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THX 1138 (1971)

George Lucas adapted this, his first film, from a short he made at University. THX 1138, LUH 3417, and SEN 5241 attempt to escape from a futuristic society located beneath the surface of the Earth. The society has outlawed sex, with drugs used to control the people. THX 1138 stops taking the drugs, and gets LUH 3417 pregnant. They are both thrown in jail where they meet SEN 5241 and start to plan their escape. Written by Colin Tinto {cst@imdb.com}

Featured Reviews:

Brittany Burton

Although THX 1138 was directed by one of the greatest filmmakers ever, it was a complete bust. What was George Lucas thinking? His obvious inexperience in movies was projected through this. A horrible, contorted plot and even more bizarre actors made THX 1138 the worst movie I have ever seen, hands down. The robots in the film were never even clearly shown. The people involved were creepy and, worse yet, bald. Lucas tried to invision a world where people had no control, cops were robots, and sexuality was mechanic. The result: a mixed-up world that would give even Hitler nightmares.

Instead of just bashing the movie, I decided to write down its very few good points: imagination and creativity. It must have taken someone with quite the mind, (or quite the stash) to partake in the making of this movie. So props to them!

Dustin Houser

George Lucas made his debut as a filmmaker in an interesting way, with his first film THX-1138 (1971). The entire plot was extremely surrealistic, especially for its time. The film seemed completely irrelevant to anything I could think of, but after a little research I found that the American Independent Movement had a huge impact on the movie; this revolution was at its height at the time the film was produced. Basing my opinion on the new reanimated version (1998), the digital effects are stunning, both visual and sound. It’s somewhat difficult to keep up with the plot and to understand exactly what’s going on, but the film itself is very thought provoking and definitely original for the time period in which it was produced. There is very little action, which makes it quite painful to sit through the entire 1 hour and 26 minutes running time, but I wouldn’t label the watching of this film as a complete waste of time. Robert Duvall does an excellent job playing a difficult role, so if for no other reason…watch it for Bobby’s sake…

Jesse Talbott

I would just like to apologize on behalf of the movie selecting committee, as we had high hopes for George Lucas' first film to be a great success. Well, we were wrong. Sorry. THX 1138 was the longest and most confusing hour and a half of my life, and I could've have spent that wasted time on something more productive like learning to unicycle. The plot seemed to purposely confuse the audience, as if for one second one would seem to have the slightest inclination as to where Mr. Lucas is going, and then all of a sudden a hologram is asking for a freaking biscuit. What I did manage to understand was that society was broken off in two groups, the thinkers and the workers. Thinkers would sit in survielliance rooms and control the worker community by subjecting them to regular sedations and forcing them to work under extreme conditions. Ironically, the workers were made to create the robot police that in turn suppressed thier lives. Not to completely bash the film, THX did have some points where I could see some of Lucas' brilliance shine. He used a lot of symbolism in the movie to contrast between the good and evil, like how he incorporated the black of the robot officers against the clean, white workers. Plus the film did pick up in the end, and I was surprised to actually get into the car chase scene, which contained CG quality surpassing way beyond any movie of its time. I also found it hilarious how much society had changed, from a prohabitic community to a world where rehab was a place to get back onto the horse tranquilizers. Other than these observations I made, I found THX to be a complete waste of my time, and Mr. Lucas was verrrrrrry lucky to have a chance to redeem himself after that one.

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