A friend of mine keeps saying, "Happy Zombie Appreciation Month, everybody." I don't get what the big deal is now about zombies. They are neither living nor dead. You know that question, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" One I've been toying with that's just as perplexing: "If there were zombies on the moon, would it be life on the moon?"
I don't care for zombies, either as a writer or as one of Hollywood's target audiences. I saw "World War Z" on July 4th this year. My friends (who love zombies) thought it was a fantastic movie. As a writer, I thought it was bad. Here's why:
1. The quality of the zombies (and I'll discuss that later)
2. The ending was a deus ex machina that basically ripped off "War of the Worlds", and when you rip off H.G. Wells, one of the awesomest sci-fi writers of all time, you're desperate.
3. I went through the whole movie not knowing the main character's name. I'm sure they said it at some point, because Cinema Sins knows what it is (Gerry, apparently), but as far as I was concerned, he was either "Brad Pitt", "Thor lookalike", or "Dad".
4. You could not feel for any of the main characters. "Oh, Gerry lost his family. Oh how sad." Yeah, why do I care? Granted, when I saw "The Hunger Games", I didn't cry when Ro (Ru? What was her name? The little black girl who could sound like a mocking jay.) died, but the rest of the theatre did. I don't have an emotional reaction when something bad happens to a character at all. No one had an emotional reaction when Gerry's family was sent off that boat. I felt more for the Mexican boy who lost his parents, and I don't know his name either.
5. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I haven't read the book, and I intend to despite how much I hate the movie. I can follow the story. That's one thing I'm good at. But there's a lot of things that just don't make sense to me. "The zombies climbed over the wall in Israel, but who cares? We're going to make a wall to prevent the zombie on the plane getting to us!" There are times when I disagree with Cinema Sins, but when they did this movie, I agreed wholeheartedly.
The movie had some redeeming qualities, as it took the time to explain some things to the audience and leave just enough ambiguity to keep us from leaving the theatre, but that doesn't save it from my fiery inferno. Now, I said I would discuss what I meant by "the quality of the zombies", and so I shall.
Zombies have changed a lot over the years, as all mythological creatures must. I don't know much about zombies, as I feel they're overused, but as I understand it, zombies started out slow. "World War Z" made them fast, which I appreciate. With a slow zombie, it's like a sarcastic, "Ah. A zombie is chasing me. Help." With a fast zombie, it makes it really life-or-death. I don't know exactly what the "Thriller" video did for zombies, but I've observed that a lot of zombies nowadays resemble in some way the "Thriller" zombies. Also, as with a lot of mythological creatures, we're very unsure as to where zombies fall: Are they alive, or are they dead? Let's take a count:
Werewolves: Alive
Ghosts: Dead
Bigfoot: Alive
Michael Meyers: Alive (and I count him because he is supposed to scare people)
Witches: Alive (but possibly somehow genetically altered)
Frankenstein's Monster: Alive
Skeletons: Dead, yet reanimated
Everything in "Corpsebride": Dead, except for our hero, his boring family, and everyone in the village
Loch Ness Monster: Alive
Dragons: Alive
Mermaids: Alive
Spirits (ghosts with a clear outline): Dead
I know, I know, I probably left some out. I had a hard time coming up with anything after Bigfoot.
Okay, not a lot of things that are undefined, but I digress. Vampires and zombies fit into the category we call "undead", which leaves a lot open to explore. But one difference out of many between vampires and zombies is that we're not quite sure how a zombie becomes a zombie, at least I'm not. Which is another problem I have with "World War Z". It has been well-established that zombies want your brain. Now, why exactly, I'm not sure. But in "World War Z", the goal of those zombies is to turn you into a zombie. I'm sorry, that is not a zombie. That is a vampire with decomposing skin. Another thing: zombies are mindless corpses that somehow retain the will to move. They do not care about the status of your health. They just want your brain. They have no stomach, so whatever is in your brain will not harm them in any way.
The way I look at it is biological, despite the fact that zombies aren't exactly alive, and I have this explanation because you never know what someone is going to ask you. Zombies are decomposing entities. In order to decompose, you must be around a decomposer, like bacteria or fungus or worms, or any number of detrivores (decomposers). Admittedly, zombies would look totally RIDICULOUS with mushrooms sprouting all over them. However, of the fungi, we also have the option of moss, yeast (Zombie bread!), mold, or many other species of fungi. I quite like what "Corpsebride" did when they had a worm living inside the head of our heroine. His character was for comic relief, but as an animal, his purpose was probably to decompose her. Frankly, though, I find it a lot easier to believe that the ones primarily responsible for decomposing zombies, at least on the inside, is bacteria. These bacteria don't care all that much what they're decomposing, so long as they get from it the required energy to do respiration. We can assume that, provided zombies were once humans, zombies have animal cells. The bacteria then get all the glucose they need from the cells of the zombies' organs. So therefore, as most of the bacteria is in the gastric area, we can assume that zombies have no stomach, intestines, liver, kidney, or otherwise. Where does the brain go? The bacteria go through it at a lightning pace and work symbiotically with the zombie to provide the energy to move. (Realistically, this wouldn't quite work. There are more bacterial cells in the human body than animal cells, but they're not that fast. But who cares? It's fiction. These bacteria can do whatever they want.) But, those bacteria, ever insatiable, eat their hosts, too. However, the hosts aren't entirely gone, as the zombies theoretically ingest enough brains to mostly satisfy the needs of their bacteria.
"World War Z" does not work like that. Certainly, these zombies are partially decomposed by the bacteria inside of them and the fungus outside of them, but they are more determined on turning you into a zombie. Anyone who took at least the first semester of Biology knows about environmental competition. These zombies, while increasing their population, are significantly lowering the available food sources exponentially. 1 zombie touches 1 human=2 zombies. Each of those touches one human=4 zombies. Each of these touches one human=8 zombies. This will continue to grow until the number of zombies is about equal to the number of humans. Biologically, it should stop there. The environment has reached an equilibrium. But "World War Z" does not care about sense and logic and environmental equilibrium. The number of zombies continues to grow until there are no more humans. All the zombies are now walking around going "Mehnamahanama" (Translation: "What exactly are we supposed to do now?") Sue me, but I like the movies I watch to either a.) make logical sense, whether there's truth or not, b.) coincide with facts, or both.
I can't be too hard on the production staff, because as a writer, I know that zombies are hard to do right, er, well. "Plants vs. Zombies" did it well comedically. From what my friends tell me, "The Walking Dead" did it well realistically. I've never seen it, so I can't tell you. "Thriller" did it well musically and choreographically. (I know I keep bringing up Thriller, but it's relevant.) "World War Z" did try to do it well. They tried so hard. But by not drawing some elements from well-established facts, they fell short of the ultimate goal. They invented, and while it is a good writer's job to invent, once something is as well established as zombies are, there's only so much you can change or invent, and their method of reproduction is not one of them. You can change their appearance, their speed, their "talkativity", their range of motion, their ferocity, their hunger, but not their method of reproduction or what they eat. Zombies eat brains. Who knows how they reproduce?
The acting in the movie was fine. You could tell that each of the characters, minor or major, was terrified of the decomposing vampires-I mean, zombies. You could tell that Gerry loved his family. You could tell that this was going to change their lives forever. But I'm not entitled to be a judge of acting. I'm a writer and a singer. If someone sang in that movie, you can bet there would be a paragraph about it.
I'm also not too taken with the ending. "Let's infect the world with lethal diseases! The zombies will leave us alone!" Yeah, but you'll die. The zombies won't. They are neither living nor dead! They will be just fine. However, all of humanity will be dead! You basically killed everybody as the ending to your movie. A horrible ending to a horrible movie. If Max Brooks does the same in the book and the book is as bad as the movie, you'll all be in the same badness club with Ghost Rider 2, Twilight (to be discussed in a later post), and Prince Caspian's accent in the third Narnia movie (His accent was one from Spain in the second movie, and in what must three years Narnian time his accent changed to one from England? How on earth do you explain that, for Aslan's sake?). But if Max Brooks does the same and the book is good, well, then, you, movie, will be in so much trouble.
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