Wednesday 28 September 2011

Being married the force and I how avoided the inevitable divorce

Part 1


Thinking back it was only natural that I fell in love with Star Wars (and I do mean love). My popularity at school was something of a mixed bag, I had friends but I wasn’t really recognised by the core “trendy” group. I was bullied on and off until about the age of 14 and even after that my size and other personality traits (loud voice, opinionated) often kept me in the cross hairs of people who obtained validation through the suffering of others. I want to stress though that it wasn’t a hard time, nor did I suffer that much. I took my licks and my jibes like a “Man” and moved on; knowing that deep down my situation in life would one day swing in my favour.

Of course, I had other things that kept me ticking over too.

Casting my mind back to when I was 6 years old, I think it all started one Christmas Eve. I remember vividly that my parents had to friends over to visit and that whilst I knew who they were my presence wasn’t required. Not that I gave 2 damns about that; Heck! It was Christmas Eve and all I could think about was the presents stowed away under the tree for me. My Dad, being the bastion of parental expertise and control that he is, put me down in front of the telly (for some reason my parents had decided to have their gathering in the kitchen) and he switched it on for me. He flicked through all the channels (only 4 at the time you see) and ITV had just started their network premier of “The Empire Strikes Back”. Dad bluntly said “there you go, if you get hungry give your mother a shout” and that was that. Just me and the second part of a trilogy I would later in life describe as “Holy”. At the time of course I had absolutely no idea how pivotal this moment could be nor how much I would cherish it as a memory later in life. I still maintain that if I had the technology to go back in time and see a moment re-lived in front of me, it would be this one (It narrowly beats the birth of our lord and saviour Jesus, my own birth and my own conception).

Where it all started.

Once the film started, my memory goes very hazy of the whole event (don’t get me wrong, thanks to nearly 2 decades of re-watching Empire I can now recall the entire film to an almost 100% accuracy but as I said I was 6 at the time) but the one striking image I can remember, as if it happened 2 seconds ago is the image of the Imperial All Terrain Armoured Transports (AT-AT’s) stomping their way across the snow plains of Hoth in pursuit of the rebel base. This has a profound effect on me in 3 ways...

1) I would NEVER look at films the same way again.
2) Snow, no matter medium it is used in will always look brilliant.
3) I had to make this “thing” a part of my life.

I remember the Christmas day that followed. The excitement of opening a complete set of Turtles figures. Opening my Nintendo and probably not appreciating what affect the tiny 8 bit dreams located within would have on my fragile little mind, but most importantly just like that, I had forgotten about Star Wars. Just like that.

I remember catching glimpses of the other films throughout the next few years but somehow it always alluded me. I would ask Mum to try and rent them for me, but she never did; either the shop didn’t have them or Mum insisted “you’ve already seen them”. This carried on until I was about 11 and at this point only having a vague re-collection of the films and what happened in them, I needed to know more; I HAD to know more.
It was about this time that I started secondary school (high school to any American friends) and I found it very hard. I missed my old school tremendously and I wasn’t ready to grow up. I found the whole thing very daunting and unfair. I remember crying a lot and trying my best to hide it from my Mum and Dad. I’m not a doctor but if I had to guess I would say the way I felt then must have had some impact on the depression I suffer from now. I’m not pointing fingers of course but I remember how upset it made me at the time and it wasn’t like being cross at someone or something. It was like some horrible else where my naive mind wasn’t ready for at the time. It was a hard time which I normally hate discussing but thankfully it dovetails into something quite wonderful in relation to my love affair with “The Wars”.

My Christmas at my new school was a time for my Mum to cheer me up and god bless her she pulled out all of the stops. No one ever said anything at the time (and hasn’t since if I am honest) but I knew I got a little more that Christmas then I would have done had I taken to things a bit easier. I had embraced the Game Workshop hobby at the time and so Mum used the Yule tide era to provide me with enough models and other paraphernalia to enjoy it properly and to this day it was one of the best Christmas’s I can recall (No one could ever accuse me of being shallow could they). Once Christmas went, I was hit with the horrifying concept of going back to school and it felt like I had lost £50 and found 50p. The crying came back and it felt like I was starting over again, then one Friday evening Mum returned from shopping with some treats for both me and my sister (she would take our Christmas money and our “want” lists and try to return with our required items) and on this particularly occasion she again decided to ease my pain at school by slipping in a few extra items. One of these items was “Mrs Doubtfire” on VHS. A very popular film at the time that I hadn’t seen, so it went down a treat with me and my sister. That evening  we sat down to watch it, and much like DVDs now the start of the tape was chocked full of trailers for up and coming releases via 20th century fox. One of the trailers showed the current re-release of the Star Wars Trilogy. Not only had they been digitally re-mastered but this would also be the last time to buy them ever (anyone reading this now with the slightest inkling of what Star Wars is now knows EXACTLY how hollow that sentiment is). I’ll be frank; I think I preferred the trailer than the film. The next morning before school I woke up extra earlier just so I could watch the trailer a few more times (and remember there wasn’t a “skip” button back then, each time was a slow and tedious rewind) but that didn’t matter. For 45 glorious seconds I was getting a blast of un-diluted Star Wars. The music would ring in my ears and make me want to weep with joy. The sight of the Millennium Falcon soaring through the asteroid field or the Rancor roaring at its potential quarry gave me goose bumps on goose bumps. That morning when I was on the school bus, I wasn’t welling up about the day ahead or the moments in it. The dark thoughts had left leaving only the memories of that 45 second trailer. I couldn’t lose it; I couldn’t NOT think about it.

That trailer was the last bit of Star Wars I would see properly for 2 whole years.

But the damage was done. The force had flowed through me like so many chocolate milkshakes had before and I knew that I wanted more.


I didn’t just want it. I needed it, and one Saturday afternoon I got it; or at least one 3rd of it.

To be continued

Tank

Thursday 1 September 2011

The end and how I learned to cope with it.


I suppose I ought to set the record straight right here and now and admit that I am an emotional guy and I’m not ashamed of it. I got a lump in my throat as i watched Anakin Skywalker slaughter Jedi children in Revenge of the sith. I still well up at memories of certain episodes of scrubs and I will shed a tear when I hear certain songs when I’m in the right sort of mood.


But I have never cried about zombies.


My zombie past is probably much the same as yours. As a child I spent a long time watching the classics that would cement the bedrock of my zombie love. Night, Dawn and Day of the dead all filled me with a certain type of suspense and fear. The sheer horror as I saw General Rhodes torn in half, the breakdown of humanity in a shopping mall, or witnessing the slow dwindling hope that was felt by a group of strangers in a boarded up house, I saw it all, at a gloriously inappropriate age. In some ways though I think that was the problem. Not that I was too young to endure to gore or suspense (By the time I had seen these films and had already seen my Mother deliver several lambs from our livestock and had to bury several dead family pets so I was fairly resilient to this kind of thing) I think the real problem was I was too young to understand the gravitas of the situation in the films. I was smiling with glee as I saw on screen characters panic and then be torn limb from limb by the hordes of the dead, but I didn’t stop to think about their predicament. “Why didn’t she aim for the head?” replaced questions that I should have been asking such as “Why didn’t she barricade the door and then preserve her ammo”. “How come they didn’t just pour petrol on them and let them burn” was my question at hand, not “Why didn’t they just retreat into the loft and remain silent, hoping the undead pricks would get bored and shuffle away”. What can I say, it was a different time back then.


I can’t remember when it all changed, but if I had to try I would say it was probably when I saw Danny Boyles 28 days later. For those who haven’t seen it (shame on you) here is the trailer that lit the fuse so to speak.






Chilling no? Although not strictly speaking a zombie picture, Later still pivoted its plot around a global epidemic that turned people into deadly shadows of their former selves, locking them into a state of permanent blood loss and rage, their only goal to hunt down anything not infected and tear it apart (I am certain they don’t eat people, just rip them apart like rabid animals). They also carry the original virus that transfers the condition in seconds via liquid (blood, saliva, vomit) or physical (scratch, bite etc) contact. Unlike Romero’s condition, the virus takes hold in seconds and there is no cure, hence the title of the film. The virus took just 28 days to destroy the infrastructure of the United Kingdom and cause mass exodus to those lucky enough to be alive.
Here are some quotes from 28 days later that really summed it up for me.


Selena: You were thinking that you'll never hear another piece of original music ever again. You'll never read a book that hasn't already been written or see a film that hasn't already been shot. 


Selena: It started as rioting. But right from the beginning you knew this was different. Because it was happening in small villages, market towns. And then it wasn't on the TV any more. It was in the street outside. It was coming in through your windows. It was a virus. An infection. You didn't need a doctor to tell you that. It was the blood. It was something in the blood. By the time they tried to evacuate the cities it was already too late. Army blockades were overrun. And that's when the exodus started. Before the TV and radio stopped broadcasting there were reports of infection in Paris and New York. We didn't hear anything more after that. 


28 days later had a profound effect on me. It took me back to the original fear and suspense I had with zombie pictures, but this was something very, very different. It made me realise there was a bigger picture to be looking at. Ok so the streets are filled with the infected/living dead but what happens next? Where do we go? What do we do? I swear when I first watched that film I nearly had a panic attack trying to imagine what would I try to do. Would I try to get to my parents? There a good 100 miles away, would I make it? What if I had to run for my life? I get exhausted walking to the shops and back and I get a head ache staying up beyond the news at ten so how could I become a survivalist?
And that’s probably when it hit me hardest. I couldn’t. I would die, as would everyone I love and cherish. They would all die too alone and scared. That upset me. More than the image of a blood soaked snarling infected chasing people through a mansion. It didn’t just upset me, it TERRIFIED me.
Since watching later I have grown a little resilient to end of the world scenarios, but they still bother me. As people (or maybe that should be the viewing public) we seem to be fascinated with how it will all end, and I think we have lost a lot of respect for it. Films that based themselves around spectacular end of the world scenarios have made people lost respect for the scenario and I think in a way that’s what bothers me.
As story telling mediums have become more sophisticated the way we are approached with apocalyptic scenarios has changed too. I think we have become so white washed with them that we have lost respect for it. We laugh at its ludicrous nature of the premise, poke fun at the CGI and sneer at the dialogue. 
But is the end of all life on earth, be it from virus, mega quake, tsunami or otherwise, a subject to be so blasé about?


I’m getting off the subject.


28 days later presented me with THAT moment when it came to watching films with apocalyptic premises, but zombie films had yet to have that moment. This isn’t to say that some things didn’t come close. Max Brookes’ World War Z painted a terrifyingly realistic image of the world after a ten year fight against the undead. It told the story from every angle you could imagine. Pharmaceutical companies, families, bounty hunters, army general, reporters, alcoholics, reality tv shows, governments, soldiers, survivors, victims, and orphans. Everyone was given their due in World War Z and it truly showed the scale of a viral/zombie pandemic.
But you know what they say; sometimes an image speaks a thousand words. So a single trailer for an up and coming game Dead Island really shouted at me.






Even now as I sit on the train (my favourite place to write these important pieces of literal genius) I am struggling to put my finger on what it is that this trailer does to me. Maybe it’s because the trailer itself feels like an evolution of the genre? That this 2 minute trailer has distilled the very things that scare me most about a zombie pandemic.  That thought of utter panic and despair. The feeling of sheer horror and loss as you try, and fail, to save those you love.
A good friend of mine said to me after watching the trailer (whilst we both cleared our throats and wiped away a wayward tear)
  
“I tell you Rich, if one of mine was bitten or eaten. I couldn’t go on. I would take a walk outside and let them take me too, because once that had happened, I can’t see any reason to carry on”


I have since watched the trailer again and again and still get the same horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. The same sense of dread and panic all from one trailer, and I haven’t even played the game yet.
I don’t want you to read this and think that I believe all zombie fiction should be deadly serious with a firm foot in reality. I also don’t want you to think that all apocalyptic fiction should be taken seriously and not greeted with a raised eye brow BUT I want you to understand that whilst I am known for my sense of humour some things in life require just a pinch of respect to truly gauge their meaning and gravitas. We need to look beyond the clichés and dialogue to appreciate what it is they really represent; our fears and concerns and our insecurities and vulnerabilities. The fear that if the end was too come, who would be and how would we act? Would we save our loved ones or preserve our selves. Would we run or fight. Would we be half the person we think we are when we are presented with a choice that could save our own lives or somebody else’s?


Something to think about.