The Lathe of Heaven

The Lathe of Heaven (1979)

Written by Diane English, Ursula K. LeGuin (book)

Directed by Fred Barzyk, David R. Loxton
Starring Bruce Davison, Kevin Conway, Margaret Avery

Synopsis
this dude can change the past with his dreams and when his psychiatrist figures it out he tries to manipulate his dreams but he never learns how to word his demands correctly so things don't come out the way he wants them

MOster
It's been a grillion years since I read this, but it seems to me that they did a good job of capturing the concept behind the story.  To an extent it plays out like a Twilight Zone episode; but it's deeper and more SF than that.

This is a PBS production, hampered as much by budget as by the era in which it was made.  Music, effects, "technology of the future," and architecture are all presented from that indelible light.  (Of course, the same could be said of SF from any time period.)  With that in mind, everything was competent at least.  Conway is a real piece of garbage as the "dream specialist," and it's good to see that 30 years ago Bruce Davison was doing a much better job in making the equivalent of SyFy original movies.

I really liked this book and we've (well, I've) been waiting for it to come in the mail for much longer than the standard two year  interval.  I don't think I had expectations to be met or dashed, but I did get value out of watching this.

The Woman
this was rife with plot holes. if dude changes the past when he dreams how is it that the doctor can remember the past before the guy changes it when no one else does? all arguments fail. time paradox. then, about halfway through things get really abstract and i lost what was going on. things changed, things didn't change. things go back to the way it was three pasts ago. his chick keeps disappearing and reappearing. he somehow stops the doctor, but that was done so badly i have no idea what he did, or how he did it. i've never read the story so i have no reference point,but i think it was just the kind of story that translates bad into "movie" when you don't have the character's constant inner monologue to anchor what is going on around him. i didn't like this, if you can't tell.