Recent viewings

The Lathe of Heaven (1980). Based on the book by Ursula K. LeGuin.

Unlike the producers of the pretty-but-vacuous Earthsea miniseries of 2004, the makers of this adaptation actually consulted with the author. The result is a movie that honestly and directly focuses on the thought-provoking premise of the book (What if your dreams really did come true?) but is badly marred by 1980 television production values and an incoherent ending.

The visual effects are not much better than one would expect from a contemporary episode of Doctor Who or Blakes 7, but the acting and the camera work are servicable. The futuristic aspects of the movie -- at least as long as the protagonist is dealing with our reality -- are actually fairly low-key, consisting mainly of some scenes in which the protagonist deals with what appears to be a national single-payer health care system.

Our protagonist has one big problem. His dreams alter reality retroactively, so that the world he dreams of becomes the world he inhabits when he awakes, with only himself to remember the former reality that has ceased to exist. The psychologist he consults, a specialist in sleep and dreams, sees an opportunity in this. ("First, we'll need an institution....")

The screenplay effectively illustrates the way that the law of unintentional consequences inevitably plays havoc with hubristic human attempts to remake the universe according to what we think is "good". A dreamed wish for sunny weather produces a devastating drought. A "directed dream" about a solution to overpopulation results in a reality in which six billion of the world's population have been eradicated by an epidemic. Unfortunately, toward the end the movie succumbs to the temptation to dissolve everything into trippy psychedelic incoherence a la 2001 and tie everything up with a deus-ex-machina that solves everything without explaining anything.

It's a moderately entertaining take on the old caution to be careful what you wish for, but badly handicapped by its final descent into laser-light-show incoherence.

Texas trivia: Dallasites will recognize several local buildings as "futuristic" structures in the film, including Reunion Tower.