‘I Am Legend’ Alternate Ending… For Better or Worse?

i still wouldve prefered the ending from the book. i mean its basically the whole point of the story. the fact that he took the place of the monsters in stories and nightmares. but that might just be me. i agree that the alt ending is better than the theatrical though.

the alternate ending is far better. people need to stop insulting the intelligence of the moviegoer. the action movie-esque self-sacrifice without sending a distinct message was unnecessary. a much better ending would be to combine the two endings - keep the alternate ending, but find a way to still have neville die. just my opinion.. cause it would've been reaaaal easy.

I never knew why I despised the original ending and I think you hit it on the money with the whole Christian safe haven at the end.

This ending shows that the creatures haven't lost their human essence after years of this plague. There is sort of a parallel of real life events (a-bomb) and fictional (cancer curing disease). What is done is done and so humanity must conform and adapt to new conditions. I guess the reason the theatrical ending was used is because of the God factor. The deus ex machina was the butterfly. This ending shown gives off an atheist view where humans are only in control. The butterfly mention is only meant to be a coincidence.

I prefer this ending.

I disliked the theatrical ending and I dislike this one even more (didn't think that was possible) but I must admit that Microbefox makes a great argument for how this ending could work better with the story.

But I still don't like either.

I dislike both, seems like they tried to rush into an ending, But out of the two, I have to say I liked Theatrical better. In my eyes its what made him a legend, that he gave his life for the cure.

I personally liked the theatrical ending better. They never really slapped you across the face
with the relationship of the mutants... it was just implied.
Plus, Neville dying made his character complete.

this ending was created to leave it open for sequel, and thats it. the original ending was better

Theatrical was better but I am glad i saw this one as well. I wanted to se what would have happened if he lived, but seriously - the zombies were so far gone, they wouldn't have caed about each other like that. go to my site www.finickycritic.com

The alt ending isn't bad, but I prefer the original ending. IMO the combination of Neville's struggle against overwhelming odds to find a cure plus his desperate search for other survivors, only to have to sacrifice himself to ensure the survival of humanity, is what made the story so compelling.

In my opinion the alternative ending sums up the movie much better than the theatrical version. Yes the theatrical one ties the butterfly thing together with the whole god factor and makes him the "legend" he is supposed to be. But the one thing that i disliked most about this movie was the subtly implied fact that the "monsters" still kept there humanity to some degree. Through out the film there was foreshadowing to this fact, including the "monster" deliberately exposing himself to Neville and the use of Neville's own traps to capture Neville. It seemed that both of these acts and a few others were deliberately included in the film to show that these monsters maintained some sense of humanity. With the theatrical ending all this foreshadowing goes to waste and leaves an intelligent moviegoer with a sense of something absent or missing from the feature. (at least it did so in my case) However the alternative ending makes uses of this foreshadowing, although it doesn't build Neville up to be the "legend" he is supposed to be. There are problems with both endings, and i don't particularly like one more that the other, but it seems that the alternative ending did a better job of summing up the movie. (While also leaving it wide open for a sequel)