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I Am Legend has an Authentic Story

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

In 1954 Richard Matheson wrote a novel titled I Am Legend based on a world apocalypse where people turned into vampiristic zombies. That’s way cool.

Made into a movie called The Last Man on Earth (the link is to the original movie available for viewing) in 1964, the year I was born, it is one of those classics that has stayed with me throughout my life. It gave me nightmares for years and I’m still a little afraid of the dark. Thanks Mr Price!

In 1971 Charlton Heston was The Omega Man in the second film based on I Am Legend. Better car, sunglasses, lots of guns and way cooler than Vincent. By this stage I was 7 years old… and yes it gave me even more nightmares. But that’s the mark of a great movie when you’re a kid, right?

Now Will Smith is in theatres starring in the third screen adaptation of Matheson’s novel under its original title I Am Legend.

As this film has been out for some time now (this is a remnant of an old half written post) I thought it might still be worth sharing if only to fill people in about the larger story of this movie. I’m currently reading Seth Godin’s All Marketers are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low Trust World. He’s right. I’m not buying into the I Am Legend movie itself but the story I’ve created for it over the last 40 years of my life. I’m telling myself a lie that this movie, when I get around to seeing it, will profoundly impact my life. I’m telling myself that The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man made me into the strong personality I am today. None of it is true at all. I’m the marketing tool in that equation.

What is even more interesting is that I tell myself these lies regardless that the synopsis of the movie essentially stays the same as when I watched The Last Man on Earth. The movie ending is a set in stone conclusion. I’ll still watch I Am Legend regardless of this knowledge about the lie. It won’t change my life at all. There were other more profound movies in my life and childhood. Yet I’m still lying to myself.

Why? Because I Am Legend has an authentic story.

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An icon for overweight middle aged bogun-geek web designers. A lego block in a Meccano world. A synergy of tattoos, memories of bare knuckle fist fights, and old episodes of Star Trek. My name is Steven Clark and I'm a highly opinionated web designer with a few good ideas. I'm too old for fist fights.

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Currently Reading

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky (cover)

Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations has been on my bookshelf for the last few months literally screaming to be read. In fact, I'm wondering how I got so sidetracked to have reached the end of the year without having consumed it. The message of the book is an area of my own fascination, the effects that our new technologies have on the way we relate to each other, and how we're now empowered in ways that were historically unheard of (or not even conceived of) not too long ago.

I'm a small town boy who grew up in the seventies, graduating high school in 1979. The world was slower - how did we survive without Wikipedia? Without MSN or Facebook? Nowdays we have flashmobbing and blogging and constant connection.