THX 1138
THX 1138
Directed by:
George LucasComposer:
Lalo SchifrinCast:
Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie, Ian Wolfe, Marshall Efron, Sid Haig, Mello Alexandria, Terence McGovern, David Ogden Stiers (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
THX 1138 (Robert Duvall) and his mate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) are factory workers, building the robotic police that keep order in their stark world. The soundtrack to their lives is a news service that continually lists information about factory accidents, as well as sex and drug crimes. There are electronic confessionals where workers admit to mistakes they've made, outlets THX uses to express his unhappiness with his life. When LUH decides she and THX should stop taking their medication, their sense of humanity--and their desire and love for each other as a couple--is unleashed. It's not long, however, before they are imprisoned for this crime, and LUH learns that she is pregnant. Separated from LUH, THX embarks on a journey to find her, with the help of rebel SEN (Donald Pleasence) and hologram SRT (Don Pedro Colley), eventually attempting escape to the outside world. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (4)
THX 1138 is a very distinctive and visually captivating depiction of an unhappy future in which microchips take command over human feelings, needs and desires. At first, the ubiquitous beeping, robotic voices and displays might get on your nerves, but once you get in tune with the story, a thrilling experience with a powerful conclusion awaits you, though it’s perhaps not as shocking today as it was at the time of its release.
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Dystopian science fiction according to young George Lucas. To tell the truth, I didn’t like it, I’d rather watch Star Wars for an entire week than THX 1138 again.
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Fans of George Lucas are basically divided into two groups: a minority that shrugs their shoulders at how the director was able to create provocative and visionary art sci-fi like THX 1138 and then slide into producing pop culture crap like Star Wars, and a majority that admires the amazing, fun, colorful Star Wars and then realizes that Lucas had previously made some strange pseudo sci-fi without direction or substance, with peculiar hero dialogues and sparse sets, which bears no resemblance to his later great blockbusters. I belong to the first group myself. THX captivated me with its atmosphere of a dehumanized, robotized world that fears emotions and feelings, where the individual is reduced to a sum of money they are valued at. It's a creative matter that accurately reflected the contemporary anxieties among the American intellectual elite at universities. Overall impression: 90%.
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I don't think it's a conceptually bad movie. The message is there. Likewise, I don't think the setting was poorly executed, the tricks are really good, but the overall way it is presented, how it is filmed, just didn't click with me at all. It's almost as if Lucas didn't want anyone to watch it. From someone who directed "Star Wars," it's simply unexpected for me.
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