Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

gcsman The world of literature lost one of its finest writers with the death of Ursula Le Guin this year (2017) at the age of 88. She was one of my heroes. Her writing is elegant, humane, wise, and penetrating, and she followed no 'school', no ideology, no fashion. I write for a living too (though it's writing of a very different kind), and what I wouldn't give to be able to write just one page, one paragraph, even one sentence that would live up to her standards.Well, anyway: The Lathe of Heaven is one of her SF novels and probably my favorite among them. It's a singular vision that stands alone in her own work, and in fact I can't think of any other novel to easily compare it with by anything else in SF either. Not all that long after it was written, this movie adaptation was done for original TV broadcast, so it has a low-budget feel to it, and the lead actors (Bruce Davison, Kevin Conway, Margaret Avery) weren't all that well known at the time. It's even in black and white format. But put all that aside: it actually stays pretty close to the Le Guin storyline, unlike the inferior 2002 adaptation that strayed off the path. It's such a great story and so easily translatable to the screen for today's SF-familiar audiences that you can easily imagine a much bigger-budget superb production being done now complete with advanced CGI that would do justice to the hero George Orr's world-changing visions.George Orr (Davison) is a perfectly ordinary, nice, low-key guy except for one thing: when pressed into it, he has "effective dreams" that change reality and rewrite history. He doesn't want to do this, but gets taken advantage of by psychiatrist William Haber (Conway) who uses George to enable his own altruistic but power-hungry goals. George's torturous journey through one history after another and eventual resolution are the substance of the movie.This production disappeared for a long time after its original airing, but finally now you can see it on YouTube. Well worth it. Le Guin's stories haven't generally been served well on movies and TV but so much better could be done with them. The Earthsea fantasy books are on a level with Narnia and Tolkien and they would work brilliantly if well produced. The recent TV production of them turned out to be a travesty. So would others of her SF novels like City of Illusions, Planet of Exile, or The Left Hand of Darkness (well, maybe that last one would be best as an indie film.) Hollywood is missing a bet.

Sebastian1966 Having first seen this film many years ago and reading the Ursula K. LeGuin novel only a few years ago, I can say the film is very faithful to it's source material. This is the kind of sci-fi they rarely do these days; no smart-ass cop stopping a CGI army of killer robots, or people shooting bullet-time weapons while running up walls! Those are glossed up, repetitive action movies. LATHE OF HEAVEN is science fiction. The story of one George Orr and his 'effective dreams'(dreams that alter the fabric of reality) is a metaphor for the genre itself; fantastical dreams (and horrific nightmares) becoming tangible and tactile. George is so afraid of the uncontrollable power of his dreams he resorts to drugs to sleep without dreaming. He later is assigned (as part of his rehabilitation) a therapist, Dr. Haber, who soon becomes convinced of Orr's incredible (and involuntary) power. This brings out Haber's innate desire for control; to 'make the world as it should be,' so to speak. Haber tries to steamroll over George's seemingly milquetoast personality to use him as his instrument of change. This is when George seeks the aid of a social worker (and future lover) Heather La Loche to give him strength in his compulsory dealings with Haber. They eventually see the 'real' world; stripped of all effective dreaming (a post-nuclear holocaust). This 'true' core of reality drives Haber insane. That's the bare skeleton of the story. There's so much more layering and social commentary woven throughout(everything from workman's comp to racism and nuclear war). And Bruce Davison is perfect as the passive/aggressive George Orr; almost born for the role(the original WILLARD himself!). For non-space opera/bullet-time sci-fi fans, this is right up there with SOLARIS (either version) or GATTACA (another underrated classic; a deft blend of BRAVE NEW WORLD and film noir). The only downside to this review (and no fault of the film itself) is the shaky quality of the DVD. As the DVD intro forewarns, it was mastered from the only decent tape left. This is a shame, but although this film has many haunting images (the plague sequence; the sea-turtle inspired, 'unnatural' aliens, etc.)it's the idea of dreams (for better or worse) becoming reality that matter most. The grainy, ghostly images are a little distracting at first, but soon overlooked. The story matters first and foremost. This should be a lesson to all the shlockbusters (and countless, needless sequels) that infest modern multiplexes; oh, I know--those film makers wipe their tears and blow their noses with $1000 bills, but they still make crap! And, almost not worth mentioning, there was a recent A&E remake(speaking of crap). It was an utter waste of time and whatever money it cost. Lukas Haas was a blank, boring slate as George Orr. Plot lines were seemingly dropped and added as if at random. As Ray Bradbury once said about a recently proposed FAHRENHEIT 451 remake; "Just film the book!" The original version more or less did that already! And as much as I loved James Caan in GODFATHER, he is wasted here as Haber. Just plain miscast. Stick with the PBS version and/or the book. A film of dreams for dreamers everywhere. Damn effective, too!

gramdal As the die-hard science fiction fans know, special effects are great, but without a great story, it won't stand the test of time.Based on Ursula K. Leguin's book, this is (I hear) a very faithful adaptation. And easily one of the very best made for t.v. movies ever.The effects are low budget, but that's not important, the story is amazing. Great science fiction takes us away from the familiar structure of life we understand, and stands reason and convention on it's head. It makes us see the things that are so close to us they are invisible. Great science fiction frames the familiar, in a new context and sheds truth on things we were unable to recognize in their mundane form.This story moved me, in the way the book Stranger in a Strange Land did. Like the first time I read 2001 (The movie is meaningless without the book).It is a story about reality, how we perceive it, how we shape it. How we are important to everyone and every thing, as our actions shape not only our own sphere of existence, but ripple outward effecting everything. This is of course told in an abstracted way, but the message is clear.If you are looking for crazy robots and sleek starships, move on.If you are looking for a thought provoking story, that will stick with you for days, or as I see with myself and others here, decades, then this is a cult classic that you simply can not miss.I would have given it a 10, but the effects are low budget, though that does not make it any less amazing.

FloatingOpera7 Lathe Of Heaven..Starring Bruce Davison, Kevin Conway, Peyton Park, Niki Flacks, Vandi Clark, Bernadette Whitehead, Jo Livingston, Jane Roberts, Tom Watts...Director Fred Barzyk...1980 When, in 1980, award-winning sci-fi author Ursula K. Leguin's novel was released as a film, it was the first film broadcast on PBS, the greatest TV channel ever made. As a film, it is stunning, symbolic, allegorical, frightening in its intensity and beautiful in it theme of transience and eternal struggles of good and evil. George Orr, played Bruce Davison who talks and looks somewhat like Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), is a neurotic young man who undertakes involuntary therapy in the future, a world that has survived a great global destruction. His therapist (Kevin Conway) hypnotizes him and uses a machine to tap into his mind as he discovers that his dreams affect present reality. We discover also, that it has been his dreams that has altered human history since the Stone Age all the way to the Armaggedon, nuclear Holocaust that destroyed the world "before April." The therapist, although well-meaning in his quest to vanquish racism, disease, world hunger and all the major problems in the world, only ends up destroying more than he creates. The therapist/doctor has been labeled as the film's villain, which is not what Leguin herself intended. The therapist is good, as all people are innately good. We remember the line when he tells George Orr, "we are going to make the world right." But the elemental forces of nature cannot be controlled by neither God or man, and regardless of our noble intentions, there are dark consequences every time we try do to something to better ourselves. Life, all life, in the past, now and in the future, can only be composed of creative and destructive forces, good and evil, in a yin-yang balance that is eternal and necessary for existence. The interpretation I made the first time I viewed the film was this, although you may interpret any which way you'd like - the individual (George Orr), each of us, man or woman, is an instrument or sum of nature and we are as if part of a bigger dream or series of dreams that is our lifetime, the dreams ending completely when we die. In order to be truly happy, we must always do good, we must be ourselves and not sacrifice neither or individuality nor compassion and humanity- something the doctor seems to have done in a drunken pursuit of power. As for meaning in our life, yes, there is meaning, when we find a religion, belief, career, marriage, love, ANY relationship, and friendship and the meaning of every collective person makes up a beautiful dream, and the dream is over when we die. It was very obvious that the therapist doctor was a parody of religion, or God himself (He tells Orr when he abandons his clinic "You will be back! Without me there is no hope"something no person can do alone in his or her lifetime, and the patient is people altogether. The therapist/patient relationships becomes God/man relationship and the entire meaning of life. This is more profound than even the message in 2001: A Space Odyssey. This voyage into inner space, outer space and everywhere at once, is the most fascinating film ever made about science fiction and the mystery of the universe. I recommend everyone to see this film I urge teachers to read this book to college or high school level students. It's about nothing. It's about everything. It's about what is, what is not and what is to be. Like one of George Orr's dreams.