I Am Legend
Dec. 18th, 2007 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
che_gilsonI just saw I Am Legend and it was spectacularly good! It was of course carried by Will Smith who deserves any Oscar nod he get's for this film. But the most exciting part was the 'vampires', at least intellectually. Infecteds might be a better term for them. But anyway, the film had some really interesting things to say and I'm not even sure the filmakers intended it. Or perhaps that layer was there for those who would 'get it' OR I'm reading a lot into what is basically just an action film... I'm not sure..
ANYWAY...* Sort of spoiler but not quite alert. Beware below...
Anyway, the infecteds reminded me a lot of Blindsight and a little bit of Peter Watt's vampires- not exactly how they are in the book but how they were implied to be at the end of the book. (Read the f*ing book already!). The vampires in I Am Legend could almost be the non-sentient intelligence Peter Watts speaks of in Blindsight. In some ways I felt they were an evolutionary step forward for humanity. While they were exceptionally aggressive they seemed to do little damage to each other up until the Alpha's rescue attempt at the end. But even THAT doesn't denote cruelty, it's more a matter of numbers. (If you see the flick you'll know what mean.) It's just that they had the numbers to throw into the meat grinder in answer to Will Smith's character's act of aggression. Or what they considered an act of aggression. OK, I'm getting ahead of myself. During the movie the Smith character says that 'their de-evolution is complete' the infecteds no longer exhibit human behavior. At the same time he points out that a male exposed himself to the sun and Smith couldn't understand why. It was actually pretty obvious why and I was hoping for some epiphany on the character's part to realize that the infected weren't complete animals. That they were something else. But in true human fashion he never got it. The Alpha infected then sets a trap similar to the one Smith set to trap an infected female for study. The Alpha was trying to rescue the female Smith took and was attempting to cure. So obviously despite their hyper aggression they had hierarchy and some sympathy for their own kind. My guess is that the girl Smith took was the Alpha's daughter. Now, why might they be the superior species? The infected actually fit the environment. Unlike humans they didn't build, destroy, pollute, or even seem to war much. So basically the entire movie is devoted to saving humanity when #1- are we really that worth saving? Especially when something better seems to have come along, #2- mankind pretty much seemed on the verge of extinction, particularly in the face of a newer more predatory version which better suited the environment. So at that point why bother? It's like trying to save Pandas for gawds sake, they're doomed, let it go already. Now, a couple questions are left- were the infecteds actually a viable species? Could they breed and were their mutations consistant enough to be passed on to the next generation? Well the movie doesn't answer that of course. And #2 what they did they eat now that they'd run out of people? Well the answer to that seemed to be deer, so there was no REAL need for them to eat to people, they just did for some reason. Which means that they could carry on when humanity went extinct and humanity-as we know it- will continue in the new form of the infecteds.
So- kudos to the film for having depth wether they meant it or not! And on top of that Will Smith ROCKS!!!
ANYWAY...* Sort of spoiler but not quite alert. Beware below...
Anyway, the infecteds reminded me a lot of Blindsight and a little bit of Peter Watt's vampires- not exactly how they are in the book but how they were implied to be at the end of the book. (Read the f*ing book already!). The vampires in I Am Legend could almost be the non-sentient intelligence Peter Watts speaks of in Blindsight. In some ways I felt they were an evolutionary step forward for humanity. While they were exceptionally aggressive they seemed to do little damage to each other up until the Alpha's rescue attempt at the end. But even THAT doesn't denote cruelty, it's more a matter of numbers. (If you see the flick you'll know what mean.) It's just that they had the numbers to throw into the meat grinder in answer to Will Smith's character's act of aggression. Or what they considered an act of aggression. OK, I'm getting ahead of myself. During the movie the Smith character says that 'their de-evolution is complete' the infecteds no longer exhibit human behavior. At the same time he points out that a male exposed himself to the sun and Smith couldn't understand why. It was actually pretty obvious why and I was hoping for some epiphany on the character's part to realize that the infected weren't complete animals. That they were something else. But in true human fashion he never got it. The Alpha infected then sets a trap similar to the one Smith set to trap an infected female for study. The Alpha was trying to rescue the female Smith took and was attempting to cure. So obviously despite their hyper aggression they had hierarchy and some sympathy for their own kind. My guess is that the girl Smith took was the Alpha's daughter. Now, why might they be the superior species? The infected actually fit the environment. Unlike humans they didn't build, destroy, pollute, or even seem to war much. So basically the entire movie is devoted to saving humanity when #1- are we really that worth saving? Especially when something better seems to have come along, #2- mankind pretty much seemed on the verge of extinction, particularly in the face of a newer more predatory version which better suited the environment. So at that point why bother? It's like trying to save Pandas for gawds sake, they're doomed, let it go already. Now, a couple questions are left- were the infecteds actually a viable species? Could they breed and were their mutations consistant enough to be passed on to the next generation? Well the movie doesn't answer that of course. And #2 what they did they eat now that they'd run out of people? Well the answer to that seemed to be deer, so there was no REAL need for them to eat to people, they just did for some reason. Which means that they could carry on when humanity went extinct and humanity-as we know it- will continue in the new form of the infecteds.
So- kudos to the film for having depth wether they meant it or not! And on top of that Will Smith ROCKS!!!
