I Thought That Was Obvious

So I've been seeing ads everywhere for the movie remake of I Am Legend, for which the tagline is "The last man on Earth is not alone." On its own, a catchy phrase. Makes you think a little bit. But when combined with the poster image, it loses all its punch. See if you can spot the inconsistency below:



Am I the only one who thinks this is a problem? He's got a dog. Of course he's not alone. The tagline is trying to set up the whole movie, making it all mysterious and whatnot, and then you look down and there's the dog. With the man. Man + Dog = Not Alone.

I mean, come on, Hollywood marketing drones. Don't you see how you're undercutting the whole premise of the advertising? You tantalize us with a question ("What do you mean, he's not alone? He's the last man on Earth! How can he not be alone?"), but then immediately allow for a lame and obvious answer ("Oh, I see, he's got a dog. So he's not alone because he has a dog. I get it.") Maybe I have a different sense of "alone" because I'm a pet owner, but there are a lot of pet owners out there.

Here's some free advice: You're supposed to make us wait for it, to get us all worked up because only seeing the movie will answer all our questions. This is just sloppy. It's like advertising LOST with a poster of an island and the tagline "Are they on an island?" I don't need to watch if the answer is right freakin' there in the ad.

I wonder if the I Am Legend ads are a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing--or, more likely, the marketing department not understanding what the writers were going for. "Great tagline! But we also need to show the dog in the poster. People like dogs. We need to attract that dog-owner demographic. What do you mean, it undercuts the tagline? Oh, you writers and your nitpicking! Get back to the salt mines and make some more words!"

StrikeDog is not amused.