Review of THX 1138 (1971) by Allan C — 04 Oct 2015

As someone who grew up on "Star Wars," I'm kind of surprised with myself that I never watched George Lucas' first feature film. It's an incredibly grim vision of a sterile Orwellian future.

Robert Duvall plays one of the nearly identical looking shaved-headed citizens who are held in line by constant surveillance and a robotic and brutal police force. Though made over 40 years ago, the film's themes are even more timely today.

Like many other stories like this, the protagonist becomes disenchanted by his oppressive society and seeks to break out. Like many of Lucas' films, the character development is weak, but the overall story has many strong story archetypes and Lucas delivers the strongest visuals of any of his films.

There were plenty of exciting moments in his three recent Star Wars films, but the imagery was nowhere as powerful as the stark images shown in this film. It's the simplicity of the imagery that helped make them so memorable.

Far from being a commercial film like most of Lucas' subsequent films, and it's probably not gong to appear to most audiences, but I found it a terrific and powerful little film. Look fast for Sid Haig in a bit part and Lalo Schifrin provides a terrific score (almost makes me wonder if he'd scored "Star Wars" instead of John Williams).