Walking Dead Opening Scene

When someone says they’ve hit a crossroad, it means that they’ve run into an unavoidable situation; a stump, a blockage. Rick has been hit with a situation that he has to. Cars take us on journeys, when you see the car in the street flipped over and ricks car up right it could mean that his life may be about to flip upside down and change completely. This scene has no music, it is filled with the silence of the wind blowing, signs swinging, metal clanking, and so on. It is purely just the sound of no one around, there are no people walking, cars running, children laughing. Rick seems to be walking as if he’s had to do this before but it’s all still new to him, his face shows that he may be confused as well as cautious about what he does. The switch to the handheld camera is a switch to Rick’s point of view. It basically shows what he sees and how he’s looking at it. There are toys on the ground which tell the viewer that there used to be children around. The baby doll on the ground could be foreshadowing the little girl that rick sees. The baby doll has on clothes that seem to have faded, changed color and gotten dirty; the little girl is the irl version of the baby doll that has turned. Rick standing in between the two cars could be basically saying that he is now stuck in the middle of this situation that could cause him death. Red and black both symbolize death, where he is walking, death has occurred all around him. He is in a deserted place. There is a “no gas” sign at the gas station. So someone has already come through there before Rick so he is not alone in this apocalypse. The blur of the girls legs makes the viewer wonder if she is alive or not. Some wouldn’t expect her to be surviving on her own though. The girl goes to pick up a teddy bear. The viewer can now see that her legs are beat up and very pale, so you could make the assumption that she is a walker because of the state of her skin. But by her picking up the bear is shows that she may still have some type of brain function left in her. The bear, the slippers, and the pink robe show her innocence and purity. She was most likely really scared and confused as to why this was happening. The red car in the back by her head in this frame could show the absence of life in her brain. Or it could be her walking towards her death you could say. Also there could be a dead body in the red car which would represent that death has occurred there. The shot on Rick’s face show his change of emotion after seeing this girl that he presumes is alive. He then says that he is a police officer thinking that it will give this girl a sense if relief and that she would now be safe with him but it is sadly too late. The silence up until the end gives the scene a sense of suspense. A scene ending with a gunshot is used a lot to signify the start of a new journey. I think the central message of the scene is desolation.