"I am Legend" (2007) Questions (open spoilers warning)

Cafe Society
1

I didn’t have any luck with the search function (it seemed to only take the first 750 hits back to 2009) but I was wondering what the SDMB opinion is about these issues (if anyone can point me to an existing thread about it, that would be great.)

  1. How/why did Fred move? Who set the trap?

The Word of God states that the Alpha Male set the trap. Fan confusion is thick here. Half the fans say there’s no way the Darkseekers were smart enough to replicate the trap, as their intelligence was similar to animals. The other half says that yes, the Darkseekers were smart enough, the Alpha male used parts from Neville’s earlier trap, and was also smart/devious enough to set this trap for Neville.

  1. What was the liquid Neville sprayed on the steps?

The controversy here stems from whether the liquid is used to remove an existing smell (which would be a logical function of bleach) vs being used to mask his smell (which is a probable use of vinegar.) If it is used to protect himself from Darkseekers, it would make sense to use bleach (as he wants to blend in rather than have the Darkseekers wonder why this particular house smells like vinegar all the time,) however, there was no evidence in the film that the Darkseekers hunted by smell other than the trap he used to capture the Alpha female.

On the other hand, with the wild animals loose in New York, it was conceivable that he was trying to “mark his territory” to prevent wild animals from camping on his doorstep.

  1. Are the creatures “vampires,” “zombies” or something else? Why?

The two arguments here are:
a) they don’t have enough “vampire” traits other than a weakness to sunlight, and
b) their behavior more closely mimics the behavior of other recent zombie movies like Dawn/Day/Diary/Survival of the Dead or 28 Days/Weeks Later (yes, I know the latter aren’t zombies either but they are considered part of the zombie genre.)

  1. Why was the ending changed? (Background: there are two accepted endings of the film. In the theatrical release, Neville kills himself to save the girl and child. In the alternate ending, he discovers the humanity of the Darkseekers, and realizes how many of them he has tortured/killed for his experiments.)

As everyone knows, just about the only thing the film shares with the book is the title. The filmmakers actually remade “The Omega Man.” At IMDB, the FAQ explanation is that test audiences rejected the alternate ending because it wasn’t true to the book. My problem:

a) If the filmmakers totally ignored the book for the first 90% of the movie, why bother caring now?

b) Actually, in most fans’ opinions, the alternate ending is truer to the book than the theatrical ending.

2

Did they or Opal eat #2?

  1. Mask his scent I believe, so that the vampires* (see #4) can’t find him. In the book they know exactly where he lives (one was his neighbor) so he spends his time repairing.

  2. In the IMO vastly superior novella, they are explicitly vampire-types. They don’t conform to every stereotype of the myth, although some are shown being more superstitious and thus afraid of crosses and running water. Some even try to fly. I can’t remember how he killed them, but I think he staked them?

  3. In the alternate ending, the title won’t make sense for one. Legend why? Because he found out they’re actually pretty smart? In the real ending, he sacrifices himself to save the vaccine as well, which is why he might eventually be called a legend.
    I don’t believe everything on IMDB, for one are the test audiences stocked with people who read a 50+ year old book? I would think that the longest book most test audiences read was the special edition of People.

3

If the darkseekers were, indeed, human, then Neville would be a legend to them. He killed them indiscriminately, trapped them, experimented on them, hated them. Nothing says a legend has to be about a good guy.

4

The novelette explains a whole lot more and it makes more sense. Read it if you can find it. I found it vastly more satisfying than the movie. And in the book, he wasn’t a “good” legend.

5

Okay, but their legend should really be “guy kills us because we hunt him, then decides to return one of us once he finds out were intelligent, even though we never explained and somehow forgot English.” Their legend is basically that he jumps to conclusions too fast, but learned from the experience. Contrast the novella, where the society is essentially nocturnal humans (except with chemical help) who speak and aren’t crazy (if ultra militaristic). By the time book-Neville finds out, it’s too late.

6

Considering how completely different the movie is from the book, why bother trying to shoe-horn in a contrived ending like that just to make the title make sense? Another argument: if Anna’s voiceover makes the connection between Robert and “legend,” why shouldn’t the same voiceover make sense with the alternate ending? In the alternate ending, he could still be a legend (if a living one) just for discovering the cure.

7

  1. It couldn’t have been anyone else, so it must have been the Alpha Male. The premise of the film is they are getting more intelligent so it’s not unreasonable.

  2. Does this really matter? Bleach would make the most sense to me though.

  3. Why do they have to be Vampires or Zombies? Can’t they just be what they are?

Personally I loved this film when I saw it, I really enjoyed Smith’s performance in the first half and the shots of over-grown NY are staggering. I’m not much of a fan of the ending though, it’s too much of a happy ending for me. I’m fine with them escaping but a more open/ambiguous ending that doesn’t show them explicitly finding sanctuary would have been better.

The alternative ending sounds horrible though. The ‘things’ from the film don’t have humanity. They may have gained some intelligence but they are also merciless killers and clearly ‘monsters’, the enemy in a horror film. That ending would have ruined the film for me.

8

  1. Yep, it’s one of the hotly debated issues since the movie came out. Right now, vinegar is winning at the FAQ.

  2. You’d be surprised. I say they’re something else, but book purists say “vampire,” people who think they’re stupid say “zombie.”

9

No more killer or monster than what Smith’s character is doing to them. Really, from their point of view, Smith’s character IS a monster.

And they have gained some humanity, or at least some emotions. After all, the alpha male cares for his mate enough to plan and launch an attack. Had he just gone and taken some other low-level infected, the rest wouldn’t have followed.

What bothered me most about the film was the suggestion that someone from Brazil wouldn’t know who the hell Bob Marley was. C’mon, they have towels, curtains of him up in the favelas… His music IS heard around them! Said by someone who spent two months living right next to a small favela, and visited another one for a couple of days. Not to mention one of their better known singers sings a cover of “No Woman, No Cry”.

10

The first movie version of this, The Last Man on Earth, is quite good, and free and legal to download or watch online (public domain).

11

Responses in order:

  1. It’s strongly implied it is the “Head Male” that Neville kept running into.

  2. It has been a while since I saw the movie but my memory is telling me it was vinegar.

  3. They were victims of a disease that was caused by someone’s attempt at creating a cure for cancer. The disease transformed them into what we see in the film.

  4. The short answer is it tested poorly.

12

I always thought the liquid was ammonia. It’ll do a number on your nose for sure, and I suspect it would also deodorize pretty well too.

13

Oh yeah, one other candidate was distilled water because of the shape of the squirt bottle.