Talk:Zotz!

I removed
 * Most likely, the ancient civilization was Mayan, for the word means "bat" in that language.

which is OR at best, and in any case wrong. For starters, there is nothing (at least in the novel) closer to bats than using the power to kill a moth without staining the ceiling.

Karig may have had that irrelevant Mayan inspiration, or the producers may have enjoyed or even exploited the coincidence, but the novel clearly describes where the amulet came from: one of his students became an American soldier fighting in Italy; IIRC he dug it up while excavating for entrenchment, and sent it to the only person he knew who might be able to translate such an object. The prof could read it, just well enough to unconsciously whisper the vocal part of carrying out the spell (under the light influence, we are to infer, of the amulet's will to have someone gain its power; tracing the pentagram and "Now cometh the letting of blood and the drinking of blood" are handled very cleverly); he thought the language was related to Etruscan.

According to my own armchair OR (well, wool-gathering), "Zotz!" is an intentional onomatopoetic variation on "zap!"; this is the vocal component of the power's use, and fits well with the instincts that make kids say "Bang, bang! You're dead!" or "Zap! You're disintegrated!" --Jerzy•t 20:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

BTW, Zotz! is a period piece, and film-makers as far removed as 15 years are bound to do some violence to its plot. I'm sure there was no reference to the Russians. The plot is not an SF or fantasy one, but a satire with a fantasy MacGuffin. Once he understands the power he has gained, the professor decides he should arrange to be parachuted into the Third Reich where he'll assassinate Hitler at a Nazi rally, and writes to FDR offering his services. (A reference to the Einstein-Szilárd letter?) Of course this is a secret matter, so he's waiting (IIRC, except for the initial letter) to get to FDR before revealing what he's offering to do. He gets caught up in the bureaucracy, especially people convinced that the most important thing they can do is to help ensure FDR's re-election.

I mention all that, bcz the article describes a plot that is either wrong, or applies only to the film. I'm not sure the book's plot deserves description in the article, but my approximation of it here may help someone who's got a good source specific to the film to avoid ascribing the same plot to both, in describing the film plot. --Jerzy•t 20:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I've read the Walter Karig book on which the movie's based. Fun stuff.

Basically correct. The film is a dreadful mangling of the novel. The basic idea of both is the same, but the "point" of the novel is not the magic spell, per se, but Jones' inability to work his way through government bureaucracy, in order to have his plan to assassinate Hitler put into effect. Of course, by the time he makes any progress, the war is over. He winds up abandoning his career as an archaeologist, and becomes a pest exterminator. Karig was a naval officer, and Zotz! is his poke at government red tape. He also supplied some cartoonish illustrations. Not a "great" novel, but well-written and sufficiently screwy to justify the time spent reading it. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 17:23, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

What metaphor?
Currently, the article claims that the effect of the spell is a metaphor of the nuclear age because it was written two years after the two A-bomb blasts. This is arrant nonsense, in my opinion, but I'd like to find out if anybody can give me a justification for the claim before removing it. As several others have pointed out, the book is a satire on the difficulties of dealing with the Washington bureaucracy, not a cautionary tale about the dangers of nuclear weapons, and takes place before they were deployed.JDZeff (talk) 09:48, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Mistake !
The magic powers shown in the movie are :

Bleeding onto the amulet and saying Zotz while holding it - enabling you to access the other powers

Pointing at a person or animal - causing pain to them

Saying the word Zotz while looking at a person or animal - slowing them down

Pointing at a person or animal and saying Zotz - killing them

173.162.253.101 (talk) 19:10, 11 February 2016 (UTC)