Original Ending vs Alternate Ending

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I prefer the alternate ending, I like how you see the pictures of other zombies on the wall, and you realize that (to the zombies) he looks like a freaking serial killer. 

 I guess that's what I was trying to say, but you said it better   I think that was explored more in the book...but maybe I'm misremembering.  The zombies had their own society and Neville was knocking them off.  You feel for him because he's "human" until you realize that they have families they're defending and they're people like his neighbor and his best friend, etc. that he's killing because he hasn't "evolved" thusly.

So, he's really the killer zombie afterall.

That's the problem with this version, they made the dark seekers too animalistic for the alternate ending to make sense.

In The Omega Man they showed them as organized and intelligent (and could talk instead of 100 decibel roars).

This has happened in several remakes now, I blame CGI, it's too easy to make the mutated humans into impossible super creatures.

[Bairman]

Everyone seems to refer to the creatures in this movie as zombies, but I thought they were vampires.  I must be missing something.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

And  the big town up in Vermont isn't sending out any radio signals to let people know they exist???  Not a single ham operator survives?

I wouldn't draw that conclusion.  The woman knew about the community somehow.  I think she just stopped by New York to hang out for a day or two after she heard his transmission, doesn't mean she didn't also hear the town's.

That would have made sense, and have been a good way to get Nevil to leave NY, making the alternate ending more plausible.

BUT, in the movie she says God told her to go there, that she was given a vision..... 

Also it would seem implausible to be an ex military man alone for 3 years and not scan every frequency for broadcasts every once in a while? 

[SmilinJackRoss]

Everyone seems to refer to the creatures in this movie as zombies, but I thought they were vampires.  I must be missing something.

They're neither.  Technically, they have some kind of genetic transformation, from the cancer "treatment".  Calling them zombies or vampires is just easier when discussing them.

It's like the "zombies" in 28 Days Later aren't really zombies, they have the "Rage" virus.

[David]

Everyone seems to refer to the creatures in this movie as zombies, but I thought they were vampires.  I must be missing something.

They're zompires.

[skenderberg]

Both endings sucked for the simple reason that the whole last act sucked. 

The theatrical ending is abominably stupid, but it fits better with the third act.  It posits that all the dark seekers are barely sentient killing machines, heedless of their own safety in pursuit of their objective.  Since this is how they've been portrayed since after Sam's death, it makes sense by the movie's own internal logic.

The alternate ending tries to implement a much cooler idea.  It posits that the dark seekers have rudimentary culture, can form personal bonds, and can resove situations in a peaceful manner under the right circumstances.  This is much closer to the book and is a much more interesting way to treat them, but that pesky third act is in its way--Alpha Male rigged that trap in the second act, sure, but since Sam's death, the dark seekers have still been portrayed as barely sentient killing machines.  The only reason they're in the basement at all is that they've hurled themselves against Neville's defenses with no regard for their own safety or the safety of their fellows.  If they'd behaved in an more intelligent fashion throughout the film, and gotten into the basement through some sort of clever gambit, this ending would have been great.  But, since it appears to belong to a whole different movie, it turns out even worse than the awful theatrical ending.

[Junkyard]

By the way, want a nightmare tonight?

Try to picture what those two Darkseekers would have looked like if they're affectionate hissing had turned into full blown kissing.
No, seriously, do it- pastey white, veiney, engulphing each other's faces, hissy moans...
DO IT!

[bratpop]

Frankly, I misunderstood the ending completely. I thought he said "the cure is in OUR blood" and that he meant the people who were immune. Which, you know, I thought was OBVIOUS. But he says "the cure is in HER blood" which makes no sense. Well yeah.. the cure for CANCER is in her blood, which also happens to be the cure for not being a zombie, but how can the cure for being a zombie be in the zombie's blood? How is this a sudden realization? It doesn't make any sense. Yes, in theory if you keep studying the zombie blood then you should figure out a cure. That's what he thought in the book until he realized there IS no cure. This is the human race.

As for the monsters, they were rendered ineffective by having their humanity removed. They were made into animalistic monsters, but also they can think logically enough about their opponent to plan and rig a trap, and they can love. But also they're pointlessly strong, can run straight through a steel door, and attack a glass partition by SMASHING IT WITH THEIR FACES instead of using a tool or a blunt object. They're clever enough to bite dogs to turn them into "dark seekers" instead of EATING them for survival, but they're not smart enough to get some guns to kill Neville with, or put on some sunblock and some hoodies and go out in the daytime. In short, they're plot-serving monsters with no consistency. So any "point" or poignancy is loss in the muddle.

They set up Neville as being a control freak doctor like Jack on Lost, so that his obsession with "curing" the zompires was more selfish than compassionate. Instead of his family dying of the virus, they die in the most astronomically improbable freak accident of all time - the only two helicopters in New York City smash into each other. They might as well have spontaneously combusted or choked to death on a chicken wing. They died first, unrelated to the virus, instead of dying last and giving Neville a reason to want to save the world. Now if he saves the monsters, his family is still dead. He might as well not even have a family to begin with.

I was almost right with my early prediction about how they'd end this movie. Except they left out the part where they build him a huge golden statue in Vermont. They should have done that, and had human kids running around the statue with bald creepy zompire kids catching butterflies. For he is LEGEND!

[Junkyard]

They should have done that, and had human kids running around the statue with bald creepy zompire kids catching butterflies. For he is LEGEND!

A perfect end to a confusing rant. Can I use that to end all future speeches I may give?

[Wiseblood]

Frankly, I misunderstood the ending completely. I thought he said "the cure is in OUR blood" and that he meant the people who were immune. Which, you know, I thought was OBVIOUS. But he says "the cure is in HER blood" which makes no sense. Well yeah.. the cure for CANCER is in her blood, which also happens to be the cure for not being a zombie, but how can the cure for being a zombie be in the zombie's blood? How is this a sudden realization? It doesn't make any sense. Yes, in theory if you keep studying the zombie blood then you should figure out a cure. That's what he thought in the book until he realized there IS no cure. This is the human race.

I think what he meant was that what was curing her could be found by having someone look at the blood sample, so he took some of the cured zombie's blood and gave it to Anna so she could escape with it and give it to someone who could use it.  This was likely faster than writing down what he did to cure the zombie.

[AmandaGal]

Frankly, I misunderstood the ending completely. I thought he said "the cure is in OUR blood" and that he meant the people who were immune. Which, you know, I thought was OBVIOUS. But he says "the cure is in HER blood" which makes no sense. Well yeah.. the cure for CANCER is in her blood, which also happens to be the cure for not being a zombie, but how can the cure for being a zombie be in the zombie's blood? How is this a sudden realization? It doesn't make any sense. Yes, in theory if you keep studying the zombie blood then you should figure out a cure. That's what he thought in the book until he realized there IS no cure. This is the human race.

In theory, Neville was working on some kind of drug (or maybe even a virus itself?) in the movie that was curing the zombie girl.  When you take a drug (and especially if it was a bacterial or viral), the drug remains in your blood.  You can analyze blood and get the chemical compounds a person has been taking, drug levels and stuff like that (more effective than urine because in urine you get more metabolites than the actual drug).  I thought what he was saying was that cure (ie: the drug or virus or bacteria he was working on) was in her blood.  Take this vial and analyze it.

It would have been better to get the actual prototype substance, but I was under the impression that that was in the "zombie" ridden lab.

And I think he did use his blood and his immunity to engineer whatever the hell it was he was working on.  That was implied but never spoken in the film.

[ShadowDog]

And  the big town up in Vermont isn't sending out any radio signals to let people know they exist???  Not a single ham operator survives?

I wouldn't draw that conclusion.  The woman knew about the community somehow.  I think she just stopped by New York to hang out for a day or two after she heard his transmission, doesn't mean she didn't also hear the town's.

That would have made sense, and have been a good way to get Nevil to leave NY, making the alternate ending more plausible.

BUT, in the movie she says God told her to go there, that she was given a vision..... 

Also it would seem implausible to be an ex military man alone for 3 years and not scan every frequency for broadcasts every once in a while? 

Dammit!  I hate being outlogiced, but you've done it.  I forgot about the God comment and your second comment makes too much sense to argue against.  Time for me to go eat PIE and sulk.

[bratpop]

Well, that's what confused me then. When they went in there and Brazil was like, "Will this cure her?" and he's like, "Nawwww, it'll probably kill her," they never said what "this" refered to. I didn't know what he had done to modify his zompire cure, so it was kind of bullshit that suddenly he leaves and comes back and the cure is working. There was no discovery or anything, it just magically appeared. So why did his fucking DOG DIE? Why did the cure work on the rat but not his dog, and what was curing Sinead? Yes, I feel like this is slightly too important to leave on the cutting room floor.

I still don't get the butterfly thing. Kevin's explanation made about as much sense as anything the movie said. I would prefer if a giant butterfly crashed through the ceiling to save Will Smith, and he and the others got onto its back and flew off to Heaven. I mean WTF, seriously.

"Follow the white butterfly, guy who almost played Neo!"
"Whoa... I AM legend!"
*sees the zombie matrix*

[AmandaGal]

He said he was going to dilute the cure, I think, because it had killed her before. And he put her on ice for some reason.  So, he was going to try again.  It make sense that it worked the second time to me.  He had changed the conditions of the experiment. I don't know why it didn't work for Sam.

As for the butterfly, they carry lots of symbolism in religion but I thought in the theatrical ending, seeing the butterfly grounded him.  It made him remember his daughter and remember what was important.  So, he protected the woman and the child.  I can't explain why it made sense within the confines of the movie, but the butterfly is a symbol of rebirth and starting anew so it makes sense that it's on the woman.  She was going to help the human population be reborn and start anew.

In the second ending, he saw the butterfly and again, remembered his family and realized what the zombie was really after his own family.  The butterfly on the zombie girl because the human population had been "reborn" as this new breed.

There are butterflies throughout the movie when he's reminded of family or for the whole "rebirth" thing.  I haven't analyzed them all, but I thought some of it was a bit contrived when I was watching.

[bratpop]

There was a butterfly in the cornfield. It would have been cool if Sam ate it.