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15 out of 16 people found the following review useful: A Science Fiction Classic reclaimed from the vaults., 12 August 2000 Author: Klaatu-18 (b5guy@aol.com) from Dallas, TX USA
Last night I got a chance to see one of my favorite SF movies, and it only took 20 years.Back in 1978, I was working at a mom-and-pop bookstore in Dallas called Taylors. One day one of the customers bought a book by Ursula K. LeGuin: "The Lathe of Heaven". I told her that she was one of my favorite authors, and that I loved the book. She said that she was involved in the production of a film of the book that was to be done locally.Early in 1980 it was aired. Bruce Davison (recently the Senator in "X-men") played the protagonist, George Orr. And various Metroplex locations stood in for Portland in the near-future year of 2002. City Hall (later the OCP HQ in "Robocop"), Reunion Arena and the Water Gardens in FW (previously used in "Logan's Run").George Orr has a problem: dreams. He doesn't want to have any. He takes drugs to try and thwart his unconscious so that he can sleep but not dream. Because if he does dream a special kind of dream, an "effective" dream, it changes reality "all the way back to the Stone Age".Dr. William Haber is an oneirologist: a dream specialist. He doesn't believe George's story, of course. He thinks that George is sick, not cursed. He eventually comes around to the realization that George is right. A power struggle ensues to decide who will be in charge of deciding who gets to make the decisions of how to use this power.The story touches on race relations, psychology, Taoism and more. And all on a miniscule budget of 250K.An added bonus was the addition of interviews with Bruce Davison and Ms. LeGuin, the latter with Bill Moyers. She rarely does interviews, and it was wonderful hearing her add little behind-the-scenes details and commenting on the story and film. Since my understanding of Taoism is limited to readings of "The Tao of Pooh", I didn't realize the use of Taoism until I heard UKL mention it.If I had had 90 bucks to blow on a KERA membership, I could have gotten the video from them. In fact, the on-air weasel said that the tape was "only available through public TV". If you check amazon.com, as I did last night, you will find that this is a bald-faced lie: TLoH will be released on VHS and DVD later this month, with the interviews and all.The only thing that burned my butt about the film that I saw last night was the one change they made. Originally, they used Ringo Starr's version of the Beatles tune "A Little Help from My Friends". The new version has a different cover version. One of the reviews on amazon.com stated that this was because it would cost too much to get the rights from Michael Jackson, who now owns the entire Beatle catalog. This doesn't work. IMHO, MJ would get money no matter who did it.Uncle Steve says check it out.
9 out of 11 people found the following review useful: The rare SF movie that does it right, 27 August 1999 Author: Phlicker from Florida
Science fiction is a literature of ideas. Science fiction movies, however, are usually typified by their lack of ideas (although often fun for all that).The novel "The Lathe of Heaven" was chock full of ideas, and the movie didn't sell the book short. Just about everything in Le Guin's vision about how the road to, uhhh, insomnia is paved with good intention came right across in this TV movie adaptation. I wish I could see it again.Science fiction wouldn't have such a reputation for silliness if other movies took such pains to match the quality of "The Lathe of Heaven's" intellectual effects instead of matching "Star Wars's" special effects.
7 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Very good, but not for everyone., 17 May 2002 Author: xezlec from Austin, TX
I found this during late-night channel surfing. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The effects were sometimes cheesy but often cool. The direction was creative and quite effective in bringing Ursula K. LeGuin's classic story to life. But BE WARNED: this is a WEIRD MOVIE. You have to be wanting a weird movie in order to really enjoy it. It takes quite a bit of thought to really follow the plot if you haven't read the book, but it's worth watching several times. It is not an action flick (there is very little action, and some people find it boring, possibly with good reason) but it brings up all kinds of interesting ideas and possibilities that sent my mind racing. Every situation is presented in a way that makes you really look at it and ponder it. And the emotional aspect is powerful at times and made me smile more than once. The camerawork, acting, and electronic background music are artistic and place the viewer in another world, one which I personally found beautiful, exciting, and awe-inspiring. If you like artsy, strange, contemplative film, you might want to check this out.
9 out of 12 people found the following review useful: Its what Science Fiction is all about, 15 August 2006 Author: doctorforce from United States
I seen this movie when it first came out and couldn't remember the title for over 20 years yet its content and story stuck with me all these years. I was given the name of if it when I described the story premise on Sci-fi Channels Bboard web page and a member wrote back what it was. I was quite please since now I know what to look for.This movie is true classic Science Fiction right up there with Forbidden Planet and many others and has had a profound effect on my concepts and perception of reality and recommend it not only to sci-fi enthusiasts but people who are into psychology studies too. Movies like The Lathe of Heaven, Brazil, and other such psycho-dramas can help us to understand ourselves in very unconventional ways.
5 out of 5 people found the following review useful: A must see for science fiction fans - be careful what you dream about, 12 March 2001 Author: Dilip Barman (barman@jhu.edu) from Durham, NC (USA)
I had public television on several days ago (March 10, 2001) and "Lathe of Heaven" was starting on their series "Movies Worth Taping". I'm glad I happened to turn the TV on, as it was a movie well worth watching! It was made in 1987 as the first made-for-public-TV film, and is based on a novel by Ursula Le Guin.This movie explores the notion of "effective dreaming", where one's dreams actually come true. It explores the strange dreams of George Orr (Bruce Davison). When he has these dreams, he wakes to find that his dreamt-up situations are now not only reality, but other people suddenly have adapted as if this reality has been with the world for some time.George is traumatized by these dreams, and seeks the help of Dr. William Haber (Kevin Conway). Dr. Haber's intentions are good, to harness the power of these effective dreams to the betterment of the world, but he clearly abuses the doctor-patient relationship and hypnotizes George to have specific kinds of dreams. One motto of this film might be "be careful what you dream about"!I found the special effects sometimes interesting, but often heavy-handed and not so smoothly executed. The setting, sometime in the near future in Portland, Oregon, was inexplicably dreary, beyond the rain that the city is well known for. The character development could have been stronger, with ancillary characters like Dr. Haber's secretary and the very few others seeming to be made out of cardboard and lacking emotion. George and Heather LeLache (Margaret Avery), however, enjoyed more solid and believable depictions.In spite of these criticisms, the film was an exciting journey into inner space that indulges us to think about deep philosophical questions. What is reality? Are there parallel realities? What is or should be knowable about the nature of existence (to me reminiscent a bit of "2010", one of my favorite science fiction films)? What happens if we dream each other into or out of reality? "The greatest good for the greatest number" or rights of the individual? Can we design a utopia or will we be doomed to experience accidents we never considered that render such a proposed utopia much less than ideal? "The Lathe of Heaven" doesn't have the fresh and exciting visual effects of earlier science fiction films like "2001" or later ones, but is an interesting film that is a must see for science fiction fans.
5 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Finally re-released!, 4 August 2000 Author: BonzoDog from San Francisco, CA
The Lathe of Heaven has just been re-released. It's being shown on many PBS stations, and is also now on video. This was all due to high fan demand.This is a dreamy, scary sci-fi flick with strong moral lessons. It's almost like a play: set mostly in one place, with only three characters involved. The special effects aren't stunning, but they're perfectly effective. The story is wildly original: what would the world be like if your dreams all came true- not your daydreams, but the uncontrollable ones at night?
6 out of 8 people found the following review useful: One of a kind..., 4 February 2005 Author: poe426 from USA
I remember when this one aired on PBS and the euphoria we the faithful felt at the time. We thought that science fiction had finally really arrived. No more rip-offs of rip-offs of old movie serials: we were finally going to see "real" science fiction on television again (for the first time since the '60's); not the compromise of commercial television but the kind of SF that could only come from Public Television. And what a wonder it was. To see a book like THE LATHE OF HEAVEN, by none other than Ursula K. LeGuin, as fully realized as was humanly possible at that time... yes, it was a wonder to behold. Nor was it going to end there. We were told that wonder would follow on wonder, that an entire series of these thought-provoking programs were in the works. The road ahead looked smooth, the future bright.Sigh. 20/20 hindsight, and all that; but it was a great idea then and it's still a great idea. If not PBS, then some other producing entity. The material is still out there(if you'll pardon the play on words), and the market is arguably stronger than ever. All the genre needs right now is somebody willing to mine all that gold.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: The power to change the world, in his dreams., 23 December 2007 Author: McQualude from North Carolina
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Would you want your dreams to come true, even your nightmares? Based on Leguin's novel of the same name. George Orr discovers that his dreams come true except George isn't dreaming the future, his dreams are changing the past to create the future he dreams. Once George wakens, he is the only person to remember the alternative past, that is until he visits a psychiatrist who realizes the potential of George's dreams and sets out to 'right' the world with fantastic consequences.This film is full of ambiguous metaphor and allegory so that everyone seems to see something a little different. I found the movie a bit overlong but then I can't imagine it being a minute shorter. Because the original print was lost the movie looks pretty crappy with ghosting and graininess, but powerful themes don't need pretty pictures and Lathe of Heaven above all else is cautionary about being unsatisfied and forcing drastic change on the others. Ultimately we learn that despite how bad things are, they could be worse, much worse.The film takes some pretty bizarre twists with aliens that just come out of nowhere, well they come from George's subconscious. Pondering this I am reminded how powerful science fiction really was to the 70's and while most people only remember it for Star Wars and assume that everything else was trying to cash in, the 70's were really a treasure trove of interesting sci-fi and when the UFO subculture really reached it's height. Project Blue Book was published in 1976, Brad Steiger, Stan Friedman and others ignited the public's imagination. Close Encounters and Alien preyed on our hopes and fears respectively; and Star Trek was resurrected from the dead. So all in all it really wasn't that bizarre for George to be thinking about aliens because even though the film is set in 1998, it's very much a product of the 70's.The copy I watched had an interview with the author, Leguin, who declined to interpret the book/movie as she wasn't entirely sure of all the meanings both might hold. What was most interesting was her conclusions about George and Dr. Huber, particularly George whom she sees as a strong man but many others see as something of a weakling.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: Lathe of Heaven is REAL science fiction for television!, 24 June 2007 Author: Sebastian1966 from United States
Having first seen this film many years ago and reading the Ursula K. LeGuin novel only a few years ago, I can say the film is very faithful to it's source material. This is the kind of sci-fi they rarely do these days; no smart-ass cop stopping a CGI army of killer robots, or people shooting bullet-time weapons while running up walls! Those are glossed up, repetitive action movies. LATHE OF HEAVEN is science fiction. The story of one George Orr and his 'effective dreams'(dreams that alter the fabric of reality) is a metaphor for the genre itself; fantastical dreams (and horrific nightmares) becoming tangible and tactile. George is so afraid of the uncontrollable power of his dreams he resorts to drugs to sleep without dreaming. He later is assigned (as part of his rehabilitation) a therapist, Dr. Haber, who soon becomes convinced of Orr's incredible (and involuntary) power. This brings out Haber's innate desire for control; to 'make the world as it should be,' so to speak. Haber tries to steamroll over George's seemingly milquetoast personality to use him as his instrument of change. This is when George seeks the aid of a social worker (and future lover) Heather La Loche to give him strength in his compulsory dealings with Haber. They eventually see the 'real' world; stripped of all effective dreaming (a post-nuclear holocaust). This 'true' core of reality drives Haber insane. That's the bare skeleton of the story. There's so much more layering and social commentary woven throughout(everything from workman's comp to racism and nuclear war). And Bruce Davison is perfect as the passive/aggressive George Orr; almost born for the role(the original WILLARD himself!). For non-space opera/bullet-time sci-fi fans, this is right up there with SOLARIS (either version) or GATTACA (another underrated classic; a deft blend of BRAVE NEW WORLD and film noir). The only downside to this review (and no fault of the film itself) is the shaky quality of the DVD. As the DVD intro forewarns, it was mastered from the only decent tape left. This is a shame, but although this film has many haunting images (the plague sequence; the sea-turtle inspired, 'unnatural' aliens, etc.)it's the idea of dreams (for better or worse) becoming reality that matter most. The grainy, ghostly images are a little distracting at first, but soon overlooked. The story matters first and foremost. This should be a lesson to all the shlockbusters (and countless, needless sequels) that infest modern multiplexes; oh, I know--those film makers wipe their tears and blow their noses with $1000 bills, but they still make crap! And, almost not worth mentioning, there was a recent A&E remake(speaking of crap). It was an utter waste of time and whatever money it cost. Lukas Haas was a blank, boring slate as George Orr. Plot lines were seemingly dropped and added as if at random. As Ray Bradbury once said about a recently proposed FAHRENHEIT 451 remake; "Just film the book!" The original version more or less did that already! And as much as I loved James Caan in GODFATHER, he is wasted here as Haber. Just plain miscast. Stick with the PBS version and/or the book. A film of dreams for dreamers everywhere. Damn effective, too!
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: One of my top 20 Favorite Science Fiction Stories, 12 June 2007 Author: gramdal from United States
As the die-hard science fiction fans know, special effects are great, but without a great story, it won't stand the test of time.Based on Ursula K. Leguin's book, this is (I hear) a very faithful adaptation. And easily one of the very best made for t.v. movies ever.The effects are low budget, but that's not important, the story is amazing. Great science fiction takes us away from the familiar structure of life we understand, and stands reason and convention on it's head. It makes us see the things that are so close to us they are invisible. Great science fiction frames the familiar, in a new context and sheds truth on things we were unable to recognize in their mundane form.This story moved me, in the way the book Stranger in a Strange Land did. Like the first time I read 2001 (The movie is meaningless without the book).It is a story about reality, how we perceive it, how we shape it. How we are important to everyone and every thing, as our actions shape not only our own sphere of existence, but ripple outward effecting everything. This is of course told in an abstracted way, but the message is clear.If you are looking for crazy robots and sleek starships, move on.If you are looking for a thought provoking story, that will stick with you for days, or as I see with myself and others here, decades, then this is a cult classic that you simply can not miss.I would have given it a 10, but the effects are low budget, though that does not make it any less amazing.
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