Sci-Fi Classic Review: THX 1138 (1971)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- THX 1138 is a seminal work in the blossoming American New Wave of the late sixties and early seventies, and despite being a box office failure, it helped launch the career of one of science-fiction cinema's greatest directors.
If you're looking for a "review" in the traditional sense, then let me just say I like this movie. This video, however, is a "review" in the literal sense (using the Miriam-Webster definition "a retrospective view or survey"), in that I'm going over the history of the film and its place in sci-fi cinema history.
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One of my favorite movies. I loved how they stopped chasing THX when he went over budget.
A brilliant and underappreciated film masterpiece.
Yes, the ORIGINAL film was. The STUPID SPECIAL edition is a mess again vandalized by Lucas who is now out of his mind, and keeps screwing up earlier work, and not releasing the original work.
He changed the story in multiple places. F him.
I really liked the special edition
@@GrandPrixDecals Did you ever see the original?
That changes Lucas made to this "special" edition, changed the story in a few ways.
The original version I don't believe ever got onto DVD. I've looked.
Blessings of the state, blessings of the masses. You are a true believer,
created in the image of man, by the masses, for the masses.
"I need something stronger." Take four red capsules. In ten minutes, take two more. Help is on the way.
Could you be more... specific?
Can you feel this? What is that buzzing? Are you now or have you ever been? Move slowly.
-----
Great movie until the car chase starts, then it's just a damm car chase.
I prefer the Warner cut (as on LaserDisc) over the director's cut, and I don't like the CGI Lucas added for the DVD.
I try to get people to watch it, but I don't think many are willing to take it on.
It does demand some thought on the part of the viewer.
I love this film. I have a cat named THX-1138. To this day, the vet clinic is mystified by her name.
That's awesome! I highly approve.
I saw the movie in 1971 and liked it. The masses are very simple people and easily controlled. e.g. Donald Trump
Gotta love that Space Age Sci-Fi, even when it's not Space Sci-Fi.
But about _THX 1138_ [1971]: It seems to have only increased in relevancy since its release, more relevant now than it was when it was released. Well, except the _Buy more, and be happy_ part, hmm...
For all of George Lucas' rather interesting qualities as a film maker, you can't call him behind the curve. While THX 1138 certainly has it's faults, it is a heady and well thought out hard sci-fi film. Not too unlike 2001 and Logan's Run. The 60's and 70's were certainly a time and place for that kind of film making!
it's a masterpiece. best thing he ever did, hands down. filmdom will always hurt for the loss of the george lucas who made this film. having said that, you must be out of your mind to put logan's run alongside it or 2001.
@@plasticweapon Use of Logan's Run is constrained to the use of "heady and well thought out hard sci-fi". Not to be confused with it being AS GOOD as something like THX 1138 or 2001 😃
It’s better that 2001 and it’s a LOT better than Logan’s Run.
Love that era of sci-fi! Planet of the apes! 1968! Westworld 1973!
What a great video. Thank you very much for putting it together.
I have the laserdisc release of this one; it's closer to the original vision than the CGI mess that Lucas messed with later. The LD is rare and hard to find and commands high prices.
you have a gem. Is yours the Japanese Version?
Just watched for the first time, to many parallels for today's issues. This movie gave me anxiety, LoL. Incredible film
I’ve always found this movie intriguing and rather underrated… And all quite interesting. All the places and filming locations that you mention like BART , etc. I’ve been to all these places at one time in or.another…I was born in San Francisco
San Francisco has rich history! The Dead.. Jefferson Airplane.. Joe Dimaggio& San Francisco Giants with Mays& McCovey!
"YOU HAVE JUST EXCEEDED YOUR PRIMARY BUDGET ! ! !" THIS IS PROBABLY WHAT THE STUDIO BOSSES TOLD GEORGE LUCAS WHEN THE FILM WENT OVERBUDGET ! ! ! ? ? ?🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
The amazing thing is nothing about the movie seems dated over 50 years later. In some ways it's more frightening than ever...
IN ALL FAIRNESS TO GEORGE LUCAS THOUGH, THX1138 IS NOT A BAD ATTEMPT FOR YOUR FIRST MOVIE AND YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE ! ! ! ? ? ?🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
I loved the origional cut of THX, but then lucus came back and CGI it and I felt that made it worse. You should have discussed that.
It's easy to see the thread drawn from THX to Logan's Run and Rollerball and Soylent Green.
“A world where society itself is the main oppressor.” Social media + authoritarianism = THX 1138, perhaps?
A good representation of a repressive amoral society lacking goals and visions, and providng nothing of value.
Visually it is very impressive for such a budget. Being able to cast both Duvall and Pleasence is also really noteworthy. While the young writers and directors made a vital contribution to Hollywood in the 1970's, it wasn't too long before they lost the run of themselves with films like 'New York, New York', 'One From The Heart', '1941', 'Heaven's Gate', etc. American film has to be financially viable first, no matter how fine the artistic intentions were. It's always a balancing act between talent and practical common sense.
When "THX-1138" came out, Robert Duvall wasn't the legend he would later become. Only three years earlier he played a bit-part as a cab driver in "Bullitt" who didn't even get a name in the credits and was billed as "Cab Driver."
PURE SCI FI! Uncompromising and magnificent! Sooooo happy Lucas put the extra effort to spice it up just enough. LOVE this film.
Being such a huge fan of brave new world and most other dystopian Sci Fi. This movie was amazing.
I love these reviews. Keep up the good work.
Robert Duvall did a lot of '60s sci-fi TV, too...
Duvall was in an episode of _The Time Tunnel_ (1966) called _Chase Through Time_ . He played a character called Nimon, and traveled 1 million years into the future - and into the past. A pretty wild and exciting episode, and perhaps worthy of its own review on this channel.
@@mxbishop Duvall is 1 of the most versatile actors on the planet!
Great review! Lots of extra insight that's not included on the ultimate release! I think what gets me about this movie most is Lucas's passion to seeing it come to life. As bleak and dreary as it is, the amount of detail, tempo, and direction is just superb! I also find the same with American Graffiti. Though the actors were all great, Lucas captured this pristine slice of Americana better than a Norman Rockwell portrait. Now Star Wars on the other hand, I would say George wanted to have fun with. And nothing wrong with that. But I could see his passion waning in it. And learning of his medical issues and lack of enthusiasm for being a career director, it's too bad really. But for chilling insight and a well manifested nightmare of out potential future - NOTHING beats THX-1138! And when anyone feels America has always been dirty and nuts with drugs, guns, and corruption coast to coast - pop in American Graffiti to realize there actually was some innocence and decency back in the day. (Plus some GREAT music too!) The two movies, as contrasting as they are - the work of one PASSIONATE artist!
Please George, release a Blu-Ray of the theatrical cut. Here's my $25.
The plot reminded me of 1984
The dystopian future is coming too quickly. And Androids are in our hands right now.
Compare the futuristic aesthetics of THX 1138 (1971) with that of Soylent Green (1973) and you can see which movie looks as if it's really set in some distant futurescape to one that's obviously made in 1973 on a studio backlot.
The original cut, if you can find it, coveys a far more depressing, claustrophobic and hopeless vision of the film. The director's cut somehow loses all of that and as such is the lesser version. Just let me buy a copy of the original cut dammit, George!
For me, the most egregious offense was the addition of the totally random, unnecessary 'CGI monkeys' at the end of the film. Typical Lucas debasement. Sigh.
One of many sci-fi classics from late 60s into 70s! Hard to comprehend as a child when THX 1138 was released in early 1970s!
I think the updated effects ruin the film experience.
I tend to agree, especially when it gets to the CG animals that attack him near the end. Most of the CGI is glaringly obvious and distracting.
@@TheUnapologeticGeek Agreed. I got to see this once or twice without the additions, and it’s a much better experience. WHY does Lucas do this to his films?!? It’s like I’m bracing myself for some odd background or a new character to show up in “American Graffiti”(1972).
I found it to be a creative and well made but ultimately unengaging film. I respect it more than I actually like it. Great review!
Thank you for this excellent and exhaustive retrospective.
Yes! Another great review of a brilliant movie. I LOVE THX1138. :) Thanks. x
George Lucas would drop a reference to this early movie of his when he would go on to create Star Wars a few years later - Han Solo read out the Princess Leia's cell number on the Death Star as... 1138! (or, having read your notes at the end of this video, perhaps it was a reference to Lucas college phone number!!)
MASTERPIECE
The USC film student who made this also created Jar Jar Binks and the Ewoks... amazing...
what's wrong with jar jar binks?
This commercial failure of this film likely stems from the fact that it doesn't have an audience.
People that aren't sf fans will probably be unimpressed by its conceptual underpinnings and bored
by the monochromatism both visually and narratively.
People that are sf fans may appreciate it visually but find it unoriginal, even derivative, from a story standpoint.
Having read this plot concept so many times ("We' by Zamyatin, "Anthem" by Rand, "Brave New World" by Huxley, etc.)
before seeing this film, it's challenging not to view it in the shadow of those other superior works.
But then Lucas was always better at the technical aspects of movie making than actual storytelling.
I've seen far worse debut efforts, to be sure. But the dread of watching this a second time seems insurmountable.
I saw this movie on TV when I was 12 and I was very traumatized by it. I wanted to stop watching it, but I had to keep watching it. Lol
"The oppression of security."
Wow. That really hit me.
Everybody these days wants safety and security, not realizing it can be used by unscrupulous people as a trap.
a guilded cage, a suffocating glass house
Yep…*will be used. **is being used.
@@goodbonezz1289
Watch happens in May 2024.
#WHO
@MorlokKurak777
Having come and gone, I ask:
For what were we watching out?
This film is a warning just like 1984 is and although so many take it as fantasy , I assure you it is happening as we speak little by little until everyone becomes like the frog that is in the hot water as the temperature slowly rises without us knowing.
4th review I tried to watch about this film and I swear, each one tried to give me a history lesson about movie studios, the era it was filmed and George Lucas.
I just want to know if the film is good or not.
Yes, it's good.
Happy?
@@experi-mentalproductions5358 Yep.
Thnx.
Just watched this & was disappointed in it 6/10
I feel like it can get better after a rewatch so we’ll see when that time comes 🙏
A friend of mine got a VHS copy of THX-1138 when we were in high school. I fell in love with it. Really disappointed the original version isn't really available these days. The director's cut adds too many unnecessary cgi scenes. The car scene is totally out of place. I still enjoy much of the film though.
It’s a movie worth watching. It had a good ending. I wouldn’t put it on my list of great movies.
Lucas doesn't do science-fiction. He does space-fantasy. I still liked it (except for Episode I) ;-P
The 70s was just awesome for sf film. THX, soylent green, omega man, logans run, the apes movies, colossus, boy and his dog, silent running, star wars. I could just go on and on.❤❤❤
This film lacks because the issues weren't fully explored. Roddenberry's Trek had more dialogue and the issues were tackled. Lucas should have interacted with sci-fi writers like Bradbury or Asimov, to get ideas. It would've been a great film if it was made today. But, this film inspired my project, "XHT..." markusmclaughlin.net has details
I liked the original release more; in my opinion the only improvement made by the director's cut is the roadways feel more like part of a living city, and not an excuse for a car chase.
Still, it's quite a good film, worth watching, even though most of the changes made in the director's cut are pointless; driving things home and leaving the (rare) visual glitches intact.
Johnny Weismuller's son played one of the robots.
Those chrome robots scared the 💩 outta me when I first saw this film as a 👶 child!
Great analysis. Thank you. :)
A very prophetic movie
Way back when, I saw it in a theater. I was a young n then & it was a bit much to understand however when I finally got onboard, I was amazed. The flick was & still is phenomenal too bad. Most of the fuck'en free world does not know the deal
Awesome movie 🎬 😮 we all loved that car 🚗 lola
Mr Lucas mentor: the Italian giant of movie making Francis Ford Coppola!
The disappointment is that the only way you can see the original movie is from a LaserDisc rip. Lucus refuses to release the original film, and he forgot a lot of themes of the original film, and stuffed it with a bunch of CGI nonsense. The shell dwellers for example are monkeys, when in the original film, they were dwarfs. Why would they be using monkeys? In the film, the job of THX-1138 was to build machines to be police officers, that's why he did. Why would they be using animal slave labor in this future? All of humanity was enslaved and their only job of anybody was to keep order, maintain the complex, and create food. Everybody is forcibly drugged to keep this order. Intimacy is outlawed. Why would apes be part of this world? I really despise what Lucas BECAME, I appreciate what he once was.
Yeah, Lucas kind of lost control of his ego at some point and became dangerous to his own work in a really bizarre way.
@@TheUnapologeticGeek It's unfortunate that he doesn't recognize the value of the work of others. This man once argued against the colorization of films, arguing that the choice for black and white film was done very intentionally - and he was RIGHT.
But he refuses to allow the release of original theatrical cuts. I don't mind that he ADDS to it, that's fine, but allow the originals to be seen.
He's not the sole creator, he doesn't even understand his original films. He changes the narrative constantly, how is this an improvement?
By all means, feel free to modify the films, but allow us to see the originals. I will watch the "special editions" he makes, but let me see what I originally saw.
PIRACY is the only reason the original films still exists. He's such a combative person.
And BTW, a colorized film can be seen in the original black and white, this is trivial, you just remove the saturation. It doesn't fundamentally change the film, because you can trivially remove color saturation.
I gave up on him. He won't allow originals to be seen, and it's not just HIM making the films, it's many people. He has no respect for the contribution of others to his success. Very selfish. The original Star Wars, was SAVED by his ex-wife. She re-edited it. He had MINOR contributions to the the next two films of that series, and you can see what a mess he made with those prequels. Dizzey is even worse, written by committee by DEI morons.
THX 1138 was George Lucas' California license plate number.
Hmmm, was it Lucas’ or was it the plate number on John Milner’s deuce coupe?
No mention of the awesome DP work?
Are you now or have you ever been?
My Father did sound and had a cameo in the original short film.
Cool!
Thank you
You're welcome!
I'm just some nobody but I watch a lot of movie related content on youtube. You are on the right path. Keep at it and they will come.
Thank you, good sir!
@@TheUnapologeticGeek You are most welcome!
The entity that the society worships, known as "Ohm," symbolically represents religion in general - a hybrid of Eastern and Western styles of "right-hand-path" religion - functioning as an "opiate of the masses." In the commentary, George Lucas and Walter Murch talk about how the society represents everything that was "bad" at the time, combining the dual extremes of state socialism and crony capitalism.
12:07 Nixon really was a dissenter, as ironic as that might seem (especially from a George Lucas perspective). The real reason he was impeached was because he was trying to expose the deep state after finding out that the CIA was responsible for the JFK assassination. And let's not forget that it was Nixon who ended US involvement in Vietnam. Gotta wonder if George would be so sympathetic toward the Viet Cong if he realized just how brutal they really were. They had a habit of targeting non-combatants, including women, children, the elderly, and the infirm. Meanwhile, the guerrilla partisans backed by the West, namely the Hmong and the Montagnards (insert "Montag" reference that only hardcore dystopian genre fans will get), didn't engage in that sort of thing. They stuck with fighting enemy combatants. How dare the Hmong not want to be exterminated by North Vietnam's genocide campaign, right Georgie?! The only reason anyone ever becomes a leftist is because they don't research real history.
12:48 Blade Runner, like Star Wars, also draws influence from Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' (which explores themes similar to 'THX-1138').
13:23 It's one of the best dystopian films of all time! All of its critics were too dumb to get it and most of them embodied the society represented in the story even though they were cogs in the Hollywood machine, a generally left-leaning apparatus. And they lacked the self-awareness to get the irony in that.
Un reportage TH-cam sur le film THX en français est quasiment impossible à trouver peut-être méconnu ?..je ne sais pas..en tout cas THX est un film incroyablement visionnaire !!!selon moi je le ressens comme un scénario très probable sur le futur de l’humanité quand on sait qu’il a été réalisé en 1970!!!
I had not seen this but now that I did....it reminded me of the Island (2005). I liked it.
10:43 Nothing has changed ...Capitalism...Well we have better cameras.....
yeh, with communist life was better X_D
@@viarnay more human
@@narancauk Communist more human? read more dude :- \
@@viarnay YOU read more.Dude .And not only western propaganda
Yugoslavian socialism was the best. that is why dogs destroyed it to persuade you that this shi...we iive in is the best and only solution
1897’s gugusse et l’automate by Georges méliès
9:26 now what does THIS remind you of?
1895’s la charcuterie mécanique by lumière brothers
After 50 years of avoiding it, I finally broke down and watched it. I saw the director's cut, so I assume I saw the best version of this steaming pile of robotic excrement. I'll never get those two hours back.
This cases find the 80 min cut, more direct with less filler and no cgi
Underrated gem as hell
11:03 Uniforms ? Which army ? navy? marines? home security, Richard Gere........Employment to maximum exploit everyone who is employed..............Individualism ????? To beg on the street if unemployed with different cap
THX1138 did not inspire me unfortunately. Saw it once and never watched it again.
Great 👍
George Lucas's best film everything else was made for children.
Much much better than all his later works.......
I didn’t like THX 1138. The bleak dystopian future is neither about fascism nor Stalinism but more influenced by Marcuse and others who said provocatively (and incorrectly) that US capitalism in the 1960s was fascist.
The performances, cinematography and design are excellent and it has many interesting moments. The ending doesn’t work though. Is he free? It felt like a Hollywood ending except he doesn’t rescue the girl.
IMO Terry Gilliam’s Brazil is a better dystopian film. It’s amazing a studio green lit that film, although they almost didn’t release it.