This Will Smith Movie Completely Missed the Point of the Book It’s Based On

It’s been 17 years since one of Will Smith’s most popular movies, I Am Legend, opened in theaters. The film, an adaptation of Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel of the same name, tells the story of Robert Neville (Smith) the survivor of an apocalypse that has turned humans into vampiric creatures. But while the film was popular, becoming one of the top-grossing films of 2007 and receiving critical acclaim particularly for Smith’s performance, the movie’s theatrical ending is a major departure from Matheson’s book — and it’s an ending that entirely misses the point of its source material.

On Film, A Hero’s Ending. In The Book, Something Else

In the movie, Neville is an Army virologist living a lonely life trying to find a cure for the virus that turned humans into vampires (aka Darkseekers), conducting experiments on a female. After his dog, Sam, is bitten and infected Neville tries to cure him with a serum he created but fails and has to put the dog down. It causes Neville to venture out where he is ultimately rescued by two other humans who say they are on their way to a survivors’ camp. Neville eventually discovers a way to get his treatment to work, but his home is attacked by Darkseekers leading Neville to leave a vial of the cured woman’s blood with the humans before he sacrifices himself to save the cure. The film ends with Anna and Ethan, the two survivors, arriving at the camp and handing off the cure with narration revealing that Neville’s efforts save humanity and he becomes a legend.

While there are some other differences from the book — specifically how the apocalypse happens, Neville’s profession, how he comes to understand the vampires — which is to be expected, but the movie’s ending deviates so much that it completely misses the point. In the novel, Neville is literally the last surviving human being. There are no other survivors and Neville’s actions when it comes to the vampires are pretty brutal as he’s killed hundreds of the feral creatures in his attempts to survive and understand. There are also different kinds of vampires, specifically a new species that are more human, more humane, and more as the result of mutations. These vampires have begun to form a new society and do not see Neville in a positive light as he’s killed so many vampires. Ultimately, Neville is captured by them and set to be executed. As he awaits his death, Neville realizes that not only is the vampire’s condemnation of him valid but that as the last of humanity, he will become the new superstition — or legend — to the vampires in the same way that vampires were once a superstition or legend to humans.

[RELATED: I Am Legend Director Reveals He Wished He Had Been More Faithful to Original Story]

It’s a moment that, to put it bluntly, makes the point that perspective can change anything — even your own role in something and it is powerful. By changing that to have Neville’s “sacrifice” be heroic, it entirely changes the meaning of the story and loses a lot in the process. It’s something that is further exacerbated by the film going out of its way to make the vampires in the story monstrous, stripping them of their humanity entirely (in the book they aren’t really much of a threat to Neville), a move that further divorces the story from its meaning. It’s worth noting that it is the overall third act of the I Am Legend film that is most heavily criticized, as well as that the film’s theatrical ending was also criticized for having themes of a Christ-like savior sacrificing himself for humanity — in this case, Neville and his sacrifice to preserve the cure — that is entirely absent in the book.

The Alternate Ending is Closer But Still Not Right

What’s interesting is that the film does have an alternate ending that was initially released as being “book-accurate” — but it’s not. That ending sees Neville attacked by Darkseekers but realize that one of them is merely trying to rescue the female he’s been experimenting on as she is his mate. Suddenly, Neville realizes that he’s become the monster and returns her, apologizing. Full of remorse, Neville leaves with Anna and Ethan in search of the survivor’s colony. In a sense, this ending is closer to the book with Neville having a realization about his actions and their impact — and indeed, this ending is the one that an in-development sequel film would treat as “canonical” — but even it falls short of the gravity of the book’s message. While Neville does realize he’s become a monster to the Darkseekers, he falls short of truly understanding that the world has changed and his role in it.

When it comes to film adaptations of written media, one can’t expect that the film will be a 1-to-1 product. There are things in every story that work better on the page than they do on film and vice versa. However, when it comes to theme and meaning, that is something that any adaptation should aim to stay true to and when it comes to I Am Legend, both its theatrical and alternative ending simply misses the mark. A story that is, in many ways, one of perspective, otherness, and the nature of legend on paper becomes one of heroics and human dominance on film. As a result, it completely misses the point. Here’s to hoping the sequel will somehow get us closer to the source.