An adaptation completely botches the original theme and message

[u/Morr4Seiya]

Mulan(2020)-They give Mulan superpowers which is not only lame it goes against the message of the original about equality and struggle,plus they removes Shang because apparently having Mulan date her superior was "problematic" even though Shang genuienely respected Mulan and their rank was never brought up

I am Legend(2007)-You know why the story is called "I am legend"? SPOILER ALERT the protagonist is the actual monster,humanity is gone and the vampires have a actual society and the protagonist kills and terrorize them

Animal Farm(2026)-On the very slim chance that Andy Serkis ever sees this,here's the thing Andy,Animal Farm was not a children work it was not supposed to have a happy ending,you never heard of cautionary tales before?

[u/3d1thF1nch]

I read I am Legend when the movie was first advertised, just getting a vibe for what the movie would be like. Not only did it have clever concepts about a post-apocalypse I had never thought about, that last chapter and that last line goes hard AF! The last line just completely flips the concept of protagonist and antagonist, and completely changes your perspective on the character you have grown with and empathized with for hundreds of pages. Blew my mind to punch a reader in the gut like that on the very last line.

Then the movie happened, and I did not feel those feelings. Decent infected movie with some cool scenes, meh ending, but did not have the punch (or even the same plot or themes but whatever) of the book.

[u/jayhof52 → u/3d1thF1nch]

I also love that, in the book, Robert is just a guy. Just a dude from LA who survived and tried to make what he thought was the best of things to try and survive.

It sort of made his experiments both more meaningful and more chilling in context of the final line. Having him be a doctor in the most recent adaptation killed that.

[u/3d1thF1nch → u/jayhof52]

Right?! He was an Everyman survivor that decides to improve himself in the apocalypse. Not just survive, but learn and hypothesize, for no one, why things are the way they are. He taught himself the skills to do so. I forgot about how that stuck out when I read it, so thanks for reminding me!

[u/rumade → u/3d1thF1nch]

He literally spends the first half or so of the book avoiding the problem locked in his house drinking the night away. It was very relatable.

I only read the book because the projector at our screening broke halfway through and I didn't want to wait for the next showing. So glad I did though. It's a great read.

[u/jayhof52 → u/rumade]

And it makes him more terrifying in the mythology of that new society - it’s like the later villains in the Human Centipede series not being trained doctors and just people obsessed with attaching people to other people, which is more horrifying than a man designing a complex medical procedure to do it.

[u/BoiFrosty → u/jayhof52]

Bro solved the question behind the vampire plague with a library card.

[u/d-101 → u/3d1thF1nch]

I love the book and cannot stand the film. The first half of the movie is pretty good; everything up til the rampaging drive at the pier is fine. It does a great job of showing how Neville is deteriorating and how he latches onto Sam for any sense of emotional support.

However, the survivors being guided by visions from God COMPLETELY misses the point of the book. The book held religion as an object of curiosity, as Neville tried to theorize why the vampires feared the cross. What he learned was that people, in their final desperate days of illness, turned to religion in droves, and it offered them nothing. It made them fearful of the major symbols (the cross, the star of David, the crescent, etc.) because they felt unworthy of being saved, given that they all died despite their devotion. The film ignores that nuance entirely and just has the girl survivor be like "god told me there is a survivor compound" and never interrogates where that vision came from, or how utterly amazing it would be if a person did serve as an oracle.

And the ending is garbage.

[u/Typhtheoriginal → u/d-101]

I feel the same way.

[u/LupusLycas → u/d-101]

The movie is Bush-era religion slop.

[u/TheChinOfAnElephant → u/3d1thF1nch]

I think you mean flips the concept of hero and villain? Because he’s still the protagonist at the end. Protagonist doesn’t have to be good and antagonist doesn’t have to be bad.

[u/bishopOfMelancholy → u/TheChinOfAnElephant]

The reason why is because Neville assumed that he is the hero, when he was, to the vampires, a villain protagonist. That's why it's flipping the concept: in our original read of the situation, filtered entirely from Neville, he is shown to seemingly be a hero protagonist before the rugpull.

[u/Temporary_Curve4035 → u/bishopOfMelancholy]

He’s basically the boogie man in this new civilization

[u/Typhtheoriginal → u/[deleted]]

Agreed. I could see how a movie could do this, but none of them ever have.

[u/Hit-Enter-Too-Soon → u/3d1thF1nch]

What really blows me away is that I Am Legend has been adapted to a movie three times that I know of, and they've all missed the point of the ending. You'd think the odds are that one would have gotten it right!

(First was Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price, then Omega Man starring Charlton Heston, and then I Am Legend with Will Smith.)

I've always loved the experiments he does in the book, like "does my Jewish neighbor care about crosses now that he's a vampire?" (No, he does not, but a star of David has the expected effect.)

[u/MathematicianTop9519 → u/3d1thF1nch]

Yet again, out of touch studio execs forcing a change into a movie that makes it much worse. 

[u/3d1thF1nch → u/[deleted]]

“A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.”

Seriously…two fucking sentences have volumes of oomph. Goddamn, I really need to reread that book.

[u/Illustrious-Wrap-776 → u/3d1thF1nch]

The last line just completely flips the concept of protagonist and antagonist

Hero and Villain.

Protagonist and antagonist are the narrative roles and literally can't change retroactively.

Hero and villain are the moral positions and can be assigned to either narrative role, and revealing the protagonist to be the villain, not the hero, including to himself, is what happens in I am Legend.

[u/nudeldifudel → u/3d1thF1nch]

What's the final line?

[u/Typhtheoriginal → u/nudeldifudel]

“Full circle, he thought while the final lethargy crept into his limbs. Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.”

Basically, he realizes that humanity had been replaced by the vampire creatures. He was the last of the humans, and in the eyes of the vampires, he was the creature of the night, appearing and slaughtering for seemingly no reason. The legend was no longer Dracula, it was him.

[u/Rude_Bathroom_9828 → u/3d1thF1nch]

I completely agree, the book’s ending stays with you because it makes you question everything you thought you understood. The movie had its moments, but it missed the gut punch that made the story special.

[u/BoiFrosty → u/3d1thF1nch]

The best thing to come out of the 2007 movie was that it helped inspire Dying Light the game series.

The book has survived the test of time for a reason. It's damn good. Feral Historian has a good video on how the original story and the adaptations have differed over the decades.

https://youtu.be/NPE_oZJvNt0?is=WEuE5YI33gJp3JpW

[u/CandyNecrosis → u/3d1thF1nch]

The Charles Heston version is not good either

[u/Competitive-Food8407 → u/3d1thF1nch]

There is only one "I am legend" movie, and it is called "The last man on Earth" Starring Vincent Price. Very faithful adaptation to the original story. I saw it years ago and never made the connection that they were based on the same story until later because they were so vastly different from one another.

Edit: checked real quick and you can watch the whole movie on Youtube for free.