"I am Legend"... the REAL ending!

[Delvo]

For those who didn't know, here's the basic story, which means SPOILERS... you wouldn't understand the alternate ending unless you know the setup that comes before it and the ending that was in the theaters.

In the theaters, it's not much more than a standard monster movie, except that the monsters are altered survivors of a plague that killed most people, altered a few, and completely doesn't touch even fewer. Civilization was wiped out, and one man who's completely immune seems to be the last unaltered human in the world, looking for others and for a cure to return the altered victims to their original normal human state. By the end, he meets a couple of others like him, and sacrifices himself in an explosion to kill their pursuers so they can escape to a town where they believe there is a whole living population of regular humans. In his search for a cure before that, he had been capturing the monsters for medical tests, between episodes of being attacked by them, so he's killed a bunch in combat or in failed tests. No explanation of the title is given.

In the book it's based on, he doesn't blow himself up to protect other humans while they escape. He discovers at the end that, while he was thinking of the monsters as some kind of myth/legend in real life, like vampires, they thought the same thing of him: he had been killing and capturing and experimenting on them, and their minds were intact enough for them to know it and think of him as the monster/vampire/legend. The book's character's realization of their perspective is the whole point of the book.

Putting all of that in a movie might not be possible or might not make a good movie, but the "alternate" ending for this one goes just about as far as it could in one scene:

Must Watch: I Am Legend's Original Ending - This is Amazing « FirstShowing.net

Description of the scene in case there's some reason you can't/won't watch the video (and I don't know how long it will still be there)...

The "monsters" have gotten into his lab and are doing their rampaging & screaming thing, when the lead one, the one closest to him, stops and quietly draws a rough butterfly image and just looks at him and waits. So the unaltered human doctor (Robert Neville) realizes that the "monster" still has an intact enough mind to be trying to communicate with him, and looks down at a captured patient of his, who has a butterfly tattoo. Then he slowly puts the gun down, opens the door, takes her gurney out into the room where the "monsters" are, unplugs her IV, gives her an antidote, and waits. She becomes fully conscious and able to move, and she and the lead "monster" greet each other in a somewhat alien but still recognizable way. During the last couple of minutes of this scene, the "monsters"' yells and screams have not sounded aggressive and violent as before, but have taken on other expressions, like anguish and relief, as if it's a language only they can speak. Dr. Neville apologizes and the lead "monster" gives him some roars and facial expressions that make it appear that he's caught between being angry at Neville and wanting to thank him or talk to him about how much pain he's caused them and why, but ultimately leaves in peace and silence, carrying away the patient he'd come to rescue from Neville. Neville sits there in shock for a while and, before the camera leaves the scene completely, he looks at a wall full of pictures he'd taken of his test subjects to track their results of his tests. No words are spoken, but the implication is that now it looks like a serial killer's/torturer's wall of mementos of his victims.

In other words, in one scene, the movie flips inside out from monster-movie standards, and comes a lot closer to the point of the book, without taking as much time or going into as much depth about it as the book.

I had a friend tell me how the movie ended in the theater but didn't watch it because I'm not interested in monster/zombie/vampire movies. But this one scene makes me consider the possibility of getting the DVD and splicing the "right"/"correct" ending on in place of the theatrical one.

[Foxbat]

Although the alternate ending sounds like it provides a bit more pathos, I think Vincent Price in The Last Man On Earth had an ending much closer to the novel. It's worth tracking down on DVD.

[steve12553]

That was a facinating clip and it's been alot of years since I read the book but it fits what I remember.

[Nesacat]

That ending makes so much more sense and does fit in with the book. Thank you.

[tangaloomababe]

I watched I am Legend and was somewhat disappointed with the whole thing, however having watched this ending gives the movie a much greater impact and I know I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more if I had watched it this way. It would not have been just another exterminate the evil monsters movie but something with substance.

This is what happens when liberties are taken with books. The same thing happened with Children of Men, the book by PD James I loved and the ending was so very different and so much better. Is it so hard to stick to a storyline?

[steve12553]

Originally Posted by tangaloomababe

I watched I am Legend and was somewhat disappointed with the whole thing, however having watched this ending gives the movie a much greater impact and I know I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more if I had watched it this way. It would not have been just another exterminate the evil monsters movie but something with substance.

Unfortunately, Hollywood does not cater to genre fans, but rather throws us a bone and adds a bunch of junk for the unread theater patrons. They do outnumber us by powers of ten (or at least powers of eight).

[j. d. worthington]

There is another possibility, too, though: they may have felt that ending paralleled a little too closely the final moments of Romero's Land of the Dead....

[spaceseed]

Wow - that is a HUGE difference. Thank you - I might just have to check out the DVD now, even though I hated the film in the theater.

[kyektulu]

Nice one thanks for that, still I wish they didnt kill the dog off it was the only good thing in the film and its acting was far superior to Mr Will Smith.

[kyektulu]

Why did they change the ending?

That one was much better!

[edott]

The old vincent price film was the best and most paralled the book. of course the book is even better. I remember seeing when i was much younger a film made in the 70's called omega man which was based on the book. don't remember much though.

[Coolhand]

It’s funny because I remember walking out of I am Legend, and agreeing with my friends who’d seen the movie with me that the ending didn’t seem to fit somehow. We’d all picked up on subtle clues scattered throughout the film that the Darkseekers (or whatever they were called) were not just dumb animals, and that the leader had some kind of relationship going on with the captured female. So when the monsters all break into the lab at the end, we’d all independently arrived at the conclusion that the leader had come for the girl, that the Dark Seekers were intelligent, and that Robert Neville was going to REALISE this and comment on it somehow, and this would be big revelation about the nature of what the whole movie had been about.

So when this didn’t happen, we were all quite perplexed.

Knowing what I now know, I can say that a carefully nuanced and surprisingly cleaver blockbuster movie was utterly ruined in the last ten minutes by what I can only describe as “some studio muppet.”

Thanks for posting this Delvo. It certainly illuminated things.

[Brigitte]

To be honest, I saw the alternate ending but didn't think it was any better. The writers needed to do a better job tying in all those components to earlier parts in the stories, as the Dark Seekers suddenly seeming humanlike just came at too big of a transition. It would have helped to foreshadow that they were after something specifically, not just to kill Neville.

[Coolhand]

I dunno, I think the hints are there if you look hard enough.

For example, when Neville first catches the girl, the Leader actually races out into the sunlight to try and save her, something so unusual even Neville comments on it.

Later on, the seekers actually set a trap for Neville, using the same tactics and even the same rope snare that he used on them, demonstrating a certain level of intelligence and group thinking, and are seen using infected dogs that they've obviously domesticated and trained.

Obviously, they're mostly snarling and aggressive with Neville because even with some remaining human traits they are still infected and over-adrenalised, but there is enough evidence there to suggest that his assertion that they are now utterly beastlike and devoid of human traits is not quite accurate.

[GoodyGoody]

I think the alternative ending is too little too late, i was kinda disappointed with the movie. The potential was there, And from trailers and early press coverage i was excited, the scenes on NY deserted had an eerie feel about it. It a shame the poor CGI on the zombie/monsters let it down.