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I Am Legend ***Spoilers Warning***

mike

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mike said:
I've got a very interesting story! Soooo I work at 20th Century Fox in the Archives, and I've been doing a bunch of research (all just on my own for fun). And we made a film called The Last Man on Earth, but in 1924. It's a sci fi comedy. And it sounds wonderful... click me plus it was remade as a sci fi comedy musical as It's Great to Be Alive (1933) with Gloria Stuart of Invisible Man/Old Dark House fame!

I've been able to go through the photo archives and see a great deal of original set stills, scene stills, off camera and more of both titles! The '24 version is pre-Metropolis so it doesn't look as wonderful as it should since it's set in the far flung future of the 1960's. (Comparing futuristic art direction is a stark line in the sand pre and post metropolis, look at Fox's Just Imagine or High Treason for examples of Lang's influence!) Although I will say, from the stills, they knew somehow women would be wearing miniskirts...! honest!

Anyway, Raul Rulian is the star of the '33 version and he's sporting a killer tweed herringbone 3 piece suit but I'm afraid I am not allowed to scan anything in to post!

Also the '33 one is a officially lost film, but we do have an original shooting script and I'm trying to talk my bosses boss into producing a recreation of sorts for it.

The '24 version.... EXISTS! I spoke to the guys in film preservation and they're going to look into it further for me...! This is really surprising because I've never seen it available in any strange public domain/bootleg rare movie catalog. Or heard of it ever playing silent film circuits. This is one that -could- have fallen through the cracks! And from that write up, well it just sounds fascinating!

Time will tell but exciting news seems to lurk around every corner!

psst! someone read this please, it's good stuff! ;) :p
 

Doctor Strange

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I saw it last night. It's pretty good, but by no means great.

From what I recall of The Omega Man, it stays fairly close to the story, apart from changing the locale and some minor details. And its nocturnals are just nameless CGI effects, so don't expect any personality (not that I really wanted to see that campy Anthony Zerbe character again.) I don't know about you, but I don't find obviously bogus CGI characters very scary. And really, for all the modern technobabble, it's essentially a pretty silly story that could barely maintain a half-hour Twilight Zone treatment (*)...

Will Smith holds the screen like the star he is, and the deserted-NYC sets/effects are extremely well done. It's almost worth seeing the film just for that. But the pacing is off, and the film stumbles badly in the latter half: the last half-hour seems rushed. (It's worth noting that the screenwriter is Akiva Goldsman, who has written some good films, but will forever live in infamy for killing the 90s Batman franchise with the ghastly Batman & Robin.)

So, it's not exactly a must-see, but it's reasonably entertaining.

(* Of course, Richard Matheson, who wrote the original novel, also wrote several of the best original T-Zone eps.)
 

MrBern

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Worthwhile

Legendhb.jpg


Lately most sci-fi movies leave me flat.

But I AM LEGEND is worthwhile.

The mutant/zombie/vamps are not my cup of tea being a CGI overstylization. Theres no real fleshing out of them being mindless zombies or an uprising new society as inthe previous movies. But its really interesting to see the first half of the film w/ WillSmith & trusty doggie making there way thru an abandoned NYC.
The isolation is intrigueing & does bring CASTAWAY to mind.
And the updating of the story to 2009-2012, w/ references to modern music as motivation for the lead charater is all nicely done.

Check out this wikipedia link detailing the original book & various movie versions.
It makes an interesting point on how this WillSmith version keeps the original title, BUT totally changes the meaning of that title.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_Legend
 

Story

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lol Best comment I ever read about the gentleman pictured above was that he "had a scream like stripped gears..."

I liked Smith's I AM LEGEND far more than I thought I would. Supposedly, he interviewed several prisoners who had been in Solitary Confinement to develope his character. Having a routine and sticking too it was key to maintaining sanity, which is expressed in this film.
 

Hondo

One Too Many
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Josephine said:
I just giggle every time I watch Omega Man. It's so bad! I hope I Am Legend is better...

Josephine!!! :rage: :p lol :rolleyes: No giggling girl, its 1970'ish!!

It was cheesy but all in good fun, if you ever saw The Omega Man in theaters its allot better, scarier.
Creepy Anthony Zerbe as Matthias, former news anchor taunts Heston’s Neville is still cool, remember its all about the 70’s. I actually prefer Vincent Prices “The last Man on Earth” and await Will Smith’s version.
Still The Omega Man has its moments, it enjoys cult status.

Some interesting items reviews:


Boris Sagal's film "The Omega Man" was the second attempt to make Richard Matheson's classic novel (the third is with Will Smith) into a film. Matheson wrote a screen version that starred Vincent Price (entitled "The Last Man on Earth")that captured some of the qualities of his novel but suffered from being shot in post-War Italy on a low budget (Matheson substituted his name in the credits with a pseudonym). It's moody, low budget cinematography added to the film but it fails to live up to Matheson's original novel."The Omega Man" likewise fails to live up to Matheson's novel but is still an enjoyable if dated science fiction film. Charlton Heston and the supporting cast do a fine job with the material that they are given even if the screenplay guts some of the best elements of the novel in favor of more topical material from the time. The opening sequence where Heston drives down a deserted street in Los Angeles and then screens "Woodstock" in an empty theater continues to be eerie and quite effective even 35 years later.

In Matheson's original novel the result of viral warfare (in the film this is due to chemical warfare. Joyce Carrington takes credit for coming up with this concept) changes humans into vampire-like (ghouls in this film with a sensitivity to sunlight)creatures. Neville appears to be the last human. In the film the creatures are led by a former news anchor (played by Anthony Zerbe)who taunts Neville hunting him just as he hunts them, Neville meets other humans after a long period of isolation awakening his sense of humanity.

Any science fiction film is truly about the decade it was made in. The film ends up being about the last vestiages of the 60's and 70's (and cults like the Manson Family which is really what the "Family" of ghouls represent)and the conflict between the status quo and youth culture. Neville represents technology, reason and the past while the "Family" represents a rejection of the very things that made them into monsters and changed the world.

Although it's a bit heavy handed and departs signficantly from Matheson's novel, "The Omega Man" carries over some of Matheson's themes and the sense of loss, lonliness and how we can lose our own sense of humanity when surrounded by "monsters". There are some very effective scenes in the film and Heston does an excellent job of portraying Neville's fragile hold on sanity. Although not as good as "Planet of the Apes" or even "Soylent Green", "The Omega Man" is a dated but enjoyable science fiction film that has become a bit campy with the passage of time.

The DVD features a very good transfer of the film. An "introduction" (it's more of a brief featurette on the film) by screenwriter Joyce H. Corrington, actors Paul Koslo and Eric Laneuville who appear in the film Unfortunately Heston wasn't interviewed for this reissue of the film. We do, however, get a vintage featurette where Heston talks about the film and his character with an anthropologist that influenced his take on Neville. We also get a text extra "Charlton Heston-Science Fiction Legend". Although this isn't the best film of the four science fiction films Heston made during the 70's (the ending of this film with its heavy handed Christ-like death of a major character is a bit much), it's still enjoyable due to the action sequences and the performances of the veteran cast.
 

jcw122

New in Town
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This movie was really good! The ending was kind of wierd and abrupt for me though. THat's the only thing I didn't like about it.
 

Story

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Life imitates art.

Researchers hope to use synthetic DNA to create life-forms
11:33 PM CST on Sunday, December 16, 2007
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON – It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule.
Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA – an extra gene or two to be inserted into corn plants, for example, to help the plants ward off insects or tolerate drought.
Now researchers are poised to cross a dramatic barrier: the creation of life-forms based on completely artificial DNA.
Scientists in Maryland have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome – a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.
In the coming year, they hope to transplant it into a cell, where it is expected to "boot itself up," like software downloaded from the Internet, and cajole the waiting cell to do its bidding. And while the first synthetic chromosome is a plagiarized version of a natural one, others that code for life-forms that have never existed before are already under construction.
The cobbling together of life from synthetic DNA, scientists and philosophers agree, will be a watershed event, blurring the line between biological and artificial – and forcing a rethinking of what it means for a thing to be alive.
"This raises a range of big questions about what nature is and what it could be," said Paul Rabinow, an anthropologist at the University of California at Berkeley who studies science's effects on society. "Evolutionary processes are no longer seen as sacred or inviolable. People in labs are figuring them out so they can improve upon them for different purposes."
Philosophical questions
That unprecedented degree of control over creation raises more than philosophical questions, however. What kinds of organisms will scientists, terrorists and other creative individuals make? How will these self-replicating entities be contained? And who might end up owning the patent rights to the basic tools for synthesizing life?
"We're heading into an era where people will be writing DNA programs like the early days of computer programming, but who will own these programs?" asked Drew Endy, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At the core of synthetic biology's new ascendance are high-speed DNA synthesizers that can produce very long strands of genetic material from basic chemical building blocks: sugars, nitrogen-based compounds and phosphates.
Today, a scientist can write a long genetic program on a computer just as a maestro might compose a musical score, then use a synthesizer to convert that digital code into actual DNA. Experiments with "natural" DNA indicate that when a fake chromosome gets plopped into a cell, it will be able to direct the destruction of the cell's old DNA and become its new "brain" – telling the cell to start making a valuable chemical, for example, or a medicine or a toxin, or a bio-based gasoline substitute.
Unlike conventional biotechnology, in which scientists induce modest genetic changes in cells to make them serve industrial purposes, synthetic biology involves the large-scale rewriting of genetic codes to create metabolic machines with singular purposes.
"I see a cell as a chassis and power supply for the artificial systems we are putting together," said Tom Knight of MIT, who likes to compare the state of cell biology today to that of mechanical engineering in 1864. That is when the United States began to adopt standardized thread sizes for nuts and bolts, an advance that allowed the construction of complex devices from simple, interchangeable parts.
If biology is to morph into an engineering discipline, it is going to need similarly standardized parts, Dr. Knight said. So he and colleagues have started a collection of hundreds of interchangeable genetic components they call BioBricks, which students and others are already popping into cells like Lego pieces.
So far, synthetic biology is still semi-synthetic, involving single-cell organisms such as bacteria and yeast that have a blend of natural and synthetic DNA. The cells can reproduce, a defining trait of life. "Most cells go about life like we do, with the intention to make more of themselves after eating," said John Pierce, a vice president at DuPont in Wilmington, Del., a leader in the field. "But what we want them to do is make stuff we want."
Making exotic fuels
J. Craig Venter, chief executive of Synthetic Genomics in Rockville, Md., knows what he wants his cells to make: ethanol, hydrogen and other exotic fuels for vehicles, to fill a market that has been estimated to be worth $1 trillion.
In a big step toward that goal, Dr. Venter has built the first fully artificial chromosome, a strand of DNA many times longer than anything made by others.
Details of the process are under wraps until the work is published, probably early next year. But Dr. Venter has already shown that he can insert a "natural" chromosome into a cell and bring it to life. If a synthetic chromosome works the same way, as expected, the first living cells with fully artificial genomes could be growing in dishes by the end of 2008.
The plan is to mass-produce a plain genetic platform able to direct the basic functions of life, then attach custom-designed DNA modules that can compel cells to make synthetic fuels or other products.
Using bacteria
But the hurdles are not insurmountable. LS9 Inc., a company in San Carlos, Calif., is already using E. coli bacteria that have been reprogrammed with synthetic DNA to produce a fuel alternative from a diet of corn syrup and sugar cane. So efficient are the bugs' synthetic metabolisms that LS9 predicts it will be able to sell the fuel for just $1.25 a gallon.
At a DuPont plant in Tennessee, other semi-synthetic bacteria are living on cornstarch and making the chemical 1,3 propanediol, or PDO. Millions of pounds of the stuff are being spun and woven into high-tech fabrics (DuPont's chief executive wears a pinstripe suit made of it), putting the bug-begotten chemical on track to become the first $1 billion biotech product that is not a pharmaceutical.
Who will own rights?
Bugs such as these will seem quaint, scientists say, once fully synthetic organisms are brought on line to work 24/7 on a range of tasks, from industrial production to chemical cleanups. But the prospect of a flourishing synbio economy has many wondering who will own the valuable rights to that life.
In the first year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been flooded with aggressive synthetic-biology claims. Some of Dr. Venter's applications, in particular, "are breathtaking in their scope," said Dr. Knight of MIT. And with Dr. Venter's company openly hoping to develop "an operating system for biologically based software," some fear it is seeking synthetic hegemony.
Safety concerns also loom large. Already a few scientists have made viruses from scratch. The pending ability to make bacteria – which, unlike viruses, can live and reproduce in the environment outside of a living body – raises new concerns about contamination, contagion and the potential for mischief.
"Ultimately synthetic biology means cheaper and widely accessible tools to build bioweapons, virulent pathogens and artificial organisms that could pose grave threats to people and the planet," concluded a recent report by the Ottawa-based ETC Group, one of dozens of advocacy groups that want a ban on releasing synthetic organisms without pending wider debate and regulation.
"The danger is not just bio-terror but bio-error," the report says.

Many deny threat
Many scientists say the threat has been overblown. Dr. Venter notes that his synthetic genomes are spiked with special genes that make the microbes dependent on a rare nutrient not available in nature.
"We've heard that before," said Jim Thomas, ETC Group's program manager, noting that genes engineered into crops have often found their way into other plants. "The fact is, you can build viruses, and soon bacteria, from downloaded instructions on the Internet," Mr. Thomas said.
In fact, government controls on trade in dangerous microbes do not apply to the bits of DNA that can be used to create them. And while some industry groups have talked about policing the field themselves, the technology is quickly becoming so simple, experts say, that it will not be long before "bio hackers" working in garages will be downloading genetic programs and making them into novel life-forms.
Depending on how people adjust to the idea of manmade life – and on how useful the first products prove to be – the field could go either way, said Andrew Light, an environmental ethicist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
"It could be that synthetic biology is going to be like cellphones: so overwhelming and ubiquitous that no one notices it anymore. Or it could be like abortion – the kind of deep disagreement that will not go away."
 

Mojave Jack

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Story, that aspect of the movie was the part that freaked me out because of its plausibility. I made the mistake of watching the first half of it and then going to bed. I laid awake for about two hours thinking about how easily things like that could get out of hand. Then I watched the second half the next day and then I was much more disturbed by the scene with his dog than anything else.

I remember reading an article in Discover about 10 years ago about a group of biologists that had developed a strain of blue-green algae that was toxic to mosquito larvae. It was also developed specifically to out compete local varieties of blue-green algae so as to replace them in the wild. The intent was to release the toxic algae into malarial areas to kill off the mosquitos. I was absolutely astounded that anyone could contemplate altering a biome to that extent. Mosquitos are, after all, not simply a vector for malaria, but are an integral and vital part of the food chain. That even discussing removing them altogether, let alone developing a strain of algae that could actualy do it, is absolutely the height of folly. I think I Am Legend does just what good science fiction does, which is to highlight that sort of possibility. Will Smith's character could have gone a lot further in his analysis, though, rather than just brushing off the Anna's statement about God with a brusque, "God didn't do this; we did."
 

catsmeow

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I'm hopefully going to see this movie tomorrow, so I don't want to read too many comments. Go in there fresh. The trailers make it look alright. I hope we get a good seats :rolleyes:
 

RIOT

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Alternate Ending. Has anyone else seen this alternate ending on the DVD? So much better than the theatrical version's ending don't you think? I liked this ending better because it showed the infected evolving more into a human like state in the end plus Dr. Robert Neville gets to survive.
 

thunderw21

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RIOT said:
Alternate Ending. Has anyone else seen this alternate ending on the DVD? So much better than the theatrical version's ending don't you think? I liked this ending better because it showed the infected evolving more into a human like state in the end plus Dr. Robert Neville gets to survive.

I agree with you there, better than the theatrical ending.

But overall I think the book ending blew both movie endings away. Why not stick to the book? Intelligent vampires! The human ending up being a true 'legend'! The death of a species, the birth of another!

Oh well, we'll just have to wait 20-30 years for another movie version to come out. lol
 

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