INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION AND

MANAGEMENT

RIGHTS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS TO CONSIDER “MENTAL OR

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH” TO A LIST OF REASONS FOR EXCUSED
ABSENCES IN TARLAC STATE UNIVERSITY

Date:
January 22, 2020

INTRODUCTION
 The movie, I Am Legend is based on a 1954 Richard Matheson sci-fi novel of the
same name. The story forces readers to think about, at least for a bit, whether Robert
might be as monstrous as his enemies the new race of vampires to whom the day
walking human is their version of the bogeyman. This Will Smith-fronted tale is all
about heroism, selfless sacrifice and final redemption. An enterprising movie buff might
even be able to craft an I Am Legend devotional from it. And such a tome might even
sell reasonably well. Assuming, that its intended audience doesnt flee in terror.
Because I Am Legend is both stark and disturbing. Robert's sense of isolation and
loneliness is painfully. And on top of the loads of violence, the film's scariest moments
take place when audiences can't see anything at all. It's heartbreaking and horrible and
very very creepy. This film has a few things going for it, spiritually speaking, but when
folks make their way to the exits afterwards, they’re not going to be pondering the
nature of redemption. They'll be thinking about poor Sam checking their rear view
mirrors for vampires and locking their doors extra tight when they get home. This latest
revisioning changes the story of the original novel in significant ways. The theme of a
Christ like savior dominates this latest incarnation whereas the original novel plays
much more with notions of right and wrong or good, evil and self and other.
Matheson's original premise centers on the lone survivor, Robert Neville of a virus that
has transformed the rest of humankind into hordes of blood thirsty vampires. The novel
flips back and forth between Neville's present predicament and flash backs that provide
details of the chaos caused by the virus and the infection of his own wife and daughter.
Neville spends his days building up defenses around his home restocking his supplies,
training himself in the medical sciences in a search for a cure, and hunting vampires
while they sleep. Neville is able to find the nocturnal creatures during the day and
perform experiments upon them before coldly executing them. In the end, Neville
surprisingly encounters a woman out in the daylight. Starved for human company, he
brings her to his fortified home and questions her, only to discover that she is one of
the vampires unbeknownst to him, some of the vampires have 1 Moreman: I Am
Legend Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2008 and have developed the means to
control the virus. For his part, Neville is seen by these intelligent vampires as not only
an evolutionary throw-back but a serious threat as he indiscriminately destroys
vampires both monstrous and intelligent during his daylight rampages. As the monster
who comes during one sleep, Neville is captured and condemned to public execution.
Upon seeing the throngs who have come to see him die, he realizes the title, "I am
legend.” None of the three films based upon this story has been entirely faithful to the
novel, especially where the ending is concerned. Neville is depicted as a research
scientist rather than a simple factory worker who is selftaught. The ending strays from
the original in having Neville flee from his attackers and die, violently cursing the
vampires as freaks all the while. The novel certainly includes Neville's sense of revulsion
at this new society of vampires but he is taken alive in order to suffer a public
execution. A fate he avoids when given suicide capsules by the sympathetic female
vampire who first contacted him. In short, I Am Legend does not put forth a faithful
representation of its literary name sake, either in plot detail or underlying themes.
Rather, the film follows on from other film versions in providing an increasingly hopeful
ending. In this latest case, the religious symbolism is blatantly transparent. The
Hollywood seemingly unable to challenge the viewer and instead feeding the audience a
straight dose of unambiguous good versus evil. I Am Legend is interesting in the
context of its predecessors and what the differences have to say about modern popular
culture, and further illustrates both the undying interest in Matheson's novel and also
Hollywood's inability to, and perhaps fear of, giving the viewer those very themes that
have made the novel a classic of horror.

SUMMARY OF THE STORY

The movie begins with news footage of a woman announcing that she has
created a cure for cancer. Three years later, the island is completely deserted. The only
person left is military scientist Robert Neville and his dog Sam. Neville is a scientist who
was working on a cure for a new virus which turns people into vampire like creatures.
That virus was itself created by another scientist who thought she has found a cure for
cancer. Soon the virus spread over the entire planet. Only a few people were immune,
including Neville. Believing himself the last man on Earth he spends his day hunting for
vampire and kidnapping some to experiment upon while seeking a cure. Neville and
Sam hunt and gather by day, but lock their house down like a fortress at dusk. Neville
who strangely immune has not given up hope of finding a cure and continues to reach
out via daily AM radio transmissions to any other uninfected survivors. Neville has
several close calls with the vampires. Neville is driving through the deserted city
accompanied by Sam his dog. A herd of deer leap across his path and he follows them
gives chase at speed in the car. He tries to shoot them and we realise its a hunt. The
deer split up and run down a road blocked with abandoned cars. Neville gives chase on
foot trying to hunt one deer down. As he rounds a corner he gets the deer in his gun
sights only to be beaten to the kill by a lion that presumably escaped from the zoo.
Neville is torn as to whether to shoot the lion and its family who also enter the scene or
leave the deer to them. At this point Neville watch alarm starts beeping and he leaves,
taking Sam with him. We see Neville home. It is the typical detached house but it looks
as though it were in the middle of a war zone. Neville and Sam have had a seemingly
normal evening eating processed food and watching tv. After a bath, Neville shuts,
locks and protects every door and window with massive steel shutters. He sleeps with
Sam in a bathtub, rifle in hand, with sounds of screaming surround the home. He
dreams of how his wife, their child, and Sam as a puppy, try to leave. Neville dressed in
a military uniform he decides to stay on his own in order to try to stop the virus as he is
a military doctor. The dream scene is interrupted by Neville waking to once again face
his lonely reality. At his fortress like home, Neville exercises and goes down to the
basement where he keeps a small but hi-tech laboratory. We see that he has been
experimenting with a vaccine for the virus that has wiped out most of the human race.
He tried the vaccine evidently only one of hundreds on some mice in order to find a
viable cure. All the mice act incredibly aggressive except for one. Neville makes note of
this mouse and deems that specific compound ready for human trials.
Later Neville goes to a video rental store where he talks to some mannequins he has
set up his only form of contact with the human form. It seems he has created a game
for himself to prevent madness from taking him. He later visits some condo flats nearby
searching for supplies and coming upon a room with a bed surrounded by plastic wrap
and another room with two cribs. We see the pain in his eyes as he empathises with
the loss of loved ones. Later, we hear the radio message Neville has created and plays
over all AM radio frequencies. It says that he's alive, and that he'll be waiting for more
survivors at the docks of the bay everyday. Sam spots a deer again, so Neville and Sam
go after it. The deer runs into an old building at ground level, and Sam goes after it,
although Neville has tried to hold Sam back. Robert enters the building as Sam will not
return of his own accord. Carefully, Neville searches the darkened rooms. He finds the
corpse of the deer and Sam, hiding under an old desk. An Infected male then leaps out
of the darkness to attack Neville and is shot dead. Both Sam and Neville start running
away through the building. Some more of the infected appear and chase them. He
fights them all and both are able to get out of the building. The leader of the infected
cannot run after them because his skin burns as soon as he comes in contact with the
sunlight and after screaming at Neville he retreats back to the safety of the darkness.
Soon afterwards, Neville sets a trap to catch one of the infected. He succeeds and takes
the captured female infected home to his lab. He tries the vaccine that made the mouse
less aggressive but it fails and the woman flatlines. He revives her with an adrenaline
shot and continues to adapt his serums in the hope of finding a cure. The next
morning, he remembers its his birthday. When he goes to the video store, he finds his
mannequins have been moved. During the night the infected have set the same trap he
organized for them the previous day. Neville is caught by the trap and passes out.
When he wakes up he is badly hurt hanging upside down and bleeding. Sam is faithfully
waiting for him. He cuts himself free finally just as dusk falls but he falls on his knife
and impales his leg. The infected leader then appears with infected dogs who attack
Robert but Sam defends him who succeeds in crawling back to his car to retrieve a
pistol shooting the infected dogs dead. He looks over to see Sam collapse from a bite
wound and picks her up and lays her in the car. When he gets home he puts Sam on a
table and injects her with an experimental vaccine. The vaccine fails in helping Sam as
Neville realizes her hair begins to fall out and attempts to bite him, so he is forced to kill
by strangling as she struggles in his arms. Tears stream down his cheeks as he says
goodbye to his only friend. He then goes and buries her in the streets. In a grief
stricken rage he decides to fight all the infected face to face. He drives his car at speed
into the hoards of infected who roam the streets at night. He crashes and the infected
overpower the vehicle. Just as he is about to die a bright light shines on him and he
blacks out. While blacked out he has dreams about the past once more. This time he
dreams of the helicopter his wife and child used to escape. As it takes off it, a nearby
helicopter is attacked by infected and crashes into the helicopter carrying his family.He
wakes up in a his house to Shrek playing on the TV and stitches in his knife wound. The
people who rescued him are Anna and her son Ethan, who have heard Robert's radio
message and went to find him the previous day. Anna explains a plan to leave and go
to a colony of immune survivors in Vermont. However, Neville insists that he wants to
be left alone and that he doesn't believe that such a place exists. Later that evening,
Neville realizes that the infected are attacking the house. The previous night they had
followed Anna back when she rescued Neville. Although Neville home defenses are
comprehensive the infected are so great in number they breach the shutters and make
their way into the house. Neville, Anna and Ethan retreat to the basement lab. During
the hectic fight, Neville has time to realize that the infected female he had captured
earlier and tested the virus vaccine on, has come back to her human form. He takes a
sample of her blood in a syringe and gives it to Anna, telling her to leave through a
small trap door with Ethan. Neville stays back to kill as many of the infected as he can
blowing them to pieces along with himself including the vicious alpha male who has
made a personal quest out of hunting Neville down. Anna and Ethan reach a strange
place in the middle of the countryside the road is cut by a castle like wall and a steel
door. There some human survivors live in that enclosed community. Anna gives the
syringe with the antidote to the human leader of that small community and her voice
over tells us of the legend that Robert Neville has become. During the fight between
Neville and the Infected, Neville realizes that the infected female he had captured
earlier and tested the virus vaccine on, has come back to her human form. Alpha
vampire makes cracks in the glass chamber indicating he wants the female back. Neville
removes her drug drip and moves her outside the glass chamber saying that hes
listening. The alpha vampire directs other vampires not to attack Neville, who now
vaccinates the female to return her to vampire form. The alpha vampire picks her up
and leaves with other vampires while Neville says sorry to them for killing some
vampires in his experiments. Neville, Anna and Ethan now live together and keep on
searching for other human survivors by sending messages in AM broadcasts.

ANALYSIS OF THE PLOT ELEMENTS

Neville is the last fully human resident in New York perhaps in the world. Nearly
everyone else was killed three years earlier by a horrific mutation of what was supposed
to be a cure for cancer. Those who didnt die outright turned into hairless, hungry
monsters light loathing, zombified, vampiric creatures that hunt anything that moves.
Neville is immune to the disease and he spends much of his time developing vaccines
using his own blood as the core ingredient that he hopes will cure his sunlight phobic
neighbors. He not had much luck. All of his less than willing subjects have died. In his
spare time, Neville whiles away the daylight by cooking, washing his dog, Sam, and
going on inner city hunting expeditions. He watches DVDs too regularly trekking down
to the local rental store and chatting with the mannequins he placed there. Every day,
he broadcasts that he will spend high noon at the seaport off East River Drive where he
desperately hopes another living soul will find him. A strong scene in the movie is when
Neville is looking for his dog in a dark building. Smith does a good job because he
makes you feel like you are there. As he searches you start to hear noises. I wonder if
he will come out alive. With many scenes like this in the movie you will be on the edge
of your seat. Until he met Anna and Ethan. As time goes by, Neville have the feeling
that the infected are attacking in his house. Neville does everything just to explain that
he just want to help them and get back as normal.
CREATIVE ELEMENTS

The movie I am Legend is a mighty impressive achievement. The screenwriters

relying on only a few crucial flashbacks to the last time Neville saw his wife and child as
they were evacuated from the quarantined city find clever ways to sustain what is for
more than half the movie a one man plus dog and zombies show. It helps of course
that the character of Smith is that one man there are few movie stars who can hold the
screen with such effortless charisma. When you have to deliver most of your lines to a
dog that no mean feat. He throws himself into this physically demanding role with great
conviction. The trouble is those white skinned vampire zombies who bring the movie
down to cheap horror movie level. I wont say they are not scary especially when I first
see them but when they start clambering up the sides of buildings with implausible
super human agility they begin to look exactly like what they are computerized effects.
That exciting opening with Neville tearing through Manhattan is a case in point. The
only reason for him to be driving so recklessly is to kick start the movie with an
adrenaline rush. I Am Legend cant seem to make up its mind just what kind of movie it
wants to be. Its visionary depiction of a post plague world, where a solitary man tries to
hold on to his sanity gives way to an intense but quite conventional night of the living
dead remix and then in its third act when Neville finally makes contact with other
human beings a young Brazilian nurse played by Alice Braga as Anna, with young boy in
tow as Ethan, introduces the notion of the Almighty that a curious spiritual turn that
comes from God knows where. All in all, Filmmaker Francis Lawrence and an army of
digitizers have stripped New York of its inhabitants to pretty breathtaking effect the
opening sequence is a wow and Smith is terrific at conveying what it might be like to be
deprived of human contact for three years while constantly fearing for your life. The
scares are effective for a good long while there's an intriguing terrorism subtext for
anyone who wants to read a little real world relevance into the story.

OPINION

I am Legend is rather a very interesting movie with a familiar taste of premise.A

zombie apocalyptic world with only a man with a dog stands alive. We've seen it before
but it takes this familiar plot to a better direction which made this movie deliver
satisfying thrills and the drama. Will Smith makes a mesmerizing performance for this
intriguing character. This film has a debatable conclusion while it may be disappointing
for others but includes a beautiful alternative ending for the film. Will Smith carries this
movie completely on his shoulders. His character has been without human conversation
for a long time. He talks to mannequins as if they are real people. The scene where he
yells at a mannequin named "Fred" is one of the most eerie and tense moments I have
experienced in a movie all year. When a couple of real humans show up he has no clue
how to talk to them. He ends up quoting the movie Shrek to train himself in how to
communicate verbally again. Smith is in many scenes by himself and his performance is
the movie's greatest effect. As good as this movie is it still falls short on a few accounts.
Not only do the infected look fake but so do the animals. Anyone who has watched any
amount of Animal Planet can tell how obviously unreal the deer and lions are. The
writers should have left the infected as vampires. Robert is dealing with the infected in
New York. Other than the fear of UV rays, the infected in both movies act just alike.The
other problem is the ending

CONCLUSION

At night, the survivors come out mutated, sun-sensitive vampires who murdered
everyone who wasnt killed or changed by the initial out break of the virus. Smith, with a
medical laboratory in his basement believes he can cure the virus and splits his time
capturing vampires as test subjects, searching for uninfected humans, and goofing
around the city with his dog, Sam who might be the only thing keeping him from going
crazy. He had been hurry to discover the vaccine even if he fail. Many times that he
want to give up but still prevailed to help the infected. The movie give us the Heroic
character of Smith. And that pretty much it. Smith existence is one of long stretches of
broken up by life and death encounters with the vampires and the movie makes the
most of both alternating Smiths efforts to keep up a routine after mankinds passed on
with ultra tense escapes from the monsters. Is it wrong to love movies whose plots
depends on the death of billions of our fellow humans? For me, It depends on how they
understand the movie as long as the lesson of the movie is meaningful that we can
apply to another situation in a good way because seeing how people deal with it after
everything and everyone's gone. In a clever bit of cutting that gives us insight into both
Smith's character and what happened to ruin society, Smith's dreams flash back to the
day hetried to evacuate his family from a city descending into chaos.There's a lot to like
here. Learning Science, Technology and Society give us idea on how we can help in our
society in a way of simply discoveries just like Neville do. Overall, I think I Am Legend is
the best movie. With good acting, suspenseful scenes, and a good plot. I Am Legend
will definitely go down as a legend. I recommend it to anyone who likes action films.