So, off-road vehicles, eh? I was looking for something to blog about (because it’s good to write a little bit every day, and doing blogs is a good way to keep you honest about it), and I asked my friends for blogging suggestions. My friends, as a joke, told me I should blog about off-road vehicles. They said it as a joke, but I took it as a challenge; what better way to get the creative juices flowing than to take a subject you know painfully little about, and trying to make something of it? So that’s what I’ve decided to do.
However … I’m cheating a little bit. Instead of writing reviews and going into details about real life off-road vehicles or experiences I’ve had with off-road vehicles (which have been pretty few and far between, unless you count a riding lawn mower, which … I mean, I guess you could, but maybe you shouldn’t), I’ve decided I’ll pick some of the best movie (and maybe worst) appearances of off-road vehicles in films. Let’s be real, that’s just more fun for you to read about, and certainly more fun for me to write about!
So I guess, before I get started, I should define what I mean by “off-road vehicle” (being in academia, it’s kind of been drilled into me that you best define what you’re talking about in the introduction, or basically the whole thesis can be called into question, and that’s just no good). I’ll keep the definition simple, and follow the basic standard definition. I mean anything that is capable of travelling on a surface other than a paved or gravel road. And for my purposes, that included vehicles that don’t actually have to travel on anything, if you know what I mean. Basically, this is so I can include hover crafts.
Technically, I guess this definition would also include spaceships (and although I’d obviously love to write a whole blog dedicated to the Millennium Falcon, that wasn’t really the challenge), so let’s narrow the definition a bit. Let’s say any land-bound vehicle that doesn’t need to travel on a designated road. Does that sounds okay? I’m just going to assume you agree that that sounds fine, because that’s what I’m going with.
So I hope that you enjoy this blog! Please understand that I, as I said, know basically nothing about terrestrial off-road vehicles. I have ridden in a Gator, one of those little John Deere utility vehicles. I worked on a maple sugar farm for years, and was stationed for many of those years out in the forest, and apart from a hay wagon (I’m not kidding), a Gator was the quickest way to get out there. And obviously a wagon couldn’t fit down the forest paths, so when you needed to get somewhere quickly in the woods, that’s a job for the Gator. But, like, that’s it. That’s all I know about Earth off-road vehicles. So please have a good time reading about all the stuff I know concerning fantastical vehicles. Because that’s how I roll (or hover … or whatever).