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I will not provide any specifics about the movie, all informations are on the web, just google. I would like to explain the endings, both of them. They stand in a contrary, ale do really change the Legend. But to understand that, I will give you some feedback. Warning: Spoilers!

An amazing cure for cancer was fake. Sorry, not sorry.

Dr. Alice Krippin has created the Krippin Virus, a miracle cure. She vividly explained how it works in TV interview. Krippin explained how the cure worked by comparing human body to a highway, the virus was reprogrammed from a „very fast car, driven by a very bad man” to one driven by a police officer—one who cured all cancer-ridden patients during clinical trials.

Unfortunately for the humans, that police officer turned on its citizens. After its initial promise, the reprogrammed virus mutated with catastrophic results. It killed 5.4 billion people, with 5% transformed into zombie- or vampire-like „Darkseekers.” However, one percent of the population remains immune but not really lucky—their lives have turned into a constant fight for survival. That 1% includes Neville, a virologist for the U.S. Army. 

Neville stays in New York City after it is placed in military quarantine, due to a strain of Krippin’s Virus (KV) turning airborne. The responsibility of saving the human race rests on his shoulders, thanks to his scientific knowledge and high-ranking role in the military.

Home Alone 2: Lost In New York

I Am Legend depicts the effects of the KV virus—almost no human survivors. However, at the beginning of the movie, Neville personifies the phrase „alone, not lonely.” During three years since the apocalypse, he has constructed his own world, which could almost be mistaken for normality. He starts his day with breakfast, later Neville precedes his ongoing experimentation, which takes place in a laboratory in the basement of his heavily barricaded home. His daily routing revolves around local video store, where Neville interplays with a set of mannequins, dressed and deliberately arranged. It’s his way of coping, along with the help of his dog companion, Sam.

Neville’s guest to save the world, and find an antidote gives him long-term purpose, however this is Sam, that gives him a reason to continue day in, day out. The dog provides immediate meaning. Caring for Sam helps balance his distant hope of salvation with a reason to keep moving forward, despite the grim nature of his situation. Neville’s mental resilience and determination motivate him to not drown in the palpable isolation.

This is like a flashback, this is like a dream

During the film, Neville has a series of flashbacks, illustrating his life before the plague, contextualizing Neville’s mindset. These flashbacks depict the moment of the evacuation of Neville’s wife Zoe, and his daughter Marley. Then the tragedy strikes, when the the military air force bomb the Brooklyn Bridge, cutting off the main exit route as part of the quarantine. During the chaos, another helicopter collides with Zoe and Marley’s helicopter, killing them, as the effect.

Shortly before the accident, Neville had told Marley: „Daddy’s gonna make the monsters go away baby, okay?” From that point the viewer realized what drives present-day Neville. He is seeking personal salvation in finding the cure. Not only for the future of humanity, but so his family’s death won’t be wasted. The death of his family is the motivation, giving him the purpose to survive for these three years spent alone.

The death of Zoe and Marley also explains Sam’s value. Just before the helicopter takes off, Marley gives Sam to Neville, saying, „Sam can protect Daddy.” From that moment on, Sam becomes a living remnant of Neville’s old life, the only family member he can love and care for.

Bob Marley is still alive

Bob Marley’s song „Three Little Birds” is connected with the theme of I Am Legend. This is song of hope in, „Birds” stand for belief in a brighter future and inspires Neville in times of need. The song also serves as an escape from insanity. His worries genuinely vanish as he sings along to the song while bathing Sam. Marley’s positive message is the catalyst for Neville’s coping mechanism.

His daughter’s name was not accidental, she was after Bob Marley. It was an implementation that long before the end-of-world events, the original Marley—who was a devout Rastafari with a deep belief in God—was an inspiration for Neville. 

According to the Neville’s conversation with another survivor Anna could even suggest Neville chose his career as a virologist thanks to Marley’s worldview. He says: „He had this idea—it was kinda a virologist’s idea—he believed that you could cure racism and hate, literally cure it, by injecting music and love into people’s lives.”

Then he precedes to story about Marley performing two days after being shot, where the icon argued: „The people who are trying to make this world worse, are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness.”

Light up the darkness—this becomes Neville’s purpose.

But the belief is dead

Neville’s persistence, and fighting spirit enables him to make it this far with his psyche unscathed, despite years of isolation, the death of his family, and the end of civilization. Neville’s faith in God’s plan is another key ingredient and a link to his family, highlighted when his wife Zoe prays for Neville: „Dear Lord, watch over him.” Soon after that comes a turning point. 

After trapping one of infected person in the lab, the Darkseekers in a revenge attack Neville, and Sam, his dog. After combating with the infectious ones and escaping to the safety of his home, Neville realizes his dog Sam is badly injured. Unlike her owner, Sam isn not immune from the KV virus. As a result, Neville is forced to strangle his best friend and only companion, tragically singing Marley’s „Every little thing” whilst doing so.

WARNING: HEART BREAKING

The death itself does not break Neville, but the fact she was the only connection to his past life, a daily reminder of his motivation to find redemption, and a buffer between being alone and experiencing suffocating loneliness. Neville may even blame himself for not finding a cure in time.

You are not alone

After Sam’s death, Neville’s rationality is replaced by rage, that leads Neville to suicidal act of revenge. He decides to set a trap, and drive all the attacking figures over with his speeding truck. However, it does not go smoothly, he is outnumbered, and ends up trapped in a car. Just before being killed, Neville is being blinded by a beam of light which scares the Darkseekers away.

The rescue came from another human being, who heard Neville’s message on the radio. However, Neville fails to thank Anna for saving him, he is is dismissive and struggles to communicate. Despite his earlier faith, by now his lack of belief is clear. When Anna says she is traveling to a survivor’s colony in Vermont, Neville responds in a mixture of anger and hopelessness that „Everybody is dead”.

The lack of faith is illustrated when Neville asks how the woman knows of the colony, she replies, „If you listen, you can hear God’s plan.” Anna believes she’s following God’s sign, in part because she had turned on the radio in time to hear Neville’s broadcast and arrived the day he needed to be rescued. Neville, however, is unconvinced: „there is no God,” he replies.

The power of symbols

As the story proceeds, Neville regains his faith in God. As the movie reaches its climax, the situation becomes tragic when a large group of Darkseekers attacks Neville’s home. People decide to hide in Neville’s laboratory, where they realize that Neville’s antidote is finally working.

The Darkseekers enter the laboratory, and the leader starts to smash a glass partition with his body, behind which Neville, Anna, and her son have sought safety. But the most interesting thing happens, when the leader smashes himself into the glass, which breaks, and the cracks resemble a butterfly, leading to a moment of clarity for Neville. What is more, he noticed the butterfly tattoo on Anna’s neck. That is the moment he realizes that this might indeed be God’s plan.

This connects to a gesture from daughter Marley earlier in the movie where she says „Look Daddy, a butterfly,” forming her hands into a butterfly shape. Neville understands this is no coincidence.

Let the game begin!

First of all, now is the time to explain why I have mentioned all those elements. What is the point of analyzing all those aspects? It is important to have in mind all facts I have already described, because they change the whole story depending on the ending. And yes, there are two alternative endings, one more popular played in movie theaters, the other one available mostly on DVDs, because the Warner Bros. company did not like the first (less popular) ending.

Let me begin with traditional, well known ending, where self- sacrifice is the only option, and Neville takes action. He draws blood from the Darkseekers, who is partly cured, and hands it to Anna who hides in a shelter with her son. Of course, our hero, our legend, does not join them.
Neville, an alternative hero, after looking on the picture of his family, takes a grenade and sacrifices him self, and as a result kills himself, and the group of zombies.

After the massive explosion comes a new day when Anna and Ethan make it to the colony and hand over the vial containing the cure. Neville is now the titular legend. To be honest I hated the overall “happy” ending though, with a cure for humanity nestled safely in the walls of a Christian compound. 

After all, the humankind has a chance to survive, with miraculous cure, there is a future for people to kill the virus. It is a little bit cliche, however, what people like the most, with happy ending, where humanity, well a small group of people, win. One sacrifices his life for a whole, nothing special. BUT there is an alternative version, with no massive explosion, no sacrifice, no legend, but with butterflies, and humans as the bad ones, and Neville as a killer.

The ‚controversial original ending’ where Neville finds out that The Infected are, in fact, organized, intelligent, benevolent creatures, simply trying to rescue one of their own, was shown to test audiences, where it was considered unpopular. The Infected are unfortunately ignored during the movie, and the alternative ending changes the whole story of their kind.

The alternative scene begins more or less the same as the famous ending, the differences start when the Darkseekers does not break the glass in butterfly shape, but he wipes his own blood onto the glass in the shape of a butterfly. In that moment Neville turns to the Darkseeker, he has been examing, and notices a butterfly tattoo on her body. Neville decides to open the glass door, and return the female Darkseeker. Once she is awaken, the two Darkseekers look at each other with emotions, and hug, this is an exciting plot twist, to realize this moment of humanity. 

That is when Neville realizes that the Darkseekers are able to express love. We should look from the their perspective, where Neville kidnapped, and experimenting on them, their friends, family, and loved ones. He’s a legend, but for the wrong reasons—in line with Richard Matheson’s book, he is an entity the Darkseekers fear. For a moment he looks at the wall of Polaroids of all the infected he’s killed in his experiments – he’s realizing that potentially, all of them had feelings and were, in their way, people, and he’s a mass murderer

In this alternative version, Neville stays alive. However, he has to live with knowledge what he have done. He has killed many of those creatures, because he wanted to cure the humanity, however, the humanity was ok, the humans were a kind of Darkseekers, in minority.

Those few minutes of both endings change the plot drastically, I would be join the group of the alternate ending, because it was more surprising, and less cliche, however, it is you who decide!