THX 1138

Posted 28 October 2010 | Movies

THX 1138 is a 1971 science fiction film directed by George Lucas, from a screenplay by Lucas and Walter Murch. It depicts a dystopian future in which a high level of control is exerted upon the populace through omnipresent, faceless, android police officers and mandatory, regulated use of special drugs to suppress emotion, including sexual desire.

THX 1138 was the first feature-length film directed by Lucas, developed from his student film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which he made in 1967 while attending the University of Southern California. This short film was itself based on a one and a quarter page treatment of an idea by Matthew Robbins. The feature film was produced in a joint venture between Warner Brothers and Francis Ford Coppola’s then-new production company, American Zoetrope. A novelization by Ben Bova was published in 1971.

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

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