Surviving the End Times with only One Clip
Ok, so I never intended this to be a blog about how guns are used in movies. MadOgre does that on his site and does a great job. However, being a movie dude and also a lifelong student of the martial arts - I just have to notice these things from time to time.
I didn't intend this to be a movie review blog either, but movies - for better or worse - are a big part of the Orion culture. Although it's great to come up with good paintball combat scenarios from real-life military action (i.e. the now infamous Civil War game), it's a helluva lot more fun to base things on movies (i.e. the OK Corral scenario - someone is required to wink).
Besides, both of the people who probably actually reading this are most likely folks that were with me at the movie. So unfortunately, they're having to hear this twice.
I am a huge fan of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. And yes, I read it before the movie came out and even read it before I realized that Heston's Omega Man was based on the same source material. In fact, I had a moment in reading the book where I realized that Heston's character and the protagonist of the book had the same name - Neville. This is a pretty big revelation coming from the guy who spent a most of Les Misérables thinking thinking that Father Madeleine and Jean Valjean were different characters . . . but I digress.
In either case, the moral of the story is that I Am Legend is something near and dear to my heart, but I am straying from the point.
I don't want to give the whole farm away, but to me the story of I Am Legend is first a psychological work about what someone goes through mentally being the sole survivor of a major disaster - in this instance a massive biological outbreak. It is secondly a story of someone "staying alive" by going out and hunting those who would attempt to stop him.
I knew that the Will Smith version of the story would be highly Hollywood-ized, but the whole idea that Hollywood as a general collective knows better how to reimagine literature is trying at times. I understand having to cut things down for time - no one wants to spend 5 hours in a theater - but this can't be at the expense of plot and character development.
Don't get me wrong - the movie wasn't all bad. I have come to appreciate movies per their parts - rather than the sum of those parts. Give it a shot, it'll make you feel better about spending $1-2 on good 30-minute chunks, instead of $9 on a crappy movie.
Here's my major flaws with this film:
Hunting scene
Ok - if you are that hungry you either (a) run down the deer with the Mustang (I am sure Ford had something in their contract specifically against this) or (b) open fire like a mad fool at the herd of deer. I saw the scene with the "gun closet" - I think he has more than a few rounds of ammo. Though he never actually fired at any of the deer . . . or the lions for that matter. If that would have been a Raider, the next scene would have had Will Smith wearing a giant lion mane coat (ala James Earl Jones in Coming to America) and would have had both of those lion cubs made into a pair of very stylish and comfortable slippers.
NYC
Are there even any guns in NYC? I think this would have been a much more entertaining film if it took place in Texas, Arizona, or the Deep South.
Blowing up the place to save himself
Wasn't this dude in the Army? Surely he had access to some claymores . . .
Arms
So we all know that M4s are the rage, but . . . . well see above.
Ok, ok . . . it's Hollywood.
We know we can't have a scene with the protagonist out at some ex-Mil desert installation, sitting on the roof of the hooch with a Barrett M82, waiting about 10 minutes or so for the hoard to get into AP range.
That would just make too much sense.
Ok, so I never intended this to be a blog about how guns are used in movies. MadOgre does that on his site and does a great job. However, being a movie dude and also a lifelong student of the martial arts - I just have to notice these things from time to time.
I didn't intend this to be a movie review blog either, but movies - for better or worse - are a big part of the Orion culture. Although it's great to come up with good paintball combat scenarios from real-life military action (i.e. the now infamous Civil War game), it's a helluva lot more fun to base things on movies (i.e. the OK Corral scenario - someone is required to wink).
Besides, both of the people who probably actually reading this are most likely folks that were with me at the movie. So unfortunately, they're having to hear this twice.
I am a huge fan of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. And yes, I read it before the movie came out and even read it before I realized that Heston's Omega Man was based on the same source material. In fact, I had a moment in reading the book where I realized that Heston's character and the protagonist of the book had the same name - Neville. This is a pretty big revelation coming from the guy who spent a most of Les Misérables thinking thinking that Father Madeleine and Jean Valjean were different characters . . . but I digress.
In either case, the moral of the story is that I Am Legend is something near and dear to my heart, but I am straying from the point.
I don't want to give the whole farm away, but to me the story of I Am Legend is first a psychological work about what someone goes through mentally being the sole survivor of a major disaster - in this instance a massive biological outbreak. It is secondly a story of someone "staying alive" by going out and hunting those who would attempt to stop him.
I knew that the Will Smith version of the story would be highly Hollywood-ized, but the whole idea that Hollywood as a general collective knows better how to reimagine literature is trying at times. I understand having to cut things down for time - no one wants to spend 5 hours in a theater - but this can't be at the expense of plot and character development.
Don't get me wrong - the movie wasn't all bad. I have come to appreciate movies per their parts - rather than the sum of those parts. Give it a shot, it'll make you feel better about spending $1-2 on good 30-minute chunks, instead of $9 on a crappy movie.
Here's my major flaws with this film:
Hunting scene
Ok - if you are that hungry you either (a) run down the deer with the Mustang (I am sure Ford had something in their contract specifically against this) or (b) open fire like a mad fool at the herd of deer. I saw the scene with the "gun closet" - I think he has more than a few rounds of ammo. Though he never actually fired at any of the deer . . . or the lions for that matter. If that would have been a Raider, the next scene would have had Will Smith wearing a giant lion mane coat (ala James Earl Jones in Coming to America) and would have had both of those lion cubs made into a pair of very stylish and comfortable slippers.
NYC
Are there even any guns in NYC? I think this would have been a much more entertaining film if it took place in Texas, Arizona, or the Deep South.
Blowing up the place to save himself
Wasn't this dude in the Army? Surely he had access to some claymores . . .
Arms
So we all know that M4s are the rage, but . . . . well see above.
Ok, ok . . . it's Hollywood.
We know we can't have a scene with the protagonist out at some ex-Mil desert installation, sitting on the roof of the hooch with a Barrett M82, waiting about 10 minutes or so for the hoard to get into AP range.
That would just make too much sense.
posted by golgo13 at 9:46 PM
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