George Lucas made a student
film that caught the eye of Frances Ford Coppola. The two of them founded the
studio American Zoetrope where they took the idea of that student film and
expanded it into the full length movie feature THX-1138. It did not do well at the theater and critics of the day had
differing opinions. But over the years, THX-1138
developed a cult following with both audiences and other film makers. You can
find Easter eggs referring to THX-1138
in films by Lucas and other filmmakers. In fact you can find hidden references
to the film in countless television shows, books and software. The setting of THX-1138 is
a future in which mankind has been hollowed out into working drones whose
purpose is to support the automated society governing it. The population is
medicated and brainwashed. History is absent. The populaces are blank people living
on a blank slate. Even the android policemen have blank chrome faces that show
only a reflection. Consumption has no meaning as the
content of the consumption has no meaning. THX-1138 shows what happens when the irregularities of the human
condition rise from this imposed stupor. THX-1138 is an elegant science fiction movie that relies less on
special effects and more of the underlying message of the conditions in which
its characters are placed. If you’re
wondering why the title of the film sounds so familiar, you might have seen the
letters more than once when the sound system THX is being introduced at the
start of a film.
