Leonard Nimoy Starred In This TV Movie Adaptation Of A Classic '30s Sci-Fi Book
by Witney Seibold · /FilmAdd SlashFilm on Google:
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Most high school students are likely familiar with Aldous Huxley's 1932 dystopian novel "Brave New World," as it still, to this day, appears on many classroom syllabi. To remind you, though, "Brave New World" takes place in the distant future of 634 AF (or After Ford), which is about 2540 by our calendar. Society has been organized into peaceful city-states, and humans are genetically engineered to be part of different working classes. Alphas are designed to be the rulers and decision-makers, Betas work below them, all the way down to the Epsilons, who are designed to be mere laborers.
The different castes wear different colors, and they are trained by society to accept and adore their respective stations. Everyone's moods are smoothed over by a popular drug called soma, and everyone is distracted by the feelies (even more so than 4DX screenings of unlikely classics). Children are grown in hatcheries, and biological birth is unheard of. Promiscuous sex is celebrated. The two main characters of the book, Bernard and Lenina, travel to a "savage reservation," where people live without engineering and soma, and are revolted to learn of the existence of John, a naturally-born child of a former Beta-Minus and the local Director of Hatcheries. John is taken back to the city where he touts the benefits of a life naturally lived, free of conditioning. The "brave new world" will prove to be too much for him.
"Brave New World" was most recently adapted into a short-lived TV series for Peacock (Alden Ehrenreich stars in the Peacock adaptation), but had previously been adapted for radio, and into two separate TV movies. Few may remember it, but there was a 1998 NBC adaptation of "Brave New World," which starred Leonard Nimoy in a supporting role.
Does anyone remember the 1998 adaptation of Brave New World
In the 1998 TV version of "Brave New World" Bernard and Lenina are played by Peter Gallagher and Rya Kihlstedt, while the "savage" John is played by Tim Guinee from "Stargate SG-1." Leonard Nimoy plays a character named Mustapha Mond, the leader of ten Zones, and a strong advocate for societal stability. He's one of the few characters in Huxley's original novel that understands the way this future society operates, and laments that things like high art, scientific rigor, and intellectual curiosity must be tamped down in order to achieve his society's middle-of-the-road, unchallenging happiness. John's parents, the Director and Linda, are played by Miguel Ferrer and Sally Kirkland.
Also, keep an eye out for Daniel Dae Kim in a supporting role, and Trekkies may be interested to hear (in addition to the presence of Leonard Nimoy) that Aron Eisenberg, Nog on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," also has a small role on "Brave New World."
According to a review in the Washington Post, the TV movie manages to hit all the pertinent story beats of Huxley's original work, and even contained plenty of disturbing images from Huxley's novel to really highlight how grim the seemingly blissful future really is. It's described in the novel that children are deliberately exposed to death to desensitize them. That becomes particularly grim in a scene from the TV movie wherein a child is made to look upon a fresh corpse. The review, written by Tom Shales, said that the movie was "an intelligently mortifying experience." This is certainly a better descriptor than the Peacock version would invite; that series "butchered" the book, as we put it once.
Wait, the 1998 Brave New World was ... good, maybe?
There aren't many review of the 1998 version of "Brave New World" out there, apart from the Washington Post review above. But from what I could find, the reactions to the TV movie were mixed. There is a review from New York Magazine, written by John Leonard, and it's less positive. Leonard points out that the TV movie, for all its aspirations, failed to capture the bitterness of Huxley's novel. He also noted that the ending of the TV movie was very, very different from the book. Readers of the novel will recall its bleak, death-facing ending, while the TV movie adds a few scenes, tacking on a happy ending. Leonard hated this, writing:
"'Brave New World.' the solemn movie, would rather melodramatize. In the novel, pop tart Lenina certainly never fell in love with Bernard or anyone else, or ended up pregnant on a beach. And crybaby Bernard didn't escape to join her in parenting on that beach but was shipped off to Iceland for crimes against the state. And John the Savage was less than wholly noble; he was a self-flagellating sadomasochist [...]. And nobody murdered anybody."
So that's one positive and one negative review. The film's reputation isn't helped by its Letterboxed reviews, which average out to a 2.8 out of five. It seems that this movie is a love-it-or-hate-it situation. The TV movie is not currently available on streaming, and it may be hard to find online, but those who dig deep might be able to find it. More than anything, though, it may be lost to the ages, another TV oddity swallowed in an ever-growing sea of recorded media. We're here keeping the memory alive.