The Work of Fiction X-Men Origins - Essay Example

due: Hero The work of fiction X-men origins: Wolverine was released on May 2009. This film falls under sci-fi, thriller, adventure, and action. This film was directed by Gavin Hood. This film describes the life of James and Victor Logan- who are half-brothers and mutants born 200 years ago. The beginning of the life of these young boys commences with the death of their father and they live their life as fighters and murderers; fighting in the world war I, II, American civil war, and the Vietnam War. Their military life is short lived when Victor kills a superior in the Vietnam War, and both are sentenced to death by the firing squad. Major Stryker approaches the two individuals and offers them to join his elite group of mutants, team X. After his first mission, James is not happy of the murders committed by his team-mates and he quits his commando job and falls in love with a local teacher, Kayla Silverfox. He works as a lumberjack and changes his name to Logan. After six years, Logan is approached to rejoin team X, but he declines the offer. In attempting to convince Logan, Stryker sends Victor. To seek Logan’s attention, Victor kills Kayla, and now Logan is seeking revenge. The protagonist in this film is James Logan. In the movie X-men origins: Wolverine, the vengeful and ferocious James Logan presents himself as a tragic hero. First, he was born of noble birth; he was the second son of a rich landowner. Furthermore, he lost his family in a tragic manner. Also, Logan made a poor choice by agreeing to work with Major Stryker. He was desperate to get better than Victor so that he can avenge Kayla’s death. The modification Logan had was definitely a flaw that led to his downfall. The end of this work brought about sympathy for Logan’s condition. The literary work X-men origins: Wolverine screenplay was written by David Benioff and Skip Woods. The plot revolves around the beginning of Wolverine and his driving force of vengeance which leads him to do terrible things like altering his mutation to become stronger and indestructible via a government squad weapon agency (X-Men Origins: Wolverine Trailer). The hero is Logan also known initially as James and later on as Wolverine. The three things that Wolverine does are all driven by emotion due to the life stress that he has gone through. In the movie, Logan does three things all driven by his emotions. They include: killing Thomas Logan; joining a government commando group and after a mission quits it, seeking Victor for revenge of Kayla’s death and allows Stryker to make modifications to his mutation. Logan’s actions point out the power to fulfill his thirst for vengeance to all individuals that wronged him. Wolverine fits the model of the hero in that he has strong admirable qualities. He is strong, caring, vulnerable, and vengeful. Wolverine is the hero in this movie as he has desirable claws and plays the role of an ideal mutant; defying all odds and coming out as the victor despite all the terrible things that he had gone through (X-Men Origins: Wolverine Reviews – Metacritic). The first thing Wolverine does is killing his real father, Thomas Logan. The year is 1845; the location is North-West Territory, British North America. A young boy called James Howlett witnesses his father John Howlett murdered by his father’s friend, Thomas Logan. Because of anger and wanting to avenge his father’s death, James kills Thomas Logan using his bone claws which grew out of his hands due to the anger he had. This scene shows the last words uttered by Thomas Logan to James were that he is also his son. James flees from the house and his friend, Victor, whose father he had just killed follows him. When he finds him, he promises James that he will always be there for him unconditionally. The hero killed his real father due to anger as his adoptive father, whom he knew all along was his real father was killed. These actions were driven by vengeance. This example shows how the character demands respect of life of those he loves. The scene shows the hero’s need for revenge and satisfaction. The tragic hero reveals a weakness in character, which is uncontrollable anger, which led to a tragic end as he apparently killed his real father. In addition, the character experienced a depressing event, when he witnessed his father die. The second thing the hero does is joining team X and resigning the team after a mission. This scene commences when Major William Stryker meets James and his brother and offers them membership to join team X. This is a team that is made up of several mutants who posses amazing abilities like super strength, teleportation, control of electricity, telekinesis, and exceptional sword skills. The first mission of the team is retrieving a meteorite in Lagos, Nigeria. The team members brutally attack and kill individuals from a nearby village where the meteorite was located. This action makes the hero resign from the team. The actions of the hero mean that he demands respect of life. The murders disgusted by his teammates did not please him at all. The scene shows the hero’s need for a sane mind. The tragic hero showed a need of respect of human life. He had a weakness of compassion. Generally, a tragic hero is faced with flaws that could ruin him eventually. Logan had a flaw of compassion of human life, and this made him weak. The third thing the hero does is seeking revenge for Kayla’s death and modifying his body. Initially, Stryker seeks help from Logan as someone was murdering team X members who had disbanded. Logan refused, and Victor kills Kayla. Logan seeks revenge but is easily defeated by Victor. Stryker again seeks help from Logan and this time, he agrees to help Stryker. He has his skeletal system toughened with adamantium (this is an undestroyable metal salvaged from the meteorite found by team X in Lagos, Nigeria). Before the procedure can take place, he Logan demands his novel dog tags to be written Wolverine. This name he remembered from a tale told by Kayla. Wolverine flees after the procedure as he overheard Stryker order for his memory to be erased. Wolverine then is determined to hunt down Victor, being stronger than ever. The scene shows the hero’s need for strength approval from Victor and the need of vengeance. Zeal and zest for spillage of blood resulted to this tragic hero making a series of poor decisions in the film. The first poor decision he made was rejoining team X and modifying his body, all with the intention of finding Victor when he is stronger and avenge the death of Kayla. Generally, most acts done by heroes are driven by vengeance. All in all, vengeance is the driving force for most heroes so that they can achieve their main mission, which is justice. This film vividly describes one’s struggle for vengeance. The hero faces a tragic sad end; the hero loses his memory due to brain damage brought about by the adamantium bullets. He sees Kayla’s body but fails to recognize it, this is sad as he loved her, yet after the incident he failed to recognize her. Wolverine is a tragic hero as he loses everything he values and worst of all; he loses his memory in the end. This character had a tragic chain of events. The hero in X-men origins: Wolverine struggles against the vice of evil, in addition, he also struggles with some of his bad actions, and anger. These struggles bring about constant disturbing guilty memories, thus creating internal conflicts. I can relate my own experiences in relation to the hero in this film. Occasionally, I struggle with guilt on some things that I do, they evoke bad memories, which I try so hard to erase in vain. I am convicted that in life, we face several circumstances that remain etched in our minds forever. Just like Wolverine, I can relate with what he was going through as I have experienced emotional pain and suffering and I know how it feels like. We are all human beings and we are susceptible to mistakes, some actions that we do cannot be erased or taken back, we just have to deal with the guilt of the actions done. Moreover, like Wolverine, I struggle with uncontrollable rage. I am short tempered and I struggle daily not to get irritated faster. This is a struggle but I can boldly say that I am dealing with this problem at step at a time. The best words that keep on coming in my mind in the movie were uttered by Wolverine, as he believed he was the best, as per his saying “I’m the best at what I do; but what I do isn’t very nice” (X-Men Origins). Works cited X-Men origins. Dir. Donald M. McAlpine. Perf. Wolverine, Deadpool, Sabretooth, Gambit, Cyclops, Professor X, Silver Fox, William Stryker, Storm, Blob, Emma Frost, David North, Kestrel, Chris Bradley, Thomas Logan, Vindicator, Weapon XI. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2009. Blu-Ray. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine Trailer." YouTube. YouTube, 9 Mar. 2009. Web. 10 May 2014. . "X-Men Origins: Wolverine | X-Men | Movies | Marvel.com." X-Men Origins: Wolverine | X Men | Movies | Marvel.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2014. . "X-Men Origins: Wolverine Reviews - Metacritic." X-Men Origins: Wolverine Reviews – Metacritic. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2014. . Read More