World War Z Guest Blog: What About the U.S. Stories?
Posted 08.17.10 by reelz
Our previous guest blog by Zompiephiles focused on fan "must have" scenes for the upcoming World War Z movie, with all three of the stories they gave us taking place outside the U.S. In contrast, fans at the Tales of the Zombie War are most interested in seeing "home front" scenes of zombie confrontation. The site's editor, Ryan West, gave us his "must have" stories and moments.
After the Comic-Con announcement that Brad Pitt would indeed be starring in the World War Z movie (and an oh-so-tantalizing Summer 2012 date set), so begins speculation about the inevitable process of editing the multitude of stories included in the novel down to a movie theater-length experience. It's not terribly easy to pick these representative tales, as author Max Brooks chronicles a wide scope of international involvement in the war to reclaim earth from the zombie hordes.
His work seems to ring truest when he finds his subjects on the home front. As an American reader, I couldn't help but wish I was able to have a bird's-eye view of the United States-based chapters of the book. Stories like the outset of the Great Panic, when the plague of so-called "African Rabies" (actually a zombie-creating virus stemming from a Chinese outbreak) triggers mass hysteria, migration to a supposedly safe northern Canada, and a disastrous military response to an enemy that knows no fear or exhaustion. Following a near-total rout that pushes the American survivors west of the Rocky Mountains, Brooks then focuses on first-person accounts of the reconstruction of a very different-looking United States. This is an emergency state wherein former mechanics and tinkers find themselves far more important than any CEO.
The subsequent push to reclaim the eastern half of the USA from its undead scourge begs to be set to film. The newly-reformed military’s tactics of luring columns of countless zombies to fortified kill-zones is especially vivid, as is the use of specially trained canine units to hunt down hidden ghouls. Heck, one could film an entire movie based purely on the military’s run-ins with the few remaining independent survivor outposts, as alluded to in a mention of a pitched battle in and around the Sears Tower.
Brooks’ decision to tell the story of a zombie apocalypse in the form of multiple first-person oral histories was a shrewd one. It is a thrilling bit of voyeurism that allows the reader to experience many facets of individual struggle in what becomes a metaphor for any global-scale disaster. It’s not an accident that many scenes recall images from events like Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 tsunami. This cuts deepest when it touches on humankind’s ability to persevere under these terrible circumstances, using ingenuity and the power of a united cause to win the day.