Fahrenheit 451 (2018)

For months, I waited with anticipation for HBO's adaptation of my favorite book Fahrenheit 451 to make its début; I was a huge fan of the book-obviously seeing as it's my favorite-and I also quite enjoyed the first 1996 movie adaptation when my teacher shared it with our class in 2011. Naturally, the 1996 lacked a few things, but seeing as the technological capabilities were limited then compared to what we have now that is to be expected, so when I heard HBO was doing an updated movie I was ecstatic and couldn't wait to see all of the things that had had to be left out in the 1996 version and when it popped up on my Hulu account to watch I was definitely excited...until I turned the movie on.

The cast wasn't anything close to the characters in the novel, nor were the personalities that they portrayed onscreen. The story itself-to me at least-seemed to be changed and even dumbed down for the audience of todays generation and that saddened me alone. I could have stomached most of the movie if they had stayed true to the original plot. To me they have utterly destroyed one of my favorite books.

Long story short, if you genuinely love the book and want to see it come to life on the big screen, don't watch this. If you're looking for an action/thriller sort if thing that seems to barely have a decent storyline and you've never read the book, then you're good.

Fmovies: This may be a remake which is never as good as the original but this one just doesn't hit the point. I remember reading the book and seeing the movie back in the 70s while in high school and it was a discussion of events in my English class this movie didn't do anything to invigorate my mind. I ended up not watching the whole thing.

PS, Just Trivia in 80/90's I was a California Police Officer the Penal Code Section for Arson was 451, who knew that the legislator had a sense of humor.

SPOILER: It is evident from the interview on IndieWire that Ramin Bahrani doesn't understand the book at all and he didn't know how to turn it in to a watchable film. So why did nobody stop him?! Such a shame and missed opportunity. "A third of the novel continues after Montag kills Beatty and I didn't know how I could make that work as a dramatic film because for one-third there's suddenly no tension," Bahrani said.

Fahrenheit 451 fmovies. I cannot believe that the Bradbury estate would have given its blessing to such a poor interpretation of the book. The original movie wasn't perfect but it was far truer to the book than this. For a long time, I have noticed that screen writers are too lazy to read the books they base movies on or are too stupid to understand them.

Great book. The 1966 film version was good for it's time. This version was weak, boring and failed to explain the background to events. Ray Bradbury would have held his head in his hands and cried at this insult to his work.

I found Francois Truffaut's film version of Fahrenheit 451 hard going, not helped by a distant performance from star Oskar Werner.

Ramin Bahrani reimagines the Ray Bradbury novel. He sets it in an era of fake news, fake history, disinformation. Propaganda at its best. Burn books and you can reinvent an alternative timeline.

Set in a future Dystopia, Guy Montag (Michael P Jordan) and his mentor Captain Beatty (Michael Shannon) are firemen after a second civil war America who burn books, a tradition that goes far back as Benjamin Franklin! It is easier to control people if they could not find information and think for themselves. It was easy to keep people happy if they do not get offended from what they read.

Montag carries out his work diligently and is in line for promotion but gets taken in by the Eels, a counter group who preserve the information contained in books. They learn books by heart, the upload it on the net, they rebel against the government.

Shannon can play the villain in his sleep. Jordan has the harder part but he is rather vacuous, maybe he is meant to be that way, a person who has never learned to think or question for himself.

There are some good ideas in this film but they never hang together or are fully realised. With two failed adaptations, I think Bradbury's novel might come across better on the page than on the screen.