#World War Z review

[ibtpreviews]

Night 5-2013 World War Z

[mricarus]

Rating: 5/5 stars

Year: 2006

Genre: Horror, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, epistolary

Pages: 342

“Ignorance was the enemy. Lies and superstition, misinformation, disinformation. Sometimes, no information at all. Ignorance killed billions of people. Ignorance caused the Zombie War.”

Imagine that at some point in modern human history, there was a virus that turned people into undead flesh-eating killing machines which devastated the world, leaving a fatality rate of over 600 million and a never-ending war against an enemy that refuses to go down easy. Imagine this, and you get World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. Presented to us as if it were a non-fictional account of a war that actually occurred, a fictionalised version of the author Max Brooks as a United Nations Postwar Commission officer who recorded individual accounts told by individuals from around the world including those from China, Russia, Antarctica, Australia, America, Israel, South Africa and even from those aboard the International Space Station. The story is split into eight chapters: 'Warnings', 'Blame', 'The Great Panic', 'Turning the Tide', 'Home Front USA', 'Around the World, and Above', 'Total War', and 'Good-byes', each chapter exploring the political, social, and religious, economic and environmental changes that occurred as a result of the war.

I have been a fan of zombie media for as long as I can remember. It started with my father showing me Shaun of the Dead when I was 10 and I was immediately fascinated with zombies as a concept, and well, the rest is history. That eventually led me to watch the sort of cool, sort of disappointing 2013 film adaptation of World War Z which made me even more interested in reading its source material. Needless to say, I wasn't disappointed when I eventually decided to pick up the book. I truly believe that after Shaun of the Dead, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is one of the more accurate depictions of a zombie outbreak that I've seen thus far. Having it be told through eyewitness accounts certainly helped add to the realism of the book. Of course, it had its moments of intense action involving large hordes of zombies and the world's supply of ammunition, they were blended perfectly with the calmer moments that described the political and social downfall allowed for a more realistic angle to be put in place. I truly believe this is what makes the book so compelling, Brook's masterful writing and vivid descriptions of the war are enough to almost convince us that this really did happen, or at least give us a damn good idea of what is to come.

[emeto-film-critic]

World War Z - 2013

SAFE/Caution - A,V•

Approx. 25:52 •A• Tommy shoots a zombie off of Gerry and Gerry turns his head and r*. Nothing is seen.

Approx. 46:23 •A,V• After the CIA man says "no teeth, no bite" he spits blood into a sink.

*** Movie has typical zombie groans and squelches/gurgles. ***

***Gore, gurgling, spitting and blood on and around mouth can be seen and heard throughout movie. ***

[adamwatchesmovies]

World War Z (2013)

The last time I saw World War Z, it was in 2013 and on the big screen. I enjoyed it but since then, this film hasn't made much of an impact. The sequel announced after its box office success never materialized. Combined with it not really being a faithful adaptation of the book and the overall lack of scares, it makes you wonder if the hype was just it being new and hot.

Gerry (Brad Pitt), a former UN employee specializing in navigating through dangerous zones, hears strange reports on the news. A new form of rabies spreads the disease rapidly as those affected attack their loved ones. To make things worse, the infected seem nearly unstoppable: only going down when shot in the head. In no time, every major city is overrun and he is recruited to help find a cure.

Some notable aspects of World War Z are that it actually uses the word zombie, and the people within the story act as though they’ve seen horror movies before. When Gerry defends his family from a pack of ghouls, he gets some of their blood on his face and immediately, steps on a rooftop ledge in case he feels himself transforming. Also noteworthy is the picture's scale. Most zombie films lean towards the low-budget production. Not this one. We travel to multiple cities across the world as Gerry searches for patient zero and/or a cure. In some locations, the undead number in the thousands. When there are that many, they behave almost like insects, crawling on top of each other to scale walls and forming a wave that devours everything in its path.

Another component worth mentioning is Brad Pitt. He’s always great and doesn’t disappoint here either. There’s a serious attempt made to make World War Z realistic. While Gerry is away on his mission, his wife, Karin (Mireille Enos) and children (Sterling Jerins and Abigail Hargrove) are being cared for by Gerry’s old boss, played by Fana Mokeona. The ship is full of people. Too full. More than once, we see people shipped away because they don’t have the resources to take care of them and we never find out what happens to them. You assume the worst because the whole world is falling apart. If Gerry dies on his mission or even fails to report frequently enough for people to think he’s still alive, his family is at risk. The stakes are high on a personal, familial and global level.

All that said, there’s a reason no one is talking about this movie now and why it isn’t looked upon fondly within horror circles. World War Z is not particularly scary. It’s got suspense, but no scares. The realistic look also means there aren’t any memorable zombie designs anywhere. Then, there's the conclusion, which is underwhelming. It makes sense but makes you go “really? that’s it?” then we get a quick wrap-up and the credits begin rolling. This picture is missing something. It’s got the action but needed something else. If only it offered insights into governments (it looks like it’s going to, but it’s more of a way to explain how the various cities we visit are still standing and/or why they’re about to fall) or individuals during a pandemic. Or if it was funny (the opposite of being scary), or do something so it could be known for something other than “the big-budget zombie movie with Brad Pitt in it”. I haven’t read the book by Max Brooks but from what I know about it, it contains all of those things to a degree. Where’d they go?

World War Z is a good movie but I don’t know who I would recommend it to. Horror hounds will be disappointed by the general lack of gore and scares. Non-horror fans are unlikely to take a chance on it. What I’d recommend instead is that the film be used as a gateway. Lure those non-horror fans in with the action, the big budget and the star power. Once your friend or significant other tells you they’d be up for more, then you can show them one of the better, more memorable zombie movies you have in your collection. (August 18, 2023)

[samango1993]

The movie World War Z review

I just finished watching World War Z. Great movie. Different from other Zombie movies in that the producer is FUCKIN LOADED. Massive scenes you’d usually only see in video games play out in the film. For instance, the zombies stacking over the wall in Israel is something I’ll be coming back to in a while. Another thing that works for me is the actors. Brad Pitt and the actress playing his wife really held out their part, making it believable for the audience. In the end, when Brad was walking down the sky bridge, the wave of zombies dashing past him like water splitting past a stone in a river, I thought about another movie with a similar scene. It's the last movie in the Resident Evil series when the protagonist finally finds the test tube containing the antidote and breaks it. Zombies cornering her went down like a lapping tide that started beneath her feet and rippled to where the audience couldn’t see offscreen. This was a very impactful image for me as I can recall quite clearly after years of watching the movie. Comparing these two, the stories took to finding the cure quite differently. While RE depicted it as the virus taking over the host by mutating them from the outside, WWZ explores the virus’s nature of selecting healthy opponents. It lacks some of the graphic horror that RE movies are so famous for but settles it in a more realistic way. I like how the film begins with the outbreak of the virus and escalates to a global crisis, it fits with the title World War as it does indeed showcase its immense ability to destroy human society. While I would definitely look forward to a WWZ 2, there’s really not that much to shoot as the movie gives a pretty fulfilling ending. Anyhow, 2 hours’ time well spent.

[milliondollarbaby87]

World War Z (2013) Review

Former United Nations worker Gerry Lane must join the race against time to save the world from a zombie pandemic which is threatening to destroy humanity. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Continue reading World War Z (2013) Review

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing”

20 years ago, I got in a (friendly) public spat with Chris Anderson, who was then the editor in chief of Wired. I'd publicly noted my disappointment with glowing Wired reviews of DRM-encumbered digital devices, prompting Anderson to call me unrealistic for expecting the magazine to condemn gadgets for their DRM:

https://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2004/12/is_drm_evil.html

I replied in public, telling him that he'd misunderstood. This wasn't an issue of ideological purity – it was about good reviewing practice. Wired was telling readers to buy a product because it had features x, y and z, but at any time in the future, without warning, without recourse, the vendor could switch off any of those features:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/12/29/cory-responds-to-wired-editor-on-drm/

I proposed that all Wired endorsements for DRM-encumbered products should come with this disclaimer:

WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

Wired didn't take me up on this suggestion.

But I was right. The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations. Inkjet printers were always a sleazy business, but once these printers got directly connected to the internet, companies like HP started pushing out "security updates" that modified your printer to make it reject the third-party ink you'd paid for:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Now, this scam wouldn't work if you could just put things back the way they were before the "update," which is where the DRM comes in. A thicket of IP laws make reverse-engineering DRM-encumbered products into a felony. Combine always-on network access with indiscriminate criminalization of user modification, and the enshittification will follow, as surely as night follows day.

This is the root of all the right to repair shenanigans. Sure, companies withhold access to diagnostic codes and parts, but codes can be extracted and parts can be cloned. The real teeth in blocking repair comes from the law, not the tech. The company that makes McDonald's wildly unreliable McFlurry machines makes a fortune charging franchisees to fix these eternally broken appliances. When a third party threatened this racket by reverse-engineering the DRM that blocked independent repair, they got buried in legal threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cold-war

Everybody loves this racket. In Poland, a team of security researchers at the OhMyHack conference just presented their teardown of the anti-repair features in NEWAG Impuls locomotives. NEWAG boobytrapped their trains to try and detect if they've been independently serviced, and to respond to any unauthorized repairs by bricking themselves:

https://mamot.fr/@q3k@hackerspace.pl/111528162905209453

Poland is part of the EU, meaning that they are required to uphold the provisions of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive, including Article 6, which bans this kind of reverse-engineering. The researchers are planning to present their work again at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg this month – Germany is also a party to the EUCD. The threat to researchers from presenting this work is real – but so is the threat to conferences that host them:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/researchers-face-legal-threats-over-sdmi-hack/

20 years ago, Chris Anderson told me that it was unrealistic to expect tech companies to refuse demands for DRM from the entertainment companies whose media they hoped to play. My argument – then and now – was that any tech company that sells you a gadget that can have its features revoked is defrauding you. You're paying for x, y and z – and if they are contractually required to remove x and y on demand, they are selling you something that you can't rely on, without making that clear to you.

But it's worse than that. When a tech company designs a device for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades, they invite both external and internal parties to demand those downgrades. Like Pavel Chekov says, a phaser on the bridge in Act I is going to go off by Act III. Selling a product that can be remotely, irreversibly, nonconsensually downgraded inevitably results in the worst person at the product-planning meeting proposing to do so. The fact that there are no penalties for doing so makes it impossible for the better people in that meeting to win the ensuing argument, leading to the moral injury of seeing a product you care about reduced to a pile of shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

But even if everyone at that table is a swell egg who wouldn't dream of enshittifying the product, the existence of a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature makes the product vulnerable to external actors who will demand that it be used. Back in 2022, Adobe informed its customers that it had lost its deal to include Pantone colors in Photoshop, Illustrator and other "software as a service" packages. As a result, users would now have to start paying a monthly fee to see their own, completed images. Fail to pay the fee and all the Pantone-coded pixels in your artwork would just show up as black:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

Adobe blamed this on Pantone, and there was lots of speculation about what had happened. Had Pantone jacked up its price to Adobe, so Adobe passed the price on to its users in the hopes of embarrassing Pantone? Who knows? Who can know? That's the point: you invested in Photoshop, you spent money and time creating images with it, but you have no way to know whether or how you'll be able to access those images in the future. Those terms can change at any time, and if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourself.

These companies are all run by CEOs who got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further." Adobe chose to design its software so it would be vulnerable to this kind of demand, and then its customers paid for that choice. Sure, Pantone are dicks, but this is Adobe's fault. They stuck a KICK ME sign to your back, and Pantone obliged.

This keeps happening and it's gonna keep happening. Last week, Playstation owners who'd bought (or "bought") Warner TV shows got messages telling them that Warner had walked away from its deal to sell videos through the Playstation store, and so all the videos they'd paid for were going to be deleted forever. They wouldn't even get refunds (to be clear, refunds would also be bullshit – when I was a bookseller, I didn't get to break into your house and steal the books I'd sold you, not even if I left some cash on your kitchen table).

Sure, Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive in all of Southern California, the loathsome David Zaslav, who oversaw the merger of Warner with Discovery. Zaslav is the creep who figured out that he could make more money cancelling completed movies and TV shows and taking a tax writeoff than he stood to make by releasing them:

https://aftermath.site/there-is-no-piracy-without-ownership

Imagine putting years of your life into making a program – showing up on set at 5AM and leaving your kids to get their own breakfast, performing stunts that could maim or kill you, working 16-hour days during the acute phase of the covid pandemic and driving home in the night, only to have this absolute turd of a man delete the program before anyone could see it, forever, to get a minor tax advantage. Talk about moral injury!

But without Sony's complicity in designing a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature into the Playstation, Zaslav's war on art and creative workers would be limited to material that hadn't been released yet. Thanks to Sony's awful choices, David Zaslav can break into your house, steal your movies – and he doesn't even have to leave a twenty on your kitchen table.

The point here – the point I made 20 years ago to Chris Anderson – is that this is the foreseeable, inevitable result of designing devices for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades. Anyone who was paying attention should have figured that out in the GW Bush administration. Anyone who does this today? Absolute flaming garbage.

Sure, Zaslav deserves to be staked out over an anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. That piece of shit knew what they were doing and they did it anyway. Fuck them. Sideways. With a brick.

Meanwhile, the studios keep making the case for stealing movies rather than paying for them. As Tyler James Hill wrote: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing":

https://bsky.app/profile/tylerjameshill.bsky.social/post/3kflw2lvam42n

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

Image: Alan Levine (modified) https://pxhere.com/en/photo/218986

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[pintsizeddeepthoughts]

25 of 250: Favorite Fiction - World War Z

Author: Max Brooks

Date of Publication: 2006

Country: United States

The beauty of horror is that it explores how people and societies react in times of extreme stress, times that reveal character and few stories predicted the failure of many governments’ response to the Covid pandemic than Max Brooks’s debut novel. Taking inspiration from the form of Studs Terkel’s The Good War, Brooks tells the story of the zombie apocalypse through the people who survived it, starting from the plague’s emergence to humanity’s pyrrhic victory.

By going broad, Brooks pulls off something very difficult - conveying the full scope of a global catastrophe. He does this by focusing each chapter on one specific, niche thing about what living through such a disaster would be like, whether it's crafting weapons, trying to survive in adverse conditions, or the (hauntingly) the effect it had on children who were forced to fend for themselves.

The first third of the book is the most infuriating, especially in light of the last four years. Brooks effectively points the finger at ossified systems and ways of thinking. The fact that the world is so interconnected, yet jealously nationalist is the key to the rapidity and scale of the destruction. Brooks does not sugar coat the bureaucratic failures that killed billions of people, and the heartbreak comes from the point of view of people who know better, aren’t short sighted, or cynical enough to recognize the failure that’s coming. Back in 2006, this novel felt like an exercise in hypotheticals; in 2024 it’s a terrifying, precinct historical document.

[absoluteabsolem]

the way i so rarely give really good ratings to the things i watch and read makes me think that i am, perhaps, a hater

[patricia-taxxon]

i don't want to diagnose him, but that part in the really old YMS review of world war z where he makes fun of people who can simply be presented a generic man with a family & need nothing else to understand or identify with his motivations, its extremely autistic. like yeah maybe *we* can't generalize and conjure emotions based on crumbs of human signifiers, but we're weird.

[irreverententity]

⌞✦ 𝐈𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐘’s INTRO ✦⌝

── .✦ M Y B L O G

hello hello hello *tips hat* My name is Sirius but u can call me pads, z, or generational disappointment if you’re my family ! I’m legally 18 with the body of an 80 yr old

ıllı my blog will be chaotic and include everything from fit checks to anti-capitalism/facism rambles to hozier is jesus conspiracy theories to dying on the destiel was the og queerbaiting hill. this is my brain in a blog. everything will be tagged accordingly but buckle up anyway. I do have mental health issues which may be offhandedly mentioned and could be potentially triggering but that’s NOT what this blog is for. [if you’re here from my vent blog haiiii :D if you want my vent blog just dm :)]

── .✦ A B O U T M E

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　

▊▍ ‹ MY PRONOUNS ⸝⸝

he/him/his they/them/theirs

xe/xem/zyr it/its/its

de/demon/demons fall/fallen/falls

imp/imp/imp star/star/stars

sin/sin/sins ze/zem/zyr

✦ .　　　　　 . ˚ . . ✦ ˚

I generally identify as a problem. I’m queer, polyamorous, and have a qpp <3 gender wise…idfk anymore, but I use the labels nonbinary/transmasc/boycreature. I generally present as masc or androgynous but once i transition I plan on presenting more feminine bc I like to hoard all the genders 🤲🏼 (if you’re reading this, check your pockets, your gender may have been stolen)

I’m chronically ill (h-EDS + POTS) and disabled (autistic) !

random shit: i’m vegan, punk, a chronic caffeine/energy drink consumer, and if you haven’t guessed cliché — but there aren’t enough peer reviewed emo pre-teen claire’s rejected peircings haver bitches in the world anymore.

use tone tags with me !!

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　

✦ = current special interest ・

☓﹐⊂⊃﹒➜ interests: peircings/body mods, kinks/bdsm, crafting/patch work, bone collecting, cryptids, norse&greek mythology, art, writing, editing, sleeping, dead dove fanfiction, watching movies, doom scrolling + more

☓﹐⊂⊃﹒➜ my fandoms: ✦ doctor who, ✦ supernatural, ✦ good omens, helluva boss/hazbin hotel, yaelokre, sherlock, house m.d, the walking dead, lucifer, five nights at freddy’s, the marauders era (hp), marvel, star wars, star trek, arcane, the umbrella academy, shameless, the flash, the arrow + I like a lot of other fandoms that are dead/were never really fandoms/I enjoy the films but I’m not in the fandom

── .✦N A V I G A T I O N

do not interact. tagging system.

kintypes. credits.

[valtharr]

So. Which Ultraman series would you recommend for starters? Also would Shin Ultraman be a good starting point if you have never seen anything Ultraman related?

Honestly, those are both kinda tough questions 😅

Let's start with the Shin Ultraman one:

Shin Ultraman is a great movie, probably my favorite kaiju movie (sorry Pacific Rim and Final Wars), and you need no prior knowledge of Ultraman, mainly because the movie is basically an abridged version of the original 1966 series. So, as a movie, I recommend it, but I'm not sure about it as an introduction to Ultraman. Mainly because - just like Sentai and Rider - Ultraman is primarily a kids show, while Shin is aimed at a more mature audience, which is why I don't consider a great representation of the franchise as a whole. Don't get me wrong, it totally gets the themes and everything right, but the vibes are just different. So, I recommend watching it, but not necessarily as an introduction to the main franchise.

As for which actual series I recommend for a newcomer... well, I should preface this by saying that I've only really seen New Generation series (late Heisei and Reiwa era). The main reason for that is honestly that those seasons are shorter (about 25 episodes instead of the Showa and Heisei 50). But yeah, my recs are gonna be New Gen only.

I think the safest bet in my eyes would be Ultraman X. It doesn't really call back to any previous seasons, and it's pretty "vanilla" in its setup: The Ultra and his host are distinct characters from each other, the host works for an anti-kaiju defense force, etc. It sticks to the "formula" pretty closely, closer than any of the other New Gen shows I've seen... with the exception of one:

Ultraman Z is also pretty by the numbers, and has the distinct advantage of being fully legally available one Youtube, both subbed and dubbed. The main reason I recommend X over Z is that Z leans a bit more into the greater universe of the franchise, with appearances from old characters, one of which actually ends up playing a major role. That said, it was the first Ultra season I watched in full, and it wasn't like I was totally lost, but I would recommend watching Orb and Geed before jumping into Z. Speaking of which...

Ultraman Orb is actually the most recent season I fully watched, and I really like it. The main character is just really cool, and while the supporting cast starts off as kinda annoying, but they grew on me a bit over the course of the show. It's also pretty serialized, with some mysteries that slowly get revealed throughout the story.

Ultraman Geed, like Ultraman Orb, is a bit of a fan favorite. Now, technically, the main villain of the show is a major villain in the greater Ultraman lore, which at first might seem like this would be a bad entry point, but the show provides you with enough context that you can just treat as backstory. I also like that it kinda gives you a bit of "best of both worlds" when it comes to Ultras: The main character is actually an Ultra in human form, but there's also a secondary Ultra who does the more classic "bond with a human host" thing, so you get both common flavors of Ultraman in one series. Also, for what it's worth, I once commissioned a Youtuber who knew basically nothing about tokusatsu, let alone Ultraman, to review Geed, and he ended up liking it.

Finally, I'm gonna shout out Blazar and Arc, the most recent seasons, with Arc's second episode having just aired the same day I'm writing this. Blazar has some Ultraman staples, like the defense team and the human and Ultra being separate entities, but also does some new stuff with those tropes, like the Ultra not being able to properly talk, and the host actually being the head of the show's main defense team. Obviously, I can't say much about Arc yet, but it seems to go in a bit more traditional direction. Both are also available on Youtube, with Blazar having two audio tracks (Japanese and English) that you can switch between, and Arc having separate uploads for its sub and dub

Also, I should mention: Every Ultraman season prior to 2020 is available on BluRay via Mill Creek Entertainment, and from what I can tell, they seem to be region free. At least I had no problems watching them on my German PS4.

[nikox400x]

KFP 4: The true hell behind the cameras ft. The Co-director of KFP4

I know I already made my review to this thing, and believe me when I say that I didn't want to talk anymore about this dawn movie (For call it something). But the reason for this statement is something that I cannot ignore, so hold on to your seat because what you are going to read is not a mission impossible movie, this really happened in the same Dreamworks studios.

The devil has different names depending on the religion;

-In the Catholic religion he is called Satan.

-In Islam he's Iblís.

-In Buddhism it's Mara.

But in the world of kung fu panda, the devil has a human name, Mike Mitchell.

Context? Three days ago, as a result of all the protests about the poor narrative quality of the film, the KFP's reddit community was able to find someone from within the production of the film, a witness who could corroborate everything that we assumed was happening within that studio.

This person is no one else but the co-director of kfp4, Stephanie Ma Stine. One of the main people who, along with a large part of the team of animators who love this saga too, fought and fought throughout the production so that the film was not completely destroyed from the beginning.

This woman was contacted by a discord channel to answer some questions that the community was asking in the company of the administrators of the discord group of the kung fu panda fandom, at first this woman seemed frustrated by something that I am going to explain, The entire conversation was recorded and uploaded to YouTube to expose the nauseating experience that Stephanie had to endure during the production of this film.

To begin with, she had almost no power within the production because she was considered someone new to her job and the disgusting bosses at Dreamworks had no better idea than to give all creative control to Mike.

Dreamworks gave a time limit for the duration of the film, later you will know why. This guy didn't have the slightest idea how to direct such a short movie, much less if it was a kung fu panda movie, since the guy treated kung fu panda like a chinese version of the minions, obviously because he didn't give a shit about franchise and he just wanted something that would make people laugh (But his humor and the scriptwriters's was so bad that even it would insult ilumination itself) although not even the children could find this humor funny.

What kind of humor? Well, you know; fart humor, jokes with a childish tone, random chases that contribute nothing to the plot, jokes about annoying and invincible children, jokes without charisma, generation Z humor, random hits, etc...

And like any sane person would do, Stephanie tried to give it that serious but parodic and heartfelt tone that the first triology had, but obviously they barely listened to her because she was considered new. So she had to resort to encouraging people passionate about the saga within the studio to insist on adding things that would improve the plot. Most of the time when they insisted on improving the quality of the script it ended in a roll of eyes from the higher ups within the production as if trying to tell them; "Damn stupid people, so much bother for a children's saga that is only used to make easy money"

The problem transcended for a long time as more and more absurd ideas came out of the writing team, some of them that even destroyed the logic of the world they were building, all of this was translated into a long and nightmarish trench war between those who love the saga and the psychopaths who only cared about money.

So, what happened next? Well, the movie came out and fans (and non-fans) were disappointed because the movie seems like a draft made by people who didn't seem to speak the same language during the artistic decisiones in the movie. Exactly, because of all this conflict between those who agreed with Stephanie and those who listened to Mike.

And in the end, it was Stephanie who had to politely come forward in front of the disappointed people to give these professionally humiliating explanations, and what did Mike do on his part? Bury his head like an ostrich and do not listen to the criticism that he generated for their horrible decisions.

(Stephanie's user is called storyduke)

This is the conversation between her and the administrators of the discord group, pause the video calmly and read on your own if you need it, for prove I haven't invented anything of this to defame Mike or something like this. All this comes from the person who was by his side during all production.

In order not to overwhelm you because the video is very long, I leave you a summary of what she said below. I will mainly use the comment of this reddit user called Mystic3012 who explains all this quite well (My comments will be marked in red):

Early on, KFP4 was considered to be live action-animation hybrid, and featured humans (WTF?!). I posted concept art of the human Chameleon (then, The Collector, even though we already have Kai the Collector) vs Po. Seems like Zhen would've been human too. They'd have come from Hu-man City (Wow, how originally -_-), apparently... To add insult to injury, one of these versions had Po, the protagonist, stuck in a BOX for 20 MINUTES. (20 minutes... no words for this. And no, you're not reading wrong, HUMANS IN KUNG FU PANDA. If it hadn't been for Stephanie, this is what they would have given us. Thanks Stephanie, guys)

Mike Mitchell, the director, had total creative freedom. Hence, him + the studio leadership wanting laughs and a more joke-y vibe led to the overall tone, like the F5's comical side missions. Jack Black called him the "comedy guy"(I want to think jack Black is another victim here and he simply couldn't do nothing because his contract does not allow it), while Stephanie brought "things deeper" and "more heart".

Additionally, it was Mitchell who insisted against fleshing out the Chameleon's backstory "What a surprise...right guys?". Apparently, Chameleon and Zhen had ZERO backstory in early versions. By the time the crew pushed him enough to change his mind, they were too far along in animating to add anything but the Chameleon's few lines.

The runtime was a studio mandate since they believed children can't watch a longer film + maximize profits (You motherfu...).

TV shows are non-canon, as they are under separate film and television divisions that are "rivals".

Lord Shen, General Kai, and the Furious Five were VERY last minute additions to the point that their animation rigs were "made of sticks and glue"(The 3D models were so poorly made due to lack of time that if they made original animations, they would directly break, they had to reuse animations from the first, second, third movie and from the Christmas short for the credits. The animations of Crane and Shen's feathers, according to her, were bugged a lot and the wings tended to separate from the body or bend in unrealistic ways during animation tests). Hence, no plot relevance (e.g. not redeemed properly) and inability to bring back their actors, as much as some of the crew advocated for their return. Furthermore, there's a thing where actors are brought in for voice roles with X amount of money, and exponential increases for sequels. Apparently, a single line from Jolie would've cost $20 million (Easy Angelina!! XD. They could have simply changed the actress who played her like for example the one who play her in Secrets of the Scroll or the one of Legend of Awessomless, this was simply used as an excuse not to add them to the film), so you can imagine why the Five were absent...

Not everyone who dies goes to the Spirit Realm. It's not a definite rule behind-the-scenes, but it's vaguely agreed upon that only kung fu practitioners can pass on. It was also Mitchell's idea that all 3 villains were indeed sent to the Realm and that the Chameleon only wanted master VILLAINS summoned. [Pretty sure that retcons Lord Shen but alas-]

Pelican is named Chip, and a female. The fish in her beak is Fish.

Calvin Tsang, Head of Story, directed "a short film for KFP 4". Though, DreamWorks gave him a low budget but apparently he pulled enough favours for it to work out, with Stephanie describing it as "amazing, seriously" and shows "how strong of a director's voice he has".

Future spin-offs uncertain. DreamWorks has dissolved most, if not all, of its TV division.

Though, Mitchell was very vocal about a F5 spinoff. Execs are aware of the fans' demand for it (Wow thank you...-_-, just don't ruin it again).

Shifu's staff lacks its golden piece since it has been repaired following his mastery of Chi, per production designer Paul Duncan. (Same man responsible for bringing back the Dagger of Deng Wa with his attention to detail) (Niceee)

Universal mandated for a tentpole film like KFP4 to have "stars" hired for voicework.

For the record, Stephanie wanted for KFP4 to "stay truer to KFP1 and KFP 2" but was dismissed as a nobody by the crew (Basically what I said before, Mike and a good part of his team are anything but respectful of other people's works).

Case in point, she wanted Tai Lung being brought back to be done right. She pitched for Po/Shifu to have a vision of the Chameleon kidnapping Shifu, prompting Po to go on a quest to stop her. Shifu gets kidnapped anyway due to the Chameleon's manipulations, and he's hence present to say goodbye to Tai Lung. The execs loved it but "someone axed it" (That person better not know their identity because the fans cling to Tai Lung, I don't think they'll laugh much at this 😅). For those who've seen the film, the vision was reduced to Po's dream enroute to Juniper City.

Another example of Stephanie's intervention, she fought for Zhen to be redeemed ONSCREEN after betraying Po, much to the writers' refusal (These people don't even respect their own characters). She was supposed to swoop in out of nowhere to fight the Chameleon for a bit and disappears quickly again. She also ensured that her redemption scene wasn't just dialogue and had action going on. (She admits to Po and Zhen's underbaked relationship not supplementing this scene enough though.)

The writers seemed to HATE comments "poking holes at the story" (And then what do they want us to call that; "purposely destroy the canon of history because of its inaccuracy?" On top of bad in their own job, they're crybabies).

Zhen is a Corsac Fox as its the Asian fox with distinctive facial features.

Nico Marlet, renowned concept artist, only worked on the film for a week, left, and refused to come back (I don't even know if I want to know why, just imagine it).

Many crewmembers pitched ideas for Zhen's family's backstory but all were discarded (They can't even develop their own character, I'll call that technique "Work? What is that? it is eatable? XD").

By the way, the thing about humans was no joke.

(Conceptual art made by Luca Pisanu)

Original reddit forum:

Guys, that's it, how not to write a movie. I think you can already imagine my opinion, it is a complete shame what they tried to do with this saga but at least she was able to save it from being completely ruined. I sincerely ask you all to spread this information, I will leave you a link to the original reddit thread for your inspection. And I'm just saying one thing: I hope they fire Mike Mitchell and all his damn inept scriptwriters, and I hope we never see them again in another production of this saga. And of course, to the executives at Dreamworks: Stick your finger up your ass and don't touch what you don't know how to touch.

Don't be silent about these things, because you know what will happen? That they will do the same thing again with the fifth film because they see that the method works, in addition to the fact that they will also exploit their workers for nothing for such a mediocre product (Because yes, they also exploited them to finish the finale on time). Let this not happen again guys, please I ask you.

[ms-scarletwings]

I just finished a Hell of an audiobook lately

Its name is The Troop, written by Nick Cutter, narrated by Corey Brill,

And it has proved one of the most intensive experiences with literary media in my entire life.

Listen… listen here as I try to contextualize that. I’m a person who enjoys doing chores while Wayne June’s voice serenades me with the writings of Lovecraft, Poe, and Red Hook Studios. I grew up on a Little Shop to John Carpenter’s The Thing horror pipeline. I’ve played I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream at least three times to myself by now.

There were points where I laughed my ass off. Points where I yelled either in cheer or anger. A point or two where I almost cried. Many points where I gagged, physically gagged several times while driving down the road because of Cutter’s linguistic assault. I took needed breaks off and on and yet I still kept coming back for more. It’s… where do I actually start? With that Stephen King review where he mentions that The Troop scared the hell out of him?? With this?

TL/DR: This shit makes “Lord of the Flies” look like an episode of Rugrats.

I picked up this story working on no more knowledge than what I suggest anyone else interested in the roller coaster experience also start from: This is a story about a handful of Boy Scouts encountering a very hungry, very sick guy in the woods while on a camping trip.

I was hoping for something like World War Z, which is a phenomenally written work by Max Brooks. This was not much like WWZ in content, but in terms of the quality, pacing, and amount of thought put into the writing itself, I can’t think of a better comparison. Every scene is tapestried with descriptions and immersive detail to make sure you understand the full pov of its characters. You will know exactly what they hear, what they smell, what they taste, in ways elating and in ways that will make you lose your appetite.

The themes themselves share more spiritually with… Kitty Horrorshow, if anything. I can’t elaborate much on that without spoilers, and I honestly don’t encourage a jump into this text any less blind than this.

All that said, this is a true disturbing work in the sense that it is sure as hell not going to be for everyone. I don’t think it’s really even for most people in its entirety. There are several scenes dedicated to the quite graphic portrayal of childhood bullying, body horror, parasites, violent harm done to animals domestic and not (extreme emphasis on this one), and the general etc. that comes with the territory of this being a horror novel with primarily 14 year olds as main characters. Be merry and be discretionary with this knowledge. I’m going to hope the nightmares about eating wallpaper and worms settle down as the days pass, as I still thank this book for adding them to my garden.

[phoenixyfriend]

would you ever write a dystopian au?? like zombies, technodystopia, etc (for the purposes of this question assume the gffa is not already basically a dystopia)

Let’s play Writer’s Would You Ever

Oh, this is a fun one. Let's see...

There was a trend, maybe a decade ago? I remember it being big right after Avengers 2012 hit, and it lasted a few years, so probably a decade. There was a trend for zombie and similar dystopia AUs for a lot of fandoms. There are two that stand out in my memory for Marvel in particular (one is young, deaf Clint in a no-powers au, Survival Value, and the other is a zombie-adjacent AU where the Chitauri won and Earth is a hellscape, Underground), and a few more across other fandoms, so I do remember really enjoying the style... however.

As you pointed out, the GFFA is kind of already a dystopia. And I feel like dystopian AUs are most useful in terms of putting characters in a setting where not only do they not have any real resources, but they can't realistically acquire any meaningful stash, as such, or a setting that's overbearingly authoritarian, which, again, a cyberdystopia is just... canon? Even zombies are canon, if in a much more limited manner, but at this point I think zombies as a trope are pretty played out unless you add an extra twist (like P&P&Z), and I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I could write that would actually be, like, more interesting than canon settings.

Mostly, I don't think the normal settings, the zombies and the technodystopia etc, would bring anything new to the table that wasn't already present in canon to one degree or another. I'd spend a lot of time going "why am I doing this instead of canon, again?"

There are AUs with an element of dystopia that I could do (easily with a steampunk setting, play into the imperialism and a dash of medical malpractice, that sort of thing), buuuuut I don't think that really counts since the dystopia isn't necessarily the main draw.

I think if I ever did do a dystopia fic, it would probably be an Earth-set post-nuclear wasteland. I haven't personally played any of the fallout games, but I've watched The Final Pam and those hours-long hbomberguy reviews (I really liked the New Vegas one), so I think I get the gist, and that would I think be the best setting to work with. A more limited set of tech than canon, a tighter world with less maneuverability, and a fun set of aesthetics and general vibes with some Old West But Make It CyberSteamPunk draped across it.

So yeah, unlikely to write one for Star Wars, but if I do, it'll probably be a mountain states post-nuclear war Wild West type of thing.

I'd get to play with small scale economics (not really a draw in zombie AUs) while deviating from the canon technodystopia stuff.

[agentnico]

Tetris (2023) Review

Not going to lie, but using “The Final Countdown” as a song for your movie trailer immediately means the marketing team from Apple TV+ deserve a raise! That song slaps!!

Plot: Henk Rogers discovers Tetris in 1988, and then risks everything by travelling to the Soviet Union, where he joins forces with inventor Alexey Pajitnov to bring the game to the masses.

You hear a movie titled Tetris is coming out and one has to wonder if we have another Emoji Movie on our hands, where we’ll get little tetra shaped characters goofing about in some animated mathematics world trying to force an unfunny joke upon our poor heads. Then we get a random celebrity cameo like Orlando Bloom voicing an L-tetromino and making a joke that his character’s full name is Legolas. Actually, wouldn’t mind seeing that last part, just saying. Regardless, Tetris isn’t actually some ridiculous animated affair based on a pop culture phenomenon, but instead is the backstory for how the game was brought to the world masses. So no talking tetrominos, but instead we have ourselves a legal drama.

Look, before you all shut your eyes away upon the news of another legal drama, this movie is actually surprisingly engaging and the story of the battle for the licence of worldwide distribution of this little game is filled with twists and turns, as well as an element of spy espionage, due to the original game owners being Soviet Russia. That’s right, there’s an element of the Cold War in these proceedings, with Henk Rogers and others trying to persuade the Russians to sell them the rights, however as known the Russians don’t trust anyone. Speaking of the Russians, the communist backdrop is handled really well, with this idea that when in Moscow you’re always being watched, as well as digging into the corruption of the Soviet regime. Even Gorbachev shows up at one point, thought that element I imagine didn’t happen in real life and was more so added to up the ante of this film. 

Speaking of upping the ante, even though many scenes revolve around characters sitting in rooms discussing legal stuff, the movie also involves car chases. That’s right, the writers definitely added a bit of a fictitious element to this story to make it more exciting for the casual viewer. I enjoyed that. It made this movie stand out more from others of its genre, and of the said car chase as well as other sequences, there are visual moments where the screen turns into this very early shonky computer graphic pixelated look, which I found to be quite the clever little gimmick. This backed up with an 80s techno soundtrack as well as various renditions on the classic Tetris theme made for an overall exciting watch.

Taron Egerton as always is super likeable and charming as Henk Rogers, in some ways channelling a young Gary Oldman, although maybe its just the Jim Gordon stache. The character of Rogers himself is the typical underdog one loves to root for. He’s the reckless entrepreneur who bets his entire house and life on this one game that he believes has the power to become something massive. He’s described by one of the other characters as “stupid but honest”, as Egerton leans into that heavily. His friendship bond he builds with the Tetris game creator Alexey Pajitnov (played by Russian actor Nikita Efremov in a very endearing way) is also really delightful, and a scene where the two of them go to a Soviet nightclub is a highlight. Roger Allam and Igor Grabuzov relish their villainous roles, and Toby Jones pops in doing some kind of European accent, though hard to pinpoint exactly which one.

Overall I really enjoyed Tetris, and was surprised at how the creative team managed to make this story as engaging as it is. Also naturally there is an element of nostalgia, as like many back in the day as a kid I used to enjoy rinsing Tetris. I even had a little handheld console that was designed specifically for Tetris. It wasn’t the branded stuff like the GameBoy (though I had that too for Zelda and such); it was literally this little Tetris console my dad got me in Russia, and that was the beginning of my screen addiction, which later turned into my smartphone....dark times. Regardless, a solid watch and currently my favourite film so far this year, though that’s not a difficult feat seeing as thus far this year’s movie releases have been really average. I look forward to the inevitable Rock, Paper, Scissors movie!

Overall score: 7/10