The Omega Man (1971)
150 best science fiction movies
Rolling Stone list
#149. The Omega Man (1971)
As much as I love this version of the novel, Matherson’s complaints have
to be addressed up-front because they represent deep flaws in this product. There
are key Themes in the novel that the producers were too timid to address in any
but the first version, “The Last Man …” and in that case Matherson wrote the
first draft screenplay only to see it sunk during rewrites by other hands.
The original novel tells the tale of Robert Neville, a pretty average
White Collar Worker, who finds himself the only Human is immune to a Global
Pandemic that killed the majority of Humanity and turning the rest into
Vampires. Combating his own despair by day and the ravenous Bloodlust of his
former neighbors by night, he struggles to find a cure. He teaches himself the
Scientific Method and how to test a Hypothesis, allowing an unusually
naturalistic means to provide a great deal of Exposition and providing,
seemingly for the first time in SF,F&H, a convincingly rigorous Scientific
Rational for the Occult Superstition. Because Robert is self-trained and
inexperienced, he walks into errors born of a Confirmation Bias that have
tragic consequences. It is not until the last act does he realize his errors in
Judgement have made him Monstrousness; this completely turns the story on its
head and the meaning of the title is only made clear in the final paragraph.
The nightly attacks are part-and-particle of the novel’s Symbolism: This
is a Base-Under-Siege tale, and the Hero’s “base” carries Metaphoric importance that comes clear only with
the final revelation. Robert’s home becomes akin to a Gothic Castle, and the
Vampires become like Villagers surrounding it with pitch-forks and torches,
besieging it to bring down the powerful non-Vampire Dracula within. Take away
the Revelation, one also takes away the Metaphor, and in taking away the Metaphor,
the second and third film versions have to do some story-telling gymnastics to
explain both why Robert stays in one place and managed to survive there so
long.
In “The Omega Man” the Vampires
are replaced with closer-to-Human Monsters; they’ve Mutated, but remain articulate,
capable of Social Organization, but still all slowly dying from their disease. The
disease has made them Albino, Photophobic, and most importantly, Emotionally Vulnerable to Manipulation.
They’ve organized into a Book-Burning, Neo-Huddite Cult called the Family (an
obvious reference to Charles Manson’s real-world Murder-Cult, still fresh in
everyone’s memory). They dress in black hooded robes and sunglasses and are led
by Jonathan
Matthias (Anthony Zerbe), a Character
who doesn’t exist in the novel and whose Ideology is reminiscent of one of the
dumbest things ever said by one of our greatest Authors, C S Lewis, "And then the
Renaissance came and spoiled everything.”
Jonathan should’ve been the more interesting than he was, before
the Apocalypse he was a News Pundit, so a Master of Media Manipulation, but
that point is passed-over so quickly many viewers missed it. His transition to Guru
must have been easy, but more importantly, Jonathan
is a Plague Victim just like his Minions, ultimately
Manipulating himself as much as he does them. His World-View is demonstrated in
two of his speeches, “Then it came to me. We were chosen. Chosen for just
this work. To bury what was dead, to burn what was evil, to destroy what was
dangerous.… We choose to cancel this civilized world that men like you have
made.”
It is obvious that Johnathan could’ve easily eliminated the
hopelessly outnumbered Robert (Actor Charlton Heston in this version), it’s
even in the dialogue, but Jonathan
has convinced himself, through his own Fanaticism,
to not take advantage of the best tools available to rid himself of his Nemesis.
This idea was potentially fascinating but clumsily handled, becoming off less
as a Theme and looking more like bad Plotting.
When Jonathan drops the line, “You killed three of us. It is you, Mr.
Neville, who are the angel of death,” he references the novel’s unappreciated Themes,
but that’s rendered meaningless because Robert couldn’t possibly have greater
justification for the killings, all in self-defense. Robert even demonstrates
some noble restraint; he has automatic weapons yet never opens up indiscriminately
on the Mob who wants him dead. Critic Michael Kerbet, writing when the film was
first released, complained that the “interesting ambivalence” in Robert’s relationship
with the Family “is only suggested vaguely,” a totally spot-on observation
about the film’s abandonment of novel’s Themes even though Kerbet seemed
unfamiliar with that novel itself.
Actor Heston might be to blame for this, he initiated
the project after reading the novel during a plane-flight, pitched it to
Producer Walter Seltzer, and played a role in
hiring the husband-and-wife Screen Writers John William and Joyce H. Corrington. Joyce later said,
"I have a PhD in chemistry and germ warfare was very much on my
mind," while John had a degree in philosophy, "so we became the two
sides of Robert Neville."
In the novel the source of the Pandemic was fuzzier because
of Robert’s limited resources, but most likely a product of Natural Evolution because
it was a mutant strain of Yersinia Pestis, the Bubonic Bacillus that triggered the
Black Death of Medieval Europe (1346 - 1353). Here, the explicit connection to Warfare was because that
was something on everyone’s mind. In 1969, President Richard Nixon unilaterally
banned that Research and Development, but the Public, by-in-large, either
didn’t believe the Russians would follow suit (they didn’t) and/or that Nixon
was merely lying (he probably wasn’t, but who knows?).
The movie’s Robert is a Military Trained,
Professional Scientist, making none of the mistakes as the novel’s Robert, who
unwittingly Murdered scores of Innocents. Here Robert is the Monsters only hope, but because of their
Theocratic Madness, he’s also the man they most want to kill.
The film retain the novel’s contrast
between Robert’s day-and-night existence. Daylight brings us a grim spoof of
the Cozy Catastrophe Theme, a derogatory term coined by Novelist/Critic Brian Aldiss to mock fellow novelist John Wyndam (but I think
Wyndam can plead innocent here), and well-described by the website TV Tropes:
“The End of the World as We Know It has arrived and... our
heroes feel fine.
Sure, it's a pity for all those billions who just perished at the hands of
super-plague/aliens/nuclear war. But for our safe, middle-class heroes, it
means a chance to quit their day job, steal expensive cars without feeling
guilty (or fearing arrest), sleep in a five-star hotel for free, and relax
while the world falls apart around them. Maybe things aren't quite as good as
they were in The
Beforetimes, but all in all, life is
still enjoyable. Especially if you brought your dog.”
In both novel and film, this Theme is turned is used as a
cutting edge to dissect Robert’s terrible loneliness (in the novel Robert has
a dog, in this film he doesn’t). Robert’s materialism (best scotch, finest
clothes, and here his Castle is a luxurious penthouse apartment) are failing defenses
against the madness that threatens him. He hears dead telephones ringing and
keeps seeing phantoms out of the corner of his eye. He dresses for dinner in a velvet smoking jacket and makes
wisecracks to a bust of Caesar whom he pretends to play chess with. He makes
sexual moves towards department store mannequins. Character Johnathan summarizes Robert this way, a man who has "nothing
to live for but his memories...nothing to live with but his gadgets, his cars,
guns, gimmicks."
The film is at its best in its opening passages. A vast and vacant
City is introduced with sweeping helicopter shots and that merges into Robert driving
recklessly through the empty streets while playing Percy Faith and his Orcestra’s
“A Summer’s Place” (1959) loudly on his 8-track loud (in some cuts it’s Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night” (1966)). Robert crashes the car and abandons it, casually walks into nearby
Car Dealership and pretends to haggle with a Salesman who isn’t there, “How much? Can’t say that I’m crazy about the paint job. How
long to get an order from the factory?” Then he hops into the new car and
drives it out the store’s front window.
The power of a location footage to create the illusion of empty
or dead City was probably first realized in “The Crazy Ray” (1924) and requires
far more hard work and planning than budget. “Five” (1951) the first film about
a Nuclear Apocalypse, didn’t capture it well, but “The World the Flesh and the
Devil” (1959) has scenes of the towering man-made canyons of the Metropolis
that are still haunting today. Both “The World, the Flesh …” and “The Omega
Man” were filmed on Sunday mornings in their City’s Business Districts, New York
and Los Angeles, respectively. Meanwhile, “The Last Man…” was filmed in a far smaller
Italian City and only modestly successful at the same. The third version of
Matherson’s novel, “I Am Legend” benefited from both CGI and a seemingly
unlimited budget (“The Omega Man” was only modestly large) but its strongest
scenes were similar to “The World, the Flesh…” and “The Omega Man” and the primary
things that money seemed add was a greater choice which streets in New York to
shut down and more hours to work in them.
Robert then goes to a movie theater sets up the movie “Woodstock”
(1970). Sitting alone in the vast amphitheater he says, “A great show...held over for a third straight year." He's seen
it so many times, he can mouth all the dialogue.
On this particular afternoon, Robert stayed too long in the
theater, so he doesn’t get back to his Castle in time. Trying to get through
his fortified front door, he engages in his first of many on-screen battles
with the Family. Like many 1970s Crime Films, the Action is both stylized and
economically to the point, the economy adding Verisimilitude to the Fantasy and,
for me, these were often more effective than most of the endlessly elongated Fight-Scenes
of current cinema.
Next, we get a flash-back. The Plague was a Bioweapon released
when a War between Russia and Red China that escalated. A Panicked World
couldn’t stop its onslaught and Robert was part of a Government Program working
on an Antidote. Transporting the Experimental Serum, both he and his helicopter
pilot were simultaneously stricken. They crash, Robert is able to inject
himself and survives. It’s too late to perfect or mass produce the Serum so he
is alone. There’s also an old pin-up calendar keying us into the date of the
End of the World, March 1975. This the film’s main action takes place in August
1977.
Later in the film, Robert is captured by the Family and this leads to the
best Action Scene (also the longest, that not a contradiction of what I said
above, a lot of storytelling unfolds during that Action). It was filmed in
Dodgers Stadium where, in the best tradition of Theocratic Extremism, the
Family are about to publicly burn Robert at the stake. He’s abruptly Rescued by
a band on motorcyclists who appear more Normally Human.
Soon, Robert learns his Saviors are Infected, just not-yet Mutated. They’d
had him under Surveillance for some time (they were at least some of the people
he kept seeing out of the corner of his eye). They were aware of his Scientific
work. It seems Robert is the only hope for his Saviors.
The most important of the Infected-but-not-Mutated is Lisa (Rosalind
Cash), who gives Robert renewed purpose in his Research. Her main concern is her
little brother Richie (Eric Laneuville), who is still behaving normally but already showing Symptoms.
Richie is obviously desperate for a cure, but also to not lose the Human
part of being a Homo Sapien; as he and Robert become close, Richie repeatedly
challenges Robert’s now-reflexive hatred of the Family. Both he and Lisa had
been members of the Cult, but escaped. He knows them in ways Robert never could,
and wants Robert to stop killing them while the Cure is perfected and not
abandon them after it is.
The film was obviously influenced by “Night of the …” maybe more so than Matherson’s
novel, but instead of being part of the endless stream of dumb imitators, “The
Omega Man” borrowed “Night of the…” best ideas and transmuted them. Both are ripe
with the imagery of exactly contemporary Social and Political Conflicts but
both apply them in a strikingly un-Ideological fashion, speaking to the Chaos
and Desperation of the context. The films hold up familiar flags, then show the
ground beneath the flags shifting. “Night of the …” was released when the Civil
Rights Era’s Freedom Riders were still traveling the Nation and the Hero was a
Black man; striking enough in its day, but far more so because the Black man
takes a Leadership Role and no one ever mentions his Race.
Here, Lisa is not only Black, but
costumed is the style of Black Panthers chic and again Race is (almost)
unmentioned (Screenwriter Joyce H. Corrington said Lisa was Black to “get a little racial pizzazz in there”). Add to that, Lisa is among the most
self-assertive Heroines of her decade, yet Feminism is also unmentioned. Similarly,
Johnathan’s most trusted Minion, Zachary (Lincoln Kilpatrick), is a Black man (now
Albino), and though flawlessly loyal to Johnathan, he’s clearly chomping at the
bit of Johnathan’s Medieval Doctrines. This world has become admirably Color-Blind
but it’s helped us none-at-all.
Lisa has an equivalent in the
novel named Ruth, but the similarities between them are few. Lisa is introduced
far earlier in the narrative to allow more room for the development of her relationship with Robert. They become Lovers and this
film is sometimes referred to one of the first interracial kisses in a
mainstream Hollywood film history. (Not really, “Island
In The Sun” (1957) seems to be the
first to hold that title, and then there’s the famous “Star Trek” episode
“Plato’s Children” (first aired 1968) that came before this film, and even that
wasn’t first inter-racial kiss on “Star Trek.”) This film goes farther than the
kiss though, the sexual component of the relationship was undisguised and there’s
more-than-average nudity, so it was far-bolder than the far-more respected
“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (1967). There was an interracial relationship
was also at the center of “The World, the Flesh…” but that film shares the same
hand-wringing of “Guess Who’s Coming…” while in “The Omega Man” the dialogue’s silence
on its own subject allows it to seem less-dated now. I’d even argue that “The
Omega Man” would’ve seemed far more naturalistic even back-in-its-day when compared
to “Guess Who’s Coming…” which won two Oscars and was nominated for another
eight.
One should not underestimate
the significance of this films defiant silence regarding its own subject, it
was insisting a new normal has been achieved. Only four before the US Supreme
Court Case ruled in Loving v. Virginia, prior to
that Robert and Lisa’s relationship would’ve been Criminally Prosecuted in some
US States. The film even has a throw-away joke about the easy availability of Birth
Control, something not guaranteed in all States until six years prior in the
Supreme Court Case of Griswold v. Connecticut.
Heston was Publicly Liberal when the film came out, but about
to become a Conservative Activist (he later say, “I didn’t change, the
Democrats did”). We can see some of Heston’s his future Public Posturing in his
portrayal of Robert, which anticipated the very Right-Wing Action Movie Heroes
of the 1980s in his mannerisms and gun-love. Director Tim Burton has professed
Heston invented the style of delivery of one-liners that Actor Arnold
Schwarzenegger later became famous for. But at the same time Robert was embracing
symbols associated with the Liberal and Left. In addition to Lisa, but another
Ally who emerges, Dutch (Paul Koslo), who’s attired like a motorcycle Rebel
Character from “Easy Rider” (1969) though actually a former Med-Student. Dutch
is the leader of an idyllic Commune of Flower Children. And of course, there’s
Robert’s Woodstock obsession (Warner Bros Studio owned the rights to both
“Woodstock” and “The Omega Man”).
So, “The Omega Man” gave us a Charles
Manson-influenced, Neo-Luddite Death Cult (so Bad Hippies) combating an
embittered ex-Military guy and Scientist (so a Square representing the
Old-World Order) and a Utopian escape route (so Good Hippies, plus the Good
Hippies look more like Real-World Hippies than the Bad Hippies). The film is
very much mourning the sordid death of the Idealism of the 1960s but still clung
to it as it slips away.
The film relies on Biblical imagery that speaks of a tried-and-true
progression, Robert’s world, Johnathan’s world, and Dutch’s world, calling to
mind the Mystical Millennialism Joachim of Fiore and his concept of the Three
Eras of History (12th c. CE) which was Biblically derived and
divides human History is divided three Eras: into the Age of the Father, the
Old Testament; the Son, everything since Christ’s Crucifixion; and the Holy
Spirit, the perfection awaiting just beyond Armageddon. This concept would influence
most Western Political and Religious Philosophers ever since, even Atheist Jew
Marx.
The very most outrageous of these
Biblical Allusions wasn’t in the Corrington’s original script, but was because Director
Boris
Sagal choose to
play on Heston’s reputation built on Biblical or related Heroes. In the last
scene, Robert is crucified, spear in his side, and offers a vial of the
Antidote Serum (a cultured form the Immunity Factor in his own blood) to Dutch.
At various points throughout the film he'd been Job, Joan of Arc, Moses before the
Pharoh Johnathan, a Hippie child even asks him, “Are you God?” and finally he
becomes Jesus, dying for our sins, giving us his Blood of Life.
The script is flawed but had a strong
forward propulsion, full of keen observations and nicely naturalistic dialogue;
the only expository speeches here were, well, actual speeches, mostly coming
out of Guru Johnathan’s mouth. The entire enterprise reflected that era’s push
to make B-Movies more respectable, something mostly driven by Producer/Director
Roger Corman’s various production companies and the Corringtons repeatedly
collaborated with Corman. This is the couple’s best script, and among the rest,
their most famous were all SF and utterly awful, like the ignoble end to the
first “Planet of the Apes” franchise, “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” (1973),
“Killer Bees” (1974)
and a bastardization of the great Issac Asimov’s most famous short story, “Nightfall” (2000).
Director Sagal was
much in demand during this time, but mostly for the more prestigious TV shows,
not cinema, while Cinematographer Russell Metty was one of Hollywood’s greats.
The film’s look seems to reflect Sagal more than Metty and this is visible in
both the film’s strengths and weakness. There’s a heavy reliance of close-ups
and zooms, except for the opening, little use of Establishing Shots and that
fed into a nice economy to in the story-telling, and colors are more muted than
most of Metty’s films. On the other hand, after the initial, and exceptional, location
shooting, there’s an overreliance on backlots with rather flat-lighting. The
flat-lighting seems to have been the curse of the decade; Heston had three
major SF films in that era, “Planet of the Apes” (1968), this, and “Soylent
Green” (1973), but only “The Planet of…” escaped the curse of that
flat-lighting. “The Omega Man” and “Soylent Green” almost appear as if they had
the same Director and Cinematographer, but they didn’t.
Composer Ron Grainer created a fine score, one foot in the lush Melodramas of
Director Douglas
Sirk (with whom Metty made his name) but also working in paranoid elements of
his own work on the British SF TV series “The Prisoner” (first aired 1967).
Heston had been Hollywood’s Biggest
Star only a short time before this film, but the Box Office on his movies had
been tepid for the prior four years which was part of the reason he fought for
this film. Part of his challenge was that Acting styles were changing but that proved
an advantage here, the stylistic contrast between he and Cash brought texture
to the film, and except for he and Zerbe,
the cast was filled with younger, then-unknowns (Heston and Cash played lovers with a 15-year-age difference, that didn’t
raise as many eyebrows as the Interracial angle, but it should’ve).
In the coming years the Winds of Change
and Heston’s own Public Antics would make him more and more the subject of Ridicule
and Parody, he became like William Shatner (of the same era and not dissimilar
in style); like Shatner, he was even mocked for how comfortable he was shirtless.
True, Heston deliveries were over-emphatic, even blow-hearty, but he was not
without nuance and his stentorian voice always had raw gravitas. ‘80s Action
Heroes could’ve learned a lot from how Heston handled Robert’s quieter moments,
struggling with isolation.
As for Actress Cash, she was always
careful to avoid Stereotypical Characters that both sullied Actress Pam Grier’s
reputation but also made her a Major Star. This was Cash’s first major film
role, the studio had wanted Actress Diahann
Carroll but Heston pushed for Cash after seeing her Screen Test, he wrote in a
memo, "she's a very good actress and perhaps a more textured person … I
think this is the choice to make." This would also be pretty much her last major film role, though
she’d have great success on TV. Heston later shared that she was "a little edgy" about their more intimate scenes;
"I realized a generation of actors had grown up who saw me in terms of the
iconic roles they remembered from their childhoods. 'It's a spooky feeling,'
she told me, 'to screw Moses.'" Cash was referring to Heston’s most famous
in “The Ten Commandments” (1956) which earned him Best Actor Nominations from
but the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences and the Golden Globes.
“The Omega Man” proved to be the hit Heston needed,
allowing him the secure the financing for his Directorial debut “Anthony and Cleopatra”
(1971), which he also starred in. It was his third Shakespeare film and a more expensive
production than this, boldly made at a time of Hollywood was demonstrating
increasing indifference to the Bard. Unfortunately, that film did worse than merely
bombing, the studio refused to release it theatrically and was showed indifference
about selling it to TV. Over the next decade Heston would have a handful of
more hits, but his Stardom was irreversibly sinking towards the horizon.
As I said, Heston was publicly a Liberal up to this point,
especially known for his Civil Rights Advocacy, but by 1971 he had to had been
already turning to the Right. This became public just the next year with his
Endorsement President Richard Nixon for Re-Election. Still, Nixon was a Conservative-Moderate
and more pro-Civil Rights than many remember (Nixon’s Civil Rights record was
not merely mixed, it was bluntly self-contradictory). It would be another
decade before Heston was fully Conservative as evidenced by his enthusiasm for
President Ronald Reagan, and soon after that he became embarrassingly
Far-Right.
Heston
was a member of the National Rifle Association gong all the back to 1960s, and
like the organization itself he supported some modest Federal Gun Control at
the time. He remained loyal to the Organization after Harlon Carter’s 1975 “Revolt in Cincinnati” which overturned
the NRA’s Leadership and rewrote its Agenda. Previously Cater had Convicted
in a Racial Motivated Murder (1931) but got off on a Technicality; later he entered
Law Enforcement and become the highest-ranking Agent in the US Border Patrol,
leading “Operation Wetback” (1954) which proved both Murderous and Ineffectual.
After 1975 Cater would forge an NRA into a Political Powerhouse, something that
looked upon Gun-Ownership as a Law-onto-Itself, and preaching a Gospel that was
often borderline-Seditious.
In
1994 the now-Extremist Organization was humiliated by failing to stop the
Federal Assault Weapons Ban (then-former President Reagan had supported that
Ban) and this drove Heston to become its President of the NRA in 1998. Much
attention was given to his 2000 keynote speech at the NRA Convention where Heston made the already common NRA slogan, "I'll give you my gun when you pry it
from my cold, dead hands"
the stuff of legend:
“When ordinary hands can possess such an extraordinary
instrument, that symbolizes the full measure of human dignity and liberty. That's
why those five words issue an irresistible call to us all, and we muster. So,
as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom
away, I want to say those fighting words for everyone within the sound of my
voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore [Vice President Al
Gore, then-running for President] 'From my cold, dead hands!'”
Gore lost that
Election.
In 2002, Heston suffered a self-inflicted humiliation while
being interviewed by Director Michael Moore (featured in the documentary “Bowling
for Columbine”) forcing him to publicly admit he was
suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and retire from Public Life. Two years later
the NRA successfully blocked the renewal of the Assault Weapons Ban and Heston died
four-years after that.
Though some elements of its film’s Politics didn’t fit later-Heston’s
Public Agenda perfectly, most of it remained a serviceable enough Propaganda
piece for his goals during his sunset-years. But the world shifted still more
after that, and something has happened not unlike how the Director Sergie Eisenstein’s
most famous Communist Propaganda films, “The Battleship Potemkin” and “Strike”
(both 1925), eventually inspired anti-Communist campaigns like the Storozhevoy
Mutiny (1975) and Solidarność Movement (1980).
Today, “The Omega Man” will be seen in the context of Once-and-Maybe-Future
President Donald Trump and his incitement of Global Warming Denialism,
anti-Vaccer nonsense, hatred of both of the Federal DoEs (Energy and
Education), a Culture War against all factually-grounded Counter-Voices driven by
unabashedly Medieval and Theocratic Extremists, championing Statutory Discriminations
mascaraing as Freedom, attacking Education, Libraries, and Women’s Reproductive
Rights (regarding the last, the Alliance
Defending Freedom, an Organization whose stated goal is “to recover the
robust Christendomic theology
of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries," won a major victory in Federal Court
in 2023). These
days, this film maybe more Liberal now than in 1971.
There’s something poignant is looking back retrospectively at
End of the World/post-Apocalyptic cinema’s evolution (and Heston’s Political transformation
probably applies here too). The oldest film of this type was likely “Verdens
Undergang” (1916), which translates as ”The End of the World,” but it really
didn’t become a common Theme until after WWII, a Conflict Heston served in.
The rising popularity of these films parallelled his rise to fame. Between
cinema and TV Heston had about twenty on-screen credits that fall into
SF,F&H, with the three most significant being those spoken of above; all
three of them, and a few others, qualify as End of the World/post-Apocalyptic.
Moreover he was employed as a Narrator for Top Secret US Army and Department of Energy Instructional Films concerning the same Nuclear Weapons that
were driving the Public’s Apocalyptic Fears and Fascinations.
Post-Apocalyptic films of any era is full of Nightmares but in
the 1970s they were often infused with elements of Hippie and/or Socialist
Utopianism, (“Gas-s-s; or It Became
Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It” (1970), “Glen and Randa” (1971),
“Survivors” (TV series first aired 1975) etc). Come the 1980s, they shifted
more to Libertarian Power-Fantasies (“Escape from New York”
(1981), “1990: The Bronx
Warriors (1982),” “2019: After the Fall of New
York” (1983), etc). Starting with the dawn of the 21st c, post-Apocalyptic
Cinema shifted its focused from the landscape of a Wasteland and to how the
World-as-We-Know-It was replaced by an Authoritarian Dystopia (“The Children of
Men” (2006), “The Hunger Games” (2012), and “The Handmaid’s Tale” (TV series
first aired 2017), etc). Even more recently, Family Dramas have taken center
stage (“Bird Box,” “A Quiet Place” (both 2018), “Leave the World Behind” (2023),
etc).
Despite the fads of any era, one can find the
same Themes cross-crossing through pretty much all of the above (“Gas-s-s…” and
“Escape from New York” both featured Authoritarians, “The Human Games” and
“Bird Box” had Socialist-leaning Ideals). Fear, like all other things, has its
fads and fashions, but always and forever, the Fear remains the same.
Trailer:
The Omega Man (1971) Official Trailer - Charlton Heston Movie (youtube.com)
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