I Am Legend, The Day After Tomorrow and Cloverfield

'I'm a better actor than you punk ass and I'm only CGI!'

Can Cloverfield, I Am Legend and The Day After Tomorrow be compared? Yes they can with some interesting conclusions.

In terms of Narrative and in particular Classic Narrative Formula we can argue that Cloverfield is a verisimilar world. So too is the world of Day After Tomorrow. We have scientists, Doctors, Politicians, teenagers (that’s the 24 year old Jake Gyllenhaal I’m referring to!) and we have a climate change issue which all of us recognise. The behaviour of the characters in response to the eco-tragedy is also familiar to us as are the main locations.

The same cannot easily be said of I Am Legend. A city/world populated by 1 man is not really verisimilar to us as an audience. However there is something familiar about the possibility of this kind of situation which seems verisimilar and that is the Robinson Crusoe aspect of the man’s life and his need for survival and human contact. The possibility of human annihilation due to mass viral infection is also something which is verisimilar to the demographic.

Does the Day After Tomorrow have a 3 act structure like Cloverfield? Yes it does. However in the Day After Tomorrow the disequilibrium comes almost immediately into the film with forecasts of global catastrophe. Equilibrium is restored at the end in terms of the reuniting of father and son and the space crew confirming that the weather has changed for the better. I Am Legend on the other hand seems to begin in disequilibrium and the restoration of equilibrium is signalled by the arrival of Anna and Ethan in the final third of the movie.

However some may argue that through the use of narrative flashbacks the audience understand the whole story of Robert Neville and how the disequilibrium came through the virus. It is interesting that Cloverfield also uses flashbacks though the camera which Hud carries.

All three films are similar in that the narrative is created and propelled by the cause and effect actions of the characters.
Both I Am Legend and The Day After Tomorrow differ from Cloverfield in the sense that they both have strong narrative closure. Indeed the closure of both films is fairly optimistic despite the world of the films being radically altered. It is Cloverfield alone which has the problematic ending.

Both I Am Legend and Cloverfield share a similarity in terms of enigma codes or snares (as Roland Barthes called them). The snaring questions about the monster in Cloverfield are similar for the audience questions regarding the Dark Seekers of I Am Legend. The Day After Tomorrow is a film packed with action codes where the global catastrophe causes the various fight or flight reactions of the characters. Perhaps the only enigma of The Day After Tomorrow might be…why the suddenly huge scale of the eco disaster?


'I am Vladimir Propp! Do you like my charming Formalist beard?'




The work of Vladimir Propp on Narrative formulas is interesting. Several of his narrative functions can be applied to all three films such as –
 An interdiction is addressed to the hero ('don't go there', 'don't do this');
 Villain causes harm/injury to family member
 Hero and villain join in direct combat;
 Princess (Prince): Individual(s) which need help, protecting and saving. (From Propp’s Seven Spheres of Action)



Represenations of gender in all three films are really interesting. All three have almost stereotypical male heroes. They are men of action, doers, fearless and determined. In fact The Day After Tomorrow manages to have two male heroes in Dennis Quaid and the 24 year old teenager Jake Gyllenhaal. In fact it is these two who survive while the heroes of the other films die in conflict with the otherness.

The females in all three films offer a complex range of representatons. Lily from Cloverfield is not unlike the representation of Lucy Hall in The Day After Tomorrow and Anna from I Am Legend. All three present traditional aspects associated with females in cinema – carers nurturers etc. Similarly Beth from Cloverfield and Laura Chapman from The Day After Tomorrow seem to share Propp’s ‘quest object’ status.

However Marlena from Cloverfield stands out as a strong archetypal female representation.

It is also interesting that female otherness is significant in both I Am Legend (the female Dark Seeker) and Cloverfield (the monsterous abject terrifying New York City).

So who are the target demographic for the three films? I Am Legend and Cloverfield share the same target demographic. We know this through the genre of the two films. Both have major horror elements, a terrible place, an abject/otherness, a final girl and the traditional use of night and day for audience pleasure. Indeed it is the 15-25 demographic who have the highest attendance at cinema and horror movies.

However it is true to say that Will Smith (the genetic scientist with a six pack) will attract a larger audience due to his A List status since it is clear that certain stars carry their audience from film to film across genres. In addition the director of I Am Legend (Francis Lawrence) comes from a music video background so his appeal to a young market is obvious.

The Day After Tomorrow directed by Roland Emmerich is very much broader in appeal like his other blockbuster, Independence Day. Incidentally Emerich also directed a version of Godzilla which JJ Abrams has said inspired his movie Cloverfield.

One thing which unites all three films in terms of audience is the visceral pleasures they offer which is achieved mainly through the use of sophisticated CGI – yet another attraction for a young audience.

All three films deal with an America threatened by a terrorist apocalypse but they all differ in their view of how to deal with terrorism. I Am Legend and the Day After Tomorrow present an ending with hope for survival whereas Cloverfield does not.
Despite the common theme of America under attack from terrorism it is interesting how all three films have gender representations which which are mostly traditional!!!