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From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: The Omega Man
Message-ID: <896@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7-Jul-85 01:31:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.896
Posted: Sun Jul  7 01:31:33 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Jul-85 04:55:22 EDT
References: <2448@topaz.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Middletown NJ
Lines: 43

(I apologize, but I am once again taking a film that somebody likes and
complaining about parts of it.  The opinions here are just mine.  Any
film that you like is a good film in that it pleases you.  With that in
mind, let me say a little of why I didn't care for OMEGA MAN.)

 >Has anyone else seen The Omega Man?  This movie was based
 >(loosely) on Richard Matheson's classic I AM LEGEND.  
 
An ok film, but not much better than that.  It made too many changes
from the original and very good novel.  The Vincent Price version  LAST
MAN ON EARTH with a screenplay by Matheson himself (writing as Logan
Swanson because he quibbled with the filmmakers) had a much better feel
of nightmare.  Some of the plague scenes in LMOE are among the most
frightening I can remember.  OMEGA MAN has nothing to match them.  The
remake tries too hard to make a statment about brotherhood that is
completely alien to the book.
 
 >I think the movie is really a classic that has been overlooked
 >by lay-critics and the science  fiction population in general.
 >It turns the paranoia of the  book into more of a
 >SF-suspense-melodrama.  
 >
 >Reasons why I think it is so good:
 >
 >Charlton Heston plays in one of his best roles, almost a
 >solo effort.  A beautiful musical score by Ron Grainer,
 >composer of the theme music for the 1960's TV program THE
 >PRISONER 
 
Not to mention the theme to DR. WHO.  It is surprising how some scenes
that would look silly in OMEGA MAN if done in silence (I seem to
remember a rescue on motercycle with a very obvious stunt double for
Heston, that is exciting only because of the music.
 
 >The screenplay is tight and moves along extremely
 >fast.  Anthony Zerbe plays a really neat villan.

Zerbe is often quite good.  After liking the book, I thought the ending
with the happy schoolbus of children singing was really bad and
reminiscent of the worst of the Planet of the Apes series.

				Mark Leeper
				...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper