Comments on: I Am Legend alternate ending

By: john john

john john — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:37:34 +0000

the whole movie sucked it was really boring.
even this ending couldn’t have made it better.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:43:18 +0000

A lot of you are saying that the alternate ending was more satisfying because it showed who the “real” bad guy was, Neville. I agree only to a point – it shows that the situation was more complex then Human-good guy Vampires-bad guys. It showed Neville as not the singular bad guy, so much as a good man who made a big mistake, overlooked something huge, and regrets his course in life because of it. This is a complex and satisfying point of growth for the character, one I think people identifying with (maybe without even knowing). I love a movie that can present a complex problem and show two sides – this is the kind of ending that has you thinking about it for days and weeks afterwords.

Also, as others have said, the movie does lead you to this ending – it is foreshadowed by Neville sparing the Lioness’s kill (something he wanted, some fresh steak, giving way to another creatures needs). Now recall that all throughout the movie he is talking about his “need” to “Make this right”….”I can fix this”. It always rang as sort of self-serving, despite the fact that you sympathize with his agonizing plight. His personal need to fix the problem blinded him to even the possibility that the vampires could feel love, loss, or mourning. The shot of Neville looking over at his wall of photos, after the Alpha male / female depart the lab, is the “Money shot” of the whole picture. In the end he “gave way to another creature’s need”, and it seems, gave up the quest to save mankind (which was already saved via the Compound he learns about, and which he resists, again to protect his selfish “need” to fix everything).

I know this is a long rehash, but I think the alternative ending ties everything together better then most people are even saying.

By: Nick

Nick — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:49:02 +0000

I thought the alternate ending was awful. As a playwright and an actor, I did not see the ending fit with the themes in the rest of the film. The ending certainly fit better with the theme of the book, but here’s a secret, the movie wasn’t a book…
That being said I do have to agree that overall the script was not a great adaptation of the book because it did not follow the theme, mood, and message of the novel, but you can’t change that in the last five minutes. The alternate ending took every theme that had been building up the entire film and said, “No, we were wrong.” It wasn’t just the character realizing he was wrong, but it was the film makers announcing that they weren’t on the right path.
I can see how someone would like the alternate ending better, I personally prefer the original ending as a spiritual person. Isolated, the alternate is fine, but included with the rest of the theme packed film it doesn’t fit at all.
I think a huge part of that is because it seems like Will Smith was acting toward the theatrical ending and not the alternate. Robert Neville in the book became a cold man who hunted down vampires just because they were evil. Though we are rooting for him the whole time, we realize in the end that he was blind and callus. In the film however, Nevile was a man who wanted nothing more to save the world from the pain and torment he and his family had to feel. Ending the book with Neville becoming the Legendary monster fit perfectly with the book, but a more fitting ending for the film was Neville becoming a Legendary hero.

By: CeeCee

CeeCee — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 04:04:06 +0000

Does anyone else think the infected zombie woman could have been the wife? The scene where Neville, his wife and the daughter were driving in the car, the kid wouldn’t stop talking about butterflies. Not enough time would’ve passed for it to have been her, but it could’ve been the wife. That could be why Neville was hesitant to let her go. He knew he could’ve saved her.

By: Xenolith

Xenolith — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:30:06 +0000

This is undoubtedly the proper ending. I like the way Neville becomes the pseudo antagonist at the end and that the infected were only trying to get back their friend (and they didn’t even kill him or at least beat him up for killing their other members).

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 18:22:41 +0000

Just go to youtube and search for I am legend ending, it is still there.

By: Primobabe

Primobabe — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:23:16 +0000

I hated the film’s original ending because of a careless error. The grenade explosion, and the resulting inferno, would have sucked all of the oxygen from the coal chute. Anna would have suffocated in her hiding place.

Human beings can’t survive without oxygen. Science fiction loses its appeal when it disregards something so, well, scientific.