Review of THX 1138 (1971) by Cole B — 21 May 2009

Okay, so "THX 1138" provoked all kinds of reactions from me, the biggest of which was an immense feeling of sadness and disappointment, not because the movie wasn't good, but because George Lucas showed such immense vision and storytelling command in this film that his later, wretchedly commercial career path shows how he truly squandered his talent and sold out. Lacking the visceral energy and clear motives of "Star Wars," or the warmth and humor of "American Graffiti" (another movie that shows how brilliant this guy was in his pre-blockbuster days), "THX 1138" is one of the most visually and technically impressive debut films ever made. Going for more of a Kubrick-styled meditation than a rip roaring action film, Lucas features many scenes of near silence, with only occasional sequences of dialouge. Some of the most astounding images I've seen in a film are here, particularly a room that seems to be a blank, white landscape that stretches as far as the eye can see and seems to have no walls. Experimental almost to a head-scratching fault, "THX 1138" is one of the weirdest sci-fi films I've ever seen. Everyone is bald, sex is forbidden, sedatives are mandatory, robots seem like early models of C3PO, and Robert Duvall gets naked. One of the most effective parts of the film is the use of radio chatter throughout much of the background. Everything is constantly being monitored in a control room, and the way that Lucas stages this is wild and inventive. He must have been enjoying some kind of mad acid trip when he came up with some of this stuff. And he even makes the thing work as a social commentary, and not preachingly or obviously so. On top of that, he rocks the house in a pretty intense chase scene, which seems to predate "Star Wars" in its sound design. This is an excellent, highly underrated classic of the 1970s, and showed a time when George Lucas was an artist, and not a businessman.

Oh, the digital effects that are added on for the DVD version, those are pretty annoying. "THX 1138" doesn't need CGI. Thanks for excessively ruining another one of your classics, George.