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Wed Dec 16
25 posts in the last 24 hours
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You know, I've yet to read any Jane Austen... this could be my way in :)
I also love how everything is better with Zombies. Pride and prejudice, and Zombies. Mila Jovovich, and Zombies. Shopping Malls, and Zombies. Two scoops of double fudge mint ice cream in a waffle cone, and Zombies!...
Just stop it stop it stop it stop it please stop it stop it stop it stop it already stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it just stop it stop it stop it stop it stop why won't somebody it stop it just stop it stop it stop it please stop it stop it please.
Just read an article about a military robot called the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) that can fuel itself "by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find -- grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies."
@Hamslicer: Methinks the researchers are hoping we can outrun the miniature chainsaw on the robots' grasping arm until they get bored and go back to cutting/eating the grass. Better dust off your cross-trainers.
Edited by SinisterBill prints in color on both sides at 07/14/09 2:59 PM
SinisterBill prints in color on both sides was starred
SinisterBill prints in color on both sides was unstarred
In my bookstore, Zombie Survival Guide sells more often than any other book, except for maybe Fear and Loathing in LV. And I do not operate in the States either.
The 9/11 thing seems like a tenuous connection to make, since as comatoes points out they've been around and in pop culture for quite some time. I like to think that Shaun of the Dead is responsible for it all.
If you look at a number of scary/horror/action movies in the 90's, (at least from my memory) you tended to see a lot more movies about individuals in terror: aliens, predator, silence of the lambs, even terminator & true lies only seemed distantly concerned with Armageddon (more focused on immediate survival). The exception was 12 monkeys, which focused on end of the world through a prism of sanity & personal fate.
Since 9/11, the Apocalypse has come back in a big way. The fear of bioterrorism naturally leads into zombies, but then there are still a lot of non-zombie movies/shows too purely about survival AFTER the Apocalypse. Battlestar, Jeremiah, Heroes, the road, and a half dozen other armageddon tv shows focused on a end times event (or survival afterwards).
And then there's the dozen or so good zombie movies. I always thought zombies (like the invasion films) represented getting lost in a sea of individuals. The fear that not only is the public indifferent to your survival, they're actually teaming up against you.
Zombies don't represent mindless hordes coming to kill you. They represent the mindless hordes that already surround you who can be so easily manipulated into turning against you. Turning the harmless and oblivious into monsters: That's not done by terrorism, that's done by politics. To be convinced that everyone else who disagrees with you have been duped and turned into something hostile, that's where zombies come from. When your duly elected leadership has a popularity rate in the low twenties but you still can't figure out how to get rid of them, then they obviously have infected the genial masses and turned them into something monstrous. Never yourself, of course. Just THEM. What makes it worse is that "it's not really their fault."
Overblown, sensationalist, blatant attention grasping "journalism" by any chance?
Zombies = terrorists? Give me a break. Night of the Living Dead, 1968. Dawn of the Dead, 1978. Zombi 2, 1979. Day of the Dead, 1985. Oh and don't forget about a little story called Frankenstein.
Zombies are nothing new. Attaching them to something like 9/11 is just pathetic. Zombies are more popular now for one simple reason: horror in general is more mainstream. But the average person still wants to see a happy ending, so zombies make that an easier possibility than a serial killer like Jason or Michael that could spawn a series.
@comatoes: On the one hand I think it's fair to say some zombie novels have been influenced by current events, but that rings true for all popular culture. The zombies/terrorists things doesn't fly for me either.
07/30/09
07/30/09
I also love how everything is better with Zombies. Pride and prejudice, and Zombies. Mila Jovovich, and Zombies. Shopping Malls, and Zombies. Two scoops of double fudge mint ice cream in a waffle cone, and Zombies!...
07/30/09
07/30/09
07/30/09
07/30/09
07/30/09
07/30/09
07/14/09
07/14/09
07/14/09
Bleh. I'm so conflicted now. Okay, not really, but man I'm so tired of zombies.
07/15/09
07/14/09
07/14/09
Final solution to the zombie problem?
07/14/09
07/15/09
07/15/09
07/14/09
***Edited to say I'm displeased with the new comment system.***
07/14/09
The 9/11 thing seems like a tenuous connection to make, since as comatoes points out they've been around and in pop culture for quite some time. I like to think that Shaun of the Dead is responsible for it all.
07/14/09
Since 9/11, the Apocalypse has come back in a big way. The fear of bioterrorism naturally leads into zombies, but then there are still a lot of non-zombie movies/shows too purely about survival AFTER the Apocalypse. Battlestar, Jeremiah, Heroes, the road, and a half dozen other armageddon tv shows focused on a end times event (or survival afterwards).
And then there's the dozen or so good zombie movies. I always thought zombies (like the invasion films) represented getting lost in a sea of individuals. The fear that not only is the public indifferent to your survival, they're actually teaming up against you.
07/14/09
07/14/09
07/14/09
Zombies = terrorists? Give me a break. Night of the Living Dead, 1968. Dawn of the Dead, 1978. Zombi 2, 1979. Day of the Dead, 1985. Oh and don't forget about a little story called Frankenstein.
Zombies are nothing new. Attaching them to something like 9/11 is just pathetic. Zombies are more popular now for one simple reason: horror in general is more mainstream. But the average person still wants to see a happy ending, so zombies make that an easier possibility than a serial killer like Jason or Michael that could spawn a series.
07/14/09
07/14/09
07/14/09
What’s next? Werewolves? Leprechauns? Chupacabras? Only time will tell.