FYI, Bruce Davidson was also the teacher in the Afterschool Special "The Wave." And the 1980 Lathe Of Heaven's closing scene was shot at the Fort Worth (Texas) Water Gardens, which is also featured in Logan's Run. Thanks for profiling this classic film.
I watched this when it originally aired. Have loved it ever since. The re-make sucked. I love the book, too. I have a copy on my computer and watch it every once in a while. Great movie!!
I remember seeing this late one night when I was young and for decades have wondered what it was. I remember the ice cream selling alien's name was Mnmnsfa. Thank you. Will watch it.
It's worth noting that Kevin Conway was also the Control Voice in every episode of The Outer Limits from '95 to 2002. I first saw The Lathe of Heaven in 2000 when it was rereleased to the public. It was kind of a big deal at the time due to the fact that it was the first time in a dozen years that PBS had been able to air it. Yes, there's an official DVD release. When you hit play, it opens with text explaining how the original film materials have been lost forever and that they did the best they could to clean up and color correct the movie using the surviving tape. So, the quality of the DVD may actually not be appreciably better than what can be seen in the YT upload, but it seems that some effort went into getting it to look as good as it does with what was available. Personally, the admittedly somewhat crummy quality doesn't bother me or diminish my enjoyment of the film at all.
I saw this on PBS when it came out. I learned how to pronounce "Antwerp" because that was the hypnotic signal the therapist used on George. I don't know exactly what Ursula K. Le Guin;s politics were, but it had progressive elements (she been discriminated against for being woman while she was coming up as a writer). Yet for being a progressive, she still had a human understanding that if you change the world over night, you might not get what you think you'll get. In the story, the therapist gives George a hypnotic prompt to end racism and the next day after George's resulting dream, every human on earth has skin that's the color gray. Solves the problem, but its not what you want. I can't help feeling that some kinds of leftism falls into the habit of breaking a lot of eggs to make an omelette of perfect social justice. Those types will keep prompting George to have a dream no matter how worse things are made because of it. Le Guin's novel "The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia" starts out with a brilliant physicist growing up in a social utopia where there is such an insistence on the complete equality of everyone with everyone, that he has to leave that society in order complete his research. Then in her Earth Sea novels, she has a magician protagonist who trying to fight against evil, but then he finds out that the evil he is fighting is inside of himself. If your going to do good, you're going to have to watch that you are not also doing evil instead. That is great restraint.
Its odd a story about world shaping started in an alt universe setting and ended in an alt universe setting. I wonder what the doctor was trying to change that started destroying the world?
I saw that there is a 2002 A&E version of this as well. Have you(or anyone one else) seen that one to be able to compare the two adaptations? When I received the notification for this video, I wasn't sure which adaptation I should watch. I'll probably watch both anyway😂
@jkbaca41 I've seen both versions and definitely prefer the first, even though it's dated with old-school special fx. All I remember about the 2002 version is that it starred Lisa Bonet of The Cosby Show.
FYI, Bruce Davidson was also the teacher in the Afterschool Special "The Wave." And the 1980 Lathe Of Heaven's closing scene was shot at the Fort Worth (Texas) Water Gardens, which is also featured in Logan's Run. Thanks for profiling this classic film.
I watched this when it originally aired. Have loved it ever since. The re-make sucked. I love the book, too. I have a copy on my computer and watch it every once in a while. Great movie!!
I remember seeing this late one night when I was young and for decades have wondered what it was. I remember the ice cream selling alien's name was Mnmnsfa. Thank you. Will watch it.
It's worth noting that Kevin Conway was also the Control Voice in every episode of The Outer Limits from '95 to 2002.
I first saw The Lathe of Heaven in 2000 when it was rereleased to the public. It was kind of a big deal at the time due to the fact that it was the first time in a dozen years that PBS had been able to air it. Yes, there's an official DVD release. When you hit play, it opens with text explaining how the original film materials have been lost forever and that they did the best they could to clean up and color correct the movie using the surviving tape. So, the quality of the DVD may actually not be appreciably better than what can be seen in the YT upload, but it seems that some effort went into getting it to look as good as it does with what was available. Personally, the admittedly somewhat crummy quality doesn't bother me or diminish my enjoyment of the film at all.
I saw this on PBS when it came out. I learned how to pronounce "Antwerp" because that was the hypnotic signal the therapist used on George. I don't know exactly what Ursula K. Le Guin;s politics were, but it had progressive elements (she been discriminated against for being woman while she was coming up as a writer). Yet for being a progressive, she still had a human understanding that if you change the world over night, you might not get what you think you'll get. In the story, the therapist gives George a hypnotic prompt to end racism and the next day after George's resulting dream, every human on earth has skin that's the color gray. Solves the problem, but its not what you want. I can't help feeling that some kinds of leftism falls into the habit of breaking a lot of eggs to make an omelette of perfect social justice. Those types will keep prompting George to have a dream no matter how worse things are made because of it. Le Guin's novel "The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia" starts out with a brilliant physicist growing up in a social utopia where there is such an insistence on the complete equality of everyone with everyone, that he has to leave that society in order complete his research. Then in her Earth Sea novels, she has a magician protagonist who trying to fight against evil, but then he finds out that the evil he is fighting is inside of himself. If your going to do good, you're going to have to watch that you are not also doing evil instead. That is great restraint.
This was a good movie. Maybe I'm just biased by nostalgia, but I've long been of the considerd opinion that PBS was pretty great in the 80s.
I got this from Netflix along time ago by mail.
Its odd a story about world shaping started in an alt universe setting and ended in an alt universe setting. I wonder what the doctor was trying to change that started destroying the world?
I saw that there is a 2002 A&E version of this as well. Have you(or anyone one else) seen that one to be able to compare the two adaptations?
When I received the notification for this video, I wasn't sure which adaptation I should watch. I'll probably watch both anyway😂
@jkbaca41 I've seen both versions and definitely prefer the first, even though it's dated with old-school special fx. All I remember about the 2002 version is that it starred Lisa Bonet of The Cosby Show.