THX 1138: Special Edition

THX 1138 - a movie that I had heard much about but never had an opportunity to see. George Lucas's first real film! Set in a dystopic scifi world, with cool special effects. Sounded like a winner to me. I recently had a chance to see THX 1138, and I must say: I was thoroughly underwhelmed. While the sound effects were extremely cool with all of the radio chatter telling the story, it really was too long and too slow, and should have stayed at the length of the short story. The visuals (mainly caucasian people in white jumpsuits on white backgrounds) made me sleepy and made it hard to watch and focus and generate interest. I never fall asleep while watching movies! George Lucas fans might argue that the world of the future might actually be like that, hence he should gain tons of points for being accurate. Being accurate does not a good movie make (cf. Tarantino's Death Proof in Grindhouse, so B-rated its boring). On top of that, Lucas "remastered" the special effects here... Read more

After hearing about it for most of my 39 years, I finally watched THX 1138. I found it to be an interesting meditation on classic literary themes found in older works - specifically Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Brave New World, and Lang's Metropolis. But where those works deal with misfits in societies with stratified classes, THX 1138 shows us only one class. There is no queen bee, only drones. Drones may be given different tasks, but there doesn't seem to be any one overarching controlling board. There is only the process. Humanity is reduced to being a machine that makes machines so they can be ruled by machines. Free thinkers are captured and re-educated for the good of the mecha-biological society. Flaws are corrected or replaced like gears in the machine. Some reviewers have hung modern political views on this film. While I think the film is open to that interpretation, I disagree with picking one view (probably one that you disagree with) and saying that's only what the m... Read more

This is George Lucas's first and finest film bar none. Forget Star Wars! There are some that do not like the 2004 Director's Cut and that is their right if they so choose. However, I am very hard to impress and this film remain tied as my second favorite film, Bladerunner. If I could rate this movie higher than five stars I would. THX 1138 is outstanding on so many levels. This film is a true classic and I highly recommend it to anyone that likes science fiction.

It's been a long, long time since I saw the original THX-1138 so I couldn't be sure, watching this Director's Cut, but it sure seemed like a bunch of jarringly-out-of-place CGI additions had been made. Other reviewers here at Amazon confirm my suspicions, and even catalog the changes -- something Lucas himself refuses to do. Like his reworking of Star Wars, his new vision replaces the old vision completely, as if the past never happened (you can't even BUY an un-jerked-with print -- resistance is futile). Hey this is a "2-disc special edition," would it have killed him to include the original version as a bonus (like Adrian Maben did with Pink Floyd's "Live at Pompeii")? It's just RUDE to rewrite the past without even acknowledging it! So what to make of the film itself? It's a stark dystopian morality play as was common during the Nixon Years (If, Zabriskie Point, M*A*S*H, Catch-22, Planet of the Apes, Brewster McCloud). It's full of the in-your-face symbolism, simplistic m... Read more

THX 1138 is, if not a great film, damned close to it, and one of the greatest directorial debut films ever made. The story is rather simple, and archetypal, broken into three discernible parts that pretty much recapitulate each other. In some futuristic dystopian world, where humanity has been forced to live underground, and the state is controlled by a leaderless hegemony run by a computer that prescribes medication to all its shaved bald citizens, thus allowing effete chrome-faced robots easy control over them, something is awry. THX 1138 (Robert Duvall- looking very much like Robert De Niro) is being tempted out of his stupor by his rebellious female roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie), who slowly seduces him into foregoing his meds and exploring sex and love. This scenario is as old as Adam and Eve, literally, but is also used in tales like George Orwell's 1984. What sets THX 1138 apart, though, are the splendid visuals. The underground scenery, especially enhanced by skillfully and ... Read more