Review of THX 1138 (1971) by Stephen T — 23 Aug 2011

Lucas had big shoes to fill with this one. Even though it was his first film as a director, it's the last of his films that I've seen, and given that it's a scifi, I couldn't help but compare it to Star Wars. How could you not? Lucas created such a vibrant and engrossing world with Star Wars, one that many call the greatest in Scifi history, it's hard to think he could ever make another movie Scifi movie that could compare. Does THX 1138 compare? Well no, but not because it's bad. THX 1138 is just so wildly different from Star Wars that comparing them would be like comparing apples and oranges, same category but nothing about them is the same. THX is instead a riveting and unique look at a future that's not so free and not so downright exiting.

THX 1138 tells of a dystopian future in which people are seen more as products than real beings. The rulers of this world, wherever or whenever it is, give all of the humans heavy sedatives to cut off their own wills and make them just do what they're told, which generally consists of highly dangerous work. When our protagonist, the titular THX 1138 and his room mate, the female LUH decide to stop taking their sedatives in order to have a sexual relationship, it causes THX to go on a quest to escape this world, and go to one where he can be free forever.

Like I said, nothing like Star Wars. It actually has more in common with a lot of the Cold War-era Scifi literature, the idea of futures in which we would forever be controlled, at the time perfectly tapping into people's paranoia about a Soviet takeover. For this reason many elements of THX aren't exactly original, it all feels sort of familiar, and the idea of the rebellious sexual relationship is straight from Orwell's 1984. It may feel familiar, but it still gets those same feelings inside me rising, because THX is still one of the creepiest movies ever made.

Firstly adding to this is the odd bleakness to it all. The entire movie just has a drab look to it, everythings just white, white, white, with the occasional coloured light to add a little atmoshpere. Remember how clean and sterile 2001: A Space Odyssey looked? It doesn't hold a candle to THX, it's the king of white. The whole look of it just gives it this unsettling, claustrophobic feel to it, something that hugely benefits the film, but only one problem, George Lucas screwed it up with CGI!

Yeah, remember how Lucas completely butchered the Star Wars trilogy by going over the old special effects with CGI? Remember how much shit he got in over that? Well apparently he didn't take the hint because he did it again here. But what I don't understand why on Earth he would even think to. Star Wars I could at least understand, it was this giant action spectacle, it could actually benefit from it, it was just a failure, who cares, you can still get the old ones on DVD (Not Bluray though, damn George Lucas), but he added them to THX simply to expand the world, make it seem a bit bigger, and a little more alive. Well when the whole thing this movie has going for it how isolating and claustrophic it is, why would he even do this? It's a classic case of a director not even understanding why people like his movie.

For the most part though, the rest of the movie is effective at conveying this feeling. The performances in particular are fantastic. Robert Duvall plays THX and does a great, if low-key job. He doesn't say much the entire movie, and doesn't deliver it with much emotion when he does, but I can understand why his character would be oppressed by a world like this and feel emotionless, in a world where you're controlled 24/7, what's the point even having them? As good as Duvall is, it's Donald Pleasance who steals the show as SEN. He reminds of me of a paranoid schizophrenic or something, he's really jittery and jumpy, yet still calm and subdued by the drugs. From his creepily slow delivery to his dead-on facial expressions, it's amazing work.

THX is a movie people generally remember as one with little or no dialogue, but that's not true actually. Sure the main characters don't say much for the whole movie, but for the entire first half of the movie there's almost always somebody saying something, always the people monitoring THX. It may seem like it doesn't move the plot forward to be listening to them talk instead of the actual characters, but it helps establish the world he's in a little better, and gives it that creepy feeling again, like they have more say in what goes on in your life than you do. The screenplay was written by Lucas with editor Walter Murch and what it does, while it does rarely do anything, works amazingly.

Finally we get to George Lucas' direction, which is terrific. He really gets everything he can out of a minimalistic look, minimalistic performances, a minimalistic screenplay, minimalistic performances, and minimalistic action. THX could easily be an incredibly boring and slow movie, more in the vein of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but somehow Lucas just nailed that creepy tone perfectly and it just makes the whole movie work so well. Also adding to it is the music by Lalo Schifrin, which at times goes oddly towards the smooth jazz I associate with him, but more often than not finds a perfect mix of odd noises, wales, and moans. The action sequneces, which are very few anyway, are also done perfectly by Lucas, particularly the final car chase, which Lucas brilliantly chooses to use no music, giving sort of a more realistic life or death feel, and making it all the more thrilling. Action junkies also take note here, this movie has one of the coolest, craziest, and downright suicidal motorcycle stunts ever.

In conclusion, THX 1138 may not be the most "new" feeling Scifi film, it's fairly derivitive, but ut's unique looking, and so well executed that it's better than most of the films it draws from. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who likes Scifi films, for them I'd say it's essential viewing, or for people looking for a cult classic that's a little out of the ordinary. It's a terrific film.