Post by Fatal Rewind on May 12, 2021 20:45:16 GMT -5
Well HERE'S a surprise that I didn't see coming! After wanting to see this for years – George Lucas's directorial debut – I suddenly found this dvd at a resale shop the other day and snapped it up.
This sure is killer to look at. Parts of it were filmed at a telephone exchange (with many rows of electronic equipment), a not finished (at the time) underground tunnel and this prison was mostly just a huge, totally bright white, very sparse area, among other interesting locations (the factory the title character works at).
Released in 1971 but taking place in the 25th century, God knows what the hell happened to the world. Mankind's emotions are constantly surpressed; they go to work while barely talking in normal conversations with co-workers that we all do in real life, 99% of all peoples' heads are shaved in the same way (including the women) and everyone takes pills multiple times a day to keep themselves in a nearly perfect, un-human manner. Feeling too emotional? Go to confessional...but a real priest won't be there. You'll talk to a big image with pre-recorded responses telling you to "be happy" and the like.
THX-1138 is the designation of the main character; people don't even go by names. His roommate is becoming emotional and she, unbeknown to him, switches their medications one night. This results in him blowing his job really badly the next day (although he had been having trouble concentrating lately as it was). Screwing up badly enough can lead to termination of the person's life.
Robert Duvall plays the title character. Other familiar actors include Donald Pleasence (whose character is also losing it) and Sid Haig; Maggie McOmie made her debut in this film as Duvall's roommate.
Unfortunately this movie is really uneven: it's monstrously depressing for a while, then once people get sent off to prison they just rant for a while, then it's decided in order to escape they’ll just leave. (How is this possible in the future? Were there so few humans being emotional left they thought they wouldn't need locked jail cells any more?) The cyber cops out there aren't too difficult to defeat, then an escaped convict just swipes a car in the first parking lot they get to and the last part of the movie pretty much just becomes a chase scene. Strange to have a very sobering, depressing setting to just crashing and burning later.
For once I’m going below the usual imdb rating of 6.7 to giving this only a 6, maybe a 6.5 out of 10 at best. Starts out really intriguing, bizarre and different to selling out a bit.
In a very bleak future, you don't have a name, just a designation. Major bummer
This sure is killer to look at. Parts of it were filmed at a telephone exchange (with many rows of electronic equipment), a not finished (at the time) underground tunnel and this prison was mostly just a huge, totally bright white, very sparse area, among other interesting locations (the factory the title character works at).
Released in 1971 but taking place in the 25th century, God knows what the hell happened to the world. Mankind's emotions are constantly surpressed; they go to work while barely talking in normal conversations with co-workers that we all do in real life, 99% of all peoples' heads are shaved in the same way (including the women) and everyone takes pills multiple times a day to keep themselves in a nearly perfect, un-human manner. Feeling too emotional? Go to confessional...but a real priest won't be there. You'll talk to a big image with pre-recorded responses telling you to "be happy" and the like.
THX-1138 is the designation of the main character; people don't even go by names. His roommate is becoming emotional and she, unbeknown to him, switches their medications one night. This results in him blowing his job really badly the next day (although he had been having trouble concentrating lately as it was). Screwing up badly enough can lead to termination of the person's life.
Robert Duvall plays the title character. Other familiar actors include Donald Pleasence (whose character is also losing it) and Sid Haig; Maggie McOmie made her debut in this film as Duvall's roommate.
Unfortunately this movie is really uneven: it's monstrously depressing for a while, then once people get sent off to prison they just rant for a while, then it's decided in order to escape they’ll just leave. (How is this possible in the future? Were there so few humans being emotional left they thought they wouldn't need locked jail cells any more?) The cyber cops out there aren't too difficult to defeat, then an escaped convict just swipes a car in the first parking lot they get to and the last part of the movie pretty much just becomes a chase scene. Strange to have a very sobering, depressing setting to just crashing and burning later.
For once I’m going below the usual imdb rating of 6.7 to giving this only a 6, maybe a 6.5 out of 10 at best. Starts out really intriguing, bizarre and different to selling out a bit.
In a very bleak future, you don't have a name, just a designation. Major bummer