Captain Cosmos Retro Rocket Rhapsody

A comparison of the book "I Am Legend," and it's first adaptation "The Last Man on Earth."

"I Am Legend has been presented in several forms over the years. The novel by Richard Matheson was published in 1954. Since then it's had 3 official movie adaptations: "The Last Man on Earth" staring Vincent Price, 1964; "The Omega Man" staring Charlton Heston in 1971; and finally Will Smith's 2007 "I Am Legend." When I first heard about the 2007 movie, I remembered that it was one of my father's favorite books. So I decided I'd have to read the book before I saw the movie. Then I decided, I'd have to see the other movies.

I have nothing against the 2007 movie on it's own merits. It's a decent enough movie in it's own right. Certainly better movies have been made, so have much worse movies. It is what it set out to be, a popcorn action movie, and there is nothing wrong with that. For the most part it sticks pretty close to the original source material. obviously something's had to change. You simply can't adapt a 1954 book, and set it in 2012 without addressing things like cell phones, and the Internet. So that sort of thing can be forgiven.

However, the 2007 version does fall short as an adaptation, because it completely-misses-the-point-of-the-book. The book, on the simplest level was about role reversal. Our "hero," Robert Neville is actually the monster in the end. He dies the same way Frankenstein would, at the end of pitchforks, and fire. Just as one man's rebel is another's revolutionary so to can the hero become the monster with a simple change of perspective. There is no happy ending for Neville. For better or worse society has changed around him. When being a zombie becomes the norm, those hanging on to their humanity become the outcast.

This is where "The Last Man on Earth" succeeds where the 2007 "I Am Legend" fails. It doesn't forget the point of the book. In fact despite being greatly abbreviated in some areas, it sticks fairly close to the novel. 86 minutes just can't cover everything in a 160 page book.
The 1964 adaptation only really deviated on 1 point as far as I can recall. In the book there were the living infected, and the resurrected dead infected. They were all more or less zombies / vampires, but the living were able to function better than the dead for obvious reasons. They were able to work cooperatively and form rudimentary communities. This slightly more organized living group send's one of their least infected girls to spy on Robert Neville [or Robert Morgan in the movie], gain his trust, then unlock his door from the inside so they can get him. They hate and fear him because he spends his days finding and killing their people.

That's basically how it played out in the movie. But instead of there being living and dead infected . . . well I guess I should qualify that. There were different levels of infection, they just didn't really qualify what made them different in the movie Though in a flashback Robert's wife had died and came back, but the origin of other zombies was never made as clear. It's mentioned, but never really clarified, it simply appears that there are more, and less infected zombies. The "less" infected were able to develop a pseudo-cure. They were still infected, but they were able to get by much easier. Sort of like chemotherapy. Your not being killed by the cancer anymore, but your not much better off either. The main point being that there was now a wider gap between the more infected, and the less infected.

As a result of the pseudo-cure, our hero was able to develop a real cure. So he cures the girl, but it's too late. The zombies are able to get in, and kill him before they find out he has a real cure. They still consider him a monster, but the fact that he had a cure provides a mirror for them, making them monsters again.
Other than that, it was very close to the book. It even had the sad part with the dog, another point the 2007 movie took great liberties with. But it wasn't nearly as sad as it was in the book. Honestly the chapter with the dog is one of the saddest things I've ever read. If you can't make it through Bambi, don't even consider reading the book. The whole chapter only took about 4 minutes in the movie. He see's the dog, it run's. He searches, and can't find it. The next day the dog comes back. He cleans it up, bandages it's wounds, and talks with it for a while. Then realizes it is infected. Cut to the next day and he's burying a blanket covered dog with a spike through it. In the book it was not clear if the dog was infected or not, but died as a result of it's injuries regardless. In other words, he didn't kill the dog himself. Yes it's sad that he's forced to kill the dog in the movie, but it's downright heart wrenching in the book when the dog dies despite his best efforts.

All things considered, especially the amount of time they had to tell the story, "Last Man on Earth" is a very good adaptation of the book "I Am Legend. Now I just need to track down a copy of "The Omega Man."