Buy... And Be Happy.
Stars:
Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McComie, and Ian Wolfe
Writer:
George Lucas and Walter Murch
Based
On A Story By: George Lucas
Director:
George Lucas
Feature
length: 88 minutes
Extras:
Commentary By Co-Writer/Director George Lucas and Co-Writer/Sound Designer
Walter Murch, Isolated Music And Sound Effects Track With Optional Branching
Video Segments Showcasing Murch’s Pioneering Work, “A Legacy Of Filmmakers:
The Early Days Of American Zoetrope” Documentary, “Artifact From The Future:
The Making Of THX 1138” Documentary, Vintage Production Featurette “Bald,”
“Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB” Lucas’s Original Student Film,
Original And Re-Release Trailers, Original Story Treatment Easter Egg
Languages:
English, French, and Spanish Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Subtitles:
English Captions and Closed Captions and French and Spanish Language Subtitles
Packaging:
Digipack Gatefold Within A Cardboard Slipcase
Chapter
Stops: 24
Sound: Dolby
Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Year of
Theatrical Release: 1971/DVD Release: 2004
Theatrical
Distributor: Warner Brothers Pictures
Home Video
Distributor: Warner Home Video
MPAA Rating:
R
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
Sometimes in
the far future, human beings have migrated underground for undisclosed reasons
and live in a complete state of conformity. Everyone has an assigned task that
they perform without question or emotion. The society thrives on commerce and
the needs of the people are serviced through drugs and computer assisted
holographic programming. Order is preserved by the police officer androids that
pleasantly shepherd the people along and ensure the safety of all for the good
of the greater community and within this world, there is no meaning. The
humanity of each person has been stripped away for generations and everyone is
simply referred to as a number. The items people buy are simple useless products
they take home and then quickly dispose of so that the city can recycle it and
sell it again. Everyone is so numbed by drugs that the act of sexual intercourse
is discouraged since new citizens are simply grown in test tubes or cloned. The
defective are replaced and their body parts are harvested automatically. This is
a society that has the illusion of production, but all it really does is keep
itself running in a circle like a hamster running on a wheel. One can see how
elements are falling apart from the occasional malfunctioning officer, the
radiation disasters that occur in the droid factories, and the places where the
undesirable citizens are simply stored and experimented upon until their
usefulness expires. On the outer rims of the city, mutations referred to as
“Shell Dwellers” occasionally make their way into the city and generally
break the anthill like rhythm the society requires in order to function.
Sometimes some nocturnal wildlife like a flying lizard with antennas or a
scorpion like insect finds its way into the underground metropolis and sometimes
literally into the very antiquated machinery that keeps the society closely
monitored.
There is no
malevolent controlling party or true artificial intelligence that controls the
city. It is as if someone one day set things into motion and forgot to shut it
off and now the whole megalopolis runs itself, but with no true rationality
other than to preserve the structure that has been set in place. LUH 3417
(Maggie McComie) works in one of the facilities that tracks the movements of
citizens in key areas of production like her roommate THX 1138 (Robert Duvall),
who works in the hazardous droid factories placing radioactive power cells into
android bodies. LUH 3417 has been experimenting with not taking her daily drugs
that are each prescribed to all citizens according to their biological needs as
they fit within their assigned community roles. She has since fallen in love
with THX 1138 and has secretly been weaning him off of his medications. As a
result, THX 1138 begins to experience emotions of anxiety and fear that he has
never felt before. After an accident in the droid building facilities, THX 1138
experiences a sense of guilt as if he were responsible for the deaths of those
caught in the meltdown. These emotions, which are tracked through computer
analysis of his body chemistry and behavior, catches the attention of SEN
(Donald Pleasence), a hacker of sorts who discovers that THX 1138 and LUH 3417
have fallen in love and attempts to manipulate the system for his own means
using them both. This subsequently leads to their incarceration, which
eventually propels THX 1138 to make a run for the surface and leave the city
forever.
While there
are obvious nods to Huxley’s “Brave New World” and Orwell’s “1984,”
“THX 1138” takes these themes and creates a compelling and at times sobering
look at a world where humanity is reduced to mere numbers and prefixes like a
car license plate or social security number. Like the “Star Wars Saga,”
Lucas takes old themes and makes them seem new again and in the process there is
an originality that comes from it that quite frankly is pure George Lucas. It is
obvious that “THX 1138” is a product of Lucas’ state of mind and being in
his early twenties. There is a certain intensity and idealism that I think if
Lucas were to try to duplicate it today, it just would not be the same if only
he is a different person from who he was back in the late 1960s and early 1970s
when this film was produced and eventually released. That does not mean that he
could not make a film as dark and thought provoking as “THX 1138” now, but
just as Steven Spielberg has said that he could not have made his film
adaptation of “Schindler’s List” during the 1980s because he simply was
not ready yet, I think Lucas can move forward, but he can’t repeat “THX
1138” anymore than he could remake “American Graffiti” because on a mental
and emotional level, each film is sort of like a time capsule of the
filmmaker’s psyche. I love the “Star Wars” films, but I think in many ways
“THX 1138” is Lucas’s most artistic film to date. Re-released in select
theaters on Friday, September 10, 2004, “THX 1138” is coming to DVD for the
first time as “THX 1138: The George Lucas Director’s Cut” in both a
two-disc set and single DVD edition on Tuesday, September 14, 2004. “THX 1138:
The George Lucas Director’s Cut” two-disc set presents the film in the
anamorphic widescreen theatrical exhibition aspect ratio of (2.35:1) and the THX
certified image is stunning not only for the remastered image quality, but in
how much of the digital effects for the most part truly enhance the movie
viewing experience in ways that simply could not be achieved before given the
budget limitations Lucas had to deal with over thirty years ago. My only caveats
with the digital effects lie in part with what was done and not done for this
theatrical and DVD releases. The apelike “Shell Dwellers” look too CGI and
don’t really match up one hundred percent with the live action footage from
the 1970s. Where digital technology could have been used to improve the film
would be to remove to obvious tan line Robert Duvall sports when he is carried
off nude by one of the police droids after making love with LUH 3417. People who
have lived like ants in an anthill all their lives with no exposure to sunlight
wouldn’t have a tan line.
What
enhances the film greatly is the new Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack mix,
which is offered in a choice of English or French and Spanish Language Dubbed
Tracks along with optional English Captions and Closed Captions for the hearing
impaired and French and Spanish Language Subtitles. The sound design is amazing
and this DVD really takes advantage of home theater systems by creating a true
three-dimensional listening experience that creates a stark contrast to some of
the bleak soulless scenes that are evocative of the sterile world “THX 1138”
takes place in for the most part. One can also listen to an isolated music and
effects track with an option to view branching video segments where Walter Murch
reveals the pioneering sound design perfected for the film.
Lucas and
Murch also provide a feature length audio commentary where they comment on the
cultural inspirations for the film, the more timely than ever allegories on a
government where the church and state have merged, enforced consumerism for the
sake of buying, and the inventiveness of the filmmakers who used areas like the
then still in construction BART subway system to create some of the interiors
for the chase sequence in “THX 1138.” The familiar themes of the hero
leaving his environment on a adventure is also mentioned and discussed.
Sometimes the filmmakers reveal too much though. For instance, Don Pedro
Colley’s appearance as the hologram in the flesh that helps THX and SEN escape
the prison without walls was striking because it suggested one of two
possibilities. Either the programs or constructs within the city were beginning
to develop a sentience and question their place in it much as THX has or that
the hologram was not really a hologram, but a human whose role was to play a
hologram in one of the channels THX views after work. My feeling is why
wouldn’t a person believe he was nothing more than a hologram if from day one
he or she was isolated from the rest of the society and raised to perform his or
her duty without question the same way everyone else in the city are expected to
perform their assigned roles. Well, Lucas tells us in the commentary that the
character is definitely a hologram, but there are a few interesting elements
that I do like about that scenario. It is profound that a program could manifest
itself at will to become nearly as solid a living being as you or I and even
display a certain amount of emotion. In fact the hologram is one of the more
human characters in the story. It also adds an extra ray of hope to this dark
tale, which is that just as some people are waking up out of their drug induced
stupor, so are facets of the city beginning to evolve much like the mutations
that encroach upon the outskirts of the city and occasionally find their way
deep inside. There is a reference to someone running over a “Wookie” or
something though this was years before “Star Wars” and we never learn
exactly what it is being referred to. Lucas says it is not like “The Matrix”
in that there is no central intelligence running the show, but I think he is a
bit off on that remark. It is a “matrix” that works as a collective. What I
imagine happening in this future world Lucas created with “THX 1138” is that
until the machine breaks down totally and no one will be able to fix them, there
will continue to be people who stop conforming and will make a run for the
surface and with evolution continuing in both the biological and mechanical
world, there may eventually end up with more than one sentient species living on
the planet in different stages of development. Most importantly, there is still
a ray of hope still there for humanity as long as the sun rises and sets.
The bonus
features on disc two begin with the documentary “A Legacy Of Filmmakers: The
Early Years Of American Zoetrope” (63:32), which features interviews with
filmmakers involved or inspired by the fledgling independent’s promise that
includes founder Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Robert Dalva, Steven
Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, John Milius, Carroll Ballard, and John Korty. The
documentary is narrated by Richard Dreyfuss. This may have been presented out of
context or perhaps I misunderstood what Coppola states in the documentary
regarding making his film adaptation of “The Godfather,” but I did find
these comments a bit surprising after hearing him praise Mario Puzo at the press
conference for the release of “The Godfather DVD Collection” in New York a
few years back. In the documentary Coppola states, “I mean I didn’t want to
do it. I read the book. I thought it some going to be some intellectual Italian
thing… It was this kind of a shlocky Irving Wallace novel.” Now to be fair
to Mr. Coppola, he is explaining how Lucas encouraged him to make the movie
despite his doubts, but out of context it almost sounds like he was saying
something disparaging about Puzo, who I’m sure he was very fond of and
certainly respected. A companion documentary “Artifact From The Future: The
Making Of THX 1138” (31:05) focuses on the making of the film with cast and
crew interviews. A vintage featurette entitled “Bald” (8:02) is also
included on the DVD along with the original Lucas short film that inspired the
feature film “Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB” (15:08). The original story
treatment can be read onscreen as an easy to find Easter egg too. Just click on
the right arrow icon at the lower right hand corner of the main menu on disc
two. You will see DVD production credits. Then click your right arrow button on
your remote control or move the cursor to the right side of the frame on your
PC. The Christ like image from the film will appear. Press Enter and the
treatment will appear onscreen.
The seven
theatrical trailers that wrap up the extra features on disc two can be viewed
individually or as one reel. They are detailed as “Original 1971 Theatrical
Trailer” (2:56), “2004 Re-Release Trailer” (2:17), “The Future”
(2:17), “What’s Wrong” (2:05), “Characters” (1:57), “Pure Cinema”
(2:18), and “Be Happy” (2:44). The interactive menus are very well rendered
and easy to navigate. “THX 1138: The George Lucas Director’s Cut” will
debut on DVD-Video on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 at retailers on and offline
from Warner Home Video. “Buy… And Be Happy.”
© Copyright
2004 By MAR 1892
“What’s Wrong?”
Buy... And Be Happy.