Enrolment Task

Television and film induction work                                           warning spoilers!

Chosen movie: 28 Days later
Chosen Series: Wayne, lethal weapon, The Boys.

The reason I have chosen 28 days later, is due to how I can relate to not just the characters but also how the infection affects everyone.

The suspense that is created with every shot which to me doesn’t make it one of the best zombie movies, but in fact to me one of the better horror movies due to the way it builds up suspense and plays it out perfectly.

The start of the film opens up with the main protagonist “Jim” waking up from a coma and coming to the realization that he is lost. No one is around when he awakes, and he comes to realize he has no one around him. The way I relate to this can be seen with the start of my second year at college and even some of my times at school. I would wake up every day with the same feeling everyday of being lost and having no one around me, leaving my home I come to find the streets empty. The same as the opening arc of 28 days later.

No one is around and I am left to walk the streets, for Jim the place he ends up is a place he feels safe, even though the things that now inhabit that place want to infect and kill him. I feel the same way as I stepped into my school and when I step off my bus at college. I am going to a place I can feel safe, but in there are people that are different from what I once knew them.

With Jim it is his priest that Is the one that tries to kill him, for me it is my mentality dragging me down as I find out I am no longer in a class with  all my friends but I have been separated from them, like the survivors of the outbreak from their families. And with school it was the way I was shunned out of groups and to even find out someone who I classed as a friend hated everything that I had done to help him.

Then following with the infection, with the way Danny Boyle made the film he didn’t go down the normal “Z-Virus” that are air born, but instead infected by Rage a blood and saliva born disseise. This infection is something we all relate to, and I myself and relate to being like I am contained with it. The infection causes us to lash out in violent ways, in the movie it is biting and spitting, but for me the way I have this fit of rage is out of my actions like my hand or the way I act. It is like I have this infection but instead of giving it to others I push people away from getting it. It is something I do every day and don’t mean to.

The way I feel connected to the rage is that when I am lashing out everyone stays away and at some points I don’t even realise I am lashing out, it is like I am some sort of brainless ape in the testing facility in the start of the movie unaware of what I am doing but doing it because it is all I know. I can suddenly get so close to someone I then start to realize what can happen then without a thought I have said something to push them away, and it can almost bring down my friendships and at some point it did, but that action did mean that even though I ruined the trust and friendship of one person I saved another one’s life.

Where I say “how the infection affects everyone” is how I feel myself being and how before I was an infection that had torn people apart. To then turn in to something that I have now decided to never use on people but now without trying to just use it on myself and realizing when it is too late. Just like the animal right activists when the open the first cage. They realise at the worst point it is too late to undo.

A second series I can relate to is Wayne.

The way the story progresses and the way that we learn about both the characters, is also a nice way that they developed the series because, with most shows they will have a filler episode for a character and play it off so bad for a brilliant character we end up hating them, instead for the story line for “Del” we actually see what happens in her life to make her how she is, and it is something that someone would turn into for the unfortunate events in her life.

It is not just in this move that I can relate but also with a small series on YouTube red called “Wayne”, though I don’t have the love story he does the things that are there though is near enough his whole life of pain, but the things he does to protect people are thing I have even considered myself. He loses his dad to an illness, where as my dad might not be dead, but I do feel I have lost my dad due to the distance he now lives and the amount of times I can see him a year. Wayne had a close connection to his dad like I do. But with his mum, even though his left him at a young age walking away from him at a young age to live with the man she was cheating on her husband with, and taking the car that is his to inherit. Mine walked away so many times starting the summer I was going into GCSEs to then just leaving for good without telling me, part way into year 10 and refusing to tell me why.

The way his mum contacted him was with post cards of the car to taunt his dad, the way my mum done this was by coming to visit even now and then but never telling my dad why and even getting me to lie to him.

Wayne focuses on revenge against those who do wrong which has been a view I have stood with well before the show was made, and the thing that he wants the most is something I did too but now it is too late for both him and I due to events in the series and the events of my life working in motion.

Wayne is a boy who does not want to be given any sympathy, just like how I have been for a long time, due to the way people decide to treat you differently when  they suddenly after throwing you around and in to the dirt to then say “come here and talk to me” is something I have always hated, and is why with me I have always wanted to show my support to people who would support me, just like Wayne does. Though as it is in a series where it seems the punishment for what he does is a small slap on the wrist I know that if I was to do the things I have learned to do it would end up in serious offences.

The reason I do like it is because of how it allows me to get my feelings out without doing it, but instead saying to my head, this is what it looks like and happens if you took action and what could possibly happen which is why, when there is now a probable i.e. if someone wishes to fight me I always find the most peaceful way to talk it out and so it doesn’t end up in conflict due to the many things I have learned.

My third kind of movie and now a TV series that I do like to watch is Lethal Weapon, the reason behind me liking it is because of the way the characters interact with each other, I can compare the two main characters to both me and Dalton Blyth or me and another one of my friends. The character I associate my self to is Martin Riggs, though in the TV series he is an EX-Navy seal, in the movies he is an EX-special forces member who served in Vietnam. The one I believe Dalton and my other friend to be like is Riggs cop partner Roger Murtaugh.

The reason I love the movie is because of how wild and somewhat realistic it is, in the movies they base the plot around real world things like in lethal weapon, having the south African government being criticized is shows, that movies can use real world events to make a good movie.

The reason I relate to Riggs though (and the reason why I have printed on my leavers hoodie “M.RIGGS”) is just to his crazy ways of dealing with his depression in ways I also did, and it wasn’t until my dad point it out and got me to watch the movie I realized how much I related to Riggs.

My views are both the same and different for how I deal with things, with Riggs he puts a gun to his head after losing everything and even the will to live, after I felt I had lost everything I felt like doing it as well because all hope was gone for me, my will to live and everything. It took me along with as seen in the TV series Riggs a lot of therapy work to get to “normal”. As seen in the TV series he also likes to do things that would get him killed just like I have done and sometimes still do when I have off days…

The other reason why I love Lethal weapon is because of the goofiness of Riggs with how he likes to do impressions and sometimes does crazy things with his face, just like I do. I find it great that I can see a character that has suffered from a lot to still have a fun side to life even though like I, to have a dark spots in my past, it is also how I act when I wish to cheer people up who are going through a lot, I do anything to make people who cry, smile even when it is a dark time I will always just like Riggs try to show some sort of light.

The fourth and shortest TV series that I have a favourite for is a lot different than how any of the others had affected me. It is called “The boys” on amazon prime, is about a guy who’s girlfriend is killed by a super hero, which is a member of the 7 which is an organisation of the world’s most greatest Supes’. (the reason I call the “Supes” is because of it being a nickname). After the bloody start we are introduced to “billy butcher” his goal is to as he says in the trailer “spank the superheroes” due to them getting away with innocent murder.

For me it is a funny and emotional ride, due to the different thing shown in episodes and, the episodes can differ greatly. One scene that will stick with anyone is (spoiler) when they have the hero Translucent as a hostage and have tried millions of ways to make him listen even though people know it is impossible to kill one of the superheroes what they do is blow him up from the inside, somewhat on accident and somewhat on purpose, but it is a scene that will stick with me for a while for the humour that I got out of it.

And the line for “The boys” that goes “never meet your superhero’s” stands true due to it showing the life of starlight a new supp that is signed up to “the seven” and find out how it is really like. To the life of “Hughie Campbell”, the guy whose girlfriend was killed right in front of him and shows how much he now hates the Supes after meeting the man that killed his lover. To then introduce that man behind the revenge “Billy Butcher” the man who believes the head of “The Seven” a man named “Homelander” had raped and killed his wife, but I won’t spoil the whole story.