1971: Release of the film "The Omega Man" - Last Remaining Human On Earth

By | July 31, 2021

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Source: (Pinterest).

In 1954, Richard Matheson published the novel I Am Legend. The novel was adapted for the film The Last Man on Earth (1964), starring Vincent Price. Then, in 1971, a second adaptation of the novel was released, The Omega Man. The film was directed by Boris Sagal and stars Charlton Heston as Robert Neville, M.D. You can’t forget the other stars of the film, the mutants, who, as Roger Ebert says, “can't stand light, they all have nasty bruises over their left eyebrows, and they wear the costumes of medieval monks,” are “incompetent and ill-coordinated,” and speak in an “elevated” English.

For this adaptation, the plot was changed, and the author has said, “The Omega Man was so removed from my book that it didn’t even bother me.” In the book, the disease does not come from biological warfare, but is instead spread by bats and mosquitoes. One of the screenwriters, Joyce Corrington, who holds a doctorate in chemistry, thought it was more realistic to have to plague come from biological warfare.

Nocturnal Albino Mutants

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John Dierkes. Source: (IMDb).

Nocturnal Albino Mutants

The biological warfare arose from a 1975 border conflict between China and the Soviet Union. This caused the decimation of humanity. Two years later, Neville believes that he is the sole survivor of the plague, and during the day he wanders Los Angeles, killing members of “the Family”. These plague victims transformed into nocturnal albino mutants and want to destroy all technology. This is another notable difference from the book; in the book, the survivors become vampire-like creatures. The members of the Family also want to kill Neville, as he is a symbol of the science they hold responsible for the plague. As nocturnal creatures, they roam at night and cannot be in the sunlight, so during the night, Neville remains hidden in his heavily fortified apartment and keeps them away using a spotlight. To film the scenes of Neville foraging in a deserted Los Angeles, they filmed on Sunday morning, when the streets were pretty empty. Unfortunately, despite their planning, there were still some cars and people in the background.