Ira Levin Message Board
Maria Nunez posts on 1/1/2012
Maria Nunez has just written a review of The Boys from Brazil which you can see here
Christina posts on 6/16/2007 12:23:24 AM
There was a movie made of TPD, it was shown on the scifi channel for a good month or so back in 1999 or 2000, the movie totally missed the point of the book and pretty much ruined what made it a great story. it skipped all of Chips youth and went straight to the adult Lei. I'm sure they could have made it a Mini series but they chopped it all down to two hours. what a shame!!
Anthony posts on 2/27/2006 8:43:55 AM
I really need assistance on this book Alexander Pushkin - Eugene Onegin? I have an Essay which is 50% of my grade due on this book. Can someone e-mail me or communicate with me in regard to this? Thank-you!
Keith Gallyot posts on 2/27/2006 8:40:33 AM
I have read and listened to many people's reviews of this great book and find it unbelievable how many people think it is about Unicomp taking over the world.In fact it is that Wei LI Chun uses the front of Uni to control the world and that his continuous regeneration with body parts which ensures that there is no progress beyond his thinking coupled with the fact that anyone found thinking outside the UNICOMP BOX is integrated into WEI's body that makes the story so compelling. Having said that I read this book when I was 12 so maybe I have missed the point. Any progress on a films at all?
Ubik Heisenberg posts on 2/27/2006 2:09:46 AM
I find it hard to believe that a book like This Perfect Day does not get re-printed. It reeks of Farenheit 451... Our kids badly need to read that novel. Thanks heaven that the french version is still available. TPD is a more potent book than Orwell's 1984 because it is more realistic in a sense. Levin did not envision the advent of microcomputing nor of distributed computing (this topic and possible consequences were covered by the movie Terminator 3). He did not envision the technology of implantable Radio Frequency ID chips , of massive retinal scans, of massive voice and face recognition capabilities. All of those technologies are presently implemented in one form or another in the name of Security.
Did he envision the drive for universal ID #? Did he envision the advent of mood modifying medication? Of Ritalin?
We are ideologically, as well as technologically, on the very slippery slope that seems to inexorably bring us toward "an unbearable happiness"... (yes, that's the title of the french translation of TPD: "Un Bonheur Insoutenable")
I have been eagerly watching the file sharing networks to see when the english version will at last become available in pirated form. I find it odd that it did not appear yet...
About the non-publication of this novel, I am hard pressed to conclude about anything but a conspiracy to prevent the younger generations to be exposed to these ideas, as the nightmarish fiction is slowly, one policy and one technological improvement at a time, turning into a reality even more efficient, more terrible than Levin's fiction. The cinematographical rights might be spoken for, but why withold republication in book format?
Reggie posts on 10/4/2005 2:01:22 PM
This has always been my favorite book. I wrote to Ira Levin back in 1979 asking to purchase the rights - I had aspirations then of becoming a film director and wanted to make this into a movie. He actually wrote to me and said that the book was under option, a screenplay was written, and filming was to begin in the spring. That was in 1979! Years and years later, a friend of mine found out that a production company in Los Angeles owned the rights and a movie was in the works, but I have never seen or heard anything about it since. This would make a GREAT movie.
Stargate Fan posts on 9/16/2005 8:20:41 PM
i have not seen The Island, but from your discription, it is obviously not the same thing. maybe a few ideas came from This Perfect Day, but the body part thing is way off course. i was recommended by my mother(when i was about 12) to read it. i loved it and think that it is a great book for anyone to read. it is an eye opener, and is full of complex conflicting ideas. most people want what is best for society and the well being of everyone, but is it better to have freewill or security.
J. Morehead posts on 8/19/2005 10:02:49 PM
I read a review of the movie The Island and instantly knew it was a movie version of Ira Levin's 1970 book THE PERFECT DAY. I went to see the movie to prove it to myself and was disappointed to see no credit given to the Author. I want to know if he was compensated in any way for the use of his idea.
I read THE PERFECT DAY in the 70's. The copy given to me to read was held together with rubber bans, it had been read by so many people. I tried to order a copy 5 years ago from Barns and Nobels and discovered it was out of print. I was disappointed. I wanted to reread it and share it with my grandkids. Fortunately I stumbled on a hardback copy in a thrift store. It cost me
$. 50 and still had the jacket!
In the original book the people weren't clones raised for body parts for the rich (I thought this bogged down the story a bit and was less straight forward than the original story). The strongest of them figured out their lives were a lie and how to escape. They escaped to an Island where the strongest on the island were selected to be used as body parts for the leaders who controlled them so they could live forever. Of course Dreamworks has with the modern settings and this change succeeded in the 25% rule to avoid copyright laws.
I always felt this Ira Levin novel should have been as popular as 1884 or ANIMAL FARM but all the acclaim went to ROSEMARY'S BABY. I thought it would make a great movie. I had thought of sending a copy to Speilburg but didn't want to give my copy up. Just sorry Dreamworks didn't have the integrity to give credit where credit is due and stick to the original as it was written.
Christine posts on 8/16/2005 11:11:04 PM
I have loved and read this book over and over for many years. I found a whole group of kids in my high school that were totally into the book and who talked about it alot. Every now and then, you would see "FIGHT UNI" scrawled on the inside of a book cover or on the inside of someone's locker. We associated our school as "Big Brother" back then! We were really too young and immature to think outside of what we saw as the oppressor at that time. I would hope if the movie is done, it has the money and talent behind it to give it everything it needs to stay true to the original ideas and storylines. It is too precious to be changed in any way.
Michael Scarborough posts on 7/24/2005 9:03:04 PM
I too would love to see a movie made of This Perfect Day! I don't understand why someone hasn't done it yet.
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