On
this day, 44 years ago, Steven Spielberg presented us his vision of
the future of our society, in a dystopian episode of the TV series
The Name of the Game. The episode was titled: L.A. 2017
(so we still have 2 years to find out how much of his predictions
have become reality).
The
series, that ran for three seasons, and had episodes of 90 minutes
each, focused on three, rotating, lead actors: Gene Barry, Tony
Franciosa and Robert Stack.
In
L.A.2017 Gene Barry portrays Glenn Howard, who, while returning from
a conference on Ecology, on his way back to Los Angeles, has an
accident and loses consciousness. The moment he awakens, he finds
himself projected to the future, and is escorted through the Los
Angeles Portal in the year 2017. Because of the pollution most of the
inhabitants live below the surface to prevent them from being
contaminated. When Glenn is shown around in the Los Angeles of the
future, he discovers that he doesn't like it very much. Air has
become unbreathable, computers have become more important than
people, America is at war with England and many of the inhabitants of
Los Angeles are assigned to public housing or, even worse, are
exploited as workers on the poisonous earth surface. After having
witnessed all this Glenn tries to make a run for it. He escapes the
city and tries to make it back to his car, and hopefully, back to his
time...
After
having directed two episodes in the Rod Serling Night Gallery anthology series and one episode of the Marcus Welby drama series,
L.A. 2017 was Spielberg's first professional attempt at science
fiction, with a considerable budget of $375.000.
Of
course the series looks dated, 44 years have passed since it
premiered, but one of the messages still stands: When Glenn talks to
the Vice President and tells him how much he dislikes what he has
seen, the Vice President replies: “Why didn't you do something
about the environment, when you had the money, the power and the
fame, back in '71 ?”
One
year after the show had been aired, L.A. 2017 was released as a
feature film (to cash in on the success of Spielberg's Duel) in very
limited run.
Today
L.A. 2017 may celebrate it's 44th birthday, but whether
it's a happy one, remains to be seen...
Ronny.
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