Review of THX 1138 (1971) by Markus S — 19 May 2008

Got round to watching this recently, as The Bearded One's first outing as a feature film director it's a bit sketchy in places and being developed from a short story he decided not to involve too much dialogue which is very evident.

There are lots of ideas here that you can see developing into Star Wars ideas (robot police/stormtroopers, bikes/speeder, sticks/lightsabers etc.), but the similarities are not that huge. This is a grown up sci-fi film with real political messages that will remain timeless thanks mainly t the settings and costume (mostly the bald heads).

The problem I have with this is that it is such a indie kind of film due to the problems Lucas had with WB in production (who basically hated it) his later Star Wars became such a sell out Hollywood movie.

I don't mean to slag SW off because I love it but I can't help feeling if Beady did decide to keep making these types of films he would be celebrated as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time rather than making one of the greatest films of all time.

Having said that the sound used here is really interesting, music sounds like sound effects and visa-versa.