We're almost there.
His gift was envisioning futures, whether here at home, or a place far, far away. I just can't believe he did it in 1971 and 1977.
Some directors explode and change the world, others continually make quality but never shake the foundation as much as Lucas did.
I can see why Coppola and Lucas hung out together. They both are above and beyond the rest in their own ways.
lol, Almost there? Not quite. The movie was not made as a literal prediction of the future; it was a film made with themes that Lucas saw being prevalent in 1971 - and they are still prevalent today.
'THX 1138' is not a film for everyone; people viewing expecting 'Star Wars' will be sorely disappointed. Its failure ruined Coppola's initial conception of what American Zoetrope was (although it may have been a blessing in disguise; Coppola only did 'The Godfather' for the money). Maybe they should've chosen a more commercially viable project given the importance riding on their first film, but it's always easy to say in hindsight.
'THX 1138' is about entertaining the senses through visuals and sound; it has very little dialogue - somewhat comparable to '2001: A Space Odyssey.' There's always the fans who love the "old" version for nostalgia and and all that, but with 'THX 1138' being such a visual film, I'm glad we have Lucas's Director's Cut to enjoy today. Lucas was working on a budget of less than $800,000 and was limited by the technology of his time. The added shots to the film are very aesthetically pleasing and help fully realize Lucas's vision.
Right on. I guess a lot of people really built Lucas up when he first premiered his film school version of THX1138. That, combined with the idea that Zoetrope's goal of anti-establishment films, plus the fact that Lucas thought he had the next Easy Rider, just was too advanced, too different at the wrong time. If only they could have foreseen that and pushed a Coppola film instead. But here we are, and it doesn't really matter.
But I do think we're there in some ways. Surveillance, double speak "I only want to help," and the metaphor of budget over human care, the prescription revolution, the meaningless youtube hits for violent videos (like the TV sequence of a person getting beat over and over), and the worship of information, control, and up-to-date technology over human care. We are there, Jack!
On the contrary, THX 1138 has a LOT of dialogue. In fact, there's constant dialogue running almost throughout the entire film. The problem is, most of it is not very interesting dialogue -- details of procedures, policies, project invoices and updates, budget allocations, technobabble and database lists. It is completely stripped of warmth and humanity. A great deal of it is delivered over speakers and wires, carrying a lo fi digitized audio signal, always from some off camera speaker, making it all sound very impersonal and dehumanizing.
This is a dystopia where humans are reduced to the status of automatons, so the dialogue is going to reflect that bleak reality. I think the sound editing on the dialogue is one of the hidden gems of the film.
Added shots? I did not know it was touched up. Here I was thinking the on thing I liked about the film was the modern look for a 1971 film. I cared less for the story. I just thought visually it was well ahead of many 1970 movies. So from your post I gather it was touched up like Star Wars. I still think much of what I saw had to be original and better visually than much of the hokey stuff back then. Still kind of disappointing to find out.
shareNot really that visionary in the case of THX. There isn't much in this film that can't be found in 1984 or Brave New World, books that precede it by decades. It was all old-school at the time.
sharelol, wow
so many movies, so little time