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Originally Posted by ratbastid
Exactly. Without that, Neville is a complete moron. "Oh, gee, I guess there was a trap there. The infected couldn't have put it there--they're too stupid. But let me now not wonder about that for 45 minutes. Maybe the audience will forget about it too and I won't ever have to explain the thing that motivated the fourth and fifth acts...."
I was PISSED about that trap not being dealt with in the theatrical release. This new ending shows us there was a whole subtext going on there--it was personal, the head vampire must have stalked him, watched him interact with the mannequin in the hoodie, watched him set the trap that caught the girl, learned from him... there's way WAY more to them than Neville is aware of. And he's been killing them like they're spoiled meat. That moment, when he looks up at the pictures of his dead subjects is maybe the darkest moment in the whole film--that's where "the legend turns".
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I understand what you mean, but I disagree that without the original ending, Neville becomes a moron. Sure, the theatrical ending doesn't go into the idea that the infected can be intelligent to the same depth that the original one does, but I thought it was obvious that Neville hadn't set the trap. The film implies that the vampire set it up (and observed and learned from Neville's behaviour) without making it the central theme, and although a film developed around these ideas would have been good, it wouldn't have been the film we ended up with. And what that means is that the original ending would have linked with the scene with the trap, but with little else in the film, and would have pissed off a lot of people (and let's not pretend that the main aim of I Am Legend was to explore the human psyche and blah blah blah - it was a big horror thriller with Will Smith and that's it).
I think that trying to go too far into the film's subtexts and depths gives it way more respect than it deserves - it's not a good film. Entertaining, but not especially well thought-out or deep. I think that the original ending would have done more damage to the film than good - it's an ending better suited to a different type of film altogether.