"Omega Man" vs. "I Am Legend"

From the opening scene of “Omega Man” there are already several things that are different, right off the bat. In “I Am Legend”, Robert Neville is driving a crappy station wagon and when that one gives out, he finds a new one. Because it is Charlton Heston playing the main character, of course Hollywood has to put him in a nice new convertible! It is a little cheesy not to try to stick as close to the original story as possible but I think we would be able to handle seeing Charlton Heston in a station wagon and move on with our lives. In “I Am Legend” it was inevitable that the so-called vampires were not intelligent and could not speak. In general, all they could really do was moan, scream, and destroy things. “Omega Man” displayed the vampires closer to the known myth where they cannot be in the light and have to wear sun glasses because their eyes are all white. It is interesting though how every single vampire, which basically means the rest of the world’s population, has the same exact pair of sun glasses. In “Omega Man”, it was interesting how the vampires caught Neville and dragged him in to a sanctuary whereas in “I Am Legend” the vampires do not fear the house of worship if it was not their religion.
Although it is easy to get carried away in the differences of the two stories, there are still some striking resemblances. Each story captures the same essence of sadness there is in Neville’s life, even though he tries to stay tough and be the last survivor. Both types of vampires are still extremely violent and continue to try to get Robert Neville. The two stories also heavily emphasize Neville’s excessive drinking where it is on the borderline of concerning. In both tales, Robert is very sexually deprived and it is hard to restrain him from being calm when he sees the woman and he ends up chasing her.
As much as there are differences in the stories, there are also similarities that can just as easily be identified. Without even finishing the movie, it was clear that there was a fine line between “I Am Legend” and “Omega Man”.