I’ve heard it a million times, you’ve heard it a million times, and for some reason I still can’t understand why people complain about hearing it.
“The book was better.”
What is it about this phrase that sets some people off so easily? Sometimes the book is better—one’s imagination can surely be more entertaining than what Hollywood tosses out, right? There are also occasions where the big wigs in Hollywood outdo the imagination and give us a masterpiece. But when it comes down to it, is the book really better than the movie?
I Am Legend (Richard Matheson) vs. I Am Legend (2007)
The Basics
Hopefully all of you know the basic story behind I Am Legend: Post-apocalyptic account of last man on earth. This man, our protagonist in both the book and film, is Robert Neville. A disease has spread through the air and caused every other human to transform into blood-thirsty creatures (which are different in each, but more on that later), while Neville is left to suffer due to a strange immunity he has to the disease. As time passes he searches desperately for a cure in hopes of saving the human race.
Robert Neville
Okay, not many changes here between the book and the movie. Neville is essentially the same character up and down. Even though the book uses narration to give the audience insight to his psyche, the movie does just a good a job at conveying his loneliness and possible madness by including scenes where he talks to mannequins and acts as if they are other people. He’s desperate for communication, he clings to life without much of a real reason (it should be noted that novel Neville does not spend the entire book searching for a cure as does his film counterpart), he laments the friends and family he’s lost, he relives the horrors of the virus being released and the events that follow…
The biggest difference between them is that in the book, Neville seems a bit angrier about his situation and is kind of an alcoholic. Oh, and he’s a white blonde-haired German dude. In the film, he seems to be a fairly calm yet slowly going insane man who is portrayed by not a white blonde-haired German dude, Will Smith.
Ah, yes, our strong, blonde, German hero.
The Vampires/Zombie Things
I saw the movie before I read the book, and since the movie doesn’t specify what the creatures in it are, I was kind of surprised to find they were vampires in the book. And not just blood-sucking monsters incapable of thought or speech like the zombie-things we’re given in the movie—many of the vampires in the book are able to speak and even think. Hell, some even taunt Neville and try to plan ways to attack him. The zombie-creatures (No, I’m not going to call them vampires) seem downright brainless and only have one action plan, which is to use brute force at all times. Of course this simplicity makes them more terrifying than they sound because they are much more reckless and will attack without thinking they could die. So if you want to compare the monsters between the two, you basically have to compare a dumber Dracula creature with…. well, a highly murderous zombie with rabies.
What the HELL are you? Wait... Grandpa?
The Dog/Sam
Ah, man’s best friend. Surely the companionship of a canine is enough to help keep Neville sane and give him hope for humanity? Wrong. The dog is handled very differently in the book and film; however the end result is close to the same (I think). In the movie Samantha is the dog that belonged to Neville’s family. She is literally all he has for almost the entire movie, and turns out is also immune to the air-borne disease. However she can still be infected through contact with an infected creature, and because Hollywood is full of sadistic jerks, she gets bitten in a scuffle with a pack of infected dogs. Neville has no choice but to kill his friend, leaving him truly alone and bringing him to try to kill himself.
In the novel, no dog is present for a good portion of the book. When it does pop up, it is an injured, beyond frightened animal that runs from Neville. Determined to catch the dog, nurse it to health, and finally have a friend, Neville starts laying out food for the dog. On and off the dog shows up until one day Neville grabs it and manages to get it inside his house. The poor thing is scared to death and hides for some time. Eventually the dog lets Neville get close to him, but a week later, the dog dies.
Yeah, they kept that dog depressing.
Hey, Bob buddy... could you point that gun a little further away from me, please?
Ending
—–For those of you who don’t know ending means: Spoilers—–
He dies. That is really the only thing these two endings have in common: Robert Neville dies in both.
In the book, the vampires have begun to adapt and have basically become what humans once were. They rule the globe now, and Neville is a threat to them. He is the outsider by the end of the story, the monster killing their people. He is, as cliché as it is to say, a legend. So they capture and kill him. I mean, he WAS killing them for what seemed like no reason to them… I have a feeling he basically became the vampire version of Jack the Ripper.
In the film, he discovers a cure just as his house is under attack by the infected. He gives the cure to the woman and boy who are somehow alive and gives his life so they can escape with the cure. He has no guarantee they won’t die on their way to the possibly non-existent safety grounds, but it was a noble sacrifice nonetheless (even if there’s a chance it would have been very much in vain).
Apparently there was an alternate ending to the 2007 film that is more true to the book, but I haven’t seen it and from what I’ve read, it doesn’t sound much closer other than showing us the infected aren’t mindless bloodthirsty zombies with rabies.
Other
Anything I haven’t mentioned yet is going to be covered here, which leaves the very very few supporting (if they can even be called that) characters in this case. The book includes information on Robert Neville’s family, and we find out that his wife had become infected and turned into a vampire. After burying her she came back and tried to bite him, and if I remember correctly his child was also ill before the outbreak and died.
The movie takes the haunting elements of “Oh god I watched my wife turn into a monster” and “I saw my child suffer from this disease” and takes both the wife and child out in a helicopter crash, which is just as traumatizing if not more so.
Then of course we have the “survivors”, a woman and little boy in the movie, and Ruth in the book. Ruth isn’t actually a survivor, but a vampire spy of sorts who was sent to destroy Neville’s research and find a way to infiltrate his house so he can be destroyed by the now socially developed vampires (she was not given orders to sleep with him though, but she did).
Anna and Ethan are the unlikely duo that save Will Smith from his suicide attempt after he had to kill his dog. How they survived is beyond me, as is the fact that they knew about the survivor’s colony. They just seemed highly unnecessary and an excuse to make the classic “Happy” ending.
The more interesting changes here come in the form of a character dropped from the film adaptation: Ben Cortman, Robert Neville’s neighbor and former friend-turned-vampire.
He taunted Neville, he caused flashbacks and had become the bane of Neville’s existence. He was even part of the reason Neville hunted the infected—and it seems he wanted to be the one to kill Cortman, not to end the taunting, but to put his friend at rest. It would have been nice to see Cortman in the movie, but because of the approach taken with the creatures, it’s kind of a moot point.
Overall:
Both have things I don’t like about them. Anne and Ethan I saw no point in at all, other than to end the movie on a “he died to save humanity” note. That’s noble and all, but I just don’t like the way they approached it. At least Ruth didn’t come with some magical story about a bunch of other survivors that somehow found each other and formed an entire colony without getting killed.
I feel Matheson did a good job conveying Neville’s mental state through the story, but the movie added icing on the cake with the mannequin scene after Sam’s death. The book makes you think more of Robert Neville in the “This guy is bucking flonkers” light, while at the same time gives you information to remind you that he has every reason to be.
Will Smith’s performance as Neville invokes much more sympathy. When Sam has to be killed, I cried. When Neville sacrifices himself at the end, despite the potential uselessness of it, I cried. I felt for this character and his pain came to life more so than it does in the text (prrrobably because it’s a movie…).
The idea that the vampires have developed into creatures capable of creating their own society is something I like. It shows a brief insight to how the other party would be looking at this story.
That said, both endings were amazing. I did cry when Neville died in the film. Like a baby, if you must know. But in the text, when Neville is being brought out for his execution and staring in the eyes of creatures that see him as he once saw them, I get chills. The way he goes into his death, the way he admits that he is now the outsider, the plague on their society… I enjoy it. I like to think of it in terms of “living long enough to see yourself become the villain”. In this case it isn’t the Neville became some kind of corrupt burn victim bent on getting revenge, but he had survived long enough to become something the now dominant species feared. And he accepts this as a reason he has to die.
The Winner:
Tie
As I said, both have their ups and downs, but I really can’t say I liked one more than the other. Matheson created an interesting story that should be given much more attention than it seems to get, and while Hollywood didn’t stay 100% true to that story—not that they ever do—what they did do worked very well.
So for my first Print vs. Film, I recommend reading the book and seeing the movie. They’re both well worth the time, IMO.
Random fun fact: Even Google questions what the creatures in the movie are supposed to be. Seriously, go check. Type in “I Am Legend va” and two of the first results should say something along the lines of “Vampires or zombies”.
My poor excuse for a title card was made using Keevs’ awesome lineart generator.
