Lo.
I kinda missed all of the hype but somebody told me afterwards that halfway through the summer (in the U.S.) the movie ‘28 Days Later’ was released with an alternate ending.
Is this true and if so what made it different from the original ending?
In the alternate ending, after the main character gets shot, the two women rush him to an abandoned hospital and try to save his life. Along the way, he tries to tell them about the contrail he saw in the forest, but doesn’t seem to make himself understood. He dies in the hospital, and the two survivors leave him there and walk back out into the city, unaware that they are not the only people still alive on the planet.
I didn’t find either ending very satisfying. The theatrical one was obnoxiously Hollywood. It seemed like they gave up and stole the American ending from Brazil. Maybe it’s just all those lush green fields filmed from overhead.
The alternate ending was a little better. It stayed closer to the theme of the film and left some loose ends for the viewer to fill in with his imagination. It’s not much of a reward for enduring all that tragedy, though.
Hey Miller,
That ending doesn’t make any sense. The military guy who got chained to the heater during the night pointed out that:
Great Britain would act as a quarantine. Because of the nature of the disease (i.e. you go insane 20 seconds after exposure), there is no practical way for an infected person to leave the island. The two survivors aren’t stupid enough not to realize this. The radio reports of outbreaks in France and New York must have been false.
Great movie, by the way.
-Apoptosis
Apoptosis: Well, they (and everone in the movie except the guy chained to the radiator) were stupid enough not to realize that at any point in the 28 days preceding the movie, so it’s reasonable to assume they continued to be that stupid after the movie ends.
Well, the fact that noone knew how or where the virus originated from, it’s possible they could have believed it to be biological weaponry, and thus, could have been used in multiple countries. I do find it interesting that, looking back, the reports from other countries about outbreaks were obviously falsified to stop people from trying to leave Britain in fear of contamination spreading. The problem with an unknown virus is that it’s just that…unknown. There could be strands that take days to become active, and you don’t want to take the chance of that spreading as well. And if news reports from around the world are coming is stating that it is something that could have started in every country around the same time, why wouldn’t they believe it? I don’t think the characters were stupid at all…when trapped in situations like that, reason tends to take a back seat. Plus, none of them had seen any plains, trains, or automobiles from other countries, so as far as they knew, the rest of the world was in just as bad a situation.
And what about cruise liners and boats traveling across the English Channel…doesn’t take long for those to get to another country, and infected people could survive on those for a good while and possibly make it to land, so just because the likelyhood of a plane carrying a load of infected across the waters is farfetched, doesn’t mean the possibility is improbible.
The second ending sounds pretty good, but I rather liked the "official’ ending. I was afraid it was going to rip off Night of the Living Dead and have them all get blasted at the end, but instead, it looks like they survive. It was nice, and not a cop out at all in my opinion. Sometimes, people do survive these things.
Well, the fact that noone knew how or where the virus originated from, it’s possible they could have believed it to be biological weaponry, and thus, could have been used in multiple countries. I do find it interesting that, looking back, the reports from other countries about outbreaks were obviously falsified to stop people from trying to leave Britain in fear of contamination spreading. The problem with an unknown virus is that it’s just that…unknown. There could be strands that take days to become active, and you don’t want to take the chance of that spreading as well. And if news reports from around the world are coming is stating that it is something that could have started in every country around the same time, why wouldn’t they believe it? I don’t think the characters were stupid at all…when trapped in situations like that, reason tends to take a back seat. Plus, none of them had seen any plains, trains, or automobiles from other countries, so as far as they knew, the rest of the world was in just as bad a situation.
And what about cruise liners and boats traveling across the English Channel…doesn’t take long for those to get to another country, and infected people could survive on those for a good while and possibly make it to land, so just because the likelyhood of a plane carrying a load of infected across the waters is farfetched, doesn’t mean the possibility is improbible.
The second ending sounds pretty good, but I rather liked the "official’ ending. I was afraid it was going to rip off Night of the Living Dead and have them all get blasted at the end, but instead, it looks like they survive. It was nice, and not a cop out at all in my opinion. Sometimes, people do survive these things.