Search/Recent Changes
DBTropes
...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

Stock Desert Interstate

 Stock Desert Interstate
type
FeatureClass
 Stock Desert Interstate
label
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate
page
StockDesertInterstate
 Stock Desert Interstate
comment
Oftentimes characters will be traveling by car down a road or interstate through the desert, usually in the southwestern US, and the location feels like it's stuck in The '50s. It'll feature stereotypical diners, gas stations with old-fashioned red pumps, and dramatic desert landscapes with buttes, most often with reddish hues and beautiful sunsets, providing some nice Scenery Porn.
If the show is lighter in tone, the small towns may be quaint Everytown, America places, with an old-fashioned main street and middle-class culture. In horror and thriller shows, the town may be a grimy Abandoned Area, a Dying Town or even a Ghost Town with boarded up buildings and a scary Gas Station of Doom.
A common occurrence in this trope is the well-off main characters from The City will have a car break down and they'll have to walk to a dusty, grungy gas station with an octogenarian mechanic and try to get him to fix their ultramodern sportscar. He won't know how to repair anything with that newfangled, and parts won't arrive for a week. Now the couple have a Fish out of Water experience, as they have to live in a dingy No-Tell Motel in Flyover Country for a week, with no urban comforts.
The famous Route 66, one of the first American highways, was established in 1926 and ran from Illinois to California, and notably passed through the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona. The highway was decommissioned in the 1980s but it remains present in popular imagination. Much of the route features little towns that led to the rise of the old-fashioned gas stations and diners that are typical for this trope.
May involve a Desert Skull, All Deserts Have Cacti, and Decade-Themed Filter. Compare The Wild West (an earlier depiction of the American West prior to industrialization), Area 51 (another stock American desert location), and the Motorcycle on the Coast Road (similar stock romantic depiction of a solitary driver, more common to Japanese works than in the west).
To some degree, this trope is considered Truth in Television. If you get far enough away from the major cities in the American west, the little Dying Towns you come across do start to look like this.
 Stock Desert Interstate
fetched
2023-07-03T19:59:50Z
 Stock Desert Interstate
parsed
2023-07-03T19:59:50Z
 Stock Desert Interstate
processingComment
Dropped link to TheEagles: Not an Item - UNKNOWN
 Stock Desert Interstate
processingComment
Dropped link to TheJonasBrothers: Not an Item - IGNORE
 Stock Desert Interstate
processingUnknown
TheEagles
 Stock Desert Interstate
isPartOf
DBTropes
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_12248d1b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_12248d1b
comment
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas opens on one of these, "somewhere outside Barstow, on the edge of the desert", as the two protagonists drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_12248d1b
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_12248d1b
featureConfidence
1.0
 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_12248d1b
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_16cc6c87
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_16cc6c87
comment
In Seven Psychopaths, the main characters drive through one of these as they flee LA. Much of the second half of the movie focuses on them camping in the desert, off the side of the road.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_16cc6c87
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_16cc6c87
featureConfidence
1.0
 Seven Psychopaths
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_16cc6c87
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_20e0ce9f
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_20e0ce9f
comment
Dingo Canyon in Crash Team Racing has been given this treatment in its remake, Nitro-Fueled, taking everything that was in the motorcycle stages and plonking them down there.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_20e0ce9f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_20e0ce9f
featureConfidence
1.0
 Crash Team Racing (Video Game)
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_20e0ce9f
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_43a9c333
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_43a9c333
comment
Cowboy Bebop ("Wild Horses"): Spike's fighter, the Swordfish, is in need of overhaul, so he flies it to a shop owned by its original designer. He spends most of the episode there, talking with Doohan, who operates the shop, and it fits the aesthetic of this trope. It also has a Space Shuttle hangar and a huge runway.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_43a9c333
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_43a9c333
featureConfidence
1.0
 Cowboy Bebop
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_43a9c333
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_59da62aa
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_59da62aa
comment
Fallout: New Vegas has a few post-apocalyptic versions of the trope. Unsurprising given the Zeerust fifties aesthetic of the franchise and New Vegas's American South West setting.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_59da62aa
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_59da62aa
featureConfidence
1.0
 Fallout: New Vegas (Video Game)
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_59da62aa
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_6bbde1c8
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_6bbde1c8
comment
Overwatch: One of the playable maps in the game is called Route 66, which features a lot from this trope like the stunning Southwestern landscapes and a Greasy Spoon type of diner that players spawn into, along with an old-fashioned gas station called Big Earl's.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_6bbde1c8
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_6bbde1c8
featureConfidence
1.0
 Overwatch (Video Game)
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_6bbde1c8
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_73c536ea
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_73c536ea
comment
Love, Death & Robots: The episode "Fish Night" begins with the traveling salesmen's car breaking down somewhere in the Arizona desert. Since it's too hot to walk back to a gas station in the day, they plan to wait the night out there and start walking in the early morning.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_73c536ea
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_73c536ea
featureConfidence
1.0
 Love, Death & Robots
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_73c536ea
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7558ef22
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7558ef22
comment
Cars: Radiator Springs, the main setting of the Cars movies, is a desert town along Route 66, surrounded by picturesque rock formations. It was once a thriving community servicing cars driving across the country, but is a Dying Town by the events of the first movie due to Interstate 40 cutting off its main source of income. It becomes a hot tourist attraction after racer Lighting McQueen makes it his base of operations.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7558ef22
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7558ef22
featureConfidence
1.0
 Cars (Franchise)
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_7558ef22
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_78fc0025
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_78fc0025
comment
Twin Peaks: The Return involves road-tripping through the American West, and as such there are plenty of shots of the empty road in the desert. The last episode especially has this, and much of it takes place in old-fashioned diners and motels or in a car traveling through the desert. A frequent visual motif is an old-fashioned gas-station, which is a portal to Another Dimension that hops around, appearing both in the remote desert and along the roadsides.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_78fc0025
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_78fc0025
featureConfidence
1.0
 Twin Peaks
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_78fc0025
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7c038c18
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7c038c18
comment
Phineas and Ferb played with this concept during the aptly titled "Road Trip" ep where they built this kind of diner on top of their RV while it was still in transit allowing trucks to drive up a ramp, get some grub and leave just as fast. As per the norm of the show, their parents are oblivious to this and the diner is quickly gone by episode's end.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7c038c18
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7c038c18
featureConfidence
1.0
 Phineas and Ferb
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_7c038c18
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7d20ef2c
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7d20ef2c
comment
Bloom County: Opus the Penguin finds himself on one after losing his script, wandering along the highway and across the desert before eventually reaching a 7-11, an outpost of American civilization.note The clerk didn't speak English.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7d20ef2c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_7d20ef2c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Bloom County (Comic Strip)
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_7d20ef2c
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_829cc68f
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_829cc68f
comment
Used as a central motif in the aptly-named Lost Highway. The movie's title sequence is focuses on the flickering yellow lines of the highway, and it climaxes at a roadside motel out in the California desert.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_829cc68f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_829cc68f
featureConfidence
1.0
 Lost Highway
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_829cc68f
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_833ad429
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_833ad429
comment
In Daughter for Dessert, the trips across the desert to and from Whiskeyville have this as the visual.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_833ad429
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_833ad429
featureConfidence
1.0
 Daughter for Dessert (Visual Novel)
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_833ad429
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_83cbe2ab
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_83cbe2ab
comment
Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner: The cartoons take place entirely along highways on the American Southwest.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_83cbe2ab
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_83cbe2ab
featureConfidence
1.0
 Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_83cbe2ab
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_85b79d17
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_85b79d17
comment
Black Mirror: "Black Museum" opens with protagonist Nish driving her 1961 Ford Thunderbird coupe across a desolate highway, stopping at what looks to be the typical Gas Station of Doom. As this is 20 Minutes into the Future, the station is defunct, the car is electric and Nish only needs to leave it out in the sun for a while to charge on a solar panel. And the attendant who greets her, wearing a Waist Coat Of Style, is the proprietor of the titular museum, itself a shuttered tourist trap that he wouldn't mind showing her around while she waits on her car.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_85b79d17
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_85b79d17
featureConfidence
1.0
 Black Mirror
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_85b79d17
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_86814ea1
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_86814ea1
comment
In Final Fantasy XV, the first area of the game is a fantastical version of this. It was explicitly inspired by the American Southwest and features several diners and out-of-the-way gas stations.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_86814ea1
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_86814ea1
featureConfidence
1.0
 Final Fantasy XV (Video Game)
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_86814ea1
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_947cae0e
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_947cae0e
comment
The first act of Psycho focuses on Marion Crane driving from Phoenix, Arizona, to Fairvale, California, and a large stretch of that time is spent on desert highways. Her problems really start once she gets out of the desert, getting lost in a rainstorm and accidentally getting off the main highway, where she finds a quaint little motel.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_947cae0e
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_947cae0e
featureConfidence
1.0
 Psycho
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_947cae0e
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9bd27e6c
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9bd27e6c
comment
The entirety of Full Throttle essentially takes place along a single unnamed Southwestern interstate, starting at the Kickstand bar, then passing through the town of Mellonweed (where Maureen lives), the diner where Ripburger kills Corley, the Mink Ranch, the offramp to the Old Mine Road, the bridge over the Poyahoga Gorge, and the Vultures' hideout, and finally terminating at the Corley Motors factory and stadium. The protagonist Ben generally rides it from one end to the other, occasionally getting stuck or backtracking a few stations, with the climax actually taking place over the Poyahoga Gorge.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9bd27e6c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9bd27e6c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Full Throttle (Video Game)
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_9bd27e6c
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9d0b0bb6
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9d0b0bb6
comment
Bagdad Cafe take place in a setting like this in the Mojave Desert. The creator of One Piece said Spider Cafe was inspired off this movie.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9d0b0bb6
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9d0b0bb6
featureConfidence
1.0
 Bagdad Cafe
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_9d0b0bb6
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9e2f90f4
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9e2f90f4
comment
One Piece: In the Alabasta arc, one of the Baroque Works agents, Zala a.k.a. Paula a.k.a. Ms. Doublefinger, owns a diner out called Spider Cafe in the middle of the desert nation. It's mostly used as a meeting spot for the other agents. Later, a cover story mini-arc showed that, after Baroque Works were defeated, she and most of her fellow agents find a dilapidated one called Cactus Saloon, this time somewhere within a rocky terrain and running it legitimately.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9e2f90f4
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9e2f90f4
featureConfidence
1.0
 One Piece (Manga)
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_9e2f90f4
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9ed2e8b5
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9ed2e8b5
comment
Azur Lane has a dorm furniture set themed around this aesthetic, titled "On the Road." It even comes with a Route 66 road sign. It's also a skin theme for individual shipgirls, with Enterprise, Essex (whose skin is even called "A Trip Down Route 66"), Cleveland, Jamaica, and Akatsuki all getting in on the action.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9ed2e8b5
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_9ed2e8b5
featureConfidence
1.0
 Azur Lane (Video Game)
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_9ed2e8b5
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_a0500a06
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_a0500a06
comment
On Rugrats, Stu and Didi stop at one of these with Tommy and Angelica on the way to the Grand Canyon, when they have some car trouble.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_a0500a06
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_a0500a06
featureConfidence
1.0
 Rugrats
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_a0500a06
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_a08bf0e5
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_a08bf0e5
comment
Both versions of The Hills Have Eyes are likewise about a family on a Deadly Road Trip through the American Southwest.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_a08bf0e5
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_a08bf0e5
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Hills Have Eyes
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_a08bf0e5
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_b2d10fb2
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_b2d10fb2
comment
Next: Nicholas Cage travels through Flagstaff which feels and looks a lot like a stereotypical Southwest Desert.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_b2d10fb2
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_b2d10fb2
featureConfidence
1.0
 Next (2007)
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_b2d10fb2
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_bfcfaed0
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_bfcfaed0
comment
In parts of Natural Born Killers, Mickey and Mallory commit some of their crimes in desert gas stations and drive along Route 66.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_bfcfaed0
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_bfcfaed0
featureConfidence
1.0
 Natural Born Killers
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_bfcfaed0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_c8599ff4
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_c8599ff4
comment
Most of the victims of The Beast of Yucca Flats are people driving through the desert, the narrator explaining that they are on vacation.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_c8599ff4
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_c8599ff4
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Beast of Yucca Flats
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_c8599ff4
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_d34b015e
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_d34b015e
comment
Easy Rider: A film about a road trip from Los Angeles to New Orleans, so it features many red-tinted, wide shots of the road in the desert. As the film was made in 1968, the 50's feel is a lot more excusable.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_d34b015e
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_d34b015e
featureConfidence
1.0
 Easy Rider
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_d34b015e
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ea61871e
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ea61871e
comment
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox opens with a young Wally West with his mother on the side of a lonely highway in the desert with their broken down car. Fortunately, there's a (decidedly 50's looking) gas station and diner about half the mile down the road!
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ea61871e
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ea61871e
featureConfidence
1.0
 Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_ea61871e
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ef04cfff
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ef04cfff
comment
Gas Food Lodging is set in Laramie, NM, a dusty little town by the highway with a truck stop and a trailer park. Trudi suffers from Small Town Boredom and longs to get out (although the real reason is that she was raped).
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ef04cfff
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ef04cfff
featureConfidence
1.0
 Gas Food Lodging
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_ef04cfff
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ef076a36
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ef076a36
comment
Star Trek: Voyager, in the episode "Death Wish" the crew gets to visit the Q Continuum, a higher plane of existence where You Cannot Grasp the True Form applies to both the place and its inhabitants. It appears to the crew as a road through the desert with a waystation and Q in human form just hanging around.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ef076a36
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_ef076a36
featureConfidence
1.0
 Star Trek: Voyager
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_ef076a36
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_fbd61109
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_fbd61109
comment
Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped: The motorcycle levels have this aesthetic, complete with '50s-style diners and gas stations. In addition, the soundtrack has a '50s sound, and Crash wears a Fonzie-style leather jacket. The level "Area 51?" also features Raygun Gothic-style flying saucers.
Dingo Canyon in Crash Team Racing has been given this treatment in its remake, Nitro-Fueled, taking everything that was in the motorcycle stages and plonking them down there.
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_fbd61109
featureApplicability
1.0
 Stock Desert Interstate / int_fbd61109
featureConfidence
1.0
 Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped / Videogame
hasFeature
Stock Desert Interstate / int_fbd61109

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Stock Desert Interstate
processingCategory2
Desert Tropes
 Bloom County (Comic Strip) / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Asteroid City / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Bagdad Cafe / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Natural Born Killers / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Next (2007) / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Wild Cactus / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Marco Mengoni (Music) / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Twin Peaks / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Garou: Mark of the Wolves (Video Game) / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Saints Row (2022) (Video Game) / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Daughter for Dessert (Visual Novel) / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Cars / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Cars / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate
 Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner / int_3494519b
type
Stock Desert Interstate