(SPOILER) "I Am Legend" -- which ending do you prefer?

B_henry miller

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I definitely prefer the alternative ending (SPOILER ALERT ... read no futher if you haven't seen the movie!!!) .... where he gives the body back to the zombies and then escapes with the woman and son. I read an article that explains what happens there, that the woman he was experimenting on was the wife of the alpha male zombie. I think that just has more meaning to it than simply exploding yourself with the zombies.
 

B_henry miller

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I was terrified the first time I saw it: late at night at a friend's house on a big screen TV. The when I saw it a second time, I thought exactly that you said: they look like something out of a video game, even corny. Overall, though, I think it's a good movie; and Will Smith is beautiful.
 

ManlyBanisters

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Well - ending one is the 'save mankind' ending and ending two is the 'allow evolution of the zombies' ending.

I like idea of the second ending but I wish he didn't escape - the death of the main character in this story (and Omega Man) is very important.

I like the first ending because he dies - it follows Omega Man more closely than it does the book because he dies to give the uninfected a chance at developing a vaccine / cure. It's a Christ parallel of course.

BUT if you read the book it is SO much better than either. The infected start to form a society, start to live with the disease and adapt. At the end he is captured and is to be executed - He sees that the infected are terrified of him - he is their Devil, as it were. An evil, murderous force that will, in time, become both the Creator and Devil in their myths (and thus the title I Am Legend makes sense). He ressigns himself to his fate and allows himself to be executed.

Much better.
 

D_Thoraxis_Biggulp

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I prefer the original ending, where he ends up dying. The hopelessness feels more realistic. The sudden optimism of finding a populated city was a bit abrupt.

The only thing I didn't like was how, while being these feral snarling man-beasts, some of the undead still had the presence of mind to mimic his traps, even switching the bait to match the psychological appeal of their target. That seemed a bit, well, uneven.
 

D_Davy_Downspout

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The title only makes sense with the original book ending. I didn't realize how much they fucked that movie up until I found that out. The clever traps, etc....it's all a setup for THAT ending. What a cop-out.
 

D_Selmus_Swallow

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Well - ending one is the 'save mankind' ending and ending two is the 'allow evolution of the zombies' ending.

I like idea of the second ending but I wish he didn't escape - the death of the main character in this story (and Omega Man) is very important.

I like the first ending because he dies - it follows Omega Man more closely than it does the book because he dies to give the uninfected a chance at developing a vaccine / cure. It's a Christ parallel of course.

BUT if you read the book it is SO much better than either. The infected start to form a society, start to live with the disease and adapt. At the end he is captured and is to be executed - He sees that the infected are terrified of him - he is their Devil, as it were. An evil, murderous force that will, in time, become both the Creator and Devil in their myths (and thus the title I Am Legend makes sense). He ressigns himself to his fate and allows himself to be executed.

Much better.

I have not seen the second version of the ending, but I have to think I'd agree with this assessment. Everybody who's seen this should get Matheson's book. Of the two endings, I'd go for the first.

As for the movie, I saw it three times in theaters, and the first three-fourths of the movie is incredible, most the reason for that being the effects involved in creating the dead and empty Manhattan, and Will Smith's very human performance. But the ending, especially with the hokey part about the butterfly and the fight with the monsters wasn't as good.

On the topic of the appearance of the monsters: I think they look like steroid-jacked versions of Smeagol from The Lords Of The Rings personally. I would have preferred human actors to play the monsters, even if they couldn't physically do what the CGI monsters do in the movie, if only because the monster effects in this look so second-rate to the other visual effects in the movie.
 

ManlyBanisters

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On the topic of the appearance of the monsters: I think they look like steroid-jacked versions of Smeagol from The Lords Of The Rings personally. I would have preferred human actors to play the monsters, even if they couldn't physically do what the CGI monsters do in the movie, if only because the monster effects in this look so second-rate to the other visual effects in the movie.

Yeah... they weren't quite there with the CGI, were they. Shame - it worked well in I, Robot because the metallic surfaces are much easier to 'get right' in terms of light and texture, that and the fact that 'robot' movements do not need to appear natural to our eyes. It's amazing how much we notice the CGI 'out of the corner of our brains' when the textures aren't 100% realistic. Still, think of how far on we are from, for example, American Werewolf in Paris.