3:10 to Yuma / I'am Legend question *spoiler warning*

the hero dying in the end may just be a trend for realism. years ago it was just the opposite. ie - hitchcock had to choose a "hollywood" happy ending over his darker endings in a few of his flicks. in aliens everyone dies except for our hero. although i'm sure we could find examples to squash one way or the other about the hero dying in the end.

we know that they use focus groups to determine which ending to choose. it could possibly be that they rated/liked the one where he died in the end better.

the producers/directors/dvd distributors do know that people love to see alternate endings which is why they usually have "director's cut" and alternative endings released with the dvds.

i was disappointed with our hero dying in 3:10 though. it just didn't seem necessary and he didn't get to fully redeem himself in the eyes of his son. his son thought he was weak and actually saved his life... and then he dies anyway. oh, i didn't like that.

I can't comment on 3:10 but as far as I Am Legend is concerned, the Neville character died in the book though for entirely different reasons (far better reasons) which were ignored for the film.

I thought the ending of I Am Legend was very quick and very pedestrian. I get that Neville finds the cure and as a last act of Frankenstein-esque martydom, he is killed by the thing he created but still... I just got the feeling that it needn't have happened.

A shame really because I thought the rest of the film was quite good. I wish they'd have incorporated Matheson's quite neat psychological twist at the end of the book - I think an audience would have been smart enough to "get it."

Forget that! Did it strike anyone as odd that after they had just finished running through all of this gunfire, all of these people trying to kill them, they decide to STOP and have a leasurely CHAT outside of the boxcar BEFORE they finally reached saftey? What happened? They just simply FORGOT that practically everyone in the whole town was shooting at them? And what about the people shooting? They just simply decided to STOP SHOOTING and let them have their moment? Were they SO engaged in each other that they simply didn't notice the BAD GUY walking up with the gun to kill him? Are you kidding!! This didn't strike any of you as a terrible plot flaw?

I remember reading that the ending Hitchcock wanted for THE BIRDS was this: All is silent as the protags reach the Golden Gate Bridge, which is covered with birds.

Best "unhappy" ending that caused collective gasps in the theater many years ago occurred when Alida Valli walked past Joseph Cotton in THE THRID MAN.