Zombie Cliche Lookout: Simple Solutions
I think one of the biggest draws to zombie fiction is the way that it simplifies a lot of life’s problems. Now, please don’t read too much into this, I’m saying simplifying here, not that it makes living any easier, which it clearly does not. What zombie survival does do, however, is make a person focus on a much smaller set of very important issues, like evading or destroying zombies, gathering supplies, finding and securing shelter, and treating injuries. Compare that to everyday life, where we constantly have dozens of different things vying for our attention, and you might see how someone might long for simpler problems.
What most of us don’t take into consideration is just how spoiled we are to live in the modern world, especially those of us who enjoy economic stability. Sure, we have to balance work and life, deal socially with people we might not like, sacrifice some of our wants to make ends meet, but we also have full bellies and warm beds.
About this Episode:
As several of you pointed out in Monday’s comic, I might have underestimated how easy it would actually be to break through the glass in the door. It seems that many doors like this use a laminated safety glass, the same stuff they use in car windshields, which is pretty tough to break through. I had assumed the windows like this would be either plate or tempered glass.
Discussion Question: Commonly Overlooked Items in Fiction
In light of my recent gaffe with the safety glass (and all the other ones before that, like the rolling ambulance), what sort of simple, everyday things do you see books, comics, and movies getting wrong that drives you nuts? This doesn’t have to be specific to zombie fiction either; cast a wide net.
Here’s one of my personal bugaboos: I hate it when people are using a computer in a movie or TV show and the computer is making a bunch of beeping and booping noises. I know it’s auditory shorthand, but people would turn off their speakers if computers made that much racket. Also, what’s up with them typing everything? Seriously, people in the movies never use a mouse. It’s absurd.
First thing to cross my mind is how long can people in movies keep their eyes off the road when talking to a passenger and driving at the same time…
Who needs to look at the road?
Typo alerts:
“Now, please don’t, I’m saying simplifying here, not that it makes living any easier, which is clear does not.”
Here’s an example that I think is context putting together a sentence for us, quite clearly, there are a few words missing here, but, just as clearly, the sentence actually makes sense. You just have to think around the words and fill in some extra ones yourself so that it reads like so, I’ve inserted some theoretically plausible missing words in brackets:
“Now, please don’t (complain), I’m saying simplifying here, not that it makes living any easier, which (it) is clear (that it) does not.”
This one is a really good example of how sometimes you construct a sentence and expect people to automatically fill in the blanks, something which I find is more and more commonplace simply because people have had to acquire the ability to fill in missing words, ever since the early days, the English language started becoming modernized, and it continues on to what it has become in the present day! 😉
It’s therefore up to Dave if he wants to correct or add in any of the words in that sentence, bracketed or not, now, onto some other typos:
“but people would turn of their speakers” of–>off 😀
“if computers make that much” make–>made 😉
Dave might have noticed ‘gaff’ was let off, well I let it off because it’s usually spelled gaffe with an accented ‘e’, however, it’s probably difficult to do that on certain blogging software, therefore I’ve voluntarily shrugged off the compulsion to flag it as a typo! 😀
A gaff is a handheld hook used in fishing and boating. A gaffe is an embarrassing error (no accents on it).
Ah, damn. I fixed that gaffe too.
Good lord did I screw that sentence up! Fixed all.
Not quite all: “which is clearly does not” is–it 😀
Fixed.
Things that bug me in movies?
*cracks nuckles*
Since you mentioned computers, I hate hollywood hacking where one person can hack into a building / network / police / government in 5 minutes by drumming their hands over a store bought laptop with a star bucks wi fi bandwith.
This…is not how hacking works…at all.
As for zombie movies…
One dimensional characters, instant head shots, uneeded gore, uneeded abligitory f bomb just to get the pg 13 rating, and of course…
Gathering only food, guns and medical supplies. All fine and dandy as the most important objects but movies often gloss over creature comforts like shampoo, board games, new clothes. Simple things you take for granted each day. Things that after a while you wish you grabbed more of before heading for shelter out in the woods.
Lets be honest, how long would it take before YOU go running into a zombie infested city for a single roll of toilet paper?
“uneeded abligitory f bomb”
This one makes me curious. Does swearing in general bother you, or is this a specific case where they just have people swear to lazily make them seem tougher, or more afraid, or whatever?
I wouldn’t sweat the glass bit too much. No matter how well constructed, a fire axe is EVENTUALLY getting through it. You just spared us 15 panels of Sam swinging away.
There you go! I’m just being efficient here.
Grief. Seriously people in fiction land lose loved ones and in the next scene they are off on some crazy antic.
Original Star Wars was the worst forget Luke losing his adopted parents and then hitting a bar. He showed more angst at losing his landspeeder. No I am taking about Leia. She lost her entire planet and the next time we see her she is making jokes about Stormtrooper height. Way to show you care Princess.
Those Ewoks being burnt to a crisp over some pair of droids they probably wouldn’t have cared about turning over the location of anyway irks me some, good heavens, what was Lucas trying to do? Invent a new race, only to have some Empirical soldiers incinerate them? Well, it worked for him, anyway. 😀
Yep the hey we just met you but let’s go to war with the guys who have been here for months or years and not really bothering us bit
Good heavens, how is it nobody spotted my calling them Ewoks when they’re actually Jawas? I really am forgetting large parts of Star Wars, perhaps I’ll have to go look for some DVD or digital download! 😀
I was referring to Episode IV, not VI! 😉
Well it’s not like that one sandcrawler held all of Jawa-kind or anything…
@ starwars references: lol! So true! They must do all their crying off screen.
@dave:
Mostly its because Im old fashion I guess and I come from a culture that still viewa vulgarities as, well, vulgar be they excessive language or gore or etc etc.
Language can also be a bit of a warning sign of whats to come in a story becuase, usually, when a story starts peppering their language with sailor speak they are willing to do other things that push the material into darker grittier waters that I am not comfortable sailing.
In the end its their choice to make the story they want to, but its also my choice to read it or not. :v
Call me odd but thats my opinion on it. XD
I know its a bit nerdy, but I HATE it when the author/filmmaker plays it fast and loose with firearm technical points. Ironically the WORST examples of this I have ever encountered, ironically, was in the two Walking Dead books, The Rise of the Governor and The Road to Woodbury. The author tried so hard to give gritty details, like how in one scene the character “cocked the dual hammers on his double barreled, 20guage goose gun”
A. Nobody would call a 20guage shotgun a “goose gun” which is a term used for a large
gauge (12-10guage….yes, in shotguns the gauge gets smaller as the bore gets bigger
which is the opposite of handguns and rifles) designed to bring down a large and very
tough bird.
B. No one has manufactured a double barreled shotgun with exposed hammers since the
late 1800’s . Such guns today are treasured collectors pieces and sell for 5 figures. You
wouldn’t find one lying around Wal Mart!
The Author makes tons of mistakes like this which could have easily been avoided by spending 10min on Google. It got so annoying that I actually reviewed these books on Audible and complained about it (I never review anything)