In 28 Days Later, Jim wakes up from a coma in a hospital to face the zombie hordes of Britain.
In Resident Evil 2, Alice wakes up from a coma in a hospital to fight the zombie hordes of Umbrella Corp.
In The Walking Dead, some-guy-whose-name-escapes-me wakes up from a coma in a hospital to fight the zombie hordes of America.
What is it with this particular setup? What is it about hospitals and comas that imply zombies? It seems too overused to be a coincidence; are the zombie movie makers trying to pay homage to something?
I looked on tvtropes, but I couldn’t find an exact trope for this phenomenon (“Slept through the Apocalypse” is close)
I can’t speak for the other two but in The Walking Dead (the TV show, I know nothing of the comics) it was, IMO and at this point in the story, nothing more then a plot device to kick start the show. The writers didn’t waste time explaining to us what happened. In fact, they may not even know themselves in which case that gives them the option of still making that up as they go along which gives them the ability to make it suit their purposes (not that they didn’t take plenty of liberties anyway).
It also put Rick in the same position as the audience. We came into the show just as he woke up, having no idea WTF was going on.
Waking up in a hospital does open up the possibility that it’s all in their heads, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that option exercised in a zombie film.
In 28 Days Later, I’m pretty sure it was an homage to Day of the Triffids, in which the protagonist also awakes in a hospital to find himself in a post-apocalyptic world.
28 Days Later, it seems to me, contains a number of references/homages to earlier post-apocalyptic novels and movies.
Alice wakes up from her coma to fight the zombie hordes at the end of the first Resident Evil movie. In that case, it was a convenient shortcut to go from the events of the first movie and tie them in with the zombie apocalypse of the second game/movie.
In the DVD commentary, screenwriter Alex Garland confirms my suspicion that 28 Days Later contains a number of homages to earlier films. Day of the Triffids is not mentioned specifically, but I’m pretty sure the waking-up-in-a-hospital scene was a wink to fans.
It allows the director to insert a character into the story who knows as little about what’s going on in the world as the viewer does at that point, building empathy between the viewer and the character as they discover the nature of the zombocalypse together.
That’s a good point. I’m sure that’s why Wyndham used it in Day of the Triffids. He was fond of writing in the first person, and the waking-in-a-hospital device allows his readers to discover the Apocalypse along with the character.
Similarly in Earth Abides, the protagonist suffers a snakebite then contracts an illness which puts him out of his senses for a while in a remote location. When he recovers he is in a post-Apocalyptic world, and we discover that world through his eyes.
In addition to setting up said character as in the same position as the audience, it also places an expectation of longevity and importance on that character, via the “why else would he be lucky enough to survive while defenseless?” style trope.
can we think of another scenario that achieves the same thing? remember we need to skip the initial spread and have the zombies established when we start the story. even if the character was imprisoned or something he still would have access to the news.
I believe Walking Dead and Shaun of the Dead are the only two ZA things I’ve seen but what same thing are you trying to achieve? Have the show/movie take place in a post zombie apocalypse?
I don’t have an answer for you, I just asking because when you said “even if the character was imprisoned or something he still would have access to the news” that’s very different then coming out of a coma to find yourself in that world.
In a coma you wouldn’t have access to the news, you wouldn’t know what’s going on. That’s sort of the opposite of being imprisoned. That was kind of the point of the pilot episode of The Walking Dead. Rick had no idea what was happening.
Like I said, I’m just trying to clarify for the people who’ve seen more zombie movies then myself.
i was agreeing with you and was wondering what other alternatives would achieve the same thing, where we enter a story in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
Not a zombie story but in Earth Abides, the protagonist is out in the middle of nowhere and gets bit by a rattlesnake and essentially has to hole up to heal (this is in 1949). When he does he hikes back to civilization to find that it ended while he was gone.
As mentioned, 28 Days Later did it because it was an homage to Day of the Triffids. Walking Dead did it (in the comics first) as an homage to 28 Days Later (there’s a quote somewhere from Kirkman saying as much, but I can’t find it. It may be in one of the anthologies.)
Well, there’s also an obvious analogy between ‘waking up from a coma’ and ‘returning from death’. It’s a two-sides-of-the-same-coin kinda thing which is always popular between heroes and villains (how many villains are evil, twisted versions of their heroic antagonists?).
I read differently somewhere, that the Walking Dead creator independently started the series the same way as “28 Days Later” and when he saw the movie he had a moment of “oh crap crap” but decided not to change it.
The first issue of The Walking Dead was published in October 2003, I find it more than plausible that the text of the first issue or large portions of it were already written when 28DL came out in US release, June 2003. And based on the fact that print publication is a fairly slow process, IME it is quite likely that it was complete by the UK release date, November 2002.
:dubious: