The book and film versions of I Am Legend differ. Changes were made in the film for adaptation to the characters, plots, and connection to the title. First, the characters in the novel feel more real and include five main characters; Robert Neville, Kathy, Virginia, Ben Cortman, and Ruth. Kathy and Virginia were Neville’s daughter and wife, respectively. Neville is also engaged with Ruth, who is uninfected, and Cortman is a friendly neighbor. Contrastingly, the film has three main characters; Robert Neville, Anna Montez, and Ethan. Neville, in the film, works in the military as a virologist, Anna Montez as a recovery nurse, and Ethan is just a young boy from Maryland. However, the general depiction of characters in the novel is better and superior to those who are poorly portrayed in the film.
Robert Neville’s wife and child die in the film’s plot, different from the book, which shows a sense of loneliness in the characters. The film lifts this theme to increase the sense of empathy intended for the modern audience. The infection in the movie was created through the engineering of the measles virus intended for cancer treatment, whereas the roots of the vampire are unknown. Neville’s method to kill the vampires differs between the movie and book versions. In the movie, Neville uses a gun rifle to chase away the monsters, whereas wooden sticks were used to kill the vampires before inventing that natural circulation. The film changes the vampires into mindless dark seekers, which does not work very well in the novel.
Neville tries to commit suicide in the film version when he tries to approach a multitude of infected monsters, whereas, in the book, he is engaged to Ruth after the infection of his wife. In the film, the intervention of Anna, who comes to live with Neville and her son, enables Neville to control his hot temper, different from the book, where he subdues Ruth and convinces her to trust him. Anna, in the film, is a refugee on her way to a colony infected by the bacteria and is sent away by Neville with the cure she needs. On the other hand, Ruth is a spy for the infected people, and she has a pill to conceal her symptoms (Matheson 37). Finally, unlike the book, the movie has a happy ending where the hemocytes remain savage monsters, and Neville is inclined to discover the cure for the bacteria.
The film did not capture the book’s theme correctly; hence in a way, losing tangent with the title. The movie, in many ways, is oversimplified, and the vampires depicted act like monsters. However, at the end of the film, the gang leader is shown trying to rescue a woman affected by Neville’s experimentation. Differing from the novel, the film depicts Neville’s character as an accomplished scientist. Furthermore, Neville loses the moral responsibility of conquering and eliminating the vampires, and his reference as the ‘Legend’ in the title seemingly erodes. However, the book disconnects with the title at the end after Neville dies after realizing that he could not cure the vampires. Without the cure, Neville decides to blow himself up with a grenade together with the vampires (Lawrence 1:34). The main character fails to meet the I Am Legend logic by dying with an unaccomplished purpose.
Works Cited
Francis Lawrence, director. I Am Legend. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2007.
Matheson, Richard. I Am Legend. Macmillan, 2007.