Tinkering with the Past
Lucas Revisits a Pre-Star Wars Cult Classic
Every Star Wars geek knows the story, as if it is a modern-day legend. In 1970, a film student at USC envisioned a world of repression and oppression, where humanity had finally been reduced to a number. As a student, George Lucas developed this project into a short film, THX 1138:4EB. After graduation, it became the inspiration for his first full-length feature film – with the abbreviated title THX 1138. Now, over thirty years later, Lucas has released his director's cut of this cult classic. As with the special editions of the Star Wars trilogy, however, fans are likely to debate the merits of the so-called improvements to the film.
Written by: George Lucas
Starring: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley, and Maggie McOmie
Rated
(for
some sexuality/nudity)Running time: 88 min.
FilmGuru's Rating : 6 out of 10.
When I first saw THX 1138 over twenty years ago, it was on television at a time when anything remotely related to Star Wars was being hyped to draw in that "built in" audience. The fact that THX 1138 was "by the creator of Star Wars" was enough to get me (and presumably others) to watch it. What I saw, however, was unlike anything Lucas created in his Star Wars universe. This was sterile, unpleasant, and dark. This was the Empire in control, not a story of heroes. Though THX personally rebelled against this dystopian society, there was no sense of victory.
Robert Duval, looking much younger than he does now, plays the titular character. With his roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie), THX lives an uninteresting life. That's the point, though. The future is not supposed to be interesting and "they" (whoever "they" are) make sure it stays that way by keeping people like THX and LUH medicated. When THX works on the robot assembly line, he appears as little more than an automaton, going through pre-programmed motions. The drugs help, apparently, because later when he avoids his medication he begins to make mistakes.
The taboo of the future is to show emotion, and what could be more taboo than love? Though every effort has been made to reduce individuals to sexless copies of each other, THX and LUH have a raw emotional relationship that doesn't fit in their sterile world. The situation is observed by SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence), who wants THX to be his roommate for awhile. He thinks he and THX have plenty in common, but his need seems desperate and almost dirty. Pleasence plays SEN with an intensity usually reserved for geniuses or the insane.
When the "unnatural" relationship between THX and LUH is uncovered, THX is sent for reeducation while LUH is placed in solitary. THX is allowed to see her, but when they have sex in the singleness of the stark white environment, they are separated again. THX is put into another stark white prison with a number of "deviants" including a hologram who thinks he's human (Don Pedro Colley), a shell dweller, and SEN 5241 (who apparently has finally been diagnosed as insane).
Unable to abide his imprisonment, THX decides to escape his environment. With the help of the hologram, SRT, he begins a voyage into the whiteness that separates the prisoners from the prison.
The beauty of THX 1138 is not in the story, although it is as good (if not better) than many science fiction films of the 1970s. As stories of future dystopias go, THX 1138 ranks up there with Silent Running and Logan's Run. The true virtue of THX 1138, however, is its ability to visually create a world void of beauty, that seems as cold and emotionless as those who inhabit it. There is no art, no self expression. There is only work and medication. Through its bleakness make the future seems like something to be feared.
For this reason, the director's cut of the film appears to be a bit of a cop out. Lucas has used digital technology to make THX 1138 a bolder future, filled with tall windows, glass elevators, large hallways crowded with people, and eventually a better car chase. The fact that he wanted to do these things belies the intent of the bleakness in his original film. What was always perceived as a sterile, inhospitable world must be viewed in hindsight as merely the result of low-budget set design. If Lucas wanted to make his future more visually interesting, he must not see it as bleak as he once did.
The chilling iconography of the robot police still exists, however. These mechanized uniformed robots still make a statement about the counter-culture's view of authority figures in the 1970s. When the robots come with sticks to separate THX from LUH, one can imagine the police invading a love-in from the days of Woodstock. The prisons are vast reaches of nothingness where the inmates are separated from everything by an unending field of white. This makes them nearly inescapable, because one cannot escape that which has no walls.
Whether or not the changes made in THX 1138 were necessary is for the fans to consider. For my money, the effects made the story more visually interesting, even if they changed the tone of the film at times. Though my first encounter with it almost twenty years ago was a disappointment, I enjoyed revisiting the film as an adult and contemplating the complexity of what that young filmmaker was trying to accomplish.
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