By Drew Dietsch
| Published
Science fiction movies have always taken inspiration from great stories written by imaginative authors, and some of those movies aren’t even based on full novels but short stories and novellas.
Whether it’s John W. Campbell’s “Who Goes There?” becoming John Carpenter’s The Thing, Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” becoming Total Recall, or Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Sentinel” becoming 2001: A Space Odyssey, the science fiction short story has made an indelible impact on movies.
But, one science fiction short story got an adaptation back in the ‘90s and has been promptly forgotten. And it’s one of the more bold and brazen adaptations in sci-fi history.
This is why we need to save the 1995 movie adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron.
“Harrison Bergeron” By Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut shouldn’t need an introduction, but just in case, he was a prolific and impactful writer who liked to play around with genre. His seminal novel, Slaughterhouse Five, is a unique spin on sci-fi and war stories that got its own film adaptation in 1972. For more on that, check out the GenreVision podcast episode on Slaughterhouse Five.
Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron” posits a United States in which any and all differences between people are counteracted by various handicaps in order to obtain a level of equality for all humans. For example, people with traditionally beautiful facial features wear ugly masks.
The short story deals with the parents of Harrison Bergeron, an exceptionally bright and strong young teenager who is taken away by the government for prowess.
In the short story, Harrison’s parents watch a TV broadcast that is interrupted by Harrison in an attempt to rebel against the government. I won’t reveal the rest of the story as everyone should read it, but suffice to say that the story does not have the brightest belief in humanity.
The Harrison Bergeron Movie
When the time came to adapt the short story into a movie, the 1995 Showtime TV movie decided to take a lot of creative liberties. The story is set in the year 2081 but the movie decides on the year 2053 because of the artistic decision to portray the dumbed-down future as a riff on 1950s America. And that is only the start of this movie’s big deviations and additions.
Harrison (played by Samwise Gamgee himself, Sean Astin) is still an abnormally bright kid, but when he is taken away by the government in the movie, it’s under the pretext of being given a lobotomy. What ends up being revealed is Harrison’s selection into the secret organization that actually runs the world.
Yes, in the Harrison Bergeron movie, the idea is that an intelligent cabal keeps the world running in secret by making society as average as possible. They even choose an armchair schlub to be the President and it’s Eugene Levy!
The head of this shadow government, played perfectly by Star Trek VI’s own Christopher Plummer, illustrates why this is the way the world needs to be in order to prevent wars and devastation. In doing so, it means depriving society of incredible art and expression. And Harrison now has to become a part of this oppressive system.
He decides to work in the government’s television division and eventually plans a variation of what happens in the short story: he takes over the broadcast room and begins playing classic movies and music for the public that have been hidden away for generations.
When he’s finally stopped, he’s given the chance to go on the nation’s most popular talk show, hosted by a buffoonish Howie Mandel, and say it was all a joke. Once again, I won’t spoil exactly what happens but it ain’t gonna make you feel good!
Look, I’ll be completely upfront with you, I love the original short story and the 1995 movie is definitely trying its best to capture the acerbic satire of Vonnegut’s piece. The movie and the story are both dark comedies at their heart. However, the tone of the movie and its TV production tend towards sillier and cheaper execution.
Thankfully, the noteworthy cast I’ve already mentioned brings plenty of playhouse charm to the whole production. Sean Astin is cherubic and appropriately boyish as Harrison, which makes his journey all the more heartbreaking by the film’s end. Plummer is exactly who you cast as a villainous authority figure that could convince you to become an authoritarian.
And though the movie uses the Vonnegut story for a jumping off point more than it does a direct adaptation, it manages to fit in more than a few references to the story like a TV broadcast with a handicapped dancer. And the movie is committed to the darker beliefs Vonnegut posits about anti-intellectualism and the suppression of artistic expression.
Save This Movie!
It’s no secret masterpiece but Harrison Bergeron is the kind of challenging sci-fi movie we shouldn’t leave in the dustbin. And that’s looking like the case. As I write this script, the movie is not available on any streaming or video-on-demand service.
You can definitely watch it if you know where to look – and that’s not too hard – but it’s unlikely to be in a high-quality resolution or professionally restored. And who knows how long those digital versions will be at your fingertips?
Harrison Bergeron is an example of why we need to care about preserving art. As more and more of our archival media becomes under the lock and key of monolithic corporations, we risk those corporations having sole authority over what deserves to be preserved.
Just look at any number of fan-favorite Netflix shows and movies that don’t have physical releases. Heck, Barbarian, a major release from a big studio that did well at the box office still doesn’t have a physical release.
If those kinds of high-profile projects can be stifled, think of all the art you’ll never see simply because no one cared enough to save it. Harrison Bergeron isn’t a good or bad movie, it’s perfectly fine, but it deserves recognition, proper archiving, and availability to the public like any piece of artistic media.
If you don’t think that’s the case, why don’t you turn your brain-zapping headband back on and binge that show you’ll forget in a week that will disappear off streaming by next year.
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Okay, snarkiness aside, it’s a lot of fun doing these videos, especially on topics like this. The Vonnegut short story means a lot to me, and I really care about obscure movies and media preservation, so sincerely, thank you for watching.
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