Review of THX 1138 (1971) by Ben L — 22 Aug 2017

At some point I wanted to see THX 1138, just so I could say that I?ve seen every feature film directed by George Lucas. Plus I thought it would be nice to go back to a more innocent time before Lucas became Public Enemy #1 for all Star Wars fans. In one way I feel like I succeeded at that, because THX 1138 is a small film with some very minimalist production values. However, I was watching a Director?s Cut of the film and in the climax I kept thinking ?These effects look too polished for 1971.? That?s when I realized, while I was watching something filmed from those more innocent times, it had been corrupted and revised by older Lucas in another ?Special Edition? move meant to improve something that probably didn?t need it. Luckily there are long stretches of the film where it appears untouched and I could see his original vision.

THX 1138 is kind of incomprehensible as presented. It shows this odd dystopian world which could be fascinating, but we are never clued into why things are this way, and they give almost zero exposition to help us understand the rules of this all-white world. There were elements that became clear, like the idea that society was sedated for some reason and sex was banned, but everything I figured out was from context clues or very brief throwaway lines. I think much of this would have been forgivable if the events that took place for the protagonist were more straightforward. But I didn?t feel there was any explanation given for why THX stopped taking his meds, and therefore fell prey to lust. He's put on some weird rambling trial that is tough to understand. Then when he?s on the run events seem to happen almost at random, with no clear sense of where he is or what his end goal will be.

Most of the normal qualities that I would use to judge a film are lacking in THX 1138. The acting is very robotic, but intentionally so, and therefore I have a hard time judging whether they did a good job or not. The sets/costumes/makeup/hair all were so minimalist, which is the idea, but it means those departments did nothing to impress me. In fact, the plain white of everything took away any sense of place that you?d normally have. It was impossible to tell where the characters were, or where they were going. They could have been running around in circles for all I know. It?s all up in the air and confusing. In fact the only thing that came across clearly for me in THX 1138 was the relationship between him and LUH 3417. That almost made an emotional connection for me in this stark flat film. The movie feels like many student films: an interesting concept that falls apart in the execution. It seems that Lucas is still only a one-hit-wonder for me (at least as a director.).