Hey, you know, if overpopulation continues, this s*** might actually happen to us. The more human life there is, the less valuable we begin to appear.
So, I wasn’t expecting George Lucas’s first feature-length to be this quietly executed, art-house, sci-fi getaway love story—dope? The costume and visual designs here are eminently reminiscent of the soon to be made Star Wars and the already prominent 2001: A Space Odyssey; a lot of these creative designs being traumatically memorable—for instance, the unnerving mannequin guards. Nonetheless, the narrative and overall craftsmanship—especially the stupendous sound design and chilling dialogue; UGHHH—in THX 1138 are quite divergent from Lucas’s 1977 box-office hit.
In hindsight, I was infatuated with the psychedelically eerie, atmospherical production and Blade Runner-esc feeling that can be exquisitely extracted from this motion picture, but the “Dollar Tree” Orwellian story didn’t do much for me. The entire film seems to be critically reliant on the audience caring for the protagonist’s conquest even though there isn’t virtually anything genuine or operative about how the central character’s motivations and aspirations are explained. Furthermore, detrimental plot marks just sporadically occur in the narrative to keep the movie moving—a deficiency that honestly reminded me of the Star Wars prequels.
Anyways, more importantly, I never knew that Dr. Loomis was savagely cock-blocking sex-loving partners before he was savagely cock-blocking beefy serial killers and their victims. LEGEND.
Verdict: C+
“THX 1138” is now available to stream on Vudu, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and iTunes.
Burning the Celluloid 
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