Slashdot Mirror
THX-1138 Finally Coming to DVD
OMM0000 writes "George Lucas' first film, THX 1138 is finally coming to DVD. They've also launched a new site, as USA Today reports. As webmaster of a certain THX-1138 fan site (which will remain nameless to avoid slashdotting), this is excellent news. For all of you lamenting the Star Wars prequels, be sure to see where Lucas' roots in filmmaking are."
In this version Greedo shoots first.
THX 1138: The Special Expanded Director's Cut, with better special effects and a new ending I will be very happy.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Saw it once ages ago, had to fight to stay awake.
Now I can FINALLY get a film to help me during my bouts of insomnia! Huzzah!
Sorry...but the way it was worded, I took it as a personal challenge.
Maybe you shouldn't have posted this as OMM0000 if you really wanted to prevent a Slashdotting.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Finally? This is one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. I only watched the whole thing all the way through because it was made by the guy that created Star Wars. Probably the same reason people watched Episodes I and II.
While a bit slow moving, THX-1138 does actually explore something interesting. It is, with the exception of Empire, Lucas' best film. All films since have all slowly (Or not so slowly) deteriorated into the mess we now call the Star Wars prequels.
This was made before he realized that you can't make a living as a cult filmmaker.
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
I hope this has Lucas' student short of THX (which was then remade into a feature length). I really preferred it honestly, and I haven't been able to find it in any consumer-oriented format previously.
Considering how much dead space the feature length had, 15 minutes was a nice compression that still managed to capture the atmosphere of a dystopian future.
It's one of those 70s dytopian scifi films with that really weird clinical view of the terrible future. However, I have a little story about actually watching it. I admit it. I'm one of those people that likes long and slow movies that require lots of concentration. I only know a few people like me. When I decided to rent this one, I was with my girlfriend and a couple of her friends (male and female). There were about eight of us and we popped the tape in on a Friday night at about 7:30PM. As I was watching it, I was engrossed in the film. I hadn't noticed until I heard some snoring that my girlfriend had fallen asleep! Going beyond that I looked around the room and realized I was the ONLY person awake. I have to say, that's when I realized that I have a very different perspective on moveis from most people. Since then, I'm less likely to ask people to watch something I'm interested in because it's likely going to bore them. So... it makes me feel good to know I'm not completely alone in my love for THX1138.
Un-news
While it's a very interesting film from an experimental point of view, THX 1138 is not something that's likely to appeal to too many Star Wars fans, apart from the George Lucas connection. It's set in a dystopian future where everything is run by machines, and there is very little interpersonal dialogue or human interaction. Like I said, it's interesting from an experimental point of view to see how Lucas uses film to tell a story in a very non-conventional way, but it's clearly not aimed at mass audiences.
If you want to watch an early George Lucas film, most people will be better off with "American Graffiti", which got a pretty good DVD release a few years back, and is a very entertaining film.
For those of you who haven't seen it, it's a totalitarian society in which:
A drug violation means being under-medicated.
Most identity is removed, people don't have names, only prefix-suffix designations.
Sex is illegal
You confess your sins in booths to a recording of a Jesus-like picture of Ohm
It's weirer than can be described.
It's a definite must see for sci-fi fans.
AccountKiller
Silent Running, with Bruce Dern, Hughey, Dewey, and Louis.
He took a duck to the face at 250 knots.
Calm down everyone, it's his director's cut, not the original. Another classic ruined...
"This is Zombo Com, and welcome to you who have come to Zombo Com" - www.zombo.com
That's the important question.
There's still no DVD version in sight of one of the greatest movies ever made. Yep, I'm talking about Yellowbeard. Why? Why???? *shakes fist*
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
When you talk about George Lucas, don't forget "American Graffiti." Not only does it document his roots as a filmmaker, it documents his personal roots, as it is semi auto-biographical.
Sure THX1138 is good, but don't forget the Lucas masterpiece: AMERICAN GRAFFITI.
There's some hidden stuff on that page, I found a trailer in pretty decent resolution.
Link-city
So it's a bad film how?
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Freedom?
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
# THX 1138 was based on a student film Lucas made while attending USC.
# The original title was Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB
# The stars of the film were Robert Duvall as THX 1138 (yes it's a name!), Donald Pleasence as SEN 5241, and Maggie McOmie as LUH 3417
# THX 1138 was not only ahead of its time in sound effects, but also in the themes which it portrayes, such as the loss of individuals for the good of the group, the self-corruption of the human spirit, racism in science fiction, and yes, even channel-surfing
# The film was produced by American Zoetrope Studios, then co-owned by Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola
# The extras used in the film came from a drug rehabilitation center called Delancey Street Foundation. The only way to enter Delancey Street was to have your head shaved. (Thanks to donasso@pacbell.net)
# When George Lucas lived in the San Francisco Bay area, where the tunnel scenes in THX were filmed, one of his phone numbers was 849-1138, or as a mnemonic, THX-1138. (Thanks to nbeckett@gte.net)
# The "shell dwellers" in THX served as the basis for the Jawas in Star Wars.
# The sound made by the staves which the robots use to condition prisoners are remarkably similar to the lightsaber sound effect.
# Star Wars was, at one point, going to be a prequel to THX, with the character who would become Luke Skywalker conceived as a young THX.
# The licence plate number on Milner's deuce coupe in American Graffiti was THX 138.
# In Star Wars, Luke says "Prisoner transfer from cell block 1138."
# During the car chase scene, someone can be heard over the intercom saying "I think I ran over a Wookiee back there on the expressway." As any good Star Wars fan can tell you, Chewbacca is a Wookiee.
# In The Empire Strikes Back, General Rieekan says, "Send Rogues ten and eleven to station three-eight."
# Not from a Lucas movie, but in The Lawnmower Man, the experimental chimp is named Rosco 1138.
# This is unconfirmed (I'll confirm it as soon as I can get to the theatre again!) but a reliable source told me that the battle droid who loses it's head in The Phantom Menace has the number "1138" on its back.
shamelessly stolen from this site (it's geocities, so go easy)
Frankly, I thought the pacing was fine. I like films that are not typical slapdash hollywood speed flicks. I prefer films that are slower and more elegant. I am convinced that THX1138 is one of Lucas's best films.
People who whinge about the pacing are just typical speed junkies - everything has to match their hamster sized attention spans and monkey brained prurience - very similar to the sadistic crap THX watches on TV in the movie.
I see THX1138 as prophetic: a puritanical (NO SEX!!!) consumerist capitalist totalitarian technological nightmare - all the tendencies we see about us today, only amplified in the worst possible way. And the surface of the earth? A beautiful wasteland.
THX1138 is magnificent. My only complaint is the audio is kind of noisy, and the voices weren't mixed well, and it all sounds kind of "canned". Murch is normally a genius, but this was not his best effort. My guess is the budget didn't permit anything better.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Not knowing what THX-1138 was, first glance of the article title resulted in the reply: "Sonofa! I have to upgrade my home theater for *another* audio format!?"
It stars a young Don Johnson
This from IMDB...
A post-apocalyptic tale based on a novella by Harlan Ellison. A boy communicates telepathically with his dog as they scavenge for food and sex..
Umm, I may be new, but I feel the need to correct this. If you are into a genre, does that necessarily mean you have to like everything from that category? I like watching dramas. That would make me into dramas, however, I don't like every drama. Perhaps one of the dramas was even one of the most boring movies I've ever seen!
-Dizzle
"I most likely AM so interested in myself."
Pretty dark, Orwellian film. Its VERY different from the SW films. You can see Lucas a young serious film maker with a dire outlook of the future in this film. The reviews of this movie are all over the place; some see it as an undestated masterpiece, others view it as boring pretentious crap. IMO, it was ok, but not great. Here the reviews listed on the IMDB.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Sucks real hard.
Not only that, but if you spin up the flash plugin, all you get is a set of links that then cause more flash loads.
In summary, a very lame site. I aborted after clicking the first link and seeing the "Transferring data..." status line.
I've seen the movie(in theater no less). I liked it, but I'm not going to torture myself trying to find my way through a website about it.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
That's the problem with yesterday's generation. You are so frightened of technology and changing ideas that you attack new ideas with Luddite fervor, banging on the machinery of modern life with oak clubs.
THX1138 is totally about YOU, huddling in your cave, doing manual labor that WE have designed machines to do for us. You have refused to learn the lessons that the industrial revolution should have tought you, with redundant repetitivity. You have no concept of what the word "progress" means, and you have yet to realize that true education does not (and should not) take place in schools, but in the home, on the playground, and in the burning desire to better yourself and your progeny (not everyone has that last one, by the way).
The parallels between THX1138 and today are mildly interesting, but hardly prescient. It's easy to look 30 years into the future. Lao Tsu wrote more insightful warnings thousands of years ago. HG Wells did a better job of it over a hundred years ago.
You've convinced nobody.
I don't even have the old Star Warts let alone the new one.
I'm sure that there's some kind of cream you can get from your doctor for that.
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
It introduced the concept of modern phone tech support. Whenever someone has a problem, they open their medicine cabinet and look into a lens, and a concerned voice says "what's wrong?". Later, you see the call center, where someone listens to the complaints and pushes a button to send out the appropriate canned response.
The chase scene's ending (this is a spoiler) is unique. The chase ends because the people chasing the escaped guy have reached their budget limit and chasing him is no longer cost-effective. So they let him go.
Lucas went on to do some more commercially successful work later, but THX-1138 represents his most original thinking.
It's worth seeing if for no other reason than to point out the dramatic difference between Lucas then and Lucas now. THX 1138 is a very minimalist movie. Little use of color, very simple sets, and a depressing but interesting premise. Compare this to say, Episode 1, where it's so overdone with special effects and it's all candy coated.
The other thing to note is the depth of the characters in THX 1138 versus the newest SW movies. Everybody in SW is so seemingly detached, from everything, so little emotion. In THX 1138, it's all about letting the emotion come out of that cold rigorously controlled world.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
are detailed here...
They add Muppets, and it all goes to hell.
Sorry for the spoiler.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
When is your true masterpiece going to be released?
Sailors. Oh man!