The human race has been relocated to a underground city located beneath the Earth’s surface. In the underground city, the population are entertained by holographic TV which broadcasts sex and violence and robotic police force enforces the law. In the underground city, society controls all life, all citizens are drugged to control their emotions and their behavior and sex is a crime. Factory worker THX-1138 stops taking the drugs and he breaks the law when he finds himself falling in love with his room-mate LUH 3417 and is imprisoned when LUH 3417 is pregnant. Escaping from jail with illegal programmer SEN 5241 and a hologram named SRT, THX 1138 goes in search of LUH 3417 and escape to the surface, whilst being pursued by robotic policemen.

THX 1138 (1971)
  • Rating: (21,071 votes)
  • Taglines:Visit the future where love is the ultimate crime. » The Future is here. »
  • Runtime:86 minutes
  • Director: George Lucas
  • Country:USA
  • Actors:
    THX
    Robert Duvall
    SEN
    Donald Pleasence
    SRT
    Don Pedro Colley
    LUH
    Maggie McOmie
    PTO
    Ian Wolfe
    TWA
    Marshall Efron
    NCH
    Sid Haig
    DWY
    John Pearce
    IMM (as Irene Forrest)
    Irene Cagen
    CAM
    Gary Alan Marsh
  • Genres:Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
  • Producers:
    Francis Ford Coppola
    executive producer  
    Edward Folger
    associate producer (as Ed Folger) 
    Larry Sturhahn
    producer (as Lawrence Sturhahn) 
  • Plots: George Lucas adapted this, his first film, from a short he made at University. THX 1138, LUH 3417, and SEN 5241 attempt to escape from a futuristic society located beneath the surface of the Earth. The society has outlawed sex, with drugs used to control the people. THX 1138 stops taking the drugs, and gets LUH 3417 pregnant. They are both thrown in jail where they meet SEN 5241 and start to plan their escape. Written by Colin Tinto <cst@imdb.com>
THX 1138
  • User's comment:Was loving it... was loving it... hated it. by rooprect

    ===EDIT: The following review was written before I knew the extent of the cgi doctoring that Lucas added recently. These are the "cheap action scenes" I'm talking about below. If you can find a copy of the original undoctored THX-1138, that's the one to watch.===

    Aw man. This film had so much promise. It starts out abstract, minimalist, challenging and poetic. It gets deeper, more bizarre and artistic. But then it suddenly degenerates into a cheap action flick with hi-tech car chases, and it ends with the most simplistic, meaningless resolution. Total letdown.

    It's as if Hamlet's famous soliloquy went:

    "To be, or not to be: that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows... and CARS! and MOTORCYCLES! and fast whizzy things BAM!! The End!!!!"

    I suspect that Lucas began this film with a fantastic premise & with artistic intent, but then he suddenly realized "hey wait, I don't know what I'm doing. How do I end this damn thing?" True, it's an interesting dystopian drama. George must've been reading a lot of Kurt Vonnegut when he filmed this. Yes, it's very much in the style of 2001: A Space Odyssey. George must've been watching a lot of Kubrick. But that's where it ends. George fails to present anything original. And as it unravels into a simplistic action flick in the last 20 minutes, you realize that George has been fooling you for the last hour and a half. Literally, it ended, and I said out loud, "Uh... is this where Lucas got bored and stopped filming?"

    Still, I have to give him an "A" for effort. Like most of the other reviewers, I was blown away by the fact that George Lucas was capable of this type of abstract poetry. With the exception of those cheezy action scenes (which I'm sure Lucas added ex post facto, like he did with Star Wars + CGI) it is reminiscent of the old Michael Crichton films (Andromeda Strain, Westworld) with maybe a dash of Rollerball.

    The early 70s was a wonderful time for scifi, because all the directors were scrambling to emulate Kubrick's masterpiece. But like this film, the effort ran out of gas and eventually slumped into plot-driven cheese. What is so frustrating is that Lucas could have made something truly great if he had just followed up on Donald Pleasence's cryptic ramblings midway. Unfortunately, he chose to go in the other direction, and the film ends with no dialogue for the last 20 minutes. Instead we get a lot of (ex post facto CGI) special effects and chase scenes. What a shame. We literally see before our eyes the unfortunate turning point of Lucas' career.

    In space, sometimes a nebula--for all its swirling promise--never quite consolidates itself into a star. This movie, like Lucas, like the failed nebula, is the big one that got away.

    P.S. George, if you're listening, please stop adding "new" special effects to the old films! You're not impressing anyone. You & Ted Turner both...


  • Quotes: OMM: Blessings of the state, blessings of the masses. Hologram Newscaster: - units of detuned escalatories have not, however, prevented virus and ordnance from invading our centers. THX 1138: LUH?
  • Also known as: THX 1138 (Brazil - imdb display title), THX 1138 (Finland), THX 1138 (France), THX 1138 (Greece - video title), THX 1138 (Serbia), THX 1138 (Spain), L'uomo che fuggì dal futuro (Italy), THX-1138 (USA - alternative spelling),

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