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Brave New World (TV) More at IMDbPro »
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| Index | 51 reviews in total |
45 out of 56 people found the following review useful:
O Brave New World, that hath such nonsense in it., 26 August 2002
Author:
Donald Roy Airey from Bolton, MA
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.
21 out of 24 people found the following review useful:
A distorted version of the novel, 26 August 2002
Author:
jmaiz
Brave new world is one of the most inspiring and prescient novels of the
20th century (it was first published in 1932). In the future it portrays,
humanity has achieved its final goal: happiness, understood as the ability
of each person to satisfy his/her impulses almost immediately. Achieving
this goal means leaving science, religion, and most of our culture in the
way. In this perfect world people have all the sex and TV they want,
hyperconsumption is a social virtue, and books are denigrated because they
promote individualism. Sounds familiar?
The novel is dark and pessimistic and the characters' personality is flat
because they are supposed to be that way. The only exception in the novel,
the savage, is well portrayed in the movie but the rest of the characters
appear too normal (too present-day) in the movie. This is especially true
in
the case of Lenina, the central female character who is supposed to be
typical of her time (no brains, just fun, thank you) in the novel while in
the movie has a more complex personality. This change ends up altering the
plot and was probably caused by that big stupidity of our times, political
correctness.
This adaptation of the novel for TV mass consumption also includes several
other changes such as an assassination plot (unthinkable in the original)
and the inclusion of a happy ending, which completely distort the message.
Maybe, the novel was right: all that matters is having a lot of sex and
violence on TV but we should avoid "intellectual" narratives that make
people think and, therefore, "unhappy".
1/10.
18 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Not a great version or a great film but the modern parallels are worth seeing, 27 February 2004
Author:
bob the moo from Birmingham, UK
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.
13 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
hugely disappointing, 6 June 2005
Author:
didi-5 from United Kingdom
'Brave New World', the 1932 novel by Aldous Huxley, told of a new world
where babies were decanted as Alphas, Betas, Deltas, Epsilons, or
Gammas, all designed to know their places in society, and in the case
of the lower classes, decanted as multiple identical twins to staff
entire factories and production lines. Their God is Ford (as in Henry)
and their motto is 'history is bunk'.
In the book, Bernard Marx is a fish out of water, an Alpha of stunted
growth who has dangerous ideas, who refuses to act like he is expected
to, and is generally despised. The film's Bernard is Peter Gallagher, a
kind of magnetic Romeo figure, popular with the girls, and a confident
success. Already there's been some tampering done with the source.
With Rya Kihlstedt as a colourless Lenina (again nothing like the
book's character, who is conventional to a 't') and Leonard Nimoy as
the Controller, Mustapha Mond, the film loses impact and goes downhill
very quickly.
Nods can be given (grudingly) at the attempts to develop computer
generated conditioning forms, and to give some sense of a futuristic
world. It just doesn't come off. The savage reservation is simply full
of young Americans out to pick a fight, while John (the savage child of
Linda, a Beta stranded in the reservation) does speak Shakespeare, but
is otherwise of little interest and very unlike the book.
A disappointment and a huge bore, missing both the humour and the
science-fiction/faction innovations of Huxley's novel.
15 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
There is NO such thing as "Perfect"..., 9 August 2004
Author:
bbethel66 from Buffalo, NY
In spite of the many attempts to maintain perfection, that is one thing that
cannot be achieved to its fullest extent in reality. Unfortunately, that is
practically the one thing that is misunderstood in the Brave New
World.
This TV movie reinterprets a classic novel of how the human soul is
compromised to the never-ending quest for perfection. In the story,
everybody is born in science labs, and their destiny is determined for them
from Day One. They spend their whole lives being conditioned (and
reconditioned), their thoughts and emotions suppressed with soma, and all
else that virtually eliminates the human soul.
This is all what Aldous Huxley was thinking of human civilization all the
way back in 1932, back when communism, socialism, and fascism were still
major threats to world societies. While some of these thoughts may seem
dated today, there are SOME aspects to modern society, even in a democratic
gov't, that brings relevance to this story.
However, because the Brave New World is NOT perfect, there are a few who
have their own ways of thinking. One is Bernard Marx, who's persistent in
initiating his own forms of human conditioning. Another, Lenina, is one who
experiences true happiness, after having spent her entire life deprived of
true freedom. Then there's John, a Savage who lives on a Reservation
seperated from the World State.
John is one who still has a firm grip on religion, art, literature, and
history, all of which are banned in society, but still exists on the
Reservation. Bernard and Lenina, both on a temporary holiday, takes John to
visit the Brave New World, only for John to discover the horror that had
become of the human race.
This was an interesting movie. It retained a lot of what was in the original
novel. But there were a few major liberties taken to make the story more
accessible to modern tastes. For one thing, the Savages are not Indians
(thanks in part to an evil form of liberalism called "political
correctness"), but are more like the modern version of Americana, which, 600
years from now, will be considered primitive. Also, the novel did not have a
sub-plot about a Delta being reconditioned, and later brainwashed into
trying to kill Bernard Marx. It's kinda funny, because that somewhat defies
the society's purpose of "no crime, no violence, etc.". Some such things as
the worship of Ford, and "orgy-porgy" were eliminated, which makes this
movie less intense than the novel. The ending was changed a little, just to
present the novel's message in a different light.
I get the impression that the production team wanted more from this movie,
but had to work with what came to be the result. It's a wonder why this
presentation is an obscure TV movie, rather than a theatrical. I think that
some parts of Brave New World would be difficult to reinterpret into a
theatrical, because the production team wouldn't be able to reinterpret the
story without doing a considerable amount of retooling, as this shows
us.
Overall, this was an okay movie. But having read the Brave New World novel
not too long ago, I feel as if there are some aspects of our democratic
society that I feel make this story more relevant than people
realize.
The Brave New World novel is available at your local library.
14 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
Brave new adaptation, 4 July 2004
Author:
BLEACHEDC from Yorkshire, England
Okay, I realize that I'm probably going to get labeled as either a
moron or a heretic for this, but I'm not going to let that put me off!
Y'see, the fact is I LOVED this version of Huxley's classic!!!
The main reason for contempt aimed at this film appears to concern the
matter of deviation from the original text.
Firstly, it is almost always necessary when adapting literary material,
and this is the case here. Secondly, the alterations are not that
severe. The only real changes pertain to character (oh, and the
admittedly fluffy pink ending which appears to have been pinned on as
an afterthought, I'll give you that one): Marx and Lenina are fleshed
out, in that they develop the ability to learn and evolve, which in the
book is impossible. Helmholtz is removed as his purpose in the book is
fulfilled here by Marx in the aforementioned capacity. John is rendered
here more mentally stable and exhibits none of the religious fervor for
guilt and self flagellation.
Right, so why were these changes necessary?
In the study version of the text, the notes state "Thus however
tempting it may be to base a reading of brave new world on a
sympathetic identification with the characters, it would be a
distortion of the novel to do so." It also postulates that the
"characters are static, incapable of learning, changing and developing
in the way real people do".
Now, these things may well be fine in a book, but in a film the medium
requires precisely the kind of 'sympathetic identification' missing
from the text if it is to be enjoyed by any kind of audience outside
of, perhaps, the art-house crowd. Moreover, characters in films NEED to
evolve in a way that is not perhaps required in a literary equivalent.
It is simply a matter of adapting format to work successfully.
As for John, and again with reference to the study text, Huxley himself
states "...the most serious defect in the story, which is this, the
savage is offered only two alternatives, an insane life in Utopia...(or
that) his native Penetente-ism reasserts its authority and he ends in
maniacal self torture and suicide." He goes on to assert "if I were to
rewrite the book, I would offer the savage a third alternative. Between
the utopian and the primitive horns of his dilemma would lie the
possibility of sanity"
The alterations to John's character not only serve the aforementioned
necessities when converting the story to celluloid, but address
Huxley's own misgivings about the direction the story arc took.
Basically, the changes are justified.
As to the socio economic and eugenic details in Huxleys work - the
things that made it so important, well 95% of them are in there. Some
are slightly updated, but essentially they are identical. The only
missing ingredients that I spotted were the Bokanovskyfication of human
embryo's, and the erotic play amongst children.
The former perhaps should have been utilized, but the latter, well,
they'd have NEVER gotten away with that.
All in all, and given the obvious budgetary restraints clearly present,
I believe this to be a faithfully spirited, valid interpretation of a
book that was always going to be incredibly difficult to film.
12 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Hmm..What would Huxley think., 18 January 2003
Author:
HyperPup from United States
What would Huxley think? His masterwork now fodder for the MTV culture of the world. It was interesting that the writer and director chose this particular style to shoot BNW from. Granted the cliche' of Hollywood and American culture in general may seem like a Huxleyian paradigm but really, here it seems a little pretentious, as if to make some vocal statement saying "America has finally caught up to the novel's vision." Oh brother! This almost cynical disregard for respecting the author's true vision of his own work is pretty sad, as every nuance of Huxley's story has its meaning and characters stomped upon with references to rave culture, soap opera scandal type revelations and media blitz culture. The video and vocal overlays that are supposed to drive us through the films locations....superfluous. THe concepts of life inside the Brave New World become so much pseudo intellectual rambilng, the characters merely philosophical mouthpieces. If I didn't know any better I would have thought this film was French in origin. One can almost sense a level of shame being heaped upon us, the viewers as if this is the world we want and the writer and director know what we WILL become in the future. How odd. This is the second movie I have seen based upon the novel, the first being the 1980 movie with Bud Cort and Marsha Strassman. Somehow they never seem to quite get it right, but this one missed the mark the furthest in my opinon. Definately skip this version.
15 out of 26 people found the following review useful:
An interesting adaptation, 24 August 2002
Author:
gracie28 from Raleigh, NC
Not as grim and forbidding as the book, this adaptation of Huxley's great work does have merit. Recommended as a worthwhile glimpse into the world which we are indeed, headed toward. The portray of the media as the keepers of the establishment mythology was particularly well done. Too dramatic for literary purists, but definitely worth watching.
7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Different, but enjoyable, 26 July 1999
Author:
Invisigoth Gypsy from Alabama
Although this movie version of 'Brave New World' was quite different from the novel, I still enjoyed it. It seemed to be a different take on Huxley's theme. The city itself was especially impressive, as was the eclectic style of the whole film. As for the actors, they all did fairly well; Nimoy did an especially nice job with his role. I also liked the prissy beta clerk!
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
This movie has almost no similarity with the book, 18 July 2011
Author:
Andromeda Arno from Bosnia and Herzegovina
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Watching this movie was a really bad experience, through half of the movie I wanted to just press stop, but I kept on watching just to see how much they can ruin a wonderful book. First of all, one of the main characters,Bernard Marx,in this adaptation had been striped of every, and I mean every characteristic and trait that he has in the book. The worst thing is that in the book, through this character, the reader gets the experience of isolation in a society totally committed to social activity, where is basically abnormal to spend time alone. In the book, this character was my favorite, in the movie I found nothing in him. Not to mention that the entire first half of the book somehow got lost while making the movie. And as the final blow comes the ending. The producers just had to rewrite it in to this pathetic happy ending. If you didn't read the book, maybe you will find it amusing, but all in all, it is a shame that this kind of great book didn't get a proper adaptation.
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