i am legend

Chris Knight's avatar

They changed the ending.

And for that, I cannot forgive.

For the first two-thirds of the film, I Am Legend with Will Smith is pretty faithful to the spirit of Richard Matheson’s original novel. I think that Akiva Goldsman (and whatever made it into this final draft from Mark Protosevich’s original script) was hitting on the right cylinders so far as portraying Neville’s loneliness and despair went. The scenes of Smith in the video store, where he’s talking to the mannequins and trying hard not to gaze upon the adult DVD section, seemed especially inspired by the book.

And when we see Neville going to the dock every day at noon, waiting in vain for anybody who might have heard his signal: even though that was never something we saw in the book, it was a nice touch. It’s something that I could see Matheson’s Neville doing.

I don’t even ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

This is one of two posts that I’ll probably be making today. The other will hopefully share some good news. Otherwise, I’m still trying to take a break from blogging.

The final trailer for I Am Legend hit the Internets yesterday…

This is an amazing trailer! And it’s really starting to look as if they stayed true to the spirit of the book. Love the music in this trailer: I don’t know if that’s some of James Newton Howard’s score but it evokes a lot of the same feeling as Ron Grainer’s music from The Omega Man (which was also based on Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend). And Will Smith here, looks like he’s hitting on all the right cylinders as Robert Neville. I’ll admit to being a bit taken aback when I heard that Smith was playing Neville (I’ll always wonder how Arnold Schwarzenegger would have done ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Courtesy of Ain’t It Cool News, here is the final theatrical poster for I Am Legend, which is now coming out in December…

I sooooo hope they’ve done this one right. I Am Legend is one of my all-time favorite horror stories. Unfortunately no film adaptation has really come close to nailing the loneliness and desperation of the original novel. Not even The Omega Man with Charlton Heston, which I’ve always loved (‘specially that groovy 70s “get funky with the apocalypse” jive soundtrack by Ron Grainer). Am definitely looking forward to this, just to see what it’s like....

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Chris Knight's avatar


I Am Legend by Richard Matheson is one of the most haunting novels that I’ve ever read. The project to make a modern-day film adaptation of it (it’s been turned into a movie twice already, the last one being The Omega Man with Charlton Heston) is something that’s been simmering for over ten years now: yeah I still remember the days when Ridley Scott was going to make this with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It finally comes out this December, with Will Smith as Robert Neville.

And, I’ve no sense this early on about how faithful this movie will be to the spirit of the book… but I think it might have some promise. The first trailer certainly impresses. There is one shot that is one of the flat-out coolest that I’ve ever seen in a movie… or at least the trailer for one.

Mash down here for the Quicktime video of
...

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