ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

___________________


Writer-director George Lucas wanted to make a chilling cinematic statement about mankind's future.

He succeeded. He made a movie as hard as a fist, then he hit us squarely between the eyes with it.

Robert Duvall, Don Pedro Colley, Donald Pleasence, Maggie McOmie, and Ian Wolfe star in this unpleasant glimpse of a future in which love is forbidden, drugs are compulsory, privacy is impossible, and conformity is everything. Living quarters are stark white cell-like rooms, the people wear simple pajama-like garments, and their heads are shaved (both male and female). Monitor cameras are everywhere.

Few if any reviewers ever mention the cryptic shots of lizards living among the inner workings of the hi-tech machines. No, I don't know what they mean either.

The story concerns Duvall's understandable rebellion against this nightmare world. Lucas produced the first version of THX 1138 as a film project at the University of Southern California, for which he won a prize. Lucas apparently feels a certain gratitude towards THX 1138 as the first stepping stone in his phenomenal and well-deserved success.

Like Alfred Hitchcock's legendary walk-on appearances, Lucas has sprinkled subtle references to THX1138 throughout some of his later films. One of the license plates on a car in American Graffiti features a slightly altered version of the number, and in Star Wars a disguised Luke Skywalker tells an Imperial officer that Chewbacca is a "prisoner transfer from cellblock 1138".
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Rick]

It is a good, brutal movie. Not exactly a feel-good experience, but it doesn't aim to be.

I saw this in Denver in 1977. It had gotten a re-release in the wake of STAR WARS because, well, George Lucas. Uh-huh.

Folks who went to the movie hoping to see a proto-STAR WARS must have been gobsmacked. And maybe not too happy.

Thankfully, I knew what I was getting into, so no Skywalker Syndrome for me. I haven't seen the movie since then. I'm just not that taken with downbeat movies and THX 1138 is nothing if not downbeat.
_________________
Man need not kneel before the angels,
Nor lie in death forever,
But for the weakness of his feeble will.

[Robert (Butch) Day]

Also it's interesting to compare THX-1138 (1971) with Electronic Labyrinth: THX-1138 4EB (1967), his student films. There both have similarities and significant differences.

It can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Electronic+Labyrinth%3A+THX-1138+4EB
_________________
Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Well, let's see now. What can I add to this thread?

Oh, I've got it! I'll post the trailer! I haven't done that since breakfast.

________________________________


____________ THX 1138 (1971) - Original Trailer


__________________
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bogmeister]

____________
_____________



This was the first pro film directed by George Lucas, a far cry from his later Star Wars films. It's an expanded version of a student film he did in the late sixties. THX-1138 (the 'name' of the main character) is like 1984-squared and ultra Big Brother: future humanity in this lives in an underground city and has lost almost all of its humanity — everyone is shaved, bald and dressed in white. All the citizens are emotionless and also behave like they're somnambulant, probably due to the mandatory drugs that everyone takes.



In the plot, spare as it is, Robert Duvall plays a typical citizen, one of the worker drones in some kind of lab, but in automated fashion, like everything else, in an assembly-line.

His wife or partner (Maggie McOmie) surreptitiously changes his drug intake, allowing him to experience some emotion for the first time. This results in her pregnancy and, of course, trouble for the couple from the state. The enforcers in this society are these faceless robots, resembling the police of our time.

Duvall is soon imprisoned — mostly in some kind of white, featureless room — and he eventually finds out that his wife and child have been disposed of. He goes on the run, briefly partnered with another troublesome citizen (Donald Pleasence) and a self-described hologram man (Don Pedro Colley), one of the figures used in video entertainment in this society.




ABOVE: Scenes from the later Director's Cut from Lucas, where-in he inserted new scenes and visuals digitally.

Though Duvall plays the main character, he hardly has any dialog. In fact, there's very little dialog overall. Most of the vocals are background noise, technicians and other operatives behind-the-scenes, voices coming in over the intercoms.

Pleasence, though in a smaller role, has more of the dialog, usually entreating Duvall's character with his needs and opinions.

Colley also talks more than the usual citizens, and it's unclear as to what he is — an employee of what passes for the entertainment business in this society, or an actual artificial life form of some sort, abruptly and unreasonably given the semblance of real life for some reason.

These three make their way among the environs of this cold, sterile civilizatio. For the most part it all resembles underground parking garages and colorless corridors and hallways. We don't know where they're going, though Duvall finally reveals his destination at the very end.

____________________



John Muir wrote:

Visually, THX-1138 is undeniably stunning. Late in the film, Lucas imagines a prison with no walls. It is just an endless vision of white . . . nothing.

This is a canny image that again undercuts convention and buttresses the movie's theme. If a person is trapped in a jail cell with walls and bars, he knows that there is an outside; an escape. If a person is trapped in a jail cell that seems infinite — with no end and no beginning — there is no hope of escape; no possibility of a way out.

In microcosm, the prison thus symbolizes the State: it is so all-encompassing in the lives of its citizenry that nothing else is visible. There is no hope on the horizon. There is nothing else. Even if the narrative resembles, in some way, Orwell's 1984, Lucas's visualization of this dystopia grants the material a unique aura. This really is a one-of-a-kind sort of science fiction movie, and one that continues to have resonance today.

Muir, John Kenneth (2013-10-25). Science Fiction and Fantasy Films of the 1970s (p. 99). The Lulu Show LLC. Kindle Edition.



THX Trivia: As with his Star Wars films, Lucas presented an updated version of this film with new FX for video release.

John Muir wrote:

So the once austere, low-budget, and wholly impressive THX-1138 now bizarrely features computer-generated critters , CGI landscapes, and other digital flourishes that not only seem unnecessary; but actually detract from the movie's abundant raw power and sense of unfettered ingenuity.

A film that Lucas once aptly described as a critique of "unbridled consumer culture" is now merely a product itself, seeking a slice of the market with the very latest in digital wizardry.

Oddly, Lucas's continued insistence on attempting to paint away the decades in his films — the cinematic equivalent of the Peter Pan Syndrome — makes ignoring his changes virtually impossible . The result is that THX-1138 is a great science fiction film that has been compromised by its own creator, at least in its latest incarnation.

But here is the real problem: These special effects "upgrades" make THX-1138 neither fish nor fowl. Those viewers who would find THX-1138 a fascinating enterprise are likely not in it for the monsters or creatures; not in it for the chases or special effects. And those looking explicitly for such superficial qualities won't have the patience for the rest of the film anyway, which is a thoughtful meditation on freedom and love, not a fantasy cartoon set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

There was simply no need to update THX-1138 in this fashion, and indeed, to do so violates the text of the film in some crucial way . The new cut is re-packaged in a way that the film's Big Brother would heartily approve of; making the sublime obvious and unnecessarily removing the austerity of the piece. Our imagination once did the heavy lifting in THX-1138, augmented by a director's powerful artistic choices; now it's just ILM flexing its imaginative chops with a big budget.

Muir, John Kenneth (2013-10-25). Science Fiction and Fantasy Films of the 1970s (p. 97). The Lulu Show LLC. Kindle Edition.



BoG's Score: 7 out of 10


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

It amazes me that the brilliant man who made American Graffiti and Star Wars could make this grime, depressing, and unexciting story.

I've never been able to get through it.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)