MovieChat Forums > The Final Conflict (1981) Discussion > Another flaw in this movie. Damien immu...

Another flaw in this movie. Damien immune to death, except for being stabbed by a knife of Megiddo?

posted 6 years ago by sneezer (166)
32 replies | jump to latest

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's what he said early in the film, after the first monk was burned alive on the set of Kate Reynolds' tv show. The seven knives of Megiddo are the only things on Earth that can kill him. You would also think that it would be equally hard to kill the Christ child, so the mundane ways that all those male babies born on March 24th were killed were really ridiculous. Jesus has supernatural power, too, so you know his life would be 100% protected! Also, Bugenhagen, from the first movie, said that the dagger must be plunged into Damien in a church, on the altar, and that it would take multiple daggers. The first dagger would extinguish Damien's physical life, and subsequent daggers would extinguish Damien's spiritual life. In this movie, Kate Reynolds, after her son was stabbed to death by the priest, just stabbed Damien in the back, and he died soon after. She did not stab him on an altar, and who knows if it was a church or not where this took place, and she only used ONE dagger, yet Damien still died. One more thing to add. She knowingly slept with the antichrist. She had sex with the devil's son. That would make her bewitched of some sort. What if she got pregnant? Would her baby be possibly be an antichrist figure, even though Damien died?

[–] ss5mmyers (160) 4 years ago

The Omen IV and V novelizations would answer all your questions. As to the hunting for Jesus, it's meant to mirror Herod coming for baby Jesus as before.

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

Yep, this made much of the film confusing since it made no sense for the priests to each take a dagger and split up when you need all of them to kill Damien. Turns out this film retconned all that without telling the audience and one snick from one dagger is enough to slay the beast 🤷🏻‍♂️

Also, turns out the Christ baby was fine and well despite Damien’s mass infanticide. How??

The film hardly delivers on ‘The Final Conflict’ of the title. What was Damien expecting to face off with at the end… a weird walking newborn? We never got to find out because he gets poked in the back with a Meggido dagger and falls over dead. That’s it!?

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

The head priest said that the Christ baby was safe from any danger at some point.

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

Yes, but how? Damian killed all the babies born in the appropriate time and place.

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

Who said he did?

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

Damien 🤦🏻‍♂️

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

DamiEn, actually. And he was wrong.

[–] Oskar (299) 2 years ago

>t<

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

Yeah, that’s terrible writing. If you set up that two torpedoes in a vulnerable spot in the Deathstar will destroy it then when the characters do that and… nothing happens ‘because they were wrong’… you’ve written a shit screenplay and need another draft.

Worse, Omen III gave no reason as to why Damien was ‘wrong’.

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

Fair enough, Omen 3 is a weak script.

What always got me was that if the Christ child is safe, then what is that glowing figure-like entity that appears before Damien as he lays dying right at the end? God? It looks more like Christ to me. It's just not clear what's going on. Christ coming back as a child doesn't make sense if he's there, glowing, floating and grown-up! It's almost like the baby never existed and Christ returns as a grown figure. In fact, I think the closing text captions just before the credits explain that. I'll see if I can dig it up sometime.

EDIT: Got it. The caption that explains it all goes:

Behold, the Lion of Judah! The Messiah, who came first as a child but returns not as a child, but now as King of Kings, to rule in power and glory forever!

Yeah, so Damien wasted his time looking for a newborn child around a certain date, not knowing this. This would explain a lot, and does.

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

How do you square that with

The head priest said that the Christ baby was safe from any danger at some point

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

I may have added the last bit, but he may just have said that "the child is safe". I dunno for sure. As I said, weak script. I'm not an actual expert on the movie.

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

Oh it’s definitely a weak script. There were some nice moments along the way but the plot holes mounted up and up, and the ending left me utterly baffled…

https://moviechat.org/tt0082377/The-Final-Conflict/63a25bfcc0f44b11982a589b/WTF-ending

[–] ss5mmyers (160) 2 years ago

The novel answered this question. The Christ baby was born to a group of gypsies and went unregistered so Damien couldn't track him.

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

Ridiculous that the film neglected to mention this.

Also, if Christ is in the form of a baby born to gypsies, who or what was Damien expecting to meet at the ruins at the end?

[–] ss5mmyers (160) 2 years ago

DeCarlo had found the Christ baby since the observatory could narrow down the location of the alignment and taken it to the area we see at the end.

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

How do you know he brought the baby to the ruins? Why would he do that? What was the newborn supposed to do once there?

[–] ss5mmyers (160) 2 years ago

DeCarlo sent Kate to lead Damien out there so DeCarlo could dispatch him. The baby was bait.

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

How do you know he brought the baby to the ruins? Why would he do that? What was the newborn supposed to do once there?

[–] ss5mmyers (160) 2 years ago

The novel said so. It was the site for the final showdown.

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

Well the film didn’t so it’s terrible screenwriting.

Why were those ruins ‘the site for the final showdown’? What was the newborn supposed to do once there?

[–] ss5mmyers (160) 2 years ago

It was hallowed ground so Damien could be killed on it. The newborn was just bait basically. The novel deviates from the film quite a bit on the ending. Kate stabs Damien while he attacks DeCarlo, Peter's death is even more tragic as he confesses his devotion to Damien again before dying, The bright light shows like in the film, but they don't see an adult Jesus in it, rather it's more like the day starting to dawn. That text about Jesus returning not as a child isn't present though it still has the Revelation verse. In the Omen 4 novelization, DeCarlo mentions this event as a false dawn when he admits they made a mistake in only using 1 dagger and not extinguishing Damien's spiritual life.

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

If only the screenwriters could have incorporated some of that stuff. Alas, they didn’t and the film’s ending remains a confusing, arbitrary, deflating anti-climax.

[–] ss5mmyers (160) 2 years ago

The novels honestly feel like a more complete story even though the fifth one is just kind of tacked on since Damien Thorn II is stabbed with all seven daggers in book 4 and it felt like enough of an ending.

[–] Guitar King (4890) 2 years ago

" Also, turns out the Christ baby was fine and well despite Damien’s mass infanticide. How??"

^Damien was looking for a Christ baby, but the end reveals Damien was wrong because Christ came back as an adult. DUH!

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

Well ‘DUH!’ No he doesn’t, the priest says the Christ-baby is safe, the novel elaborates on this and says he was born to gypsies, and the film has him eventually appear as an angelic vision. Never does he emerge as an adult human being, ‘DUH!’

[–] Guitar King (4890) 2 years ago

Why would the priest say the Christ baby is safe since Christ came back as an angelic vision? An angelic vision is not a baby.

As AMJF already said above, the ending text states...

"Behold, the Lion of Judah! The Messiah, who came first as a child but returns NOT AS A CHILD, but now as King of Kings, to rule in power and glory forever!"

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

Why would the priest say the Christ baby is safe since Christ came back as an angelic vision? An angelic vision is not a baby.

Indeed, why? It makes no sense, because the writing is shit.

[–] Guitar King (4890) 2 years ago

Or it's a red herring, a misdirection.

[–] Drooch (5333) 2 years ago

Dude. It’s gash writing. That’s all. Accept it.

[–] GetWokeGoBroke (753) 2 years ago

Drooch no, you don't need all 7 of them at once to kill Damien. Remember in the first movie, Bugenhagen told Robert Thorn that the first dagger was the most important because it extinguished physical life so therefore it would be enough to kill his physical body. After that the hard part was over, the rest of the daggers were meant to finish the ritual in a spiritual sense. You would only need one priest to kill Damien and then use the other daggers later, once Damien is killed there's no rush for the other 6 daggers since he can't do anything anymore and has already lost. Nothing was retconned, also they never said all 7 priests needed to be there at the same time to kill Damien. It was basically a hunt.

[–] ss5mmyers (160) 2 years ago

You needed all 7 or the antichrist can reincarnate again according to the novels anyway. There were plans to do at least a film version of the fourth novel, but it was shelved. Using only one dagger was done in part 3 to leave it open.