movie discussion
Dec. 16th, 2007 01:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_rose99I watched I am Legend yesterday. It was an OK, shoot-em-up vampire film, but... It could have been so much more!!!
I went to see the movie with someone who read the short story years and years ago. He wanted to see the movie for the punch-to-the-gut ending. And that ending never appeared. The odd thing was, as someone who had never read the story, I could see the lead-up to it. It was like they were going to follow the story... and changed their minds just for the ending. There were two important points as the story went along.
First, the vampires were not animals. I mean, they snapped and clawed and attacked and had strangely detachable scary jaws, but otherwise.... They were obviously cooperating with each other. When the main character set a successful trap, one of the other live ones obviously did not want his friend to go. And after the demo of the successful trap, the "vampires" set a very similar one for him! This is learning! This is a sentient race!
Second, the main character was in total denial about the learning of the "vampires." He found it odd that one of the vampires would chase his friend into the dangerous light. He never acknowledged their sentience. He called a female test subject "it" while another character called the test subject "her." In one scene there are many pictures of the "vampire" test subjects, all dead. It was clear the main character could be viewed as a mass murderer!
The main character's attitude toward the "vampires" was completely believable. It totally fit. What did not fit was the ending of the movie. The "vampires" should have taken over. The last scene should have demonstrated them becoming the new intelligent dominant race of the planet. It should have shown the main character as a horrible mass murderer with unnatural powers (walking in the daylight), who had to be killed at great cost to The People.
This movie should have been about questioning our reality, questioning our perceptions of truth. Instead, it is just another vampire movie with a lame ending.
First, the vampires were not animals. I mean, they snapped and clawed and attacked and had strangely detachable scary jaws, but otherwise.... They were obviously cooperating with each other. When the main character set a successful trap, one of the other live ones obviously did not want his friend to go. And after the demo of the successful trap, the "vampires" set a very similar one for him! This is learning! This is a sentient race!
Second, the main character was in total denial about the learning of the "vampires." He found it odd that one of the vampires would chase his friend into the dangerous light. He never acknowledged their sentience. He called a female test subject "it" while another character called the test subject "her." In one scene there are many pictures of the "vampire" test subjects, all dead. It was clear the main character could be viewed as a mass murderer!
The main character's attitude toward the "vampires" was completely believable. It totally fit. What did not fit was the ending of the movie. The "vampires" should have taken over. The last scene should have demonstrated them becoming the new intelligent dominant race of the planet. It should have shown the main character as a horrible mass murderer with unnatural powers (walking in the daylight), who had to be killed at great cost to The People.
This movie should have been about questioning our reality, questioning our perceptions of truth. Instead, it is just another vampire movie with a lame ending.
