Video: Ridley Scott\'s I Am Legend Test Footage

[Brendon Connelly]

Before Francis Lawrence delivered a stiff-but-sloppy take on I Am Legend, that latest attempt to film Richard Matheson's novel had drawn in several other directors. None of them, perhaps, as hight profile or popular as Ridley Scott. I am sure Warner Bros. would have loved to be able to put his name on the marquee, but alas it was not to be.

While he was developing the film, Scott turned to animatronic and FX men Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff in order to test how they might create the story's hordes of vampiric, infected hemocytes... and I'll let this video take over the show and tell from here.



Thanks to Blastr for the embed.

[Blackfist]

[not him - HIM]

They'd have looked great with smatterings of dry ice, wouldn't they?

[Captain Comet]

This just looks so much better than the CGI stuff we got.

[not him - HIM]

This just looks so much better than the CGI stuff we got.

Doesn't it just? Really not a fan of the film that eventually happened. I still prefer Omega Man.

[DarthEwok]

This just looks so much better than the CGI stuff we got.

Most models, masks, creature effects do. As good as CGI has gotten - it still can't fool the eye


Saw Skyfall yesterday. Toward the end they had a CGI shot of a flashlight that looked so fake. I don't know why they could not have just sent someone out in the field with a real flashlight

[alekesam]

I think practical effects works better because natural lighting wins out over artificial most of the time. There's a way that light hits an object, changing the color, etc that's hard to mimic completely in CG.

That said, I liked the alternate version of I Am Legend (or, story goes, the version that's technically the actual movie since that was the movie they set out to make, not the alternate Wil sacrificing himself version). It makes the movie make way more sense and more compelling. Why they chickened out and went with the grenade ending is beyond me.

Just thought of this: should I have typed spoilers? I mean this movie is over three years old so it should be just safe to type that right?

[Ian]

I believe the Ridley Scott era I am Legend relates to this script, which, although nothing like the Matheson novel, could have been rather fun.