The film received mixed reviews from critics and underperformed at the box office upon its initial release,[3] but it has subsequently received critical acclaim and gained a cult following, particularly in the aftermath of Lucas's success with Star Wars (1977). A director's cut prepared by Lucas was released in 2004.
Plot
The film's title card
In the dystopian future, sexual intercourse and reproduction are prohibited, and mind-altering drugs are mandatory to enforce compliance among the citizens and to ensure their ability to conduct dangerous and demanding tasks. Emotions and the concept of family are taboo. Workers wear identical white uniforms and have shaven heads to emphasize uniformity, likewise with police androids who wear black and monks who are robed. Instead of names, people have designations with three arbitrary letters (referred to as the "prefix") and four digits, shown on an identity badge worn at all times.
At their jobs in central video control centers, SEN 5241 and LUH 3417 keep surveillance on the city. LUH has a male roommate named THX 1138, who works in a factory producing android police officers. At the beginning of the story, THX finishes his shift while the loudspeakers urge the workers to "increase safety"—and congratulate them for only losing 195 workers in the last period—to the competing factory's 242.
On the way home, he stops at a confession booth in a row of many, and relates his concerns and mumbles prayers about "party" and "masses", under the Jesus Christ-esque portrait of "OMM 0000". A soothing voice greets THX, and OMM ends the confession with a parting salutation: "You are a true believer, blessings of the State, blessings of the masses. Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents, and be happy."
At home, THX takes his drugs and watches holobroadcasts while engaging with a masturbatory device. LUH secretly substitutes pills in her possession for THX's medications, causing him to develop nausea, anxiety, and sexual desires. LUH and THX become involved romantically and have sex. THX later is confronted by SEN, who attempts to arrange that THX become his new roommate, but THX files a complaint against SEN for the illegal shift pattern change.
Without drugs in his system, THX falters during a critical and hazardous phase of his job, and a control center engages a "mind lock" on THX which raises the level of danger. After the release of the mind lock, THX makes the necessary correction to that work phase. THX and LUH are arrested and THX undergoes drug therapy and medical analysis. He enjoys a brief reunion with LUH, but it is disrupted shortly after she reveals her pregnancy.
At THX's trial, it is stated that THX was clinically born. It is decided that it would be inefficient to terminate THX, so THX is sentenced to prison, alongside SEN. The prison appears to be an all white space with no walls. One of the prisoners is a "shell dweller", later called a "Wookiee". The other prisoners seem uninterested in escape. THX and SEN walk to search for an exit. They walk and walk, with only a white space to be seen all around them. Eventually they are joined by hologram actor SRT 5752, who starred in the holobroadcasts. SRT 5752 shows them the exit and suggests to them that they may have been going in circles. During the escape, THX and SRT are separated from SEN. Chased by the police androids, THX and SRT are trapped in a control center, from which THX learns that LUH has been "consumed", and her name has been reassigned to her fetus, numbered 66691, in a growth chamber. SEN eventually escapes to an area reserved for the monks of OMM, where a monk notices that SEN has no identification badge. SEN attacks him and later wanders into a child-rearing area, strikes up a conversation with children, and sits aimlessly until police androids apprehend him. THX and SRT steal two cars. SRT struggles to figure out how to drive the car. When SRT finally gets the car to move, SRT immediately crashes his car into a concrete pillar. After the crash, SRT is not found in the vehicle.
Pursued by two police androids on motorcycles, THX flees to the limits of the city. Android officers continue to pursue him as he briefly struggles with simian-like creatures identified as shell dwellers and arrives at a vertical shaft with an escape ladder. The android officers are ordered by Central Command to cease pursuit, on the grounds that the expense of his capture exceeds their allocated budget for THX. The officers inform THX that the area outside the "city shell" is uninhabitable in a last-ditch attempt to convince him to surrender, but he is undeterred and continues up the ladder. The city is then revealed to be entirely underground, and THX has escaped onto the surface, where he witnesses the Sun setting.
The announcer voices include those of Scott Beach, Terence McGovern, and David Ogden Stiers (billed as David Ogden Steers), all of whom had ties to the San Francisco Bay area, as did Lucas.
Production
THX 1138 is the first film of a planned seven-picture slate commissioned by Warner Bros. from the 1969 incarnation of American Zoetrope.[4][5] Lucas wrote the initial script draft based on his earlier short film, but Coppola and Lucas agreed that it was unsatisfactory. Walter Murch assisted Lucas in writing an improved final draft.[1][2] For some of SEN's dialogue in the film, the script included excerpts from speeches by Richard Nixon.[6]
The script required almost the entire cast to shave their heads, either completely bald or with buzz cuts. As a publicity stunt, several actors were filmed having their first haircuts and shaves at unusual venues, with the results used in a promotional featurette titled Bald: The Making of THX 1138. Many of the extras were recruited from the nearby Synanon, an addiction-recovery program that later became a violent cult.[7]
Filming began on September 22, 1969.[8] The schedule was planned for 35-40 days, completing in November 1969. Lucas filmed THX 1138 in Techniscope.[1][9]
The chase features a motorcycle stunt in which stuntman Ronald "Duffy" Hambleton (credited as Duffy Hamilton) rode his police motorcycle full speed into a fallen scaffold, with a ramp built to his specification. He flew over the handlebars, was hit by the airborne motorcycle, landed in the street on his back, and slammed into the crashed car in which Duvall's character had escaped.[1] According to Lucas, Hambleton was uninjured but angry at the people who came to his aid, worried that they may have ruined the stunt by walking into frame.[citation needed]
The under-construction Transbay Tube served as the tunnel through which THX escapes
THX's final climb out to the daylight was filmed (with the camera rotated 90°) in the incomplete (and decidedly horizontal) Bay Area Rapid Transit Transbay Tube before installation of the track supports, with the actors using exposed reinforcing bars on the floor of the tunnel as a ladder.[1] The end scene in which THX stands before the sunset was shot at Port Hueneme, California by a second unit of photographer Caleb Deschanel and Matthew Robbins, who played THX in this long shot.[1]
After completion of photography, Coppola scheduled one year for Lucas to complete postproduction.[15] Lucas edited the film on a German-made K-E-M flatbed editor in his Mill Valley house by day and Walter Murch edited sound at night, comparing notes as each session ended.[1][15] Murch compiled and synchronized the sound montage, which includes elements such as the "overhead" voices, radio chatter and announcements. The bulk of the editing was finished by mid-1970.[citation needed]
On completion of editing, Coppola took it to Warner Bros., the financiers. Studio executives disliked the film and insisted that Coppola provide the negative to an in-house editor, who cut about four minutes of the film prior to release.[16]
The soundtrack to THX 1138, conducted by Lalo Schifrin, was released in 1970. Recording took place on October 15 and 16, 1970 at the Burbank Studios in Burbank, California.[17]
Track listing
Logo – 00:08
Main Title / What's Wrong? – 03:14
Room Tone / Primitive Dance – 01:46
Be Happy / LUH / Society Montage – 05:06
Be Happy Again (Jingle of the Future) – 00:56
Source #1 – 05:18
Loneliness Sequence – 01:28
SEN / Monks / LUH Reprise – 02:44
You Have Nowhere to Go – 01:12
Torture Sequence / Prison Talk Sequence – 03:42
Love Dream / The Awakening – 01:47
First Escape – 03:01
Source #3 – 03:34
Second Escape – 01:16
Source #4 / Third Escape / Morgue Sequence / The Temple / Disruption / LUH's Death – 08:31
Source #2 – 03:17
The Hologram – 00:56
First Chase / Foot Chase / St. Matthew's Passion (Bach) (End Credits) – 07:40
THX 1138 was released to theaters on March 11, 1971, and was a commercial flop, earning $945,000 in rentals for Warner Bros. and an overall loss for the studio.[16] A contemporary survey found seven favorable, three mixed and five negative reviews.[18]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film three stars out of four and wrote, "THX 1138 suffers somewhat from its simple storyline, but as a work of visual imagination it's special, and as haunting as parts of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, and The Andromeda Strain."[19]Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded two stars out of four and stated, "The principal problem with this film is that it lacks imagination, the essential component of a science fiction film. Some persons might claim that the world of THX 1138 is here right now. A more reasonable opinion would hold that we are facing the problems of that world right now. Time has passed the film by."[20]
Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "It is not, however, as either chase drama, or social drama, that THX 1138 is most interesting. Rather it's as a stunning montage of light, color and sound effects that create their own emotional impact... Lucas's achievement in his first feature is all the more extraordinary when you realize that he is 25 years old, and that he shot most of the film in San Francisco, on a budget that probably would not cover the cost of half of one of the space ships in Stanley Kubrick's 2001."[21]
Arthur D. Murphy of Variety observed, "Likely not to be an artistic or commercial success in its own time, the American Zoetrope (Francis Ford Coppola group) production just might in time become a classic of stylistic, abstract cinema."[22]Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times praised the film as "a stunning deployment of the aural and visual resources of the screen to suggest a fearful new world of tyranny by technology", adding that "Lucas is obviously a master of cinematic effects with a special remarkable gift for discovering the look of the future in mundane places like parking structures and office corridors." Champlin stressed that the "real excitement of THX 1138 is not really the message but the medium— the use of film not to tell a story so much as to convey an experience, a credible impression of a fantastic and scary dictatorship of tomorrow."[23]
Kenneth Turan wrote in The Washington Post, "Fortunately, the film comes over not at all trite but rather as enormously affecting. Lucas obviously believed strongly in this futuristic vision, and the film draws its vitality and unity from his belief, and from the fact that it was not bottled up to meet arbitrary conditions but allowed the free rein necessary to reach completeness."[24] Penelope Houston of The Monthly Film Bulletin commented, "Details of the future society— control panels, monitor screens, soothing TV commercial voices, unshakeably calm robot policemen, the human animal turned automaton in appearance and function, but breaking out into a doomed love affair— are all tolerably persuasive, but in sum total rather a pile-up of predictability. On the Orwellian level of ideas, Lucas' passive new world is too indeterminate to carry enough conviction and, consequently, enough of a menacing charge."[25]
The film has continued to earn critical acclaim and holds an approval rating of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 63 reviews, with an average score of 6.85/10. The consensus reads: "George Lucas's feature debut presents a spare, bleak, dystopian future, and features evocatively minimal set design and creepy sound effects."[26] On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100 based on 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[27]
The 1971 studio version, distributed to theaters, had five minutes removed (against Lucas' wishes) by Warner Bros. This 81-minute version has never been released in any home-media format.
1977 restored version
In 1977, after the success of Star Wars, THX 1138 was rereleased with the footage restored that had been deleted by Warner Bros., but it still failed to achieve popularity.[29] This version was later released in VHS (88 minutes) and LaserDisc (86 minutes) formats.
2004 director's cut
The George Lucas Director's Cut includes completely new footage, such as this shot of the factory where THX works.
At Lucas's request, the previsualization team at Skywalker Ranch worked with ILM throughout mid-2003. The team also executed a single-day shoot to form the basis for new digital visual effects, mostly to expand scenes by extending crowds and adding detail to settings and backgrounds for many scenes.[33]
These changes increased the runtime of the film to 88 minutes. This director's cut was released to a limited number of digital-projection theaters on September 10, 2004, and then on DVD on September 14, 2004. The film was released on Blu-ray on September 7, 2010.[34] With the addition of the added content,[35] the film's MPAA rating was changed from GP (now known as PG) to R for "sexuality/nudity". It is the only film directed by Lucas to carry an "R" rating.[36][37]
Novelization
A novelization based on the film was written by Ben Bova and published in 1971.[38] It follows the film's plot closely, with four additions:
An additional character, Control, is the accountant-like ultimate administrator of the city. Several passages depict the events from his point of view.
After having sex with LUH 3417, THX 1138 consults a psychologist and admits everything. This psychologist transfers the confession to Control, leading to the overriding mindlock and arrest in the factory.
LUH 3417's trial and death are depicted first-hand from her point of view and from that of Control.
Instead of climbing outside to witness a sunset, THX 1138 climbs up and spends the night in the superstructure, and exits in the morning to find other humans living outside.
The significance of the name THX 1138 has been the subject of much speculation. Lucas chose the letters and numbers for their aesthetic qualities, especially their symmetry.[39] Lucas named the film after his telephone number while in college, 849-1138—the letters THX correspond to the numbers 8, 4, and 9 on the keypad.[40] However, Walter Murch said that he always believed that Lucas intended THX to be "sex", LUH to be "love", and SEN to be "sin".[6]John Lithgow described the title THX 1138 as "reading like a license plate number".[41]
Numerous references to "1138" or "THX 1138" appear throughout the Star Wars,[42] and other Lucas films. THX 138 is the license plate number of John Milner's hot rod in American Graffiti. Lucas founded THX Ltd., developer of the "THX" audiovisual reproduction standards.
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood film movement of the 1960s and 1970s and is widely considered one of the greatest directors of all time. He is the recipient of five Academy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Palmes d'Or and a British Academy Film Award (BAFTA).
George Walton Lucas Jr. is an American filmmaker and philanthropist. Lucas is best known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm, before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. Lucas personally directed or conceived ten of the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is considered to be one of the most significant figures of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement, and a pioneer of the modern blockbuster. Despite this, he has remained an independent filmmaker away from Hollywood for most of his career.
American Graffiti is a 1973 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by George Lucas, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, written by Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz and Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Harrison Ford, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Bo Hopkins, and Wolfman Jack. Set in Modesto, California, in 1962, the film is a study of the cruising and early rock 'n' roll cultures popular among Lucas's age group at that time. Through a series of vignettes, it tells the story of a group of teenagers and their adventures over the course of a night.
THX is a suite of high fidelity audiovisual reproduction standards for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, video game consoles, car audio systems, and video games. The THX trailer that precedes movies is based on the Deep Note, with a distinctive glissando up from a rumbling low pitch.
American Zoetrope is a privately run American film production company, centered in San Francisco, California and founded by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.
Walter Scott Murch is an American film editor, director, writer and sound designer. His work includes THX 1138, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather I, II, and III, American Graffiti, The Conversation, Ghost and The English Patient, with three Academy Award wins.
Maggie McOmie is an American stage and film actress, best known for co-starring with Robert Duvall in George Lucas' 1971 film THX 1138. Though the film received mixed reviews at the time, it has since developed a cult following.
21-87 is a 1963 Canadian abstract montage-collage film created by Arthur Lipsett that lasts 9 minutes and 33 seconds. The short, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, is a collage of snippets from discarded footage found by Lipsett in the editing room of the National Film Board, combined with his own black and white 16 mm footage which he shot on the streets of Montreal and New York City, among other locations.
Gary Douglas Kurtz was an American film producer whose list of credits includes American Graffiti (1973), Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), The Dark Crystal (1982) and Return to Oz (1985). Kurtz also co-produced the 1989 science fiction adventure film Slipstream, which reunited him with Star Wars star Mark Hamill.
Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB is a 1967 social science-fiction short film written and directed by George Lucas while he attended the University of Southern California's film school. Lucas reworked the short into the 1971 theatrical feature THX 1138.
Marcia Lou Lucas is an American film editor. She is best known for her work editing the Star Wars trilogy (1977–1983) as well as other films by her then-husband George Lucas: THX-1138 (1971) and American Graffiti (1973). She also edited Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), and New York, New York (1977).
Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker is the novelization of the 1977 film Star Wars, ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster, but credited to George Lucas. It was first published on November 12, 1976, by Ballantine Books, several months before the release of the film. In later years, it was republished under the title Star Wars: A New Hope to reflect the retroactive addition of a subtitle to the film in 1981.
Filmmaker, or "Filmmaker: a diary by george lucas", is a 32-minute documentary made in 1968 by George Lucas about the making of Francis Ford Coppola's 1969 film The Rain People.
The Rain People is a 1969 American road drama film written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and starring Shirley Knight, James Caan and Robert Duvall. The film centers on a middle-class housewife (Knight), who runs away from her husband after learning she is pregnant.
Don Pedro Colley was an American actor. Some of his better known roles include Gideon on Daniel Boone, Ongaro in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, SRT in George Lucas' THX 1138, Joshua in The Legend of Nigger Charley, and Sheriff Ed Little in the 1980s TV series The Dukes of Hazzard.
Bald: The Making of THX 1138 is a short film directed by George Lucas and released in 1971 to promote his first feature-length film, THX 1138, released the same year.
John Korty, was an American film director and animator, best known for the television film The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and the documentary Who Are the DeBolts? And Where Did They Get Nineteen Kids?, as well as the theatrical animated feature Twice Upon a Time. He has won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and several other major awards. He is described by the film critic Leonard Maltin as "a principled filmmaker who has worked both outside and within the mainstream, attempting to find projects that support his humanistic beliefs".
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius, and Michael Herr, is loosely based on the 1899 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, with the setting changed from late 19th-century Congo to the Vietnam War. The film follows a river journey from South Vietnam into Cambodia undertaken by Captain Willard, who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, a renegade Special Forces officer who is accused of murder and presumed insane. The ensemble cast also features Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne and Dennis Hopper. Harrison Ford, who at the time of filming was not yet a major star, appears in a minor role.
Matthew Robbins is an American screenwriter and film director best known for his writing work within the American New Wave movement.
The Dirty Dozen is the nickname for a group of filmmaking students at the USC School of Cinematic Arts within the University of Southern California during the mid-late 1960s. The main group consisted of budding directors, screenwriters, producers, editors, and cinematographers. Through innovative techniques and effects, they ended up achieving great success in the Hollywood film industry.
References
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Artifact from the Future: The Making of THX 1138 (DVD bonus disk accompanying THX 1138: The George Lucas Director's Cut). USA: Warner Bros. 2004.
↑ Paul Hill; Henry Preston (October 11, 2004). "Back to the Future with 'THX 1138'". AWN.com (Interview). Interviewed by Bill Desowitz. Archived from the original on January 15, 2017. Retrieved December 27, 2016.
↑ "George Lucas". www.tcm.com. Archived from the original on June 5, 2023. Retrieved August 6, 2023.
↑ Ravalli, Richard (2016). "George Lucas Out of Love: Divorce, Darkness, and Reception in the Origin of PG-13". The Historian. 78 (4): 690–709. doi:10.1111/hisn.12337. S2CID151821638.
↑ Bova, Ben; Lucas, George (February 1, 1978). THX 1138. Warner Books. ISBN0446897116.
↑ Reel Talent: First Films by Legendary Directors, DVD, 20th Century Fox, 2007
Pollock, Dale (1983). Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas. London: Elm Tree Books. ISBN0-241-11034-3.
Lucas, George (Director) (2004). THX 1138 (The George Lucas Director's Cut Two-Disc Special Edition) (DVD). USA: Warner Bros. ISBN0-7907-6526-8. OCLC56520465.
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