I picked the Omen series since it’s one of those things I’ve always wanted to see at some point or another. I think everyone has that list of movies to watch “sometime” that they never get around to seeing.

I should say – I do think a fair amount of my critiquing is due to the time period in which these films were made. Horror has to terrify people these days, and computers really have done wonders for special effects. So here goes!

Omen I – Not “scary” or “spooky” by any stretch of the imagination, even by the standards of the time – Rosemary’s Baby and the Exorcist are far and away scarier than this. I wouldn’t even place this in the “horror” genre. Gregory Peck seemed out of place in a horror-typish movie, and the little boy seemed more mentally disturbed than the child of the devil. Choir music singing in latin is always spooky, but when that’s the only spooky thing, it’s not enough.

Damien: Omen II – I found this much more entertaining than the first one, probably because a lot more stuff actually happened, and less of people just staring at each other attempting to seem creepy. There was also a surprise twist at the end that I truly didn’t see coming, which is always fun. And, unlike the first one, this one has left me looking forward to see what happens in the next chapter.

Omen III: The Final Conflict - Without a doubt, this is my favorite one so far. Sam Neill as Damien was absolutely classic, it was very entertaining to see him try to make some really weird writing sound normal. I am also a sucker for fictional retelling of the events from Revelation, and I love how nearly every fictional retelling of Revelation makes the Antichrist a politician. Focusing on Revelation finally gave the script writers something to talk about. There were also lots of references to various signs of the apocalypse, very few of which were covered in the actual dialogue (sometimes exposition can be a good thing!), which was…strange…but it’s always fun to pick up on things like that. So, while not a movie I’d recommend you run out and rent, if it happens to be on TV and you like the good vs evil kinda thing, it’s worth watching.

Omen IV: The Awakening (otherwise known as, “the final FINAL conflict”) Meh. First off. A story that is about the book of revelation shouldn’t rewrite it. Part III was essentially wiped off the grid. Second, It took me about 4 hours to watch this 1 1/2 long movie, because I kept getting distracted by other things. I think that says a lot about it. And third, it’s very strange to have a movie that’s part 4 to end screaming for a sequel when it already ended in part 3.

It feels like there must be some producer out there somewhere who sees this as a great story, and is determined to get it right. I fully agree. I think Revelations is a fantastic story just screaming to pulled into fiction, but the plot of the Omen just doesn’t hit it right.

I’m intentionally not watching the remake quite yet. I want to have forgotten enough of the movie that I can’t do scene by scene comparisons in my head, but I don’t want to forget the major points. So, in a month or so, one final review of the remake.

Now, to hunt for another random series to watch…

Unlike the Andromeda Strain, Brave New World has never really been done well on film. It was made into a TV movie a few years back, but it didn’t quite work. Maybe it’s one of those books that will never work on camera? Like the Andromeda Strain, it isn’t exactly a story with lots of action.

The Stand (Steven King) was the same way, I think. No matter how good the film production was ever going to be – and it wasn’t bad – it would never hold up the way the book did. You just can’t “show” fear and psychological terror on a screen.

Brave New World. Coming soon to a theater near you.

Ugh.

I love Michael Crichton books. I don’t think there’s a single one that I haven’t flown through, and then reread multiple times.

My favorite book and movie of his has always been the Andromeda Strain. It’s one of those rare book to movie adaptations that held pretty strictly to the original script. The result is not the most exciting movie in the world, after all, over half the story takes place in a dreary lab, but I love it.

The original movie was low budget, but still had some really memorable images, including a very graphic scene of a monkey dying from the virus. The scene looks horribly real, but the directors and producers still swear to this day that although they did knock the monkey unconsious, they did not hurt it. Don’t ask me how, it sure looks like a dead monkey to me.

…Spoilers follow…

To describe the plot of the original story:

A satellite lands in Piedmont, Utah. The entire town is killed, save for a baby and a drunk. The Wildfire team is called to determine what the virus is, and how to destroy it. The president tries to nuke Piedmont, but the team stops him first. They figure out what Andromeda is, but the virus renders itself inert due to its ability to continually mutate, so they just let it dissipate in the air. End of story. Epilogue: pilot burns up on reentry.

The plot of the miniseries:

A satellite lands in Piedmont, Utah. The entire town is killed, save for a baby and a drunk. The Wildfire team is called to determine what the virus is, and how to destroy it. Add in lots of backstories involving the various members of the Wildfire team, which now has five members (not four), two women, three men. A big conspiracy is going on involving the army, the department of homeland security, and the president. A reporter dude is following the story – he later becomes a target of an evil military plot to kill him. The virus keeps spreading, partially because a nuclear bomb is set off on Piedmont (hints of an additional conspiracy here – I was almost expecting to be told that an alien did it). Turns out the virus was sent from the future back to the past so it could be stopped, underwater mining was killing the natural bacteria that fought andromeda. There was a message coded into the virus container with a number and a logo (I still haven’t wrapped my head around how a virus replicates within a container – does it replicate the container? What’s a container, for that matter.). Wildfire replicates lots of the bacteria, the army drops it over the virus, virus is destroyed. End of story. Epilogue: Astronaut on the space station storing andromeda in a satellite.

First off – the miniseries just wasn’t a good movie. There were an insane number of dropped or unnecessary plot points, padding for time, I assume.

This may be science fiction, but there normally is at least some “reality” to the story. this? Grass would turn brown as Andromeda moved through it like a wildfire, with a computer screen updating in real time. The big action sequence came when the military dropped bacteria on the virus to kill it “right before it spread to LA.” Wouldn’t it be neat if you could SEE a virus in the air? And track it? “We have an outbreak of flu in the Arlington area today, winds suggest it could be over Georgetown by noon.” That’s just comical.

There are so many things that I had wanted to see redone in this movie that weren’t even in the miniseries, it’s sad. Andromeda replicating is an amazingly memorable image from the original film. The killing of the monkey, Dr. Leavitt having her seizure, THAT’s what I wanted to see in this movie.

I think I would have been ok with this miniseries had it been “Based on The Andromeda Strain.” But it wasn’t, it was billed as a remake. If something is going to be “remade,” it should be REMADE. Not changed beyond all recognition.

I’m just disappointed. I had a feeling this was going to be a mess – I mean, Ridley Scott doing a movie with no action? I never expected what I got, though. It was just awful.

So in case you were going to see the Andromeda Strain miniseries? Don’t. Rent the movie from 1971 instead.