Saturday, November 09, 2013

"Where is this?"
"L.A."

     You can't get it on DVD.  They never released it on tape.  Hulu doesn't stream it.  Steven Spielberg, barely out of his teens, directed it and when I first saw it as an impressionable pre-teen (and already an SF reader), I knew it was something out of the ordinary.

     LA 2017, an episode of The Name Of The Game and  one of the better pieces of science fiction found on the small screen in the dim dark days of the previous century,* is on YouTube.  It's a low-rez transfer of an NTSC original, but you can follow the Philip Wylie eco-fable, trite now but hot, hot stuff back in 1971, and get a good sense for how Spielberg told the tale:
     Ah, the good old days and the staggering web of assumptions once taken for granted and now dropped like hot rocks -- or dead birds. But that crazy Spielberg kid sure could direct. 

     (Keep your eyes open for a familiar face or two in minor roles.)
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* When everyone smoked and we ate plastic.  Or something. 

1 comment:

The Jack said...

I get a kick out of the physicist cop in the start of part 2 showing off his diploma and his gun.

A much of nervous pride and bashful crazy.