In George Lucas' THX 1138, robots are still inept. Give a mecha-cop a good, sharp smack and he'll fall over dead. Try to discuss your troubles in a computerized confession booth and you'll find the responses taped and ill-timed (it's the 25th century, and they still haven't figured out voice recognition).
But these machines are evolving. An unnamed leader has created a society that's drugged, monitored and brainwashed in the service of newer, better robots – machines that presumably will make humanity obsolete.
It's smart, heady stuff, and it feels 21st-century contemporary. But THX 1138 is actually something of a relic. Lucas completed the film in 1971 (he was just 27), but Warner Bros., which disliked it, forced him and producer Francis Ford Coppola to cut some scenes, and then dumped it after a quick release.
More than 30 years later, THX 1138 has been rescued. A digitally remastered version, including deleted footage, is now available on DVD and is playing short theatrical runs in select cities.
The story follows a robotics worker named THX 1138 (Robert Duvall, in an early role) whose intense detail work has driven him to depression. He's tried stronger drugs and masturbating (sex aids of the 25th century: gleaming video porn and a mechanical hand). He's even asked the authorities for help. When he and his partner LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) make love – illicitly, but with a room of spies looking on – THX feels the tug of human nature and, in a flash, decides he needs a lifestyle change.
That's when he decides to skip a dose of his medication – that's "criminal drug evasion," in THX-speak – before going to work. Disaster follows, and THX is sent away for reprogramming. There, he confronts an acquaintance, SEN (Donald Pleasence), and escapes toward what he thinks is freedom, outside of the grid.
THX 1138 is no masterwork. There are plenty of clunky moments, and too many elements that don't make sense. In one extended scene, a bunch of outcasts discuss their future, wondering how they can fight the system. The debate unfolds against a pure white backdrop, and the dialogue feels like a sophomore's homage to Samuel Beckett.
But these pretensions are those of an ambitious artist, not of someone with a deficit of imagination or intellect. For its various failures, THX 1138 succeeds in many ways. It's chilling and evocative, with washed-out, gleaming surfaces and Big Brother intrusions (the walls have eyes, and the medicine cabinets talk back to any owners who try to cheat a dose).
Lucas was already an obviously gifted storyteller, and a good motivator. He shot part of the film in San Francisco's BART tunnels, then under construction, and enlisted the help of a legion of extras and some gifted collaborators. (Lucas credits Walter Murch, the sound editor, as a co-screenwriter on the film, and Murch's explosions and static little digital clicks are as vivid in this dialogue-thin film as any single element.)
Though its dystopian plot is not especially innovative, THX 1138 at times feels like a visionary film, foreseeing a world in which double talk flows freely from the lips of those in charge, and emotional ebbs and flows are considered unnatural enough to require medication. (Workers with prescription problems are urged to visit the Department of Biological Flow.)
THX 1138 was probably made ahead of its time, but was certainly too advanced for Warner Bros.' executives, who were dismayed when seeing the first cut of the film. THX's abstractions and cold emotional content led them to cancel a seven-film deal they had made with Coppola and his American Zoetrope production company.
Lucas obviously learned some lessons from the response to THX 1138; the film is determinedly downbeat, whereas his subsequent movies (American Graffiti, the first Star Wars trilogy) are constructed as entertainment, with any political and poetic content added as bonus material.
The new THX 1138 DVD also includes an audio commentary and THX 1138:4EB, Lucas' award-winning short film that preceded the feature.
