George Lucas’ Debut Shows the Directors’ Experimental Side (original) (raw)
Published Mar 27, 2023, 2:31 PM EDT
Matthew is a features writer for Collider currently based in Manchester. In his spare time he likes to read, write, obsess over Batman and complain about his Wordle score.
It’s easy to forget what an outsider George Lucas used to be. Long before Star Wars and Indiana Jones had cemented his standing as one of the most significant figures in the history of entertainment, Lucas was at the forefront of New Hollywood – a radical period of American cinema brought about by a new generation of younger (and more rebellious) directors. A quick glance through his early forays into filmmaking reveals someone with a steadfast desire to experiment, hurtling his way from one avant-garde-inspired short to the next that displayed a stringent fascination with everything but mainstream sensibilities. The mindset would reach its zenith in 1969 when he co-founded American Zoetrope with Francis Ford Coppola, creating the ideal playground for directors away from the oppressive studio system. While Lucas would focus on commercially oriented projects from 1973’s American Graffiti onwards, he did create one film for Zoetrope that saw him pushing his arthouse roots to their limit – the somewhat polarizing but still highly influential, THX 1138.
'THX 1138' Is a Classic Dystopian Story Similar to Orwell and Huxley
A reworking of his 1967 short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (a film he had made while studying at the University of Southern California), THX 1138 marked Lucas’s debut as a feature-length director. As is often the case with such projects, it wears its influences proudly – in this case, feeling like asking George Orwell and Aldous Huxley to pen a remake of Logan’s Run as directed by Robert Wise. Our protagonist – the titular THX 1138 (Robert Duvall) – is a mindless worker living in a dystopian futuristic city, doomed to a life of eternal servitude due to a constant stream of mind alternating drugs that keep him a slave to the omnipresent State. However, after his roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) secretly changes his pill dosage, he discovers the glorious taste of freedom for the first time in his life. The two begin a forbidden relationship, but this sudden influx of emotion quickly becomes his undoing after he stumbles during a hazardous part of his job, resulting in his immediate arrest.
What follows is exactly what you’d expect from a classic piece of totalitarian science fiction that’s been fed through the wringer of 1984 and Brave New World – our awoken protagonist frantically tries to escape a prison they’ve only just realized they’ve been trapped inside their whole life, guided by the promise that the mysterious outside world will provide the haven they so desperately crave. Along the way, THX discovers that (surprise surprise) this supposedly utopian world has more than a few cracks hidden behind the canvas. But given the overwhelming might of the State that has spent an inordinate amount of time chipping away at the remnants of humanity until a single man is nothing more than another cog in the endless pursuit of profit, what can he do to bring down this house of cards? As anyone familiar with the genre will already know, the answer is quite simple – nothing.
THX 1138 doesn’t do much to reinvent the dystopian wheel. Indeed, if you were to stumble upon it late at night whilst flicking through some obscure movie channel (perhaps while reminiscing about a time when streaming didn’t dominate the industry), you could easily mistake it for any lower-budget sci-fi film that was released during this period. Plenty of films have depicted a hyper-capitalist world where citizens are just unthinking machines who survive at the behest of faceless masters who could dispose of them as easily as one would a tissue, but a lack of innovation isn’t reason enough to disregard a film. A passionate voice and a strong sense of direction can elevate even the most tired of stories, and it’s here where THX 1138 succeeds.
Even in His Debut, Lucas’s Skills as a Director Are Clear
Robert Duvall and George Lucas filming THX 1138
Image via Lucasfilm
George Lucas is far from a perfect director, but if there’s one thing he has nailed better than anyone else in Hollywood, it’s visuals. There’s a reason why virtually every character, prop, and location in the original Star Wars trilogy is iconic, and the revolutionary special effects that brought them to life saw his once unorthodox techniques quickly becoming industry standard. Even in THX 1138 – produced with a fraction of the budget he had for Star Wars – this strength is his greatest asset. The stark white aesthetic that dominates every frame makes for a truly disturbing world – one where function has overridden any "unnecessary" concepts like beauty or serenity. Similarly, the identical appearance of every character (wearing the same plain uniform with the same shaven head) makes them feel just as robotic as the ever-present police androids, leaving no doubt that human emotion is well and truly a forgotten pleasure. Wooden dialogue and sterile camerawork has been a recurring criticism against Lucas, but the sense of detachment they produce compliments the clinical nature of THX 1138.
The sound design is what sells it. The constant barrage of chatter from announcements, virtual assistants, and unseen characters combines into a hallucinogenic haze of paranoia that fits THX 1138’s surveillance utopia like a glove, whilst also compounding the fragile mental state of THX as the world he thought he understood crumbles to dust around him. Lord knows how difficult it must have been for the film's sound editor Walter Murch to mix these sounds without turning the film into a cacophony of noise, but somehow he pulled it off – in the process crafting an aural experience that demands the finest hi-fi setup. Lalo Schifrin’s soundtrack is also worthy of commendation. Some viewers may grieve the absence of regular Lucas collaborator John Williams and his always enriching music, but Schifrin is a better pick for THX 1138, and his subdued but ominous score is the ideal soundscape for such an unnerving film.
The Slow Pace and Minimal Characterization May Turn Off Some Viewers
Robert Duvall in THX 1138
Image via Lucasfilm
With all that being said, THX 1138 is still firmly the product of a young George Lucas. It might share connective tissue to his most famous excursion into science fiction – a plot centered around a young rebel rejecting their assigned role in life to combat an oppressive empire – but the high fantasy thrills that made Star Wars a cultural behemoth are absent here. Instead, THX 1138 opts for a more cerebral tone, favoring a slow pace that allows for only the most threadbare of action sequences. The film runs for a lean 88 minutes, but Lucas makes sure you feel every second…for good or for ill. The intention is for you to immerse yourself into every facet of its terrifying world, with Lucas lingering in scenes long after most directors would have cut away. This isn’t uncommon in debut films when directors are still too in love with their own style to understand the benefits of economic editing (is now a good time to say that Lucas served as editor on the film?), but it does allow THX 1138 to avoid exposition dumps since viewers will get a clear sense of world-building just by observing it.
The downside, however, is that it also gives the film a very laborious feel. An easy solution to this would be a compelling cast of characters, but the ones we’re given have such minimal development and nonexistent personalities that they’re more akin to props than people, leaving the film without a strong emotional anchor. To be fair, that is the point, but that doesn’t negate the overarching issue that will turn away casual viewers – especially because THX 1138’s premise lacks a unique selling point. The exception to this is **Donald Pleasence**’s SEN 5241, who imbues the film with some much-needed vigor, but his limited screen time compared to Robert Duvall leaves the issue unresolved (a feeling made worse by SEN’s sudden change in personality after peering behind the veil, leading to the film’s most intriguing character arc). The specific nature of THX 1138 means that these complaints could well be the exact reasons why a niche audience would love it, but catering to such a demographic is never going to yield widespread success.
'THX 1138' Proved to be Highly Influential
When THX 1138 hit cinemas in 1971, it didn’t leave much of an impact. Lukewarm reviews and middling box office numbers seemed to destine it for a life on the underground circuit, struggling to claw its way to the surface much like its title character… at least until its director released the highest-grossing film ever made six years later, at which point interest in the film skyrocketed. The lack of mainstream appeal may have alienated general audiences, relegating it to being the black sheep in Lucas’s otherwise wildly popular filmography, but this hasn’t stopped THX 1138 from leaving its mark.
The lack of mainstream appeal was the biggest issue Lucas faced with THX 1138. While Warner Bros. agreed to distribute the film, their first impressions were wholly negative, resulting in several cuts (without Lucas’s consent) to try and hammer it into a more commercially viable form. Upset by the whole experience, Lucas formed his own production company (the now iconic Lucasfilm) to ensure greater control over his follow-up picture, American Graffiti – a film that, in hindsight, feels like a complete overreaction to THX 1138’s muted reception. It’s hard to imagine Lucas directing such an infectious bundle of energy, and its flawless depiction of the era’s counterculture youth made it a box office sensation overnight. Clearly, this newfound fame left an impression on Lucas – so much so that when returned to authoritarian science fiction for his next project, he did considerably more influence from his sophomore film than he did from his debut.
But the impact of THX 1138 extends beyond its effect on George Lucas. Arguably most works of social sci-fi – a subgenre that examines contemporary issues through the lens of heightened realities – released in the years since owe it some degree of debt, with notable examples including Brazil and Gattaca (both of which also critique technocracy, hyper-surveillance, and state capitalism in a dystopian future). THX 1138 wasn’t the first to explore such themes, but its reputation as an underground favorite has seen it become a go-to reference point for later films (helped by it being one of the most famous examples not based on a novel, giving it a wholly cinematic flavor). Meanwhile, the film’s methodical rhyme and clean aesthetic have left a legacy all by themselves. Beyond the Black Rainbow – the stunning debut of Mandy director Panos Cosmatos – is one such example, giving it a very precise look that benefited it greatly.
It May be the Outlier in Lucas’s Filmography, but 'THX 1138' Is Still an Engaging Watch
Robert Duvall and Maggic McOmie in THX 1138
Image via Lucasfilm
Fifty years on, there’s a reason why THX 1138 has never advanced beyond the term “cult classic." Its bleak tone turned off audiences of the time, and audiences today will find its slow pace and minimalistic design tiresome, resulting in a 90-minute mood piece that only a subset of people will enjoy. But what’s wrong with that? There’s no inherent requirement for a film to have universal appeal, and given that Lucas has spent decades proving himself as one of the great crowd-pleasers in the history of cinema, he’s more than earned the right for the odd indulgence. It’s the sort of film that requires a specific mind frame to enjoy, but its excellent world-building and engrossing visuals serve as a brilliant example of why style is equally as important (if not more so) than style. THX 1138 will never match Star Wars’ popularity, but there’s a good chance that everything that made Star Wars such a landmark only exists because of THX 1138’s failure, making it a vital component of his phenomenal career.