"I Am Legend" - How to rape a good book.

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I have the book. I read the book before they'd even finished making the more recent film "of it".... and I say that very loosely, as the film is nothing like the book.
And naturally... I had to see the film just to know what they had done to it.
I can safely say it was worse than I could have EVER imagined.

SPOILER WARNING

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Epic-level list of significant differences and issues:

#1. Time-setting : The book was set in the 70s from the perspective of a far earlier era. OLD story... inspiration for most modern zombie films. The FILM was set in modern time... I suppose I can't complain about that, but it still subtracts from some of the setting.

#2. Spacial-setting : Last I checked, the original story wasn't set in New York. It was the suburban outskirts of some other city. Totally different there.

#3. Robert Neville : He was a caucasian ex-soldier, somewhat muscular and with facial hair... and an alcoholic... originally. Apparently hollywood wanted him to be a black, clean-shaven virologist with apparently no drug problems at all (just idiocy ones). How freakin convenient.... but WRONG!

#4. Cause of the disease : It was assumed to be naturally occurring in the book originally, and Robert Neville suspected he became immune due to a protoform of the virus being transmitted to him by a Bat bite while he was on duty elsewhere.... None of that adds up with the film notion that it was human-made... and of course it had to be by a Brit. Couldn't resist blaming us Brits, could you Hollywood? a***holes. ¬_¬

#5. The Zombie-Vampires : Hardly vampires at all in the film. They seemed to just be veiny and noisy zombies with a dislike for sunlight and a liking for blood. The book ones made no distinct mention of hair-loss, were capable of crude speech and had distinct weaknesses to staking and garlic (all conveniently explained too). The film ruins everything again.

#6. Neville's Family : In the film, they were being flown away and their helicopter was hit by another one going down. How ret*d. The original was far more amusing: That Neville's family caught the illness and he refused to take the bodies to the firepit to burn them... so his wife came back as a vampire zombie and he had to kill her with his own two hands! ^_^

#7. The dog : Robert Neville found her... and indeed spent quite some while trying to track her down, befriend her and tame her in the book. Whole chapters were dedicated to it in fact. She certainly wasn't the "best lifelong buddy" like in the film. Typical hollywood tripe.

#8. The girl : No rescuing Mr Neville in the book. He had to track her down and catch her when he found her in a field. And the best thing was, unlike in the film where she was also one of those "immune survivors"... in the book she was actually a sapient victim of the plague undergoing treatment to make her seem unaffected so she could capture Neville! Was it SO hard to leave such an interesting twist in the film? Apparently so.

#9. The neighbours : ... Something naturally skipped over in the film. Only one of the zombies appeared to be portraying any semblence of character at all, and it was nothing like Neville's next-door neighbour who would come on a nightly basis to torment him, nor the various women he references who would gyrate futiley outside his door to try and lure him out. Silly old sod. It made the book interesting though in a way the film could never achieve.

#10. Psychosis : The book's Robert Neville dealt with his problems via Whisky, music, a fair bit of crying and a lot of talking to himself. It was something that you could relate to... pity... sympathise with. Not like Will Smith and his obsession with clothes-mannequins and quoting Shrek. ¬_¬

#11. The Research : A lot was paid attention to in this respect for both adaptations... but from completely different angles. Retardo film insisted on Neville being a virologist already, and testing serums on rats, etc... pratting around at the doctor game in his superduper lab downstairs. Highly professional. The book's Robert Neville didn't know anything about this though, and spent his entire time reading books from the local library to swat up on the how and why of the zombies... mostly so he could make BETTER WEAPONS to use against them (rather than a hopeless attempt at curing it).

#12. The Cure : Hollywood couldn't resist the happyshiny ending, could they? Couldn't resist the notion of being able to cure the epidemic and make everything happily ever after... Not like the book where the "cure" is no cure at all, and simply drug treatment to make the victims sane and sapient again (while still being technically vampires). Far the more gritty and enjoyable answer.

#13. THE TITLE AND ENTIRE POINT OF THE STORY : ... And this was the biggest let-down. Why do they suppose it was called "I Am Legend"? The title doesn't even fit the film at all. They made the most pathetic excuse for it at the end by claiming that Neville's sacrifice to find a cure was his legend... but I'm just not buying it. I know the way it should have been: The constant research into the vampire victims of the disease... their connectedness with classic folklore vampires.... the fear they should have inspired..... the capture of Robert Neville by the sapient ones at the end and his realisation as he is being lined up for execution that, being limited to the night-time, they all feared HIM as being the monster who came in the day to steal their lives away.... that He was the Legend.... not for curing the freaking disease but for being THE REAL MONSTER all along.







Unforgiveable.

Truly unforgiveable.

You should have realised by now that any film that stars will smith is just a ego boost for said actor. Don't watch anything he's in and you won't be dissapointed.

Thanks, Soti. Very informative. Makes me remember the book I read some years ago. I pictured a white man, yes, maybe someone like Nick Nolte's character in HULK.

I've seen only trailers of the movie, but shouldn't a vampire's appearance suggest a formerly human existence? Those things, what little I saw of them, looked more like generic all-purpose monster-things. And how could anyone as young as Will Smith be a virologist?

I wasn't that impressed with the movie. Sounds like the book is different enough to make it worth reading, I may look into it.

The book was good... haven't seen the movie but it sounds like pretty standard Will Smith crap.

Can't say I've ever seen Hollywood do as good a job telling a story as a talented novelist. On occasion they do the original story justice, but I can probably count those times on one hand (Stand by Me, Clockwork Orange, Shawshank Redemption, Green Mile).

But, if you think the Will Smith version was bad, watch the first film adaptation of Legend, The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston. No Knock against Heston, it's just cheesy 70s scifi made on a low budget before the days of CGI. Embarrassing. There's an even earlier version with Vincent Price, called The Last Man on Earth, but I don't recall ever having seen it.

And speaking of Charlton Heston and Hollywood alterations, I enjoyed the movie Soylent Green, still consider it a classic, but if you read Harry Harrison's novel Make Room, Make Room that SG is supposedly based on, you won't even recognize that you're reading the same story, because it's not even remotely the same story! The product Soylent Green is only mentioned in passing and has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual context of the novel. Apples and Oranges.

They did a fine job of f*****g up Colin Wilson's Space Vampires with the movie Lifeforce, too.

The best place to see Richard Matheson's work on film is on old episodes of The Twilight Zone, he wrote a bunch of those. And The Incredible Shrinking Man, too. And Hell House, which Hollywood screwed up, too.

Matheson Himself comments on the changes made from page to script:

Having adapted a number of famous stories and novels by other authors into screenplays such as the Edgar Allan Poe Roger Corman films (The Raven, Pit And The Pendulum, The Fall Of The House Of Usher) as well as the Dan Curtis production of Dracula starring Jack Palance and also the original TV film of The Night Stalker, how does adapting someone else’s work differ from working with your own material? How important is it for you to stick strictly to the original version or do you prefer to take liberties with the screenplay that you are adapting?

RM: Well, if I like the book and I think it’s good, I stick to it religiously. Very often, however, that isn’t what they want. I just feel that if everything fits within the story, there is no reason to change it. One instance where one of my novels was adapted was Stir Of Echoes. David Koepp did the screenplay for that film based upon my novel. He updated it and changed the location but he followed my story so closely that I was delighted with the film. There are some things that are inevitable that you have to change when adapting someone’s work to a screenplay but hopefully not too many, especially in a novel.

There has been talk for a number of years that Hollywood was going to do yet another version of your classic novel I Am Legend. Most recently I’ve heard Will Smith’s name attached to the project. What was your opinion of the first two versions with Vincent Price and Charleton Heston (The Last Man On Earth, The Omega Man)? What happened to the proposed Hammer (The Devil Rides Out, Die! Die! My Darling) version of the film that was supposed to use your screenplay?

RM: Well, there is a script; they have sent me a script. It’s not bad. They are talking about making into a comedy. I don’t think they’ll ever do my book as it is written. Dan Curtis wanted to do it, Michael Carerras wanted to do it but they just never get the chance. They are planning to remake The Incredible Shrinking Man now as a comedy (Keenan Ivory Wayans is currently listed as director). I don’t care if they make it into a comedy as long as it is a good comedy.

The Last Man On Earth was a little closer to the book than The Omega Man but I thought Vincent Price was miscast in the lead role. I thought Vincent Price was wonderful in the films that I wrote for him but I just felt that he was miscast as Robert Morgan.

Here's an alternate ending that was included on the DVD, and was better and closer to the book than the original cut's ending.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pCpMRQfMzo[/youtube]

I haven't read the book myself but I intend to sometime, and have heard about it a lot and know the story in general. I wasn't crazy about the film--I knew it was going to be untrue to the source material before seeing it, so that wasn't my problem. Far as I'm concerned, long as it works well as a standalone film then it's okay, even if it's a waste as an adaptation. Really, the film is so different from the book that there's no point comparing them.

Rather, my problem was that the special effects in the film were so terrible I found it hard to take it seriously at times. (CGI lions? Come on....) I did think that the first hour was very effective and thrilling, though, and that Will Smith put on a great performance. It's a shame that it didn't turn out truer to the book and with decent special effects.

I've more or less given up hope on a decent adaptation of the book because there have been two film adaptations of it before this one, and neither were particularly faithful.

It's probably the fault of some screenwriter who thinks himself a creative genius, and that he can do no wrong by taking as much license with the original story as he sees fit. On top of that, people who adapt films aren't concerned with staying faithful to the original so much as using a big name to sell what they think is hot and marketable. It's all about $$$$$$

Be prepared for another sucky Matheson adaptation.

The Box is based off of his short story Button, Button.
The man who wrote & directed Donnie Darko is helming The Box.

I never read the book, but IIRC it happens in LA, California. Honestly, I don't care that it's different, I read some of the wiki article. Honestly, the move is kick-ass to me and I could feel how sad Robert Neville felt.