SuperSatellite ||

Remember that movie I Am Legend that came out over the holidays? Remember how angry I was at it? Obviously there’s no need for me to rehash the pain and suffering that the ending of that movie caused me. It was a good movie through the first half, acceptable in the third quarter, and viciously worthless in the last quarter.

Really, it was a movie that I think would have benefited greatly the closer it stuck to the original plot, modernization not withstanding. It had a great setting, spectacular acting (why wasn’t Will Smith nominated for Best Actor at the Oscar’s?), and a good feel to it (though I question the quality of the vampires’ CG). The framework Matheson provided was perfect. And they screwed it up. End of story.

Well, it turns out there was an alternate ending. Firstshowing.net mentioned it this morning. Turns out, it actually is better (and blog chatter seems to agree with that across the board). Here, watch, and then continue reading:

Better, no? Better, but not as good as it could have been. It still ignores the key point that (spoiler, highlight to read) Neville was the last man on earth. That was the whole friggin’ point. But at least that alternate ending attempted to give the vampires some additional organized creepy feel. In the book, the vampires were much more humanized, and in the end you almost sympathize with them. The movie had none of that. And this alternate dropped that cheesy as all hell ending where the woman and kid find the town full of people, which was about the most cookie cutter, generic, bad Hollywood ending I have ever seen in a movie. It didn’t even feel remotely natural, more like some random producer just thought it’d be fun to screw up the movie.

Too bad they hadn’t gone with this ending in the first place. I am vaguely reminded of the director’s cut of Independence Day, where the theatrical version was better, because what was in the director’s cut was pretty much trash. It’s like that, only backwards. The stuff they left in I Am Legend is all the stuff that would have been better off out. My question is, what happens next? Should I buy the DVD anyway? It’d be nice if you could watch it with the alternate ending instead, as some DVDs do. That’d be okay I guess. I wonder if Warner Bros. pays attention to any of the blog chatter on matters such as this.