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I Am Legend
Elki
get busyModerator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
get busyModerator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
So, I went to see this with some friends the day before yesterday, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Then got the e-book when I came back home because it was Christmas/too late for any stores to be open and read it.
It's like, a completely different story. Why did they bother taking the title of the book? From the very first page it has an entirely different feel than the film, and it never wavers, right until the end where different becomes really fucking different. I liked the film, and probably got the best of both worlds by seeing it before reading the book, but they're just not the same.
Still a good movie, though.
I think I might watch The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man someday just to see how they adapted the story.
It's like, a completely different story. Why did they bother taking the title of the book? From the very first page it has an entirely different feel than the film, and it never wavers, right until the end where different becomes really fucking different. I liked the film, and probably got the best of both worlds by seeing it before reading the book, but they're just not the same.
Still a good movie, though.
Doggie! 
And that Bob Marley scene was stupid as hell.
And that Bob Marley scene was stupid as hell.
I think I might watch The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man someday just to see how they adapted the story.
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I liked the first 2/3s of the movie.
The fact that they changed the whole meaning of the title really bothered me.
A good solid action flick that gave what I expected.
But yeah, they could have gone with a different title and just said it was influenced by the book or something. I imagine the book fans might be annoyed.
I mean, they could have made the infected pretty dumb, but given them a kind of "cave-man" society, where they drew pictures of Neville in their lairs...you know, since he was a legend to them and not the damn surivivors. I mean, Jesus Christ, I would have been happy with a few bloody drawings of him.
They also did the stupid, "No matter what, they will keep coming for me. I had better commit suicide so you can escape!" bullshit. If Neville had left the city with them through the passage and lobbed the grenade right before he did, he would have still killed the main baddie AND escaped.
It just felt silly.
However, when Neville was by himself (or with his dog) the movie was wonderful. I couldn't have asked for anything else...but they just fucked up the ending so bad, the movie went from "fuck-awesome" to "Meh, it's alright."
They could ahve done better. =/
2. Should have used more back story on how the disease spread and how Neville became the only survivor in NYC.
3. Poor Sam
i dont mind stupid zombies. what annoyed me was how indestructible they were. i mean seriously, how does that happen? does the virus make their bones harder or something? their muscles denser? it's dumb.
i agree that there were lots of nice little touches. the kid holding the knife like you said was nice. other things too. but too many dumb things also. cgi zombies are not scary at all. i felt like i was watching will smith play a bad video game.
and personally, i felt that will was kind of wooden. i generally like him but i wasnt convinced by his acting when he was talking to himself. it just came off as stilted to me. maybe it was the writing? im not really sure. but i am surprised that so many people felt like he did a great job.
yeah, i would have liked that more too.
Anyway, i thought the movie was really good. Scary as shit, and nothing i had seen before. Seriously, i was squeezing my g/f's hand as hard as possible where he follows Sam into that building. I wanted to die...
Also, Will Smith is a really good actor. I don't know who else i could stand watching for like an hour straight and still be intrigued with the whole thing. If it was I AM LEGEND starring COLIN FERREL, i'd be out after the dark knight preview.
Based on reactions, I am not even sure if I want to see the movie, because the book was goddamn amazing...so for them to take that and completely screw it up and essentially make a "28 weeks later part 2," as some people have called it, disappoints me because I was expecting an adaptation of the book.
Ya, i was scared, so i win the biggest pussy contest.
also,
the only similarity i've heard between book and movie is that the protagonist has the same name.
I'll have to give it a shot, then.
I think that probably the test audiences didn't like the bleaker original ending and felt there had been too much emphasis on him finding a cure for that to just be a minor plot point to keep him in the city and up against the darkseekers.
So yeah, I would put money on there originally being another ending that got rewritten/reshot at the last minute rather than the one we got always being the plan.
I agree that the ending felt rushed and detracted from the overall movie though.
By the way, I like the term vombire. Too bad it'll probably never apply to anything again.
The movie really isn't "completely" different. Yeah, it's Will Smith in the city and not White Guy in the suburbs, but the entire live-alone-during-the-day and stay-alive-during-the-night feeling is entirely preserved. That's exactly how I imagined being the last guy on Earth would feel. Hell, I think it's way more effective to put the story in the city than in some rural neighborhood. One change for the better.
The movie was definitely good. Fun and enjoyable. Just could've been really AWESOME if they'd stuck to the even more awesome ending in the book. And I say that even though I hate "the book was better" people.
Bottom line: The two cool things about the novelette are the "last man on Earth, alone in the city, trying to get by" aspect and the point of view perception mind-fuck of an ending. The movie only had one of those things.
(Also, how comical was it that Will Smith was a military scientist. Talk about a profession of convenience. In the book he had to learn to survive and to study the vampires, but Will Smith was conveniently both a scientist AND a military man at the onset
It's been a while since I read the book, but as I recall,
I really like this movie. I tried to watch the first adaptation, and I don't know why, but I lost interest about 30 minutes in. This one, despite the changes really kept me engaged. Though there were definitely things that should probably have been done differently. Anyone know how they got the car on/off the island? Was there some other bridge that got rebuilt or something?
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Enter the movie. How does he survive? He's a soldier. Why is he duty bound to figure things out when he views the world as hopeless (something the novella does a piss poor job of explaining)? He's a soldier and a doctor. It also closes holes in the novella. For example, a virus that kills off its host in a couple of weeks isn't a very successful virus and wouldn't likely threaten the world. How does the movie handle that? Much like "28 Days Later" does by pointing out that we can now engineer and infect ourselves. The movie also gets rid of the rather awful "bodies explode into sand".
And now to my final grief with hip-art. Why does "intelligent" and "awesome" have to equal "pointless" and "hopeless"? Why can't "intelligent" and "awesome" equal "triumphant" and "glorious"?
Also one final point, the alpha-vampire was after Neville. He was leading his pack to that one goal. Unlike the novella there is a supernatural element to the movie. Neville realizes that there is hope and that the hope was first spoken to him by his daughter. He has found the cure now, he has completed his role, and now must make sure that the cure gets to its final destination. He knows that the alpha-vampire only wants to kill him. His being alive threatens hope. As a final act of duty he makes sure that the cure is preserved and that he doesn't cause the cure to be lost. He does that by dying. It is incredibly tight plotting.
As for the CGI, it didn't bother me at all. That probably makes me lame as shit.
Then it just turned into a lame action movie with crappy cg.
In fact, this movie is a great example for not going overboard with CG shots.
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But see, that's what made the book awesome. It approached the idea of vampirism from an original angle. Instead of making them random inexplicable undead, it tried to explore them from a moderately plausible angle.
And the thing about the book ending versus the movie ending is that the book ending sort of defined the entire point of the book. It wasn't just a twist, it was the book's entire raison d'etre. The movie just has a generic Hollywood ending that we've all seen a thousand times before. The movie may be very well done - I can't vouch for it because I haven't seen it, and I probably won't until it hits video - but at the end of the day, that just makes it a very well-done version of the same movie template that gets used by every fifth film. The book was different, and it was poignant, and they extracted all of that in favor of standard fare.
During the scene where's he's driving around, before he sees in the mannequin in the pool (with the trap).
The camera briefly passes over the mannequin as Neville sees it.
Now, did anyone else see the mannequin's head move? As if it was scanning over the scene?
A friend and I swear we saw the head move. After that, I was thinking how cool it would be if the mannequin started talking or something as sign that Neville had finally snapped. Was kind of disappointed it didn't, but the scene still got that point across.
My other friends however say they didn't see the head move.
Anyone else see this?
edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkyT1vir_fg
Also, who moved him? Did Neville move him but just didn't remember [know?] Or did the vampires move him?