***SPOILERS EVERY SINGLE WHERE***
Probably the best movie that George Lucas would ever hope to make.
Since it was made on a relatively low budget, didn't look or feel like any other American sci-fi movie, and didn't even tried to pull the emotional strings of other studio productions, it was mostly dismissed by the double-u bee executives which, reportedly, where horrified by its lack of audience potential. It was recut (four minutes were excised, later restored), released with little promotion to a few theaters, and allowed to quickly die at the box-office.
A young Robert Duvall plays THX 1138, a proletarian worker in a dull, machine-controlled underground society in the 25th Century, where every human need is scrupulously regimented and love is forbidden. Human nature is unchangeable, though, and his rebellious female roommate, LUH 3417, (Maggie McOmie) willingly switches THX's daily dosage of State-provided soul-numbing narcotics with stimulants, and THX painfully awakens. Soon they start making love. To further complicate matters, SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence), THX's homosexual neighbor, murders his roommate (off camera) and plans to change the computed roommate matching system so he and THX end up living together. They are all caught for their individual crimes and are sent to prison, a vast white expanse where the criminal, the senile, the deformed, and the insane are housed together.
Wanna know more? See the movie. When it came out it was criticized for being slow and humorless. It IS leisurely, but it is certainly NOT boring. And what it lacks in drama, it makes it up with considerable wit and atmosphere and imagination. For instance, just wait for those briefly self-satirical off-the-wall shots (and snatches of dialogue) peppered throughout. They might not have you rolling in the floor laughing (they are throwaways, really), but they may give you pause to think about the talent and strange career of George Lucas.
***ULTRA-SPOILER*** ***IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE, DO NOT READ THIS!!!***
One small correction: some reviewers have made the (very human) mistake of saying that, at the end, there is a (stereotypically hopeful) sunrise. It is not. It is a (scarily bleak and cruelly deliberate) sunset. Thank you, George.
Probably the best movie that George Lucas would ever hope to make.
Since it was made on a relatively low budget, didn't look or feel like any other American sci-fi movie, and didn't even tried to pull the emotional strings of other studio productions, it was mostly dismissed by the double-u bee executives which, reportedly, where horrified by its lack of audience potential. It was recut (four minutes were excised, later restored), released with little promotion to a few theaters, and allowed to quickly die at the box-office.
A young Robert Duvall plays THX 1138, a proletarian worker in a dull, machine-controlled underground society in the 25th Century, where every human need is scrupulously regimented and love is forbidden. Human nature is unchangeable, though, and his rebellious female roommate, LUH 3417, (Maggie McOmie) willingly switches THX's daily dosage of State-provided soul-numbing narcotics with stimulants, and THX painfully awakens. Soon they start making love. To further complicate matters, SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence), THX's homosexual neighbor, murders his roommate (off camera) and plans to change the computed roommate matching system so he and THX end up living together. They are all caught for their individual crimes and are sent to prison, a vast white expanse where the criminal, the senile, the deformed, and the insane are housed together.
Wanna know more? See the movie. When it came out it was criticized for being slow and humorless. It IS leisurely, but it is certainly NOT boring. And what it lacks in drama, it makes it up with considerable wit and atmosphere and imagination. For instance, just wait for those briefly self-satirical off-the-wall shots (and snatches of dialogue) peppered throughout. They might not have you rolling in the floor laughing (they are throwaways, really), but they may give you pause to think about the talent and strange career of George Lucas.
***ULTRA-SPOILER*** ***IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE, DO NOT READ THIS!!!***
One small correction: some reviewers have made the (very human) mistake of saying that, at the end, there is a (stereotypically hopeful) sunrise. It is not. It is a (scarily bleak and cruelly deliberate) sunset. Thank you, George.