ĕn'ə-mē?

I recently watched the Will Smith movie "I am legend". If you're interested you can look it up at http://www.pluggedinonline.com/ before watching it. The main negative elements are the violence and frightening scenes.

(Don't read this if you don't want to have the plot twists ruined for you)

The writer of the review commented that the movie had a theme of "heroism, selfless sacrifice and final redemption". It's based on a book and I think the movie missed highlighting the material point that the author of the book was trying to make. In short, Will Smith's character Robert Neville is the last normal man alive in New York city, everyone else has either been killed or changed into a vampire by an airborne virus. Only 1% of the population were unaffected and virtually all of them were promptly killed by the vampires. As a result now finds he must lock himself in his apartment at night and during the day he roams the city killing the vampires as they sleep. Every so often he captures the odd one alive to take back to his apartment/bio-medical lab to experiment on in the hopes of discovering a cure.

He is attempting to save what's left of mankind. And this brings us to the central idea of the book, his actions are not in line with the current majority public opinion. To them he is the enemy. The one the vampires fear, the one they desperately try to stop, the bogey man "legend" the vampire parents tell stories about to their vampire babies.

The fact that the main character is the enemy just because he is in the minority is actually a very thought-provoking idea. It's too bad this latest version of the story didn't capitalize on it. You get hints in a one or two scenes but nothing more.

As Christians we think we are the protagonists. We assume that most everyone else will agree. We love our enemies, we follow the golden rule, we pay our taxes. The reality is we are strangers in a foreign land. Our enemy is the god of this world and he holds sway over the hearts and minds of many people, possibly the majority. Jesus Christ said the world will hate us because He was hated. If the world system accepts us then there is probably something wrong and we should probably be worried.

-

In the movie when Robert Neville captures his last vampire his antidote is successful and she is "converted" into to a non-vampiric being. However, her "dark-seeker" boyfriend is not impressed and he visits Robert at his apartment one night. Robert locks himself in his lab, a Plexiglas wall is all that separates them. "look!", he shouts desperately as he points to the cured woman laying on the gurney "I can help you, I can cure you!" The enraged vampire continues to throw himself violently against the wall. As the Plexiglas cracks and threatens to give way Robert is dejected, he can't believe it, the look in his eyes begs the question, "don't you want to be saved?..."

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. - John 15:18-19

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. - John 1:5