Poseidon-3 Review of THX 1138

THX 1138 (1971)

The original film is intriguing, but George should have kept his hands off of it.

[19 June 2009]

For his feature directorial debut, Lucas elaborated on one of his celebrated student films ("THX 1138EB") to present a cautionary sci-fi thriller about the dangers of complacency, mindless consumerism and deadened emotions. In a stark world, perhaps Earth's future, Duvall plays a worker in an assembly line in which android police are manufactured. He has a platonic female roommate, takes copious drugs, which are mandated by the powers that be, watches limited holographic programming and buys worthless items, which are disposed of faster than it takes to buy them. The entire society operates at this level with occasional troublemakers placed in prison or destroyed altogether. One day, Duvall's roomie McOmie, decides to cease taking drugs and starts to deprive him of his own, resulting in feelings between them which are not only revolutionary and new, but also against the law! A fellow citizen (Pleasence) takes an interest in Duvall and wishes to join him in his enlightened state, but eventually the three of them are apprehended and duly punished for their transgressions. Duvall, however, may not be so easy to defeat. This is an unusual role for Duvall and, for this stage in his career, a rare opportunity to enjoy a leading role. He is solid throughout and becomes a person worth rooting for against the ever-oppressive society in which he is trapped. Pleasence is also good, though his role is more of a supporting one. This was the only film McOmie made for decades and she has a striking, unusual quality. It's a part that required more than a little bravery on her part and she acquits herself well. The fact that she is so unknown only adds to the aura of her work here. Colley appears late as an ally to Duvall. His towering presence and good-natured persona help give a bit of a lift to the proceedings. Haig has a small role as a degenerate prisoner being held in the same area as Duvall and others. There's a striking visual design to the film and an even more impressive aural design. The world that the characters reside in is elaborately depicted (within the constrained budget) yet not very fully explained, making the viewer pay close attention to things and fill in the blanks frequently. It's a challenging piece to take in for the uninitiated, but it has thought provoking themes. In truth, totalitarian types of government full of control and aesthetic denial are not new to science fiction and weren't in 1971, but there is enough individuality to this to capture the attention. The audacious decision to make everyone shave his (or her!) head and to use white very heavily make this a very stylized viewing experience. (There is also a bit of a flaw in that many freshly shaved heads have evidence of tan lines, something that would not be present in this situation.) What's interesting is that Lucas felt the need to warn of a society in which people become overly reliant on video entertainment, cyber-sex, pharmaceuticals, needless buying and impersonality and yet we are far closer to that in 2009 than when the film was released! The bad news is that Lucas, with endless money and resources at his disposal, is insistent upon going back over his previous films and tweaking them, "enhancing" them and "improving" them while making the originals (at least in this case) uneasy to find. In 2004, he added CGI effects to this motion picture and re-edited it considerably. He replaced some feral animals with wholly computerized versions, which stick out like a sore thumb no matter what money was spent to do it. It's not only annoying and unnecessary, but insulting, offensive and retroactively anachronistic since most moviegoers with a brain know that such technology was not available at the time. It's jarring, distracting and reprehensible, whether or not it is "his" to do with what he wants. Can audiences not be trusted to accept the film as it was originally presented, taking the effects in context? In attempting to change history, he is guilty of the type of manipulation that the film was trying to speak out against in the first place! So, while his original work was arresting and fascinating if maybe a tad crude along the edges at times, the redux is appalling.