When a book becomes a movie, some changes to the source material are practically inevitable due to the inherent differences between the two mediums. Print invites a reader into a character’s head, something that is difficult to convey in a movie. Print also puts the reader into the director’s chair, creating a mental movie that even the most talented directors will be hard-pressed to match.
Then there are the other changes, the ones not so easily justified by difficulties in translation: the director who insists on “improving” the author’s work; the actor who has his or her own “sense” of how the character would or would not respond to the plotline; the sometimes inexplicable decisions of executives. These are the ones that tend to anger the fans most, even when they work well when considered solely in the context of the film. Regardless, as Hollywood has learned, when you take a beloved novel and begin tinkering with its story, you also tinker with readers’ hearts.
Earlier this year, zombie fans rejoiced at the news that the long awaited movie adaptation of Max Brooks’ novel World War Z (available next week in mass market paperback) was going into production, but for many, this initial enthusiasm cooled upon the release of the film’s official synopsis:
“The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself. Enos plays Gerry’s wife Karen Lane; Kertesz is his comrade in arms, Segen.”
Compare this to Brooks’ original novel, which is set in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. As humanity begins its recovery, an unnamed United Nations employ collects interviews with those who survived. The entire novel is written in an epistolary form, with each chapter consisting of a single interview written in the first person perspective.
Director Marc Forster, in an interview with MTV News, addressed these changes, as well as some others that World War Z fans may not have been aware of, including his choice to use “fast zombies” instead of the shambling, Romero-esque dead of Brooks’ book.
Forster had the following response to concerns about changes to the movie’s plot:
“The idea, obviously the book is not written as a narrative, you try to take things from the book, but at same time you’re changing certain things,” Forster explained. “I do feel we’re trying to keep it in the spirit of the book because it’s important.
A reasonable enough explanation considering the book’s nontraditional format, but later, Forster adds “We are doing our own film, telling our own story because we had to,” he said, “but trying to still include as much as we can from the book.”
Some people become very angry when a movie deviates so strongly from its source material, while others take it in stride. I’m one of the latter: I judge adaptations and remakes as separate works of art, each to be evaluated based on their own merits. I remain cautiously optimistic regarding Forster’s film. Perhaps World War Z’s movie adaptation will veer some distance from the novel, but we may very well end up with a good story regardless. Maybe it will provide another perspective – a parallel one – to Brooks’ story that will enrich our reading experience. It could be a good movie. Only time will tell.
What do you think? Are the changes okay with you?
I think if they wanted to do a zombie movie that wasn’t World War Z, it would have been cheaper to not even bother licensing the title. The only good I see coming from this is that Max Brooks probably got a nice check from the studio.
Forster directed Quantum of Solace, a plot-free chase movie that killed Bond stone-dead. His take on WWZ will destroy the book. Now it’s about a guy caught between rescuing his girl and saving the world. The zombies look like they’re on Red Bull, or like they’re body-popping in a Jacko video. Forster contaminates everything he touches with his ‘vision’. Don’t see this film.
I’ve read the first two drafts of the script and seen the YouTube footage of the fast zombies (Note that they’re faster than other fast zombies) so I consider myself pretty well informed on this subject.
World War Z is getting the same callous despicable Hollywood treatment that other books like Starship Troopers and I, Robot have gotten.
There’s nothing left of the book except the title. There’s battle scenes and Brad Pitt waving his manhood at the audience. and that’s about it.
The only way I will see this train wreck will be if I can kick Marc Forster squarely in the balls on my way into the theater.
Why? Why? Why? Why? What’s the freaking point of even making a World War Z movie if it’s not going to be World War Z? This should have been done as an indie project, mockumentary style.
I was really excited…like most fans of the book…when I heard they were making the movie but I knew they were going to mess it up. Is Brad Pitt such a narcissist that he has to be the hero of the movie? I wish Leonardo DiCaprio’s company had gotten the rights to make the movie instead.
I loved the book. Was excited about the movie. I agree, make your own zombie movie but don’t use the title of the book. It’s not World War Z.
This is truly disapointing, narcisist and vision narrowed from the director’s perspective as well as from Pitt (his company is pulling the project), name this Movie “World War Z” is a mistake as they are doing with all good books, by messing with the perspective of the book is what is going to take this movie to a doom, plain and simple, because in the end what the book transmits is that those “monsters” exists and are not exactly the Zomibies in the book, but us… the humans. it gives a fresh view on old subject, because if you look at almost all the zombie movies, or disaster movies for that matter, there is always the hero, always the “stupid” girl in distress which is going to be rescued, in this case the hero in the book is the human spirit that all the survivors share as well as the villan (which is our own stupidity as human race) and since is a tale from the survivors perspective, you never get to read any real descriptions of the attrocities of the zombies, but how our own mistakes as human race lead us to almost lost the war and feel those attrocities. That is what for me makes this a great book, haven’t read a “horror” book so frightning yet so good in years.. what a way to ruin it doing a movie with that persepective, which is so typical of the weak minds in hollywood as long as it keeps their pockets full.
Marc Foster and Brad Pitt… Shame on you
I knew this would happen. Since the publication of WWZ suddenly there has been an influx of Zombie movies and a TV show.
Weird that isn’t it.
WWZ is probably the best book I have ever had the pleasure of reading in this genre and in Horror in general. Stephen King excluded.
It is a fantastic tale of human weakness and the way we can be fooled and lied to on a grand scale. There may not be much in the way of gore but your imagination can fill in the gaps easily.
I have had the misfortune of seeing stuff written on the plot and so on and to be honest Bard Pitt should be shot. How dare he do this and it is sad to say Max Brooks I am disappointed you let them do this to your masterpiece.
I will not be going out of my way to see it and I will discourage others from seeing it.