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World War Z

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The book:

  • Adorkable: Throughout Forbes' interview, his rambles, stammers, and trips all over himself trying to apologize for anything he says that people from other countries might find insulting. At one point early in the interview, he almost gives up entirely and is only persuaded to continue after asking the interviewer to promise to "cut all the daft bits."
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: This thread on Sufficient Velocity.com argues that the postwar US government, far from the battered but well-forged engine the book depicts it as, is a military junta. Among other things, it's noted that the government was under a Democratic-GOP wartime government that reinstated corporal punishment, with no hint that they split up after the reclamation, there was a Noodle Incident involving the Black Hills that heavily suggests the US Army got into a conflict with Native Americans for the first time in centuries, and the book is vague on certain details that imply separatist groups that the army gave no quarter to. It should be noted that they reintegrated their old borders after intentionally abandoning most of the population as per the Redeker Plan, which was said to be adopted by most countries, but only a handful actually canonically say they did, making it easy to read as an Unreliable Narrator or propaganda (which can be said about a lot of the Falsely Advertised Accuracy the book presents).
  • Hard-to-Adapt Work: The uncentered, interview-based structure of the book caused it to be difficult to adapt. Rather than a single narrative, the book is about an undefined interviewer interviewing people about their experiences and thoughts about various stages of the Zombie Apocalypse, with the closest narrative being recurring speakers. The movie version of World War Z instead takes a more traditional narrative approach, focusing on a few central characters before and during the Zombie Apocalypse, but this ended up not being well received, leading to the planned sequels to cease production.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • Max Brooks had an article in The Washington Post saying a bit about how the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic wasn't very dissimilar to the Chinese government's cover-ups of their zombie infestation in the book. He had based the Chinese government's actions in the book on their suppression of the SARS virus outbreak in their country in 2002.
    • One of the diseases that Breckinridge Scott mentions as a typical "scare" in the US is Ebola, which would have a large outbreak less than a decade after the book was published, and which did cause a scare in the US that was very much disproportionate to the chances of anyone in the US getting it.
    • Scott later goes on to mention how he gets rich shilling a drug called Phalanx that allegedly vaccinated people against Solanum infection, with anecdotal cases of people recovering from zombie bites causing them to believe that it worked until the Great Panic started. Phalanx actually was effective as a vaccine against rabies, but the problem is, this wasn't rabies. The same issue surrounded chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine during the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020.
    • If you're an American who first picked up World War Z sometime in, say, 2006-2008, and thought the descriptions of rampant denial of the crisis, people insisting on exposure, breakaway Christian cults that want to carve out their own little kingdoms, etc., sounded far-fetched, it may well come off differently after seeing the way people reacted to the COVID pandemic. Max Brooks even brought this up in an interview during the pandemic's heyday.
    • All the talks on Maria Zhuganova's second interview in the epilogue on how the Holy Russian Empire is aiming to "liberate" the former Soviet republics, starting with Belarus (which is already absorbed at the point of the story), with Ukraine being the next one on the list, and elsewhere after that, become incredibly unsettling with the way how Russia invaded Ukraine en masse on February 2022 after previously annexing Crimea on 2014 and Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia on 2008, actions that many see as a way for Russia to bring back these countries into its sphere of influence like in the Sovet Union and Russian Empire days.
    • Everything about the Israeli Civil War, especially the cause being the Israeli government allowing non-Jewish people, namely Palestinians, refuge and being violently opposed by the ultra orthodox, has not aged well in light of relations between these two groups deteriorating to catastrophic levels since the novel was published. To put it mildly.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Barack Obama is implied to be the "first choice" for Vice President of the bipartisan wartime U.S. government, but is passed over in favor of Howard Dean, who says that Obama was excluded because Americans wouldn't accept having two black men as America's most powerful figures (the President being Colin Powell). Two years later in the real world, Obama was elected President of the United States, and Dean was a blip on the US political radar.
    • The wartime president is a black man, a political moderate, and a dignified statesman. His vice-president is white and comparatively brash. These aren't bad descriptions of the actual presidency and vice-presidency of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
    • The soccer mom refers to her daughter being a fan of Jamie Lynn Spears, wearing soccer cleats with her brand on them - establishing how wholesome and normal the family was before the war. Just one year after the book came out, Spears' career was destroyed by her teen pregnancy scandal.
    • Breckinridge ‘Breck’ Scott is a spoiled, smarmy trust fund kid openly mocking his products, research, and anyone desperate enough to buy into them, who eventually gets made an example of by the US government. His rise and fall wound up mirroring that of Martin Shkreli, another trust fund bro who gained infamy for buying pharmaceutical licenses companies and ramping up the cost of life-saving medicines, all the while mocking critics, patients, and authorities and flaunting his "baller" lifestyle, which incensed the US government enough to arrest him and sentence him to seven years in federal prison for financial crimes.
    • In this book, Russia becomes the theocratic "Holy Russian Empire" led by an absolutist leader who merges church and state while using a religiously-motivated Secret Police to assassinate dissidents under the guise of "purifying" them. The New Order: Last Days of Europe, a Hearts of Iron 4 Game Mod released in 2020, also has a Holy Russian Empire that does much of the same.
  • Memetic Loser: Canonically, the army detachment at Yonkers is meant to be a dangerous, if ill-directed, modern army, little different from the armies that fought in Iraq or Afghanistan, which the zombies beat because the army went in overconfident and wasn't using the right tools for the job. However, the sheer level of Hollywood Tactics on display, both intentional and unintentional, along with the chapter understating the effectiveness of modern weaponry, has turned it into more of a meme about laughably and implausibly incompetent military forces. Many versus debates exist, pitting the army at Yonkers against such feared forces as the redshirts or the aliens from Signs.
  • Memetic Mutation: Mark Hamill's clipped delivery of "Die, motherfucker, die!" in the audiobook (he's explaining what the sound of a SAW machine gun is when it's firing short bursts, about as long as it takes to say "die-moth-er-fuck-er-die").
  • Paranoia Fuel: The premise of a zombie apocalypse and the all-too-realistic depictions of our governments failing to handle it is enough to keep you awake for a very long time.
    • In-universe and out example: The possibility of a zombie shambling around that somehow slipped through the cracks of operations like the Battle of Hope or the large-scale urban cleanups. The above-mentioned catacombs of France? How likely is it that there are still a few zombies shambling around in there? Or in a dense forest somewhere? And what's to stop it from making it into a populated area at the worst possible place and time?
      • Or, if you live in a coastal area, a massive horde of zombies can just come shambling out of the water at any time, which is likely, considering there are millions of zombies wandering the ocean floor.
      • Consider that a single, decapitated but alive zombie head that got frozen on a mountain, or somehow got wedged in a basement somewhere, could start the entire infection cycle again. Waino stresses that the cleanup had to search literally every cubic foot of the United States' landmass. A decade after the war, people still live in houses built on stilts due to such fears.
      • In relation, all of North Korea. No one knows what happened to them. Even decades later, no one's interested in finding out. Or rather, they want to know, but no answer isn't extremely terrifying.
  • Signature Scene: Most of the chapters are popular, but some have especially notable followings.
    • In a negative sense, the Battle of Yonkers is often referenced in discussions for being one of the most inaccurate depictions of the United States military in all of fiction.
    • The Chinese submarine story is one of the most popular (or even the most popular) stories in the book for multiple fans and professional critics due to the stunning Ocean Punk world-building, the compelling main character, and the Surprisingly Happy Ending.
    • The South African section that unveils the Redeker Plan.
    • The scene following a mercenary guarding a bunch of elites in their fortified mansion, only for refugees to storm the place, is well-liked due to the Black Comedy throughout.
    • For many dog-lovers, the chapter with the K-9 Corps.
    • Jessika’s story of living in Canada with her parents is one of the most harrowing for its use of Realism-Induced Horror: going to an unknown place with few survival skills and a cheerful camp soon turning on each other.
  • Squick: A lot. Particularly, the descriptions of "digested" human remains found inside the zombies. And the infection-by-organ-transplant vignette.
  • Strawman Has a Point: Grover Carlson, a Take That! expy of U.S. conservatives, mentions the U.S. government initially refused to come clean about the zombies before the start of the outbreak, because it was worried about the amount of mass panic it would cause as a result. In his interview, Todd Wainio remarks that at the start of the outbreak, the Great Panic by frenzied uninfected civilians ended up killing more people in the U.S. than the zombies themselves actually did, putting Carlson's point into perspective.
  • Unintentional Period Piece:
    • Between its parodies of and references to various celebrities and public figures, its portrayal of the internet and "alternative" media, the manner in which The War on Terror affects the US' initial, blundering response to the Zombie Apocalypse, and even brief mentions of the Nintendo GameCube and of Ukraine controlling Crimea, the book is decidedly rooted in the anxieties and concerns of Bush-era America from the perspective of U.S. progressives.
    • Though the discussion of the military in the book was, frankly, always pretty bad, Brooks's attitude is very much rooted in an attitude at the time of increasing derision towards "teched-up" armies thanks to the US struggling to accomplish its goals in Iraq, arguing in favor of more Boring, but Practical methods (the book came out during what was essentially their last big gasp). Nowadays, the wider view of these people, typically named "the Reformers", tends to be in the direction that they were misguided at best and malicious at worst, since research has gone in the direction that the so-called "impractical" gear wasn't half as impractical as it seemed, and the "practical" gear was more often "primitive." Similarly, the consistent lowballing of the effectiveness of artillery was based on ideas that are now discredited (the "balloon effect" described simply isn't a thing), and may owe to the fact that at the time, the average person simply didn't realize how deadly a hit from an MLRS should be, when combat footage of that system was quite uncommon (to put it frankly, the zombies at Yonkers should have been reduced to goo, had their brains scrambled to mush, or broken every bone in their bodies).
  • The Woobie: Sharon. She was a sweet little girl hiding in a church with her mother and neighbors when zombies attacked, causing the parents to kill their own children in desperation. Her own mother was one of them, nearly strangling Sharon before Mrs. Randolph saved her and got her out of the church before being taken by zombies herself. Sharon then spends ten years, possibly longer as a Wild Child before being found in what’s left of Witchia, Kansas. In the present day, she’s a twenty-four-year-old woman with the mentality of a four-year-old.

The movie:

  • Angst? What Angst?: Tommy doesn't seem to be upset at all when his parents became infected.
  • Broken Base: The movie being "PG-13" instead of "R". On the one hand, it does pretty well with the violence it has, especially since more of the messier scenes are only seen via Gory Discretion Shot. On the other... well, this is a Zombie Apocalypse movie, and it's natural for people to expect it to be Bloodier and Gorier than what it ended up being. The Unrated Cut is now available.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Fassbach's death. How can suicide be made into a hilarious matter? By making it into a stupid accident!
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Segen is well-liked for being a Badass Israeli soldier who becomes the key to finding a cure, as well as her surprisingly heartwarming relationship with Gerry.
    • The Hispanic couple who house Gerry and his family during the initial attack are also popular, especially Tommy, the little boy whom Gerry's family takes in as their own.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: While it doesn't reach the degree of other zombie-related works like the The Walking Dead (2010) and Dawn of the Dead (2004), where the zombies always destroy the modern world to the point there's no chance for the remaining humans to bounce back and rebuild civilization, the film still gets considerable flak for depicting not enough moments where humanity gets to fight back against the zombies and win (like in the original novel's second half), making the film doesn't feel that different from the aforementioned titles (zombies completely outmatching human armies, etc.), despite its depiction of humanity finally counterattacking the zombies in the epilogue.
  • Money-Making Shot: The zombies that swarm on top of each other.
  • Narm:
    • The behavior of the zombies either comes across as creepy (as is the case for most of the film) or laughably over-the-top (as it is for certain parts near the end of the film).
      • The zombies scaling the wall are quite hilarious. While Max Brooks' Survival Books said that zombies could pile up and climb over a ten-foot wall, he didn't mean a hundred-foot wall. The zombies should be getting crushed under their own numbers. There's also the fact that the helicopters didn't notice this, despite the zombies having piled themselves up outside the wall, arguably since the beginning of the global outbreak.
      • The latter involves the teeth-chattering zombie near the end. When Gerry manages to successfully become ill to fool the zombies into believing he's terminally ill, the thing walks in... and makes the most awkward, dumb-looking, mole-rat looking teeth click for the longest time.
      • Then there are the zombies who, instead of moaning or snarling, squawk like birds.
      • Not to mention the zombie kept in custody that has bulgy eyes and keeps banging its head on the glass wall it's trapped behind.
    • After that, Gerry had a gratuitous Pepsi break. Product Placement at its finest. And even if you could get over that, the fact that the vending machine is filled to the brim with Pepsi cans and nothing else destroys any serious attempts at what is supposed to be a triumphant scene.
    • There's a scene where Gerry and co make it to their getaway plane on bikes. In-universe, this makes sense because it makes a lot less noise than walking in the rain would, and it doesn't set off the zombies. Doesn't make it look any less silly, though.
    • One of Gerry's daughters screaming, of all things, "I want my blanket!" as her father drives through the hole left behind from a garbage truck smashing through gridlock at 30 miles per hour, and a horde of zombies is descending from behind them. Yes, she's probably in shock, but it's still... odd.
  • One-Scene Wonder: David Morse as a CIA prisoner of The Remnant in South Korea, Game of Thrones's Elyes Gabel as Fassbach, and Iron Man 3's James Badge Dale as Captain Speke.
    • The initially threatening-looking man in the pharmacy who helps Gerry gets the medicine he needs for his daughter and even gives an extra one they haven't tried yet. He only appears in one scene and isn't even named, but is remembered for his simple act of kindness towards a total stranger (and during a Zombie Apocalypse, no less).
  • The Scrappy: Other than Tommy, Gerry's family tends not to be well-liked for being Flat Characters whose only purpose to the plot, for the most part, is to make Gerry more sympathetic. His younger daughter, Connie, has especially drawn many viewers' ire for her constant screaming.
  • Squick: In the books, North Korea's fate is kept ambiguous. In the film, they manage to avoid a large-scale outbreak by pulling out literally everyone's teeth. That way, if someone's infected, it's almost impossible for them to bite someone and transmit the disease. It's unmentioned whether the higher-ups were exempt.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Fans were quick to call it an In Name Only adaptation. This seems to have calmed down with the release of the film, which even the author described as so thoroughly changed from his book that there was little left to be upset by.
    • In particular, the zombies in the film work on a fundamentally different level than the ones in the books, completely changing the course of the story.
    • Film zombies are more like a bunch of extremely violent and cannibal nutcases than the truly walking dead of the book. While this makes for a bit more interesting action, it lowers their level of Squickiness.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: In a sense. Obviously, the doctor brought along on the initial mission had to die, but they could have given him some more screen time and let him get some samples and theories, then pass the baton to Gerry when he croaks. At the very least, they could have given him a better death than slipping on a wet walkway and shooting himself in the head. As CinemaSins says, "It's a ZOMBIE MOVIE, guys. If you want to take out the doctor guy and leave Brad Pitt on his own to deal with the mission, that's okay... I'm cool with that. Just... maybe have him get taken out by a zombie, like this soldier here does, instead of something absolutely stupid."
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: A prime example of story dictating visual effects, rather than CGI for the sake of CGI. Everything is practical until it's impossible to depict without FX.

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