Home General Discussion

I am legend

1
polycounter lvl 19
Offline / Send Message
rawkstar polycounter lvl 19
so... i liked it, it was great, will smith did a good job as well, the ending sucked and it was nothing like the book, but i've never read the book so... i still enjoyed it.

Replies

  • bounchfx
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    bounchfx mod
    yeah, saw it last night with my friend who told me about it, he loves the book

    I thought it was bad ass...except for the ending.. yeah. it also felt really short to me.. kinda wish it was 20 minutes longer.
  • rawkstar
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    rawkstar polycounter lvl 19
    yeah they left a few loose ends untied at the end, which was kind of disappointing
  • JordanW
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    JordanW polycounter lvl 19
    -spoilers-
    I thought it was great, however I was severely disappointed with the turn the movie took after the girl with the kid showed up. I didn't read the book either but i'm aware of how it ended and it seems like they took more of a "focus group" ending for the movie.

    I was also kinda disappointed they didn't do anything else with the 'monsters'. It's like the whole time they were trying to establish a case for something deeper when they would show the one going into the light a bit in frustration of the female getting nabbed, or the fact that there was always one that seemed 'in charge' but they never really did anything with it.
  • Uly
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Uly polycounter lvl 17
    Haven't seen this yet, looking forward to it, but wasn't there something recently about the director talking about how they reshot the ending? If it really is worse, then fuck.
  • MikeF
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    MikeF polycounter lvl 19
    if you cant get out to see it rite away, heres a quick substitute haha tongue.gif

    http://joox.net/cat/2/id/1902906
  • Jeff Parrott
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Jeff Parrott polycounter lvl 19
    Awesome until the last 30 minutes then heavily meh.

    -spoilers-
    King zombie vampire was 98% lame. They didn't even need to establish him.
  • indian_boy
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    went wit my gf... loved the movie... especially since i got to be one of those 'irritating kids who keeps making out'!

    lol j/k.

    will smith kicks so much ass in this movie!
    loved the CG [though at times it seems.... fakish?] scary parts were well done [well done shock-scary ftw]
    and lets see....
    [spoilers follow]
    yea when that king zombie comes out for the first time... i was like... the 'test subject' and him might be close or summing,.... u know... to make the 'zombies' deeper in character or something.

    oh yea... and i felt so sad when t3h dawg dieds!! frown.gif
    i lub dat dawg...
    [spoilers end]


    ahh well...

    well done movie!
    well worth it!
  • demoncage
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    demoncage polycounter lvl 18
    for the most part, it was visually impressive, sets especially. i thought the herd of deer at the beginning was really amazing. the male lion walking into scene durring the feeding session looked fake. the face on king zombie was very generic and i thought as a whole the zombies didn't pull it off for me.

    while will smith had some good intense scenes, i thought his acting was very self-conscious most of the time and i'm kinda tired of the whole subdued goofball persona in his serious roles. i thought the mother and child showing up to fill the void in his personal past sucked. and i could have done without the subliminal religious message. it was still a cool flick though, liked the whole desolate feel and always have been attracted to the "last man" concept. ironman was looking pretty damn sweet.
  • Slum
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Slum polycounter lvl 18
    I thought it was awesome. The showing I went to was sold out, I ended up having to sit front row on a near-imax sized screen. It was really cool, but I'll have to see it again just to literally take in the whole movie.
  • adam
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    adam polycounter lvl 19
    Thought it was fantastic. The ending seemed just to me. The movie was more about the character of Ryan Neville; his struggle with sanity, having to schedule himself in such away to survive, and so on. I think that's why I thought the ending fit the movie - to me it was never about the outcome of the zombies. But, that's just how I saw it.

    If anyone comes across a "Making Of" for this flick please, pass it on!

    EDIT: Curious, how did this story end in the book? UPDATE: I just read the plot here if anyone is interested:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_legend
  • RazorBladder
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    RazorBladder polycounter lvl 18
    I thought it was pretty bitchin, much better than I was anticipating, especially with Will Smith's hit and miss record.

    Also "w00t" for Patton's vocal werkz \o/
  • Mark Dygert
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Tinman thanks for putting the "spoilers" tag in your post, unlike some people...
    /me looks at Indian Boy and wags fist.
  • indian_boy
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    OH SHIT!

    im so damn sorry.... fuck. dont hate me please!
    ill add them tags... sorry man... shit
  • sonic
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    sonic polycounter lvl 18
    Damn that movie was awesome. It was very intense and emotional at many parts.


    [SPOILERS]
    [SPOILERS]
    [SPOILERS]
    Is it just me or did they set it up for a sequel? First, he mentioned the dude who exposed himself to sunlight and he noted a behavior difference, yet that didn't come up again anywhere in the entire movie. There were also several moments that were emphasized that played no role in the movie whatsoever, such as when he said "backing up to six redundant drives" and it zoomed in on all of his external hard drives and sat there for a few seconds. They also focused a lot on him recording himself. I have a feeling that in a sequel they will come back to his lab and find all of his recordings and data and it will play a part in the next one.

    I came the closest ever to crying during a movie when the dog died and then again when he started talking to that mannequin afterwards. Tons of people around me were all crying and some had to get up and leave.
    [SPOILERS]
    [SPOILERS]
    [SPOILERS]
  • Justin Meisse
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    Saw it on Friday, thought it was one of the best movie adaptations of the book although it seemed more like Omega Man. I would of preferred special fx makeup to the cg vampires, they all looked the same and cartoony, at one point my gf leaned over and said it reminded her of iRobot.

    If you're planning on reading the book before seeing the movie, don't, it will mess things up for you
  • skrubbles
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    skrubbles polycounter lvl 18
    [spoilers - even though that should be fucking obvious]
    sonic - there are things that are done in the movie that just move the story along and let the viewer know what's happening. The whole thing about the king zombie acting a bit different and having the camera on him is just to give the audience a focal point for the zombies so that they know its the same group of zombies that's following Will Smith around. The thing with Will Smith recording himself was to give the illusion that he's a scientist recording his research, but it was REALLY just used as another Excuse for Will Smith to talk and tell the audience what's going on.

    All-in-all I really enjoyed the flick. I have the audiobook on my computer and I'm going to give it a listen and see how the movie matches up to it... I'm sure there's going to be a lot that's different. It wouldn't surprise me if the the dog and the manikins aren't mentioned in the book, because they just seemed like more devices that were used to give Will Smith something to talk to.

    [/spoilers - seriously why would you read this thread thinking there wouldn't be any??!!?]
  • Luxury
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Luxury polycounter lvl 18
    Loved it except for the CG creatures. They looked fucking terrible.

    i want a dog so much. frown.gif
  • Ephesians 2:8-9
    A sad reality for us is that we are plagued with the "eye for CG detail". I miss the days when i was a kid and could enjoy the marvel of a film like this. Jurassic Park, Star Wars, etc.

    Aside for CG nitpick, this film was awesome to the end. I even like the ending. It was self sacrificing and noble. I especially like the character (Will Smith) development all the way down to the details of his emotional state . They Convincingly represented a guy seriously messed up by loneliness in a world gone to "hell". I mean, the mannequin aspect of how he coped, while seemed weird, was so powerful. You know exactly how he was feeling. This movie can easily be compared to "Castaway" in the same respect.



    If you wanna fully enjoy it, don't go into it with expectations. I think that's why some of you did not like the ending.



    GREAT film, go see it!
  • indian_boy
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    [spoilers]
    @sonic... yea me too!
    the most emotional ive been during a movie evar! since my youngest years! like i actually felt for the dog! and when he went to talk to the mannequin.. hes all like 'answer me'.. holy shit that was sad! and my gf crying at the side i was like woaaaaaaaa good work by the director [shes not the emotional types afaik... and neither am i!!]!
    [spoilarz]
  • Lord McMutton
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Lord McMutton polycounter lvl 17
    I thought the part with the mannequin wearing orange hoodie was pretty creepy.
  • TomDunne
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    TomDunne polycounter lvl 18
    Didn't like it at all. the scenery was amazing, but otherwise, not a fan. I paid $10 to see the Dark Knight teaser, so i guess I shouldn't complain about the film tongue.gif
  • gauss
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    gauss polycounter lvl 18
    i was going to go see it tonight, but they just released the HD of the Dark Knight teaser, so i think i'll hold off smile.gif
  • SouL
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    SouL polycounter lvl 18
    i kind of liked it. I saw it on Friday on Imax....
    I think I enjoyed the "set-up" part of the movie more than anything else. After the dog died and the woman showed up... I was starting to get impatient and just wanted the movie to end.

    I didn't understand the choice to use CG zombies over actual actors in make-up. 28 days later did a fantastic job with their make-up. Ran out of time? Budget?

    And I wish they gave the chick a more see-through shirt to wear. At least that way I could have walked away from the movie knowing I saw her tits.

    eh. Batman trailer was cool, though. Worth half the price I paid to get in.
  • gauss
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    gauss polycounter lvl 18
    i ended up going to see it anyway, and could probably have passed on it. strong work by will smith, and the first half of the movie is also very well realized.

    the story of the story and its problems is clear from the credits:

    screenplay by
    Mark Protosevich & Akiva Goldsman


    based on the screenplay by
    John William Corrington & Joyce Hooper Corrington


    based on the novel by
    Richard Matheson


    every additional screenwriter's credit on a movie is almost always as multiplier for suckage. as you remember from math, x1 gives you the same number, which doesn't mean a movie won't suck, but it won't be twice as sucky. given that this screenplay was two people, based on a screenplay from two other people, based on a novel, you're looking at a 4x multiplier for suck. which is about right. there are a lot of people who were involved with this movie that i think did a great job, but there's far from any coherent vision or story.
    here's another clincher from the trivia section for I Am Legend on imdb:

    -The film was green-lit without a script.
  • Rhinokey
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Rhinokey polycounter lvl 18
    Watched it last night, Read the book about a month ago (good easy quick read for anyone interested.)

    There’s a small similarity to the book but not much.

    Overall thoughts on the movie, I liked it. I liked the way the empty city was done, and the way they dealt with Neville slowly going mad from being alone. Thought smith did a great acting job. He seemed scared shitless by these things. And I liked that they didn’t turn him into a super hero as kicking machine.

    Things I hated. Generic CG monsters looked like they took one 3d model and scaled it slightly to make variations. All wearing the same boring clothes and all the same boring color. I hated that all the monsters moved like spider man on pcp. Would have much much much rathered the monsters to be more real. Like 28 days later or something. (They did the same thing with the "I, robot” robots. turned them all ninja Spiderman.

    Annoyed me that these things were always portrayed as psycho flip out lunatics, but somehow off screen they are smart enough to lay the rope trap with the manikin to catch him.

    That’s just my thoughts

    Overall I enjoyed it
  • TheMadArtist
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    TheMadArtist polycounter lvl 12
    *Spoilers*


    A few other forums I've been to have been having a debate as to whether the trap that Neville got caught in was set by the king vampire dude, or if it was a trap that Neville forgot. I thought it was pretty obvious that it was the vampires. Thoughts?
  • Rhinokey
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Rhinokey polycounter lvl 18
    vampires, they even placed the dummy from the dvd store there as bait.
  • Needles
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Needles polycounter lvl 19
    I loved this movie... towards the end wen everything started picking up.. it felt like i was watching a fallout movie(yes the games fallout) which just makes me yearn for something like that to happen... fallout live action @_@

    Anyways i rather liked the whole character exposition and analysis, together with the city sets ... which were AMAZING!, the cg humans and lions werent so hot tho, the deer were pretty damn good i have to admit. But the cg things weren't the real stars it was Smith and his dog and desolate decaying new york ... which was a whole character by itself imho

    Btw anyone notice the superman and batman movie ad in times square? Hmmm future plans by WB ??? blush.gif
  • sonic
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    sonic polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    *Spoilers*


    A few other forums I've been to have been having a debate as to whether the trap that Neville got caught in was set by the king vampire dude, or if it was a trap that Neville forgot. I thought it was pretty obvious that it was the vampires. Thoughts?

    [/ QUOTE ]

    When everyone asked me that it seemed obvious that he was going insane and just forgot he had set the trap. After all, the trap worked exactly like his other ones did: a decoy with a car or truck hanging off a ledge that was tied to a trap next to it. It just seemed even more like he set it up himself when he started yelling and firing in random directions. It seemed he was doing that because he was aggravated from his loss of sanity. Why else would he start shooting in random directions and have a look on his face as if he was really trying to remember something?
  • indian_boy
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    when i saw that... i thought it was something thatd suggest taht the zombies were learning.... maybe thered be some development on that... but guess not...

    it might actually be wat sonic suggested...
  • nacire
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    nacire polycounter lvl 17
    Saw it, loved it, end was a bit meh, but still really loved it. Trap was set by the dark seekers.
  • Matabus
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Matabus polycounter lvl 19
    I totally think it was set by Smith himself. He is going looney and had forgotten he set it. The zombies wouldn't have done it, they aren't nearly clever enough.
  • Slum
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Slum polycounter lvl 18
    Yeah, I really took that scene as him going crazy. My girlfriend thought it was the zombies, but I was pretty sure he set it himself and is just a fucking nutcase.
  • demoncage
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    demoncage polycounter lvl 18
    my initial reaction to that scene was that there was another human presence in the city and that was what was making him flip out in paranoia. but nothing ever came out of it. maybe it was supposed to be some kind of dumb symbol, like he was now forced to resign and await salvation.
  • nacire
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    nacire polycounter lvl 17
    So you guys think it was just coincidence that king zombie was chillin by the moved mannequin and trap with leashed dogs ready to roll?
  • Mishra
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Mishra polycounter lvl 18
    it was definitely a trap set up, he even realized it was a trap and was shooting randomly at buildings because he knew he was being watched. and hey guess what, he was.
  • Sage
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Sage polycounter lvl 19
    The zombies/infected/mutants set it and then followed smith home when that lady save his but. I liked the movie but the ending was a bit of a let down, but whatever. Mishra he suspected he was being watched and was making sure. At first glance I thought it was one of the mutants, infected covered in clothes. From the movie, Smith establishes the infected humans are not zombies though just infected humans that can't go out in daylight because the uv radiation would kill them. I'm not sure what the book went with though since I never read it.


    Alex
  • Mishra
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Mishra polycounter lvl 18
    no i meant it was a trap set up by the vampires, sorry if i wasnt clear
  • demoncage
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    demoncage polycounter lvl 18
    yeah, i guess you're pretty much forced to think the zombies did it. fucking zombies. unless that chic did it just for her own psychopathic gratification. it would have been funny if he woke up in the middle of the night at that house, went to grab a snack from the fridge and caught her eating popcorn and laughing at surveillance footage of his ass hanging from that noose.
  • moose
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    moose polycount sponsor
    [ QUOTE ]
    i kind of liked it. I saw it on Friday on Imax....
    I think I enjoyed the "set-up" part of the movie more than anything else. After the dog died and the woman showed up... I was starting to get impatient and just wanted the movie to end.

    I didn't understand the choice to use CG zombies over actual actors in make-up. 28 days later did a fantastic job with their make-up. Ran out of time? Budget?

    And I wish they gave the chick a more see-through shirt to wear. At least that way I could have walked away from the movie knowing I saw her tits.

    eh. Batman trailer was cool, though. Worth half the price I paid to get in.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    lol! i thought the same exact thing. Not sure if the budget was as much of an issue as i think they just tried too hard with the infected people. 28 weeks later was the *first* movie i thought of when leaving the theater. They were pretty much the same movie from different angles, but 28 weeks was cooler smile.gif Cooler infected people, better atmosphere, more terror. The empty streets of NY were super creepy, wish the reason the streets were empty was as creepy. The only time i was really sold was the introduction of them, sleeping in a circle in some fucked up Tool video sort of way.

    The motion on the CG creatures during the action sequences was crazy sweet though! when they were attacking the car, and running around, that was brilliant. The Alpha-dog zombie calling the hordes though... lame, but the motion and animation were rad.

    ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND i had chills seeing the Batman trailer on the big screen... the entire time. And i nearly pee'd myself seeing a Batman/Superman poster in NYC. Sure, its fiction... but fucking hell.... what a tease.

    So, moral of the story: Go see it, and pee yourself thinking about Batman.
  • adam
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    adam polycounter lvl 19
    [ QUOTE ]
    I thought the part with the mannequin wearing orange hoodie was pretty creepy.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Saw the movie a 2nd time* the other night and I swear to god the mannequin's head moves SLIGHTLY when the camera cuts to it the first time.

    *Not that I liked the movie that much, but I hadn't seen my friend in a long time and he wanted to see the movie.
  • pior
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Sure! Thats the reason why he freaks out. Because he thinks he's moving - and thats exactly what the sequence shows, the mannequin tilting its head just like if it was a person. Very nicely put together!
  • Sage
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Sage polycounter lvl 19
    Really it moved? I thought my mind played tricks on me. The cg thing bug the daylights out of me, it was like whyyyyy. Dawn of the the dead had great zombies. 28 days and weeks later great infected. The work on NY was awesome really nice. I was thinking I'm buying this just to model the environments. wink.gif I really enjoyed watching this film because of that, the cg zombies kind of ruined it though. It reminded me of the the Mummy fx too much.

    I remember when I saw 28 days later I was like nooo an English movie, wtf. Then I thought I saw the Blair Witch Project can't be worse, and I'm glad it was not. wink.gif I missed the English aspect of the movie in 28 weeks later, I thought that made the first one more creepy for some reason. I still think the first one was more creepy, I just didn't really like the ending either.

    Alex
  • sonic
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    sonic polycounter lvl 18
    Why does everyone keep comparing the 28 days later zombies to this? Obviously the vampires in I Am Legend are a lot more powerful and more acrobatic than those in 28 days later. To achieve the scenes where they are all jumping on light poles and doing crazy shit you'd need a huge team of Jackie Chans.

    That's like asking. "Why did they have to use CG on Spiderman? The Punisher looked great without it."
  • Sage
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Sage polycounter lvl 19
    Sonic in some shot I guess cg creeps where the cheapest and safest way to do it but in the movie they didn't come off as the creeps being more powerful as in I'm a supernatural being like a vampire. But I kind of see what you are saying. People question the use of cg for the creeps because it was a let down, it didn't hold up where in the other movies the use of humans did hold up really well, as in we know they are humans with make up but its done soo damn well it looked real. It's not a comparison in terms of strength, but technique used to represent them. Now I'm wondering what would happen if the undead in Dawn of the Dead were faced off with the infected humans in 28 days vs creeps of I am legend, who would win. Probably the zombies in dawn of the dead would since they are dead and the other two are still alive and they would become zombies if bitten. I question the use of making them purely cg since humans would of held up better in a lot of the shots were cg really wasn't needed for them. I thought they should have used a mixture of both to create a better illusion.

    There also wasn't that much crazy shit going on where the cg creeps where running around, a lot of it was suggested. This reminds me of when for whatever reason, they decided to have a cg version of blade in blade 2 fighting the vamps. If you compare that to blade 1 you just get the feeling of what the hell were they thinking doing that, it look bad and it was pointless. Now the cg in I am Legend is really damn good especially compared to Blade 2 but I still question the use of having purely cg creeps. I guess if the creeps had looked as good as Golem did I would not nick pick, why wouldn't they cast him wink.gif

    Alex
  • Rhinokey
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Rhinokey polycounter lvl 18
    following post contains movie and book spoilers

    sonic i'm not complaining cause of it being just cg, but mostly about them being super acrobatic and flying up walls and street lights, and moving like crack fueled spider men.

    when i wish they were more like the 28 day later infected, i mean pretty much exactly like them, hummans that have been driven mad and just want to kill and eat. thats way scarier, something real.

    even in the book the vamps were just infected humans, they could talk, and think. Nevils old neighbor stood outiside his house nightly and yelled his name trying to lure him out. The females would flash their hooches trying to get him to come out. the infected even eventualy put together their own civilization. made their own medicine to allow them to survive without drinking blood. and started using guns and cars to hunt both neville and the savage underdeveloped vamps. One of the smart vamps made nevill belive she was a human surviver and stayed with him for some time spying.

    I don;t know where i am going with this post. i guess that they did not use cg because the story demanded it. but they used cg cause they thought flippy jumpy fake monsters were cooler.

    samething they did in i robot.
  • Mark Dygert
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Anyone else bothered by:

    - Will Smith doesnt come off as a 54 year old scientist. Not bad acting he did a good job, just bad casting.
    - The monsters where stupid and it missed one of the key cool points of the book.
    - The CG monsters failed to follow skeletal deformations, such as mouths that opened farther then jaws would normally allow. Very spongy-stretchy. Sure they are monsters OK, but with liquid bones?

    Outside of that it was fun.
  • sonic
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    sonic polycounter lvl 18
    BOOK SPOILERS:

    rhinokey: from what I understand, the infected weren't smart. It was a group of people that were "still alive" who formed their own civilization because they found a way to keep the virus at bay. The normal infected, however, are for the most part mindless.

    On Wikipedia, the director said they used CG because they wanted the vampires to appear to have their adrenal glands stuck open all the time. He also said that he wanted the vampires to be hyperventilating non stop, which would make actors pass out or not be able to run fast.
  • Rhinokey
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Rhinokey polycounter lvl 18
    no, in the book there was 2 classes of infected, the living that was infected, and the dead bodies that the virus reanimated, the dead were more mindless. the new society was some of the infected living that had learned to control the infection inside them, they developed their own medication to ease the blood lust, the girl that stayed with robert neville admitted all of it in the note she left him after knocking him out after he found out she was infected. she noted that she had a layer of special make up over her entire body that disguised the paleness and allowed her to go out in the sun.

    in the book not all infected smarted up. but some did and formed their little society.
  • Renaud Galand
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Renaud Galand polycounter lvl 19
    Just saw it one hour ago.

    Good atmosphere, awesome matte paintings and cg works for the city but crappy work for all creatures (both animals and zombies). I mean, that's why I definitely prefer 28 days later. Special fx make-up instead of "we must do everything in 3D, because it's a standart now..." makes things look waaayyy better and believable, to me. I've tons of examples which made me smile during the movie because of the "not so great" 3D, that's sad because the rest of the movie (except the end, of course) was pretty cool ! Will Smith did a great job as well, but the best actor is the dog for sure !
1
Sign In or Register to comment.