Which ending to "I Am Legend" is considered to be controversial, and why?

[RonMexico]

WARNING: spoiler if you have not already seen both endings

The 2 endings I've seen are: 1) the one on the DVD (Will Smith gives the cure to the woman and her son and blows up himself and the infected with a grenade and 2) this ending was on youtube and was bootlegged in the theater by someone, the one where the infected and their "leader" leave the house after they get the infected girl back.

I liked the ending on the DVD better because in it they definitely have found a cure. In the bootlegged one I saw on youtube (I only saw the ending for that one), I don't think they had found a cure by the end of the movie but I can't say without seeing all of that version. Is the ending the only difference between the 2 versions or is there more? But yeah in that version the infected leader gets his girlfriend back, but there doesn't seem to be a cure and everything is still all messed up.

So which of those endings is considered "controversial" and why? I LIKED the DVD ending better, but don't see why either would be controversial.

 

[ZenTickling]

I haven't heard anything about it being controversial...

 

[Scinsor]

The "controversial" ending is the alternate one, the one not shown in theaters. It was labeled as "controversial" on the special edition DVD, probably just to pique people's interest because there isn't really anything controversial about it. The only difference between the two versions of the film (theatrical and alternate) is the ending.

 

[Cave In]

To be honest I thought in general the film seemed very rushed at the end and the ending although ok just all seemed like the director was running out of time or something. Just my opinion though.

 

[OmahaLerLee]

i believe the controversial ending is controversial because it sucks way more ass than the origial. i mean, really.... that film was terrible. the vincent price version is awesome!

 

[TicklishTizzle]

aight

this is how it should have went down....he times the glass break....throws the nade...jumps in with woman with the cure...as there is space like she said he will fit =]. happy ending with no scary infected bastards =]

 

[SpiffyTickler]

The controversy is mostly about how far off the endings were when compared to the book and how they completely ignored the whole meaning behind the phrase "I Am Legend"

*SPOILERS*

In the book, Robert Neville is more of a vampire hunter than anything. He spends his days looking for the dormant infected humans, who resemble vampires because of their pale complexion along with their vulnerability to sunlight and dislike of garlic, and kills them off one at a time by staking them in the heart.

Towards the end of the book, he discovers that there are actually two kinds of infected. There are the undead kind who have lost their minds and have become somewhat feral, and there are the "living" kind who are mentally normal and have rebuilt their own society. They both look exactly the same and are dormant during the daytime. Robert had no way of knowing that there were two types, so when he went on his killing expeditions during the day he was unknowingly killing both.

He is eventually captured by them, and the book ends with his thoughts and the whole purpose behind the title "I Am Legend". He had become a monster of sorts to them because he entered their living spaces and killed them in their sleep when they were most vulnerable, similar to vampires of legend. Therefore, he had become the same legend to them, and thus "I Am Legend".

The movie completely ignored this and came up with it's own reasoning for it being titled I Am Legend, saying that Robert's cure made him legendary. It was a real slap in the face to anyone who had read the book. The alternative ending at the very least came closer, showing that there was some sort of society taking form within the infected and that Robert had become a sort of monster for stealing their leaders girl, but it still wasn't quite the same.