THX 1138
THX 1138 is a 1971 American social science fiction film directed by George Lucas in his feature film directorial debut. It is set in a dystopian future in which the populace is controlled through android police and mandatory use of drugs that suppress emotions.
Robert Duvall is the title character, an inhabitant of a futuristic city who, like the others, is kept in a state of compliant numbness by mind-altering drugs, by authorities who’ve also banned sex and love among them.
It’s sometime in the future in a state controlled society, where conformity and homogeneity are the rule. What is also the rule is that the populace follows the wants of the faceless state without question. How this is achieved is through a mandatory drug regimen, which also suppresses human desire, with sexual intercourse and human relationships banned. The law of the state is policed by a force of robocops. The physical environment is totally within a manufactured enclosure, what being outside of this unknown. THX 1138 is a loyal subject, he who goes about his business as a skilled factory working building robocops.
While the film might strain under the weight of its IMPORTANT METAPHORS, it also cannily predicts the Prozac-numbed generations to come, and the story is satisfying and powerful, not least thanks to world-building that’s as impressive as anything Lucas did with “Star Wars.”
R | 1h 26min | Drama , Sci-Fi , Thriller | 11 March 1971 (USA)
Director: George Lucas
Writers: George Lucas (story by), George Lucas
Stars: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley
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