MovieChat Forums > The Omega Man (1971) Discussion > When Lisa was acting deranged at the sta...

When Lisa was acting deranged at the stadium...

posted 11 years ago by Eradan
4 replies | jump to latest

When Lisa was acting deranged at the stadium was that a foreshadowing of her entering the tertiary stage of infection later in the movie or did the writers actually not realize that, as written, the character was crazy?

I would like to think it was deliberate, but militating against that is the fact that the writers did not show the character of Neville having a normal reaction to Lisa's insane behavior.

If I was in a post-apocalyptic situation, where most of the survivors was suffering from insanity caused by a bio-war agent, and I ran into a female survivor who with no provocation assaulted me repeatedly, including
when I was driving a motorcycle WITH HER ON IT, I would conclude the bitch was crazy, and since she had
access to firearms, I would get as far away from her as humanly possible, as soon as possible.

[–] chas77 11 years ago

I don't think so.
It was an extremely STRESSFUL situation. On one hand you have scores of homicidal albino mutants running around trying to find you and KILL YOU. On the other hand you have Neville -- who is an unknown. Remember she says later, "between the family at night and you in the daytime shooting anything that moves..." (can't recall the exact dialogue but you get the idea), so she's going to be a bit hostile. Was she overly-hostile? Perhaps. But you put yourself in that situation. She had no idea how he was going to react. At one time he tried to grab her gun. And when did she assault him while he was driving the motorcycle? She told him to "step on it" but she wasn't hurting him, just had the gun to him.

[–] Eradan 11 years ago

I'm pretty sure I saw her hit him at least once while he was driving the motorcycle. And even if I'm wrong about that, she was still holding a gun on him which is considered assault in most parts of the US. Unless badge-thugs do it of course, in which case legal process has apparently been suspended...

As for "you in the daytime shooting anything that moves...", L.A. is a pretty big place and it would be kind of hard for Neville to terrorize the entire city even if he was trying to. Furthermore, Lisa and the children she had kidnapped were living up some canyon a good few minutes away from the city center. Neville showed no sign of recognizing the place when he and Ms Loony Tunes got there.

I'm not a Lisa-fan. Can you tell?

[–] chas77 11 years ago

Dude, are you winding me up? The point I was trying to make was that Neville was unknown to her. She made the comment about him shooting everything that moved. Obviously they knew of his reputation. They were SCARED OF HIM and only sought to rescue him when they (must have) found out about his imminent roasting party. Dutch knew of his medical background, that's why he made the comment when he got off his motorcycle. They must have scouted him out ahead of time.

If you consider a couple of light taps in order to get Neville moving an "assault" then I would hate to see you in a crowded elevator.

And where do you get the children she "kidnapped" from? That's a new one to me. I didn't realize they were kidnapped. In fact, in all the discussions I've had of this film over the years no one has ever brought it up. Do you think formal charges out to have been brought forth? How tragic for these kids to have been taken to a safe haven away from Matthias and his brethren!

[–] Eradan 11 years ago

Yes, I'm winding you up a bit. No, I'm not serious about saying she kidnapped the kids.
Yes, I AM SERIOUS about saying she's a loon and any man with sense would cut her loose
pronto, and that's today, never mind in a post-apocalyptic world.