Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site mtgzz.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!drutx!mtuxo!mtgzz!leeper 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