IDIOCRACY, 20 years early and 120 IQ points higher
Added 3/26/2009
Of course, Mike Judge's film was kicked into obscure cult territory by its studio too. But MAX HEADROOM was there first, lunging for the jugular with its canny, prescient observations on the media dumbing-down of the planet.
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Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into The Future IS available
Added 10/13/2008
Like many other reviewers, I saw the original movie when it came out in the UK. Way ahead of its time and deeply critical of the media/surveillance society. Only the early days of Channel 4 in the UK could have spawned such a piece.
I have contacted Channel 4 about the possibility of a re-screening; no chance. A quick check through the web unveiled that the UK movie was licensed to a Japanese company and a few clicks later I found the DVD (NTSC Region 2) readily available. I ordered it and it arrived from Japan a few days later. Every bit as good as remembered......shame it's NTSC rather than PAL but that doesn't diminish the impact. It is the original British production (much harder hitting than the softened up USA movie; sorry about that, cousins). The dvd case is partly written in Japanese but it's easy to turn off the Japanese sub-titles and enjoy the full original English dialogue and text. [...]
5 out of 5 people found this helpful.
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Come on ABC: How hard can it be?
Added 7/7/2008
I loved this show. I remember a group of us actually called ABC to try to convince them not to cancel it. Alas. Please give us the DVDs - I will definitely buy them. And as I recall, there were several episodes that were never aired. Dig them out of the vaults too, OK? Please?
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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The revolution will not be televised...
Added 6/2/2008
Ok, so I guess we have to accept the fact that big pharma, Rupert Murdoch and the rest of the fascist cabal will never let this show go to DVD. The reason is obvious: it hits waaaaay too close to home.
Someone will just have to step up and bootleg it for us. Consider it to be an extreme act of selfish sacrifice for the betterment of humanity; something akin to Tom Paine's 'Common Sense' or Martin Luther's '99 Theses'.
Somewhere, there is a person with access to the original prints who is willing to risk it all to spirit away the best assault on the arrogance of power since Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carroll took on the Royals.
Don't let us down. We are counting on you.
5 out of 5 people found this helpful.
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Well ahead of its time
Added 3/21/2008
This is one of my favorite shows. Maybe it hit too close to home for the government or the networks or whoever felt threatened by it, but so much of it was predicting the kind of future we are seeing unfold now. From the massive rise in the use of credit vs. cash, to the incredible lack of privacy and threat of identity theft, this show present us with the reality of a Big Brother society. They were also on the money in terms of the divide between the rich and poor. The middle class is disappearring swiftly and as so many of us end up in poverty, there is nothing fictitious about the "Haves" and "Have nots".
Frankly, I could have totally done without Max Headroom himself. I was never impressed with him. I watched this show for the real people. I watched it for the plots.
I do wish they would put it out on DVD. I have most of the shows on VHS tapes I recorded off ABC back in the late 1980s. I hope they haven't disintegrated by now!
I'm surprised the Sci-fi channel never picked the show up. It was a gem lost in a bowl of glass stones.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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