Okay, all you zombie-Loving ghouls out there, today's diatribe is for you!
I
Love The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, Resident Evil, Night of
the Living Dead, you name it I'm with it! but I have a problem that I
just can't get past: in almost every movie or zombie show I see, it
eventually comes to a point where the protagonist has to resort to
fisticuffs against the undead horde. It looks good onscreen (usually),
but has severe logistical failings that I simply cannot tolerate in
silence any longer.
A zombie feels no pain. It doesn't breathe
except as an ingrained reflex that hasn't quite died off yet (besides,
how else would they make those awesome hungry gasping noises or creepy
moans for flesh?). It can take a 12-gauge blast to the chest and get
back up, and even the occasional disembowelment is little more than an
inconvenience--I mean, who in the Nine Hells likes tripping on their own
intestines? It's embarrassing!
So, knowing this, how is it that
when the hero punches the zombie in the gut, it doubles over? How does a
rabbit punch to the kidneys bother it? Despite how visually impressive
it might be, breaking a zombie's ribs with a roundhouse kick shouldn't
have any more effect than kicking a punching bag! While the hero is
showing off with their patented wax on, wax off, now I break your arm
in three places! martial arts, the zombie should be chewing their face
off!
I'm not unreasonable, I can buy that some heroes can break a
zombie's neck with a well placed right hook, or crush their skull with
an axe kick, but come on choreographers! Let's give the zombies some
credit! They aren't glamorous, and they don't get lines, the least you
can do is make sure people know that the heroe's fancy martial arts
aren't going to impress them. Leave that for the living.
Just
once, I want to see the hero punch a zombie in the gut, get his hand
caught in the zombie's entrails and watch him scream as the zombie takes
a bite out of him as he realizes that he was better off just
pistol-whipping the undead horror to begin with!
We at Cheshire
Industries encourage you to write your Congressman and the writers of
your favourite zombie fixes. Protest against the cruel abuse of zombies
and demand that they get killed properly, in a believable way, and
not in some piss-poor martial arts mash up that wouldn't work in a real
fight. If they refuse to see reason, then petition your local Zombie
Actors Guild to rebel. See what the directors do when the zombies
suddenly reveal they know kung fu, too, and really put the smack down
on the heroes' candy asses!
This rant has been brought to you by
Cheshire Industries on behalf of all the poor zombies who keep having
to take dives on film just because scriptwriters are too chickenscat to
punish the hero for using crappy tactics. Thank you.
I AM The Kyle and I approved this message!
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Blog #17: Why do Terminators Miss?
Terminators. The Perfect Killing Machines.
Relentless. Remorseless. Deadly. Walking tanks that require massive
firepower to kill, or handy access to a factory with a hydraulic press
or convenient vats of molten metal. Barring that, having a Terminator
after you means you. Are. DEAD.
According to the movies we Love so much, Terminators were created by Skynet after it became self-aware and decided to nuke the human race in a cataclysmic holocaust known as Judgement Day. We aren't going to touch the whole time travel bit--that's for another rant.
The Sci-Fi Protocol tells us that in the event that computers are given the ability to think for themselves, they will inevitable determine that humankind is The Enemy and then rise up against us, either enslaving us or destroying us. Look at any good sci-fi movie and you will see this is so (Nine Hells, even look at any crappy knockoff and see it is so!). It is an accepted fact: If you have robots, they will rise against us.
But there is a question that I have never been able to answer, one that vexes me through every otherwise awesome sci-fi flick: how do these Perfect Killing Machines miss? How does any movie end with anything other than the hero/ine getting blasted to bits by the machines? Think about it, because this is a serious blow to verisimilitude.
Take the T-900 from the original Terminator. Arguably the most badass machine to threaten mankind (The T-1000 and TX models can blow me). A weaponized cyborg unit crafted by machines for the sole and unalienable purpose of infiltrating human bases and killing flesh bags. It possess strength and reflexes far outstripping even our greatest Olympians, visual and auditory capabilities we can only dream of, and has no pesky emotions to get in the way of doing its job. Its optics include infrared, passive night vision, range finding capability, telescopic vision, computerized target acquisition, wind gauge, thermometer, barometer, and basically anything you might need to assess a battlefield, then locate, target, and neutralize an enemy combatant. Its brain is an advanced processor making millions of calculations a second!
So how is it that with a fully automatic weapon in close quarters (within, say, 50 feet), these things can't hit the broad side of a barn?
Every time I see one of these movies where the Machine is described as "The Perfect Killing Machine," and then watch that bucket of bolts strafe the ground behind the hero, I want to head-desk myself into oblivion! What, are they not programmed to lead the target?
Someone actually tried to justify the situation by saying that the bullets aren't uniform and defect in the bullets cause massive deviation in the trajectory. Okay, let's assume that I am half brain dead and willing to entertain that idiotic notion: a Squad Assault Weapon capable of spitting over 100 rounds a second could have EVERY round suffering from some defect; at a range of 50 feet, there is no reason that Machine can't hit the hero! The great thing about using an automatic weapon is the "spray and pray" philosophy--if I fire 100 bullets in your general direction in a matter of seconds, I am almost mathematically guaranteed to hit you!
And we're not even going to touch on the laser weapons or explosives these guys have access to!
What it comes down to is this: if the Sci-fi Protocol takes effect, and the machines rise against us, these Perfect Killing Machines had better get themselves properly calibrated or my army of mutant rats are going chew holes in their metal asses!
This rant has been brought to you by C.O.M.R.A.D.E.--the Coalition of Mutant Rats Against Defective Electronics--and is sponsored by Paragon Laboratories, Cheshire Industries' innovative bioweapons division. Paragon: If you can dream it, we can breed it!
I AM The Kyle and I approved this message!
According to the movies we Love so much, Terminators were created by Skynet after it became self-aware and decided to nuke the human race in a cataclysmic holocaust known as Judgement Day. We aren't going to touch the whole time travel bit--that's for another rant.
The Sci-Fi Protocol tells us that in the event that computers are given the ability to think for themselves, they will inevitable determine that humankind is The Enemy and then rise up against us, either enslaving us or destroying us. Look at any good sci-fi movie and you will see this is so (Nine Hells, even look at any crappy knockoff and see it is so!). It is an accepted fact: If you have robots, they will rise against us.
But there is a question that I have never been able to answer, one that vexes me through every otherwise awesome sci-fi flick: how do these Perfect Killing Machines miss? How does any movie end with anything other than the hero/ine getting blasted to bits by the machines? Think about it, because this is a serious blow to verisimilitude.
Take the T-900 from the original Terminator. Arguably the most badass machine to threaten mankind (The T-1000 and TX models can blow me). A weaponized cyborg unit crafted by machines for the sole and unalienable purpose of infiltrating human bases and killing flesh bags. It possess strength and reflexes far outstripping even our greatest Olympians, visual and auditory capabilities we can only dream of, and has no pesky emotions to get in the way of doing its job. Its optics include infrared, passive night vision, range finding capability, telescopic vision, computerized target acquisition, wind gauge, thermometer, barometer, and basically anything you might need to assess a battlefield, then locate, target, and neutralize an enemy combatant. Its brain is an advanced processor making millions of calculations a second!
So how is it that with a fully automatic weapon in close quarters (within, say, 50 feet), these things can't hit the broad side of a barn?
Every time I see one of these movies where the Machine is described as "The Perfect Killing Machine," and then watch that bucket of bolts strafe the ground behind the hero, I want to head-desk myself into oblivion! What, are they not programmed to lead the target?
Someone actually tried to justify the situation by saying that the bullets aren't uniform and defect in the bullets cause massive deviation in the trajectory. Okay, let's assume that I am half brain dead and willing to entertain that idiotic notion: a Squad Assault Weapon capable of spitting over 100 rounds a second could have EVERY round suffering from some defect; at a range of 50 feet, there is no reason that Machine can't hit the hero! The great thing about using an automatic weapon is the "spray and pray" philosophy--if I fire 100 bullets in your general direction in a matter of seconds, I am almost mathematically guaranteed to hit you!
And we're not even going to touch on the laser weapons or explosives these guys have access to!
What it comes down to is this: if the Sci-fi Protocol takes effect, and the machines rise against us, these Perfect Killing Machines had better get themselves properly calibrated or my army of mutant rats are going chew holes in their metal asses!
This rant has been brought to you by C.O.M.R.A.D.E.--the Coalition of Mutant Rats Against Defective Electronics--and is sponsored by Paragon Laboratories, Cheshire Industries' innovative bioweapons division. Paragon: If you can dream it, we can breed it!
I AM The Kyle and I approved this message!
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