Geklonte Zukunft

When I first read "Brave New World" five or six years ago now, I remember thinking about how Huxley was a genius. Whilst not a big fan of his first book "Chrome Yellow", he still always put a point across. In this film though, they lost a lot of the ideas. I always used to wonder what a film adaptation would be like and not long after finishing the book for the third time I realised that deep down there could never be a decent adaptation. Simply put, despite being over 75 years old, the book still talks of ideas which modern society is scared to accept. For one thing, could you really imagine a major Blockbuster movie in which children played erotic games at the start? In a world where a mild swear word is condemned, that sort of imagery would be instantly condemned & banned. With this in mind, a decent adaptation could never be done. Therefore, it's admirable that they make any sort of effort to recreate Huxley's book. However for a book which would influence me in such a powerful way, it's disappointing they didn't realise that it's better to not touch something rather than create a half decent version. Ah well. That's Hollywood for you.

In the near future society is managed so that everyone is happy - only a few live on the edges of society as trash. In society, babies are no longer born, they are designed into social categories to decide their future roles. Everyone is happy. However one of the conditioning team, Bernard, can't help but feel if there were any ways of making it better. When a chance helicopter accident brings him into contact with one of the `savages', John Cooper, he brings him back as an experiment. Initially John is taken by the society but gradually he begins to see that the world is not as he wants it.

For a major film to attempt to bring a major novel to the screen is a brave move, but for a cheap TVM to have a stab at it is even more of a risk. This version is kind of interesting in an obvious way, but really is not even worthy of sharing the name of the book (and indeed doesn't really stick to it either). The plot is roughly the same but the film is keen to point out how this future is so very like the current world that many of us in the West now live in. Big deal. This is very obvious and is far too simple a point to make in an attempt to translate Huxley. It is of vague interest on this level and there were certain parallels that made me think - problem was, I didn't leave the film thinking - I ignore the action onscreen and just starting pondering! Films should make you think - but surely not to the point where your thoughts are actually better than what's on the screen!

So yes it says lots of stuff about social classes (which we have - workers and middlemen and top men), consumerism, slogans, media saturation and loss of individualism. But it just doesn't deliver all these in a good package; which it really needed to do in order to get by. As it is, it doesn't manage to really engage and I found myself not really caring.

The cast are pretty low rent to a man - when Nimoy is a surprise big cameo, you know you're in the sh*t! Gallagher is pretty bland and didn't really do anything for me in the lead and support from Kihlstedt is not great either. The supposedly wild and free Cooper is played badly by Guinee; I just didn't care for him or his situation and never really got the feel of a man who is gradually realising that he is in hell. Ferrer was OK and it was nice to see him not playing a sinister creep of one sort or another (although only just!).

Overall this is a passable TVM that makes very obvious comments about our society by exaggerating them slightly in a future setting. This would be well and good but it is certainly never Brave New World. If you are looking for something to wash over you for 90 minutes then this would do, but given the choice again, I'd read the book instead.

The book by Aldous Huxley is a classic, not just for its intrigueing plot and characters, but its prediction of the future which seems eerily like our own. And this made for TV movie shows just how our minds have changed, as it completely ignores the moral issues in the novel and falls prey to itself.

For example, the frequent makeup commercials airing between breaks. Beauty is everything. Nobody looks old or gets ugly.

The previews on TV. Sex sells. Sex is good. Sex is harmless. Everybody does it.

The savages being portrayed as white rather than how they are in the book. Don't offend anyone. Avoid racism.

The flashiness. Leonard Nimoy. Ooh-ahh. Everything is happy.

All the themes and slogans that cloud the minds of the common citizen to the point where it becomes human nature to them, seem to have clouded the minds of the people who made this movie. They fall to their own society's entrappings, not seeing themselves for who they are, but falling to spur of the moment emotions, be it passion or extravagance or just trying to make an extra dollar on a TV movie (games must have an economical purpose, afterall). Anyway, read the book. You'll see how you live in a whole new light.

Why do they do it? Why do they pick a novel like this which obviously has a following (seeing how it's still around after 75 years), and screw around with the story line? Are the writers thinking "Yeah, that Aldous guy is OK, but I'm much better." Or are they thinking that we simply wouldn't understand the story in it's original form? This trash is going to offend anyone that can actually finish a book without pictures in it. Watching what they did to this classic is similar to watching "Romeo and Juliette" rewritten to have a happy ending. I can't think of any demographic that's going to be pleased with the result. I would seriously like to attend the brainstorming session where they worked out the screenplay just to hear the rational behind rewriting a classic.

The "Brave New World (TV Movie 1980)" from the BBC was a billion times better, you can find references to that adaptation in IMDb

Just watch the BBC version or read the book, there is nothing in this one to redeem itself, awful.

The 3 hours long BBC version and the book can be found in the website Huxley dot net at the very bottom, there are the links to the book and the movie Sadly the copy came from a bad VHS, but watchable. There is no better copy as far as I know. A bit cartooned in style, worth it anyway, so the book.

Bottom line, do yourself a favor, watch the BBC version or read the book