MovieChat Forums > The Lathe of Heaven (1980) Discussion > The 1980 version is the best Sci-Fi movi...

The 1980 version is the best Sci-Fi movie of all time.

posted 18 years ago by Menilek
3 replies | jump to latest

I am an older sci-fi fan and I have seen a lot of sci-fi and IMO, the 1980 version with Margaret Avery is the best Sci-Fi movie of all time. Forget the 2002 remake with Lisa Bonet. The remake sucks like Electrolux! The 1980 version is not only FAR better but absolutely amazing that it was made by a PBS TV station... WNET-13 in New York, NY [which later moved to Newark, NJ].

Hey, if PBS made stuff THIS good ALL the time I'd call in a nice hefty pledge,(but lets face it... PBS is not ALWAYS this good... but they have their moments... especially WGBH in Boston... VOT-Mimi 1 & 2 ROCKED!).

[–] Billy_McAvoy 18 years ago

I wholeheartedly agree, and I have always felt that this was the best Sci-fi film of all time since I saw it on PBS in the early 80s. It then disappeared for almost 20 years. I did manage to get a bootleg copy supposedly made from the 1" video master from this video store owner in the u-district in seattle after asking him if he'd ever heard of it (it had the original music on it as well, and actually the synth music was a little grating at times, but it had the beatles version of "with a little help from my friends" which was nice). I ended up giving this away to a friend at some point, and years later got the commercial VHS from amazon and was disappointed about new version of the beatles song, but it wasn't all that distracting. Apparently that is what happened and why it went all those years unreleased, the rights for the beatles song were prohibitively expensive.

I haven't seen the new TV version but have heard nothing but bad reports.

[–] seachanter 18 years ago

I also agree the 1980's version of this movie was far superior to the remake.

It's also much closer to the original novel. Of course having Ms Le Guin as an advisor helped :)

it took time, because of legal issues, to be released on DVD, and it's very nice to have that DVD.

[–] Killer_Bee 17 years ago

I never bothered with the remake... I watched this on PBS when the only thing I ever watched on PBS was Monty Python and "The Lathe Of Heaven" Blew me away. I'm glad to see it's out on DVD and I'm going to order a copy ASAP....