One of the noticeable differences between the movie version
of I Am Legend and the book is that the movie version of the pandemic
was caused directly by a human invention, the virus created by Dr. Alice
Krippin to cure cancer, while the novel version doesn’t have a similarly
explicit and known direct human cause.
Perhaps director Francis Lawrence made the change in an attempt to make
a bigger statement about the unintended consequences of human progress. Lawrence’s decision to change the disease’s
cause to something manmade makes a statement similar to that of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein:
that when we try to change nature we will inadvertently cause unforeseen negative
consequences. This theme is seen
throughout Frankenstein as Victor’s attempt to “play God” obviously
ended poorly, and is also seen in the movie version of I Am Legend when
Dr. Krippin alters a virus to create a cancer cure that ultimately causes the
death/transformation of everyone into vampire-like creatures. Even a tiny change in plot from the
novel to the movie can have a huge impact on the story’s message.
The human creation of the virus was also what stood out to me as the most significant difference between the novel and the film. I think that the viral nature of the disease rather than a bacterial infection made it seem less of a mutation and evolution of the species and more of a destructive, thoughtless force. The novel, like The Coming Race and R.U.R., brought up the idea of a new type of life form taking control of the planet to replace humankind. The movie takes a more anthropocentric view and makes it "humans vs. disease", with the humans being the "good guys" and the diseased vampire/zombies being the villain.
ReplyDeleteWhile the idea of the film being human-centric has been addressed throughly by other blogs, the role of the mutation (disease) changes to fit this humanists ego notion. The novel's version of the mutation acts as an agent for evolution which happen to coincide with downfall of human civilization. Human civilization at this point has begun with its own destruction. The disease did not necessarily started the destruction only speeding up the process of the downfall. However, the film portrays the mutation as a unintended consequences cure that lead to a new disease which alters the viewers’ perception of the mutation. Not all mutations are destructive, the mutation we see in the novel is a new growth for human beings to become immune to "natural death." This mutation is shown to improve the infected's agility and other innate instinct, which are not negative to our survival. The film by placing an emphasis on human's unintended consequence disease left out the crucial important fact: an enhance race that are superior to human — a transhuman.
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