Despite the whiff of pontifical redundancy that arises from the “George Lucas Director’s Cut” title, this new THX 1138 is a nifty reissue. It’s belongs to a release pattern that Warner Bros. will be repeating in a couple of weeks with The Shawshank Redemption: a one-week theatrical run prior to the DVD release the following week. TXH 1138 is the feature-length outgrowth of a short film Lucas made while a student at USC. The film remains as visionary as it seemed in 1970, when it was produced and released with the help of Francis Ford Coppola. The film, which stars Robert Duvall, depicts a future world of the 25th century in which government mind control is the order of the day. The government keeps the populace sedated with sex, drugs, and violence so that they may labor without question or emotion. It’s a dystopic vision that still packs a wallop all these years later. Lucas has digitally enhanced many scenes for this release, creating crowd scenes and other refinements that were not available at the time. The effect is subtle and unobtrusive, making the film seem less dated and totally Lucasian.
This article appears in September 3 • 2004.
