Should a Brave New World or Nineteen Eighty-Four film adaptation ever get made?

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Should a Brave New World or Nineteen Eighty-Four film adaptation ever get made?

Should an adaptation be made?
	Yes.
	No.
	Epsilons > Proles.
	gently caress off OP.

Immortan: Jun 6, 2015; by Shine

Specifically, in today's polarizing political climate? (Yes I'm aware of this disaster.) With the NSA gradually becoming more identical to Telescreens & Big Brother with every passing year it only begs the question. In Nineteen Eighty-Four every aspect of everybody's life was recorded which could be doctored or deleted (memory holed) at any given moment by the Ministry of Love (becoming "Unpersons") if they were perceived to be a threat to the state. With the addition of the internet in modern times�where the NSA gets its power� the reality of this happening seems much more plausible. It seems Hollywood wouldn't entirely be opposed to the concept, as they're releasing a film about Snowden helmed by Oliver Stone in December about the NSA surveillance shenanigans (unfortunately everyone will be talking about Star Wars instead).

With the polarizing clusterfuck known as American politics in the 21st century dominated by micro-aggressions & trigger warnings where everyone is alleging that every political/ideological opponent is the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in the 24/7 information age, do you think film adaptations of either of these two novels which embody every aspect of political & social control as it's subject matter as objectively viable to the public? Is the American population mature enough to handle it? Will Fox News & Media Matters begin to accuse the left & right of thoughtcrime or newspeak? Will colleges embrace these Ministry of Truth type criticisms? Will Morgan Freeman voice Big Brother? Will filmmakers avoid them more on social stigma positions rather than the pressure of adapting revered classics? Would Ingsoc & Fordism replace the Democrats and Republicans on the ballot in 2020 as a result?

Thoughts(crimes)?

# ¿ Aug 15, 2015 10:24

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 3, 2024 23:27

Immortan: Jun 6, 2015; by Shine

Tailored Sauce posted:

If it helps the conversation, I voted for the OP to gently caress off.

You'll never unperson me, motherfucker. :colbert:

And yeah, Equilibrium owns.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2015 23:51

Immortan: Jun 6, 2015; by Shine

Hat Thoughts posted:

It wasn't on my curriculum

It wasn't on mine either & I wasn't surprised. Schools & colleges I imagine are scared of 1984's themes of indoctrination, newspeak, & memory holes because it hits a little to close to home.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2015 21:12

Immortan: Jun 6, 2015; by Shine

computer parts posted:

Oh, I'm glad that's taught as context to the novel in English Class.

You had an incredibly lovely English teacher if he/she taught your class that the oppressive regime in 1984 was analogous only to governments on a specific part of the political spectrum.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2015 06:16

Immortan: Jun 6, 2015; by Shine

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

"Is the American population mature enough to handle it?"

Yes.

3/10

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

What a bizarre OP.

Then just vote gently caress off OP. and move on with your life.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2015 01:09

Immortan: Jun 6, 2015; by Shine

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

I've decided to move on, into the thread.

The OP is a grammatical mess, scattershot and disorganized. But the overall point seems to be that 1984 is 'relevant', but that the people are too immature for it to be 'viable'. You seem to have begun with the premise that 1984 is an extremely good and powerful book, and the question is now whether Hollywood should adapt it, or stall the production lest bad, immature people appropriate the story.

In reality, 1984 is not a great book precisely because it's conducive to appropriation. It offers a sort of limp and genericized story about any ideology. Consider this quote, from the villainous O'Brien:

"We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation-anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wished to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth century ideas about the laws of nature. We make the laws of nature."

O'Brien goes on and on about how the universe is only a few years old, nothing is real and so-on. This is, of course, the basic premise of Matrix, where the protagonist believes he is in a videogame universe of infinite possibilities, able to fly and whatnot, but is 'really' strapped to a chair, utterly passive, tortured, etc. O'Brien is a weird amalgam of Morpheus and the agents. So to the question of whether Hollywood 'should' adapt that story: Hollywood shouldn't do anything. But it already has. With Matrix, you get the pure distillation of 1984: a dull libertarianism.

What this means is that 1984 has little to do with fascism or communism - something explicitly stated in the book itself:

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives."

This is, again, standard stuff. But the joke of the Star Wars prequels and Matrix is that these omnipotent, amoral jew-figures don't actually exist, that the problem is not crazy individuals who 'recognize their own motives' and deliberately corrupt, but the system that enables them.

What's missing from 1984 is an Agent Smith, who actually believes what he says - who loathes humanity and his employers, and actively works to reshape the very Matrix he inhabits. He has no recourse to an 'outside world' where he can imagine he is helpless or all-powerful. He is simply aware that both the humans and machines thoughtlessly destroy the Earth, and Morpheus does not provide an actual alternative.

You couldn't even compare the epsilons & proles? Shameful.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2015 03:55

Immortan: Jun 6, 2015; by Shine

computer parts posted:

Thanks for bumping a thread to shitpost?

90% of the 29k posts you have on this site (16x a day) are shitposts no longer than two sentences on average.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2015 21:19

Immortan: Jun 6, 2015; by Shine

Why is this thread still going

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 19:29

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 3, 2024 23:27

Immortan: Jun 6, 2015; by Shine

Hat Thoughts posted:

Do you not know how to lock threads?????

Ehhh... gently caress that. Continue with the thread or move on with your lives by voting "gently caress off OP." accordingly.

Carry on.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2015 08:07

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Should a Brave New World or Nineteen Eighty-Four film adaptation ever get made?