I am Legend is both a book and a movie about a post-apocalyptic experience of the last man in the world as he struggles to save the future by trying to discover the cure to the disease that had killed all humanity including his family. The main character in the story, Robert Neville, who in real life is Will Smith, is the person who survives after the end of the world. The book and movie talk about a virus that had caused all human beings to turn into vampires and blood-sucking creatures. However, Neville survives because he has immunity against the virus. While he survives on the earth, he goes through so many traumatic experiences with the hopes of finding the cure. While the book and the movie might have the same storyline, character, and plot, there are several differences and similarities that can be identified upon close examination of the book and the movie.

The first thing to analyze for differences and similarities is the main character. In both versions, the protagonist is Neville, and as much as the book gives a lot of descriptions of the character, the movie does a great job in telling about his possible madness and loneliness, something the book does not specifically tell about the character. What makes the movie more accurate in depicting the character of Neville is that it used illustrations including where the character uses dolls and mannequins and talks to them as if they were real people. The character was very desperate for communication with other people in both versions, and as much as he had no reason to fight to survive, he spent most of his time in the movie and the book searching for a cure. However, the biggest differences in the same character in the two versions are that in the book, Neville is depicted as a very angry man and he spends most of the time drinking alcohol. Moreover, the book described Neville as a German man with blonde hair while in the movie, the character is African American with short hair. In the movie, the character seems to be more of a calm man who was slowly going mad.

As much as the book does not specifically tell what the creatures were, the movie reveals the creatures and bloodthirsty vampires. The difference between the creatures I the book and the vampires in the movie is that while the creatures in the book could think and speak like human beings. In the book, some of the creatures even planned on how they would attack Neville and take total control over the earth. However, the vampires in the movie do not speak, and the scene where the vampires should be planning on how to attack Neville was not included in the movie. The vampires in the movie seemed to understand only one way of attacking, and that was using brutal force, and some of them were so stupid that they would attack without a plan without thinking that they could die.

The presence and the companionship of the dog that Neville has were used in the movie to give Neville a hope for survival, but the manner in which the dog is depicted in the book and the movie is different. In the movie, the dog was Neville family’s dog, and as it turns out in the movie, the dog was also immune to the virus although it could be infected if it came into contact with other infected creatures. However, the dog becomes bitted by the other infected dogs and Neville I left with no option but to kill the dog. However, in the novel, the story is different. There is a very small part where the dog is mentioned in the novel, and it comes into the picture after it has already fallen sick. Neville tries to tame the dog by giving it food and soon, the dog becomes fond of Neville that it gets into the house one day and after hiding for some time, the dog finally came out and died only after a week. The book, however, does not explain how the dog dies.

The biggest thing that the novel and the movie have in common is that the main character, Neville, dies at the end. Towards the ending, in the book, the creature had already started becoming human again, and the only threat they had was Neville. He was treated as the enemy of the creatures and an outsider and therefore, the creatures kill him. In the film, however, Neville discovers the cure just before being attacked by the infected creatures and dies.

Although the novel and the film all talk about the same plot, storyline and characters, there are a lot of differences and other similarities in each version to make the story more interesting and real.