{"id":848,"date":"2008-10-23T06:40:58","date_gmt":"2008-10-23T14:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=848"},"modified":"2009-09-21T18:21:27","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T02:21:27","slug":"worse-than-id-imagined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=848","title":{"rendered":"Worse than I'd Imagined"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oog.<\/p> <p>For many years, I've been curious about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0021016\/\"><cite>Just Imagine<\/cite><\/a>, a 1930 science-fiction film ostensibly depicting the world of 1980, when airplanes have replaced cars, pills have replaced food and drink, and designators such as <q>LN-18<\/q> have replaced names as we know them.<\/p> <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/imagine.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"337\" style=\"display: block ; margin-left: auto ; margin-right: auto ;\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p> <p>I finally got a copy a few days ago, and this morning I finished watching it.  It's a remarkably <em>bad<\/em> film &mdash; bad science, bad plot, bad acting (even <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0001577\/\">Maureen O'Sullivan<\/a> is hard to take), bad jokes, bad songs, bad choreography.  And bad mathematics, as someone who was a little boy in 1930 has become someone in his seventies or older.<\/p> <p>The state has intruded into people's lives in various ways, but these ways are more inane than ominous, without having much satiric value.  For example, the elimination of old-fashioned names isn't accompanied by any discernible attempt to rob people of individual identity.  LN-18 is called <q>LN<\/q> (pronounced \/&#603;l&#712;&#603;n\/), which might as well be <q>Ell&eacute;n<\/q>, and J-21 is called <q>J<\/q> (\/dje&#720;\/), which might as well be <q>Jay<\/q>.  The romantic conflict exists because the state must decide which of two men shall marry LN-18, but only because she approved an application from each.  And, rather than making a better case that she should have been able to withdraw such permission, the movie concludes with the state ultimately choosing the man for her whom she loves.<\/p> <p>(For an evaluation very different from mine, see <a href=\"http:\/\/movies.nytimes.com\/movie\/review?res=9D02EED61E38E433A25751C2A9679D946194D6CF\">the review from <cite>the New York Times<\/cite>, 22 November 1930<\/a>.)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oog. For many years, I've been curious about Just Imagine, a 1930 science-fiction film ostensibly depicting the world of 1980, when airplanes have replaced cars, pills have replaced food and drink, and designators such as LN-18 have replaced names as we know them. I finally got a copy a few days ago, and this morning [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[164,6],"tags":[170,54,424,56,423,422],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-commentary","tag-cinema","tag-film","tag-futurism","tag-movies","tag-science-fantasy","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}