SPOILERS: For both book and movie.
I have to say, there is absolutely nothing better than curling up with a good book and getting lost in a story for hours. On the other hand, there is also nothing like going to the movies and watching your favourite stories come to life in front of your eyes. Now if you are a fan of YA fiction and you have a soft spot for those apocalyptic stories, then this is a book for you. Isaac Marion takes a different route with the typical apocalyptic, zombie outbreak story, finding its hero in the undead, amnesia stricken young adult R. Now if you’re unsure about whether or not you want to see Jonathan Levine’s adaptation of the movie, then lucky for you I have read the book and seen the movie to be able to fill you in on the main differences between the two.
Now one of the main differences that really surprised me happened very early on in the movie. In the book, R is a married Zombie… with kids! The Boneys (the elders/leaders/overseers of the airport colony that R lives in, “marry” R to a blonde zombie and then assign them two zombie children to watch over and hunt. However, in the movie, R is very much a care free zombie who takes Julie on a joy ride in a convertible and cautiously exploring their relationship for one another. In the book version, R contemplates his feelings for Julie as well as trying to figure out what it means to be a father, and the responsibility he has to these two children that were given to him. This leads us to….
The Boneys Leadership. In the movie they are simply described as being old zombies, so old that they have lost all of their flesh and are doomed to wander the earth as skeletons forever. Obviously they weren’t very happy when they found out that R was trying to protect and save Julie, but they weren’t that much more upset than all the other Zombies. In the novel, the Boneys are the foreboding elders that dominate and rule the Zombie colony. The Boneys have enough consciousness to have church and school as well as being able to argue opinions. Even though they can not talk, they make their opinions very clear, like when they handed a series of Polaroids showing the massacre of Zombies to R, in an attempt to prevent R from falling in love with Julie.
Another difference was the way Perry was used as R’s spirit guide. Poor Perry… now he gets killed off pretty much immediately in both versions of the story, but in the book, he is far more present in R’s day to day choices and how he handles things with Julie. Even though R chows down on Perry’s brain a few times throughout the movie, experiencing Perry’s memories with Julie and how he really felt about her before he died, Perry is essentially R’s spirit animal in the book. As much as the story is about R becoming human again, it is also about dead Perry learning how to live through R. He challenges and provokes R, and then later guides him, finally ending up at peace in death. This is completely different to the film where, both the audience and, R experience a few flash backs, we experience great character development through Perry’s guidance of R.
This then leads on to R telling Julie about killing Perry. This confession emerges itself later in the book than in the movie. In the movie, R tells Julie that, by the way, he ate her boyfriend and he’s been snacking on his brains for weeks, when they are on their way back to the colony in which Julie lives. Julie explains that she understands and then runs away from him. However, in the book, it is not until the ending chapters that R confesses what he has been struggling to tell Julie. He takes her to the ex-foster home where Perry used to live and uncovers Perry’s secret manuscript (that was dedicated to her, of course), things he would have only said to her if he had been eaten in the apocalypse. She forgives R immediately, no quick exits required. (Because she loves him.)
Now one thing I must point out is Marion’s book is heavy, where Levine’s movie is more lighthearted, not that either of them have a soul-crushing tone. It’s the little details that lend a hand to the novel: Julie is briefly mentioned to be a cutter, and revealed that she had sex for money at a young age. Nora, an orphan girl who lived on her own for years, had sex with Perry shortly after finding her way to the stadium. Julie’s mother couldn’t take the pressure of apocalyptic life and walked straight into a pack of zombies, leaving her daughter to bury an empty dress for her funeral. Julie’s father is an alcoholic who can’t deal with the loss of his wife as well as humanity. Perry’s father was killed by a falling brick at a construction site a random and non Zombie related accident. Oh and there’s the whole Zombies taking over the earth thing…
R’s outfit is something that must be addressed in this comparison. In the movie, R sports a red hoodie, which leads him to believe that he was either unemployed or a student. However, in the book he’ wearing a dark suit and a red tie, and thinks he may have been a temp or an office worker of some sort. When he goes to the stadium later on in the book, the girls make fun of him and say he is about a decade behind in fashion.
R’s outlook on life, or the after life for that matter, is something that is very difficult to capture on screen, however, I feel that the movie attempted at this and did it well. Movie version R seems almost content with his existence wandering around the airport in his red hoodie, spitting out one liners in his internal monologue (most of which are relatively humourous). In the book, R seems to want something more out of life. He wonders why he is different, wishes he could read, why he feels certain things when he hears music, wants to know what his peers’ names are and who he was before this all happened. While in the movie he is simply being, in the book he is trying.
The final battle scene differs somewhat between the book and the movie (the movie includes large battle scenes and focuses on the main characters’ smaller struggles as they try to move through the stadium), but no detail changes more than how R makes his way into the stadium. In the movie, he finds a secret passageway by using one of Perry’s memories to help him. In the novel, however, he uses M as a distraction , pretending that he is being attacked and bolting into the city of “safety”, pretending to be a human.
Now the ending, the ending is very different. The movie brings us a happy ending, where everyone learns to co-exist and except one another, whilst Zombies learn to love and slowly begin to return to their human state. Whilst R and Julie go on to live their lives together as humans. Not so much in the book. As explained before, the book has a very dark undertone to it. In a final rooftop confrontation, Julie’s dad’s best friend stabs him in the ankle to stop him from shooting Julie… in the head. When he falls, one of the Boneys grabs him and they begin to eat him. He eventually gives up fighting and is pulled off of the roof and dies with the Boney attacking him. In the midst of all the choas and before Julie’s dad falls to his death, R and Julie do the only thing they can think of: they kiss. What R and Julie have between them has begun to infect many others, causing them to change. The living decide to give the changing undead a chance, and let them try to assimilate into their society. So the book has somewhat of a happy ending, that is surrounded by total darkness and having many of their loved ones die in the battle.
So that’s it. Movie adaptation was a good attempt at telling this weird Zombie love story, but the book is just so much better! High five Isaac Marion for producing some A+ work. I am looking forward to reading your next master piece The Burning World (a prequel to Warm Bodies).
Writer's Block 