I Am Legend Reflection Paper

Hope. It is something that we can hold on to at times. One in which the main character in the movie, Richard Neville, only had. He had hoped that he can save the humanity and with determination, he did. The movie itself shows to us many values and lessons that each one has to learn in life. Like him, sometimes we also need to think of others first before ourselves, as what he did to save the mother and the child on the last part and also by doing his best to discover the antidote alone shows his integrity to humanity. Next, throughout the movie he treated his best friend, the dog, like it was like him. Therefore the movie also tells us that we need to respect life regardless of what he/she is for the society. Thirdly, his intelligence shown to us that in life, in order to survive we must use our wits. And finally, the discovery of the cure-gone-wrong for cancer shows to us what we are now, people have always been not contented with what they have, although I am not saying that its bad yet we also need to put limitations on what we are doing for as to what they say “Too much and too less of something is undesirable”.

Summary:

The movie is about, Richard Neville, the last man on Earth.

Neville is a strong-minded virologist who persistently remains in his hometown as the rest of his group escaped a virus that kills most of its victims and reduces any survivors to the bloodlust of slavering, photosensitive organisms. Neville’s wife and daughter died off in a rescue copter as bridges explode and the city turns into insanity.

Three years later, the streets of his hometown are abandoned. His only companion is Sam, a female dog, who has a mind of her own, but remains loyal to her human friend.

By day, Neville and Sam monitor a place point described in his recorded transmission to a deaf planet, hunt vampire-zombies who hide from sunlight, and satisfy their DVD habits at a local video store populated by mannequins strategically dressed and postitioned by Neville himself. By night, the virologist works on replicating his own immunity, in the hope of find a remedy for a cure-gone-wrong. Driven slightly unhinged by his solitude, Neville still holds out hope that someone else survived.

Descriptions:

a. Infected Persons
– they are afraid of sunlight as their skin might be burned
– their physical characteristics are slightly unwanted (e.g. being hairless and their skin)
-infected with a virus and wants the infection to spread.
-difficult to be cured
-goes out at night and hunts as they are afraid of sunlight
-hides in dark rendezvous at daytime

b. Virus
-was supposed to be a cure for cancer but mutated to something worse
-fast infecting
-communicable from infected to none
-can be air borne
-deadly
-difficult to eradicate

Main Problem/Solution:
The main problem of the story is about how to exterminate the virus that continues to spread in different ways, and on how to bring back humanity in its normal state. One solution remains, the cure that Richard Neville has discovered. About the title “I am Legend”:

For me, there are two reasons why they titled the movie as “I am Legend”. First, because a world where everyone is a vampire and you are the only human exterminating them is like one turned upside-down. Therefore he is legend for he is like the “vampire” for the vampires. Next is that he is “Legend” because he discovered the cure for the epidemic/pandemic and therefore he is historical to the humanity in the film.