I just got back from watching I Am Legend in an IMAX theater. Now, the book, I Am Legend was a good book, but I’m guessing the real reason why every IMAX showing of the movie is sold out (including the 1:15 showing I saw with my dad), is because they were showing, as the only trailer, six minutes from the opening of the Dark Knight movie set to hit screens this summer. Why? Easy, Christopher Nolan actual shot several scenes from the movie on IMAX film. Why shoot on 70mm film (versus the conventional 35mm)? Christopher Nolan says that the characters of the Dark Knight story are larger than life and needed a medium that could convey that.
All I have to say… is WOW. For those that missed Nolan’s first foray into the Batman story arc, he directed the 2005 movie: Batman Begins. It’s a fresh start on the Batman franchise, covering the origins of Batman and keeping the story grounded in something close to realism. It’s rough, it’s gritty, it’s in your face… and Heath Ledger’s Joker is no different. He’s not some grandiose showman, some maniacal clown. He’s a guy that’s vicious, cruel, and quite insane. He is what the Joker is portrayed as in the comics, and completely different from any other cinema version to date. If the other 120 minutes (or so) of the Dark Knight live up to the first 6… The movie will be amazing.
Oh, and for those wondering, I Am Legend isn’t bad-but they changed the ending from the book. I don’t mean a little bit of a change… I mean it’s not even close to having the same impact. The book had an amazing ending, the movie has a feel good Hollywood ending. Oh well, at least the vampires were cool.
16/12/2007 at 10:11 am Permalink
Dave is going to be so disappointed. (my oldest son) I Am Legend is like his favorite all time story. That sucks! Why do they do stuff like that?????!!!!
16/12/2007 at 7:57 pm Permalink
Hey Dude! Crap – I just realized I’m missing WWE’s Armageddon. Oh well, I don’t get out to the PPV’s w/o you guys much more anyway…
Saw IAL this weekend. Your right, the next Batman movie looks amazing – and we just had the short “normal” version w/ Heath Ledger laughing a lot.
Hey, I never read IAL (and probably should). I thought the ending of the movie could have been a lot better. Smith was good and I loved his puppy. How is the book different from the movie?
Sure do miss y’all!
16/12/2007 at 8:04 pm Permalink
Okay, to get the ending you have to understand that there were two tiers of vampires in the book. The animated dead acted like the ones you saw, but living people who contracted the virus acted like what we normally think of vampires (fairly normal, but sunlight, stakes, and the like are dangers)…
Neville also (in the book), spends a lot more time hunting down vampires, because they are actively hunting him each night.
So Neville finally meets someone (a woman) out in the daylight and takes her home. He’s explaining to her all he knows about the virus (because no one else did in the book), and shows her what he’s been up to trying to cure them and all that stuff. Suddenly she knocks him out and when he wakes up she has left a note. The note explains that she is a vampire and they have found a treatment that removes most of their weaknesses, including their sensitivity to sunlight. She states that they’re planning to reform society, but because of all of the vampires he’s killed, they will come and arrest him and execute him. He ignores her warning and they arrest him. Right before they execute him, he looks out his cell’s window and realizes that while vampires were once the legend, he has now become a boogey-man sort of legend and in order for the new society to feel safe, he must die. It’s a very moving change in perspective… you realize that this lonely, last man on earth was actually the “bad guy” in a sense and even he realizes that he must die for society to move on.
18/12/2007 at 8:01 pm Permalink
Wow… I mean, WOW!! I think I had better read me this here book – now… Thanks, bro’!