norskog@fortune.UUCP (01/21/84)
The underground city in the movie is a commentary on Disneyland.
MDC.JANICE%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA (01/26/84)
From: Janice <MDC.JANICE%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA> I have to disagree strenuously with the favorable opinion recently expressed about this movie. I thought it didn't even approach the impact of the story (well, yeah, sure, if you're looking for a visceral reaction at the prospect of being fed to a dog...) There were numerous changes made in the original story, all of them to its detriment. The most obvious one is the change from a decaying city to a desert. Cheaper, I guess, but the city was a stronger image. The most important (and worst) change was in the society underground. In the original, it was not viciously hypocritical, condemning people to death with a smile and letting monstrous robots pursue them; it was simply an attempt to restore Middle American, middle class, small-town life. The whole point of this in the story is that such a life is utterly deadening and forces people into hypocrisy (the matter of sex Underground is treated much more subtly in the story than the film). The film lost this point by having villains run the town. Ellison was saying that the town is like this not because nasty people run it, but by its very nature -- and thus condemning traditions held sacred by many. It's a very 60s type of story (I say this not to condemn, merely to describe). Aside from that major flaw, the ending of the story is more horrifying in its lack of description than the film, depending on visual images, could ever be. -------