Monday 20 September 2010

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a tv show of seven seasons and is very popular world wide. Joss Whedon is the creater of the cult-hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer and director.

"Into every generation a Slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers. She is the Slayer."

It changed peoples look on feminism, as the main character is a girl who kicks monsters butts and doesn't need a knight in shining armour to save her. Most of the other female characters are strong and indepentent as well, like Anya who punished men who wronged women.

It changed the way Lesbian culture was viewed. Willow and Tara are looked as gay icons and were the longest lesbian relationship on tv. Andrew I always thought was gay as well, since of his accsent and personality, though they never mentioned it.

Buffy: (to Giles) "To make you a vampire they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It's like a whole big sucking thing. Mostly they're just gonna kill you. Why am I still talking to you?"

This show is unique and probably has influenced loads of other vampire stories. The vampires look diferent to other vampires, when they change their eyes go yellow, their brow gets all scrunched up, they get fangs and their other teath are also sarrated.

The genre didn't fit into any of the other genre of the time, rather several. Like action, comedy, drama, romance, horror and supernatural. They even have there own language in a way.

Religion isn't exacly mentioned in it, but does show up. Crosses and holy water show up alot. Heaven and hell are both mentioned quite a bit. Gods (Glory) exsisted in it. Willow was jewish...

"Oh come on! Stake through the heart. A little sunlight. It's like falling off a log"





Season one.
Started 1997 and by my opinion was the Cheesiest. Some people think the first few seasons were the best, because each episode had it's own story and the later episodes carried on with a plot for the hall season.

Season one is where the Buffy moves to Sunnydale after burning down her last school's gym. Sunnydale high is known as the Hellmouth and there she meets her new friends Xander and Willow, Plus Giles her watcher, who help her fight evil. In this season they must stop The Master, an ancient ugly looking vampire, from opening the Hellmouth and taking over Sunnydale.

"Yeah, just see him in a relationship. 'Hi, honey. You're in grave danger. I'll see you next month!"




Season two.
Is when I started to got addicted. I loved Angel when he was bad.

In this season, a new slayer Kendra comes to town after Buffy died briefly and came back in the last season and theres new vampires in town as well Spike and Drusilla. Willow starts to practice with witchcraft and gets involved with Oz who got bitten and turned into a werewolf. Xander starts to date Cordelia, most popular girl at school, seacretly. Buffy and Angel develep a ralationship through the season, but after they sleep together Angel looses his soul and once more becomes Angelus and starts to kill.

"Can a vampire ever be a good person? Couldn't it happen?"




Season three.

Buffy returns to Sunnydale, after leaving end of last season, because of what she did to Angel. Angel gets resurrected and leaves at the end of the season when he realizes they can't be together (he then gets his own tv series) Giles gets fired from the watchers council after 'fathers love' for Buffy and at the end of the season Buffy also says she no longer wants to work with the council. A new unstable slayer (Faith) comes into town and at first she works with Buffy. But later on goes against the Scooby gang and befriends The Mayor Wilkins who then turnes into a giant snake and tries to kill everyone on graduation day. Faith later goes into a coma.

"A vampire isn't a person at all. It may have the movements, the memories, even the personality of the person it took over, but it's still a demon at the core. There is no halfway."




Season four.
Spike was hilarious with the chip in his head and Anya is quite amusing as well.

In this season Willow and Buffy start collage. Plus Xander joins the workforce and begins dating Anya. Spike returns and gets abducted by a top-secret military installation who put a microchip in his head, that stops him from harming humans. He reluctantly helps the Scooby gang and finds out he can fight demons. Oz leaves town after believing he's to dangerous as a werewolf and Willow falls in love with Tara. Buffy starts to date Riley who she finds out is a member of The Initiative. It seems it's a anti-demon operation, but secretly their making a demon/human/comuper hyprid called Adam.

"A vampire in love with a slayer. It's rather poetic...in a maudlin sort of way."



Season five.
Is one of my favorite seasons, since theres lot of Spike in it. Love the Buffybot as well, was real funny. Though at first with the new sister I was really confused. The end was really sad to.

Dawn is new and suddenly appears as Buffy's sister, although to the characters it feels like she's been there all the time. Glory a exiled hell-god comes into the story searching for the 'key' which would allow her to go back to the hell dimensions and unleash hell on earth. Later on we discover the 'Key' is in human form and is Dawn, though she doesn't know it and concurrently implanting everybody with lifelong memories of her. Riley leaves early in the season and Spike relizes he's in love with Buffy. Buffy's mother Joyce dies of brain aneurysm and Xander proposes to Anya. Then at the end Buffy sacrifices her life to save Dawn's and stopping the Hell dimensions from opening.

"Is Antonio Banderas a vampire?"

"Hey, I don't have a pulse. Cool! Can we eat a doctor so I can get a stethoscope and hear my heart not beating?"




Season six.
Was a good series, I love 'once more, with feeling' the musical episode.

Buffy's friends resurrect Buffy from what they thought was hell but was actually heaven. She falls into deep depression for most of the series. She takes up a job at a fast food place for the money and has a secret abusive ralationship with Spike. Dawn feels alienated. Xander leaves Anya at the altar, after which she goes back to a vengeance demon. Willow gets addicted to magic, which Tara doesn't like and leaves temporarily. They meet a new group of three nerds, all trying to kill Buffy and take over Sunnydale. Warren shows to be the only villain in the group and tries to Kill Buffy with a gun, but Kills Tara instead. This cause's Willow to use black evil magic and kills Warren. She then tries to destroy the world but Giles and Xander stop her. At the end Spike goes to a demon to get him to return his soul for Buffy.




Season seven.

Ended in 2003

It is revealed that Buffy's comeing back to life has messed with the balance of good and evil. This evil hunts down the potential slayers, killing them. Then he raises an army of turok-han vampires. After the watchers coucil is destroyed, Giles and Buffy go looking for the potential slayers and train them at her house. Faith returns to help fight The First Evil and so does the new principal Robin. Everyone flee's Sunnydale humans and demons alike, as the people neer the hellmouth start to act funnily. Angels returns to give an amulat to Buffy who then gives it to Spike. Willow makes all the potential slayers, slayers and together they all fight. Some characters don't survive and Sunnydale defintly doesn't, it's now just a crater.





Season eight comics.

The end of Buffy (tv show) isn't really the end since they go on in comic/graphic novels. The Buffy comics are very gripping like the tv show, with all the slayers (thousands) fighting a war against this masked guy called 'Twilight' who you later find out is Angel. Harmony has made humans against slayers, making them hide from the world. She gets her own reality tv show called 'Harmony Bites'. Theres also lots of other little things happening...like Dawn changeing first into a giant, then into a centaur and lastly into a porcelain doll, because of her boyfriend.



Characters.

Sarah Michelle Gellar plays the main character Buffy Summers. Who was a cheerleader, but then was chosen as the slayer.

Her first relationship was with Angel, who just happens to be a vampire with a soul, though she doesn't know it at first. It was a forbidden love, as she should of killed him. He turned into Angelus when he expirenced pure happyness, Angelus is a monstress killer. He gets his soul from gypsys as a curse. Angel gets his own tv show, whenn he leaves this one.

Her second lover was Riley, who is a secret military monster hunter, she met at collage.

Then theres Spike, also known as William the Bloody, because of his bloody poetry. He used to kill his prey with a railway spike hence the name Spike. Was originally a very evil vampire like Angel, Darla and Drusilla who he hanged out with, their called the Fanged Four. He was known for killing two slayers, his bleached blonde hair and leather duster. He proves to Buffy he loves her by getting a soul and sacrifing him self to save the world.

Drusilla is quite wicked and speaks in poetry. At first she is ill and needs Spike to look after her, but later she gets back her strength. She loves Spike very much, but so does she 'like' Angelus. She wairs gothic old fashioned dresses.



Giles is Buffy's Watcher, sent from the watchers council in England to train her. He is typicaly English and works in the school Libary.

Willow Rosenburg is a shy, nerdy girl who then becomes a witch and later finds out she's a lesbian.

Tara loves Willow and is also a witch, though she thinks Willow uses magic to much. She sweet and senctive.

In season two Willow goes out with Oz. A werewolf who plays gigs at 'The Bronze', a nightclub they always hang out at. He's a laid-back kind of guy.

In season one Willow has a massive crush on Xander Harris. He is said to be the observer of the 'Scooby Club' and has many crushs/lovers. In season one he falls in love with Buffy, but she doesn't like him in that way.



Anya was a vengeance demon, who granted women wishs and then later became a human. She has a relationship with Xander and was going to marry him. She is obsessed over money and is terrified of bunnies. A very funny character who says things before thinking.

Andrew is a geek, who is skilled at summoning demons and used to be in the 'Trio' with Jonathan and Warren, then later joined the good side.

There's ment to be only one slayer, but when Buffy died briefly another was called and then she died bring Faith into the story. Faith is a rogue slayer, who's from a rough background and makes the wrong decisions quite a bit.

Dawn (also known as 'the key') is Buffy's sister who joins in season five and it changes peoples minds as it seems she's always been there. Some fans found her annoying and thought she talked too much, I think she's alright.

Harmony is firstly a dumb blonde who is the school builly. Then after graduation she turns into a vampire and dates Spike, she still is girly and not that evil. She loves unicorns.

Cordelia is Harmony's friend and has a real attitude, she also is kinda bitchy. Later she finds out about demons/vampires and hangs out with the scooby gang, secretly going of for a snog with Xander.




Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Movie.
Before the tv series there was a movie done in 1992. Staring actress Kristy Swanson. It is the most cheesiest thing I've ever seen, the vampires are so fake, they have pointy ears and walk around snarling and take such a long time to die when stabed in the heart.

The story is about Buffy who's a cheerleader, going to a school at Los Angeles. She is popular and only cares about boys, friends and fashion. One day a strange guy called Merrick who is a watcher aproaches her and says she is the slayer, but Buffy refuses to believe it. But has to because of the weird dreams of other slayers. In the story she has to kill the local king vampire called Lothos who says he's killed loads of other slayers.



Big Buffy fan and choose to do this as my English speaking and listening discussion. In between the writing there are quotes from the tv series and have used some help for summing up the plot from wikipedia. Does contain spoilers.

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