I have just been watching Brave New World on Google Videos (where it can be seen for free), for the first time since I saw it on television in the early '80s (being only about eleven at the time, I could only remember a very few scenes). Before rewatching it, I read the book, and the movie completely amazed me.
It is magnificent.
It is something so rare as a great science fiction adaptation of a great science fiction novel, debating all the salient points of dystopia and utopia that science fiction is the perfect genre for exploring. It paints a bleak yet strangely compelling picture of a completely unfree society in which everybody has been engineered and indoctrinated to be happy. The treatment of the main prevailing ideologies of Huxley's time - Marxism and rampant capitalist consumerism - is both progressive and satirical and far ahead of its time, the two -isms being mind-bogglingly blended into a harmonic mix containing all the worst elements of both.
Few books about social developments can be said to be as thought-provoking as this, and the movie lives brilliantly up to the book. The only thing that disappointed me was that the climactic discussion about Shakespeare in the book was almost entirely omitted in the movie. But the movie still stands as a towering achievement in television film-making. I would be the first to buy this if it became available on DVD with a crisp picture quality, and I am very sorry that, so far, it isn't.
One of the greatest boons of this movie is Ron O'Neal as Mustapha Mond. He charismatically exudes power, self-confidence and self-righteousness, and he ought to have been propelled to stardom for this role. Instead, it is not even mentioned on his IMDb bio page.
Science fiction is my preferred genre, and I have a collection of nearly 500 SF movies. I can honestly say that Brave New World is among the 15 best SF movies I have seen. But, of course, you have to be a fan of utopian or crypto-utopian SF in order to feel this way. A comparable book or movie would be Heinlein/Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, which also presents us with a sort of attractive but ultimately nightmarish utopia. If you love Starship Troopers, you will probably love Brave New World.
10 stars out of 10. Don't listen to the idiot naysayers. Huxley would have been thrilled with this adaptation.
It is magnificent.
It is something so rare as a great science fiction adaptation of a great science fiction novel, debating all the salient points of dystopia and utopia that science fiction is the perfect genre for exploring. It paints a bleak yet strangely compelling picture of a completely unfree society in which everybody has been engineered and indoctrinated to be happy. The treatment of the main prevailing ideologies of Huxley's time - Marxism and rampant capitalist consumerism - is both progressive and satirical and far ahead of its time, the two -isms being mind-bogglingly blended into a harmonic mix containing all the worst elements of both.
Few books about social developments can be said to be as thought-provoking as this, and the movie lives brilliantly up to the book. The only thing that disappointed me was that the climactic discussion about Shakespeare in the book was almost entirely omitted in the movie. But the movie still stands as a towering achievement in television film-making. I would be the first to buy this if it became available on DVD with a crisp picture quality, and I am very sorry that, so far, it isn't.
One of the greatest boons of this movie is Ron O'Neal as Mustapha Mond. He charismatically exudes power, self-confidence and self-righteousness, and he ought to have been propelled to stardom for this role. Instead, it is not even mentioned on his IMDb bio page.
Science fiction is my preferred genre, and I have a collection of nearly 500 SF movies. I can honestly say that Brave New World is among the 15 best SF movies I have seen. But, of course, you have to be a fan of utopian or crypto-utopian SF in order to feel this way. A comparable book or movie would be Heinlein/Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, which also presents us with a sort of attractive but ultimately nightmarish utopia. If you love Starship Troopers, you will probably love Brave New World.
10 stars out of 10. Don't listen to the idiot naysayers. Huxley would have been thrilled with this adaptation.