This fairly low-budgeted PBS film from 1980 shows why a real story, with real ideas, runs rings around the multi-million dollar CGI-fests that overrun theaters today. A sensitive, thoughtful adaptation of the Ursula LeGuin classic about dreams, power, responsibility, Taoism, reality, unreality, and being in & at one with the world, it's blessed with three strong & subtle performances. Bruce Davison, still one of our most underrated actors, is especially fine in conveying the uncertainties & initial confusion of George Orr, as well as his basic human decency & his emerging moral strength as the world continues to shift around him.
Yes, the special effects are simple even for 1980 ... but that doesn't matter in the least. The film knows that real science-fiction isn't about special effects; it's about people & ideas. A thoroughly entertaining, gripping story, it brings those ideas to life without lecturing, but by letting the characters live them out & react as real human beings. It's a film I've watched many times over the decades since it first aired, and it remains as fresh & vivid as ever, always revealing something new. How many films can do that? This one does, effortlessly. It needs to be available on DVD again!
Yes, the special effects are simple even for 1980 ... but that doesn't matter in the least. The film knows that real science-fiction isn't about special effects; it's about people & ideas. A thoroughly entertaining, gripping story, it brings those ideas to life without lecturing, but by letting the characters live them out & react as real human beings. It's a film I've watched many times over the decades since it first aired, and it remains as fresh & vivid as ever, always revealing something new. How many films can do that? This one does, effortlessly. It needs to be available on DVD again!