Fahrenheit 451 - Equilibrium (2002) Discussion

[–] LibertarianSoldier 12 years ago

Everything is a knock-off of something else. This has been debated for years and years and years. Both in the real world and here in IMDB. They didn't copy Fahrenheit 451, but improved (IMHO) upon a dystopia society concept for a modern audience.

Think about it, when was the truly ORIGINAL movie to be released? Something that just absolutely didn't resemble ANYTHING else that has ever been made from a movie or book?

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[–] denise1234 12 years ago

LibertarianSoldier^

Agree.

And, when someone says that this film is a 'copy' of F451, they should be prepared to point out the similarities that they think are original only to F451.

Bradbury himself used real-life events as his inspiration for F451 (McCarthyism; censorship; book burnings) and as a springboard for his own cautionary tale.

Are we to then accuse Bradbury of some kind of plagiarism?

Or, are *other* folks who make this comparison referring to Bradbury's original work or to François Truffaut's film adaptation of the book?

It’s hard to know without more detail provided to support this 'criticism'.

"I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book." ~ Bradbury

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[–] the_la_baker 12 years ago

You are correct only unread, uneducated, unintelligent sycophants claim to enjoy this movie.
''Equilibrium,'' a ridiculous sci-fi action melodrama and breath mint. If someone left ''1984,'' ''Fahrenheit 451,'' ''Brave New World,'' ''Gattaca'' and the Sylvester Stallone potboilers ''Judge Dredd'' and ''Demolition Man'' out in the sun and threw the runny glop onto a movie screen, it would still be a better picture than ''Equilibrium,'' a movie that could be stupider only if it were longer.

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[–] denise1234 11 years ago

the_la_baker^

"You are correct only unread, uneducated, unintelligent sycophants claim to enjoy this movie."

Not true ~

"I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book." ~ Bradbury

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[–] supersonic1111 11 years ago

I agree with you. I knew nothing about this movie when I bought it. So when I started watching it F451 came to me right away. That's the reason I came to IMDB to see if anyone else noticed this too. Glad I'm not the only one.

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[–] savagesteve13 10 years ago

Its nothing like Fahrenheit 451. Did you even see that movie?

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[–] ChrEberle 10 years ago

Yeah, right - you must have watched the first five minutes of Equilibrium, where they burn a bunch of art - and then drew the "logical" conclusion that a movie, where something is burned because the evil government is against such things it must be a total rip-off of Fahrenheit 451.

The ONLY similarity to Fahrenheit 451 is indeed the flamethrowers - ha ha!

And seriously: I watched Fahrenheit 451 not too long ago - and was weirdly amused about this artsy-fartsy, Monthy-Pythonesque movie about burning books.

It was seriously like the comedy, parody-version of a dystopian world.

Equilibrium on the other hand manages to create a real dystopian atmosphere. And YES - it borrows a lot of imagery from many classics (BIG BROTHER on a very B I G screen...) - but well, V for Vendetta did the same.

Almost every movie steals, borrows, quotes - it's the most normal thing.

I say: Equilibrium had a really nice script - and it's visually AMAZING! The action-scenes are really well performed and the actors are great. Sean Bean dies as usually - so, everything is fine!

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[–] wrightofcenter 10 years ago

That was my first thought then as I kept watching the movie it started to remind me of an updated quasi version of Utopia...

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