years with their extensive electronic surveillance in Europe could be in reaction to their failure of their spy network in the 1980s within the Soviet Union (so they could not anticipate the Soviets and their puppet allies folding as suddenly as they did, making them fearful of facing such a gaping intelligence black hole again).

[RogueIce]

So World War Z, huh?

I thought it was okay. Not great but okay. I wasn't a huge fan of the third act, which was almost literally a video game stealth mission (seriously I joked about that with my friends in the theater, especially at that part where they ducked under the windows) but apparently there were behind the scenes issues there.

Which reading up on it more sort of but not really explains that utterly blatant asspull about how the zombie mysteriously showed up on the airplane. Seriously they weren't anywhere near that runway when Pitt and the Israeli chick boarded, so how the fuck did it get in there? But then I read that the split between what they originally planned, which would have involved the plane arriving in Russia, and the reshoot was right at the moment they got on board. So I guess they needed something for it I don't know, because they were going to the WHO station anyway so it's not like the plane crash was a way to shove the plot onto a new course or anything. Or they just wanted one last action set piece/more trailer footage before the total genre shift.

Eh. I guess I could bitch about some of the pacing issues, and some of the nitpicky nerd stuff like how the disease that makes you a rage zombie between within ten minutes (early stages) or ten seconds (current stage) managed to somehow get around the world all things considered. I also thought the stupid "lol his wife called ZOMBIE RUSH" part was stupid as shit, because seriously he didn't think of that? Well okay considering how many people seem to forget to silence their cell phones in real life I guess I can see it, but I dunno, just felt like an excuse for another action sequence and a way to basically kill off anyone who might have helped Pitt so that he'd be alone.

On the bright side, cell phone shenanigans aside, I thought overall it was a pretty good departure from the usual zombie apocalypse tropes where pretty much everybody but the heroes are utterly useless. That pharmacy tech was pretty helpful, and they utterly averted what I honestly expected would happen with the Army guys in Korea: how they were insane/shitbags and would just hinder Brad Pitt, but instead it turned out they actually managed to act like soldiers despite everything. So props there, don't see that often in these movies.

Also I've never read the book and am only vaguely aware that it even existed prior to this movie, so zero fucks given there.

So yeah, overall it was a serviceable movie. I mean considering that I don't even like the zombie apocalypse genre at all (I refuse to watch Walking Dead on those grounds), wishing nerds would get the fuck over it already, and only went because I was invited and had my ticket paid for, I suppose that's pretty good praise.

[evilsoup]

wait wait wait
he gets attacked by zombies because he forgets to put his phone on silent?
I might actually watch this film

[RogueIce]

whoops spoilers lol

But yeah, that happens. And was also the wife's only real interaction with the plot that I can remember. Otherwise she's pretty much along for the ride.

[Big Orangutan]

Apparently they blew a horrifying amount of money to re-do the ending for WWZ.

I'm looking forward to Pacific Rim.

[evilsoup]

Pacific Rim looks like it could be fun, so long as they don't do a batman/superman and take themselves too seriously

[Djinnkitty83]

Even so, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. They did it pretty well, though they toned down the interpersonal conflict and toned up the worldwide apocalypse. Similar themes but with different foci.

If you went into a restaurant and ordered a steak, and they served you fish but insisted on calling it steak, would you feel that they were being disingenuous or that they were making fish more marketable, or that it didn't matter because the point was that you were hungry?

Not really a good analogy.

If the restaurant in particular had a series of commercials out, offering their 'steak special', but the commercials made it pretty clear that it was actually a fish platter they were calling steak for whatever reason, being disappointed at being served what they advertised is pretty silly.

[Oxymoron]

Damn I'm hungry now. Time for dinner.

[Djinnkitty83]

Welp

WWZ thread went up in TEO, didn't even make it past the OP before the dismissive statements of "stoopid writers din't have military bomb 'dem all" came out.

Cause, you know, when the world went to hell in what looks to be less than a week, several hundred nations are panicking, trying desperately to get a fix on exactly what the problem is while consolidating their own military, civilian, and pure resource assets, not to mentioned the issues with establishing dialogue with the disrupted and shattered power and communication structures of both their international allies and enemies so as to get a grip on possible invasions, changes in foreign policy, and to let them know what you're planning to do militarily to combat the sudden threat so they don't get the wrong idea about your troop movements and attack... the most reasonable thing to do is set off powerful explosives (possibly nuclear) next to the only thing keeping the bad things outside your safezone, turn your own territory into glassed wasteland and vaporize the clearly visible streams of your own citizens trying to get to safety.

[Oxymoron]

If there's a thing I learned from Shep and TBO,

it's that nukes are always the first and only option.

[Crazedwraith]

Welp

WWZ thread went up in TEO, didn't even make it past the OP before the dismissive statements of "stoopid writers din't have military bomb 'dem all" came out.

And it took all over 15 hours for Testing to whine about it. What a efficient modern age we live in.

[Djinnkitty83]

We're not the hero TEO needs.

We're not the hero TEO wants either.

We're not really a hero, come to think of it.