THX 1138

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Movie
German title THX 1138
Original title THX 1138
THX 1138.jpg
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1971
length Theatrical version: 83 minutes,
Director's Cut : 85 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director George Lucas
script George Lucas,
Walter Murch
production Lawrence Sturhahn
music Lalo Schifrin
camera David Myers ,
Albert Kihn
cut George Lucas,
Walter Murch
occupation
synchronization

THX 1138 [ TI eɪtʃ ɛks wʌn wʌn θriː eɪt ] is an American science fiction film by producer, screenwriter and director George Lucas from 1971 . It is the first full-length film by George Lucas and is based on his short film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB , which was produced in 1967 during Lucas' student days. The film is considered to be one of the most important science fiction works of New Hollywood .

The theme of the film was related to the widespread fear of the loss of identity of the individual in an increasingly technical and centralized society. As he plays around in a dystopian imaginary technocracy . The film also raises the timeless question of a person's free will .

action

The film shows a society in which people live in a highly automated and efficient underground facility. People's names consist of a three-digit prefix followed by a number. Forced medication of psychotropic drugs regulates people's behavior and increases their performance. Denial of medication and intercourse, seen as a ruinous sexual perversion , are serious crimes. A complete monitoring ensures that this does not happen or is punished.

LUH 3417 works in a monitoring station. She monitors the city in general and the intake of medication in particular and answers questions from citizens with pre-recorded announcements. She is watched by her manager, SEN 5241, as she watches her roommate, THX 1138, at his workplace, an android factory . While she was watching him, an accident and a small nuclear explosion occurred in another section of the factory . On the way home, THX visits a university band and asks the virtual deity Omm for advice. His answer consists of an automated and less relevant tape announcement.

On arrival at home, THX ignores LUH's emotionally charged questions and begins to watch hologram programs . He watches a nude dancer and lets himself be satisfied by an automated masturbator (only in the Director's Cut). Meanwhile, LUH, who is already under suspicion of avoiding drugs, exchanges drugs in THX's ration. After THX has let himself be satisfied, he changes the program to a station on which a person is constantly being beaten by robot police officers. Annoyed, LUH changes the program and THX takes his evening ration with the prepared medication.

Up to this point in time, THX - in contrast to LUH - makes an emotionally unmoved, indifferent impression in every situation. Shortly afterwards, the changed medication becomes noticeable and he tries to counteract his restlessness with more psychotropic drugs, but collapses in front of the medicine cabinet. This makes SEN aware of what is happening in your residential unit. LUH and THX have sex for the first time and discover that they are in love with each other and want to continue to evade the system by fleeing to the surface.

SEN changes LUH's deployment plan and explains to THX, confronted by the latter, that he used his privileges and computer skills to manipulate the system so that THX is assigned to SEN's residential unit. Since this is illegal, SEN is denounced by THX.

THX begins its last shift, but is under great stress due to the lack of performance-enhancing drugs. Alerted by the unusual biometric signals, the inspectors put a "thought block" on him. This procedure leads to a complete rigidity of THX, which, however, is precisely at a particularly delicate work step with radioactive material. This almost causes another nuclear explosion. The investigation into the incident reveals that THX was guilty of drug denial and sexual perversion with LUH, and he is arrested.

In court, THX is declared incurable. Immediate destruction is refused, instead he should be conditioned and kept in custody. After conditioning, THX meets LUH, who has also been arrested. LUH tells THX that she is pregnant, they have sex again and are separated after a brief fight with two robot police officers. THX then ends up in a custody facility for the mentally conspicuous and unadjusted (a white, seemingly wallless room with no visible exit). SEN, who has also been arrested for his system manipulation, is also there. THX decides to flee, and SEN follows him.

You run through the seemingly limitless empty space. On the way they meet SRT, an actor from the hologram shows who claims to be a materialized hologram with a will of its own that wants to look at reality. He joins them and leads the group to the exit. From then on, the three of them are being pursued by state power in the form of android police officers. The agency responsible for the apprehension of THX sets a maximum amount that can be used for his arrest. All related activities are to be stopped automatically as soon as this amount is exceeded.

SEN is separated from the other two in a scrum. He alone reaches the edge of the city and a tunnel that leads further into the unknown. However, when SEN sees how dark and dirty the tunnel is and that vermin also live there, he loses the courage to go on and returns to town. There he goes to the central university chapel and prays to Omm. He protests that he can change and asks for a new beginning, is interrupted by a priest and flees. Shortly afterwards he sits down on a bench and talks to some children playing while he is identified by the surveillance cameras. He confronts the police robots who arrive a little later without resistance.

On her escape, THX searches for LUH and learns that she has been destroyed because the search for her number only reveals the whereabouts of a growing fetus in vitro , to which the number has already been reassigned. THX and SRT each steal a car, but SRT is overwhelmed with operating his car. He has an accident shortly after the theft and THX continues the escape alone. After a collision with a construction site, THX continued to flee on foot and came to a shaft that led to the surface of the earth. He climbs up a ladder through the shaft, closely followed by police robots.

As the budget made available for the police operation was exceeded, the pursuers broke off the search, only a few meters behind THX, but still called out to him that he could not survive outside the shell. THX comes to the surface and faces the setting sun; several birds fly over it.

History of origin

production

Together with George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola founded the American Zoetrope studio in San Francisco in 1969 . Coppola had left the post of deputy managing director of the new company to Lucas and promised him that the company's first film would be THX 1138 . He made this promise in the optimistic assumption that Warner Bros. Seven Arts would take over the production of the film.

script

During an odyssey from New York to Nebraska with his friend Francis Ford Coppola for the production of the film Never Love a Stranger , Lucas wrote a first draft of THX 1138 . Lucas was able to accompany Coppola during the shooting and work on his script at the same time. This first version from November 1, 1968 was an unfinished draft of Lucas' first feature film and at the same time represented an expanded version of his student short film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB from 1967.

When Lucas submitted his script to Warner Bros. in the spring of 1969, the studio initially turned it down. Lucas then tried to revise the script extensively. In addition, the next version of THX 1138 was worked out by screenwriter Oliver Hailey. Since the resulting version did not correspond to Lucas's ideas, a fourth version was worked out together with Walter Murch . The resulting script was again rejected by Warner Bros.

When Kinney, the director of Warner Bros., turned the management over to Stephen J. Ross, George Lucas re-submitted his script without mentioning that it had already been rejected. Lucas then convinced the new head of production at Warner Bros. John Calley , who granted the project a provisional budget of one million US dollars.

Casting

Lucas had never made friends with Robert Duvall while filming Love together and began targeting him for the lead role while he was writing the first draft of THX 1138 . In the revised version of THX 1138 by Lucas and Murch , the role of SEN was expanded. He was now called SEN 5241 and was a middle-aged man who chose THX as a roommate. The role was cast with the famous British actor Donald Pleasence . The role of THX's roommate was also expanded considerably as the script developed. When auditioning suitable actors for LUH, Lucas already warned that all characters in the film would have to shave their heads.

Maggie McOmie had recently graduated from San Francisco State College with her acting degree. She didn't mind shaving her head (she was the only candidate willing to do so) and playing the love scenes with Robert Duvall naked. The role of SRT was cast with the nearly two-meter-tall actor Don Pedro Colley , who had previously starred in the fourth and fifth seasons of Daniel Boone of the television station NBC. Michael Haller was entrusted with the duties of artistic director.

Filming

Shooting began on September 22nd, the location was the tunnel system of the new subway line in the San Francisco Bay Area, also known as BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). When filming, Lucas took advantage of the fact that the railway network was still under construction and he could shoot in depressingly deserted tunnels. The cars were a Lola T70 with a dummy turbine attached.

Throughout the production of THX 1138 , George Lucas made sure to use settings that were familiar from documentaries . The two cameramen Albert Kihn and David Myers even came from the documentary film industry. At the same time he tried to represent the purely fictional social order of the film in an absolutely realistic way and described this kind of visual closeness to life, based on a formulation by Akira Kurosawa, as "flawless reality" .

The camera work relied on rigid perspectives, without significant camera movements and stylistic shakiness. Camera movement only occurred when objects were moving. In this case, the camera was allowed to pan with the object. The camera direction often went so far that people were allowed to wander out of the picture without adjusting the detail.

While Lucas and his crew were filming on the streets of San Francisco, Warner Bros. executives worried about the film's emerging character. It was by no means certain that Lucas would be able to complete his first feature film and that Warner Bros. would not stop further funding of the project. Therefore, the actual shooting had to be driven forward quickly, which was accomplished with an arrangement of two cameras. This approach had the additional advantage that Lucas could deliver shots from different perspectives with spontaneous shots.

The last shot of the film, in which THX rises to the surface of the earth and sees the glowing sunset in front of him, was an identical reprint of the same scene in the student version of the film. In this extreme long shot, THX was not played by Robert Duvall, as usual, but by Matthew Robbins , the second author of the original story of the student film.

Post production

After filming THX 1138 , post-production took place in the specially converted attic of Lucas' home in Mill Valley . This part of the film production in particular produced the most serious complications and differences of opinion between Lucas and the financier Warner Bros.

cut

Lucas spent a lot of time editing the film with Murch in the specially converted attic of his house. In May 1970 the first cut version was shown to Warner Bros. During and after the film screening, the management was disconcerted that Lucas had made a film that was fundamentally beyond their imagination. In their opinion, the film missed the desired dynamic plot development and was also too abstract and unreal.

Subsequently, Fred Weintraub was given the task of coordinating a new version, and Lucas set up a series of meetings to find a compromise that was acceptable to all concerned. Lucas continued his efforts to re-cut THX 1138 , but at some point saw no basis for further collaboration with Weintraub. As a result, he was released from working on the film. With the cut was Rudi Fehr commissioned a staff film editor at Warner Bros., the playing time of THX 1138 shortened by five minutes and towards the corporate culture by Lucas' distrust Hollywood left turn into rejection.

Soundtrack

In August 1970, composer Lalo Schifrin , a native of Argentina, began working on the soundtrack for THX 1138 . Schifrin's compositions recognized and complemented the originally experimental approach of Lucas and Murch for the soundscape of the film and took up the Japanese influence in some places, which Lucas had already preferred in his selection of the locations. Schifrin's score was recorded in October and mixed a short time later for the film.

Theatrical release

The theatrical release of THX 1138 on 11 March 1971 went with little fanfare vonstatten, and the film was sparse albeit generally positive, taken from the film critics. Since Warner Bros. saw no point in putting the shell dwellers in the foreground, the film was marketed using a close-up shot of one of the police officers. On the movie poster was the slogan “ The future is here. " to read. In Germany it was first shown on television on December 30, 1978.

In 1971, Lucas reviewed his experiences with THX 1138 in the documentary called George Lucas: Maker of Films . The shipment was from non-commercial stations KCET in Los Angeles produced and presented by the author and critic Gene Youngblood. In an interview with Youngblood, Lucas criticized Warner Bros' stubborn approach:

“Making films is an art; Selling films is a business. The only problem is that they have no idea how to sell films. So they try to make films that people can get into without having to be sold to them. That is where I see the real problem. They lose interest as soon as they are not dealing with a film that just needs to be shown in the cinemas and people come in droves. "

- George Lucas in the documentary George Lucas Maker of Films (1971)

After Lucas surprising success with Star Wars in 1977, Warner Bros. brought in September of the same year THX 1138 re-released in theaters, the new posters involved the recent success of the director: " Before George Lucas with Star Wars in the depths of the universe advanced, he explored the abyss of society in THX 1138 . "

THX 1138 failed miserably at the box office on both releases . Nevertheless, thanks to Lucas' later box office successes, the film was able to be presented to a larger audience, which enabled the production costs to be recouped with the help of various TV rights and the later DVD release in 2004.

DVD release

A Director's Cut of THX 1138 was released on September 10, 2004 , in which the scenes shortened by Warner Bros. had been reinserted. In collaboration with Lowry Digital Images , Lucasfilm managed to restore and rework the film. John Lowry, the company's founder, has been restoring films since 1971. One of the company's best-known orders was the DVD box of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones and the original Star Wars trilogy .

The original negative of THX 1138 had been heavily attacked since 1971 and was completely unsuitable for conversion to digital format in the scenes with the white set because of the high degree of soiling and graininess of the image. Using various negatives from the Warner Bros. and Lucasfilm reserves, the film was first subjected to an internal restoration in which the various negatives were cut together. Industrial Light and Magic retouched the dirt and scratches, digitally repaired the negative and did the color gradation for the film. Subsequently, at Lowry Digital Images, the sharpness of the details was improved so that they appeared more intense. In addition, the grain size of the material has been reduced.

synchronization

The first German synchronization took place in 1977 by Berliner Synchron GmbH on behalf of ARD . In 2004, Blackbird Music Musik- u. Followed a new synchronization for the release of the Director's Cut on DVD . Film dubbing, Berlin.

actor role German speaker
ARD 1977 Director's-Cut 2004
Robert Duvall THX 1138 Norbert Langer
Maggie McOmie LUH 3417 Edeltraut Elsner Ranja Bonalana
Donald Pleasance SEN Wolfgang Spier Reinhard Kuhnert
Ian Wolfe PTO Herbert Stass Jochen Schröder
Don Pedro Colley SRT Hans Künster Tilo Schmitz
David Ogden Stiers announcer Matthias Klages
Marshall Efron TWA
Robert Feero Chrome Robot # 1 Sebastian Christoph Jacob
Doc Scortt monk
James Wheaton OMM Lutz Riedel

Reviews

  • “The government, which looks like a pathetic combination of Mao Zedong and tax investigators, treats everyone as consumer producers whose lives only serve to improve the glorious state. In a world of increasing monotony, Lucas occasionally lets his sense of humor flash as the only bright spot: When watching television, THX switches to a channel that only shows endless beatings - a caricature of the violence and sadism in today's television, with the disgruntled details one Action are completely left out. "
“The government — a wretched wedding of Mao Tse-tung and the Internal Revenue Service — treats each person as a consumer-producer who lives to enhance the glorious state. In a world of progressive monotony, Lucas flashes some bright signs of humor: when THX (Robert Duvall) watches television, he turns to a channel where a beating proceeds incessantly --- the violence and sadism of today's viewing, minus the annoyances of plot . ”
Stefan Kanfer in Time magazine on March 29, 1971
“'THX 1138' suffers somewhat from its simple storyline, but as a work of visual imagination it's special, and as haunting as parts of '2001: A Space Odyssey,' 'Silent Running' and 'The Andromeda Strain.'”
Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times (1971)
"The surprising thing about George Lucas's first feature (1971), a dystopian SF parable now digitally enhanced and expanded by five minutes, is how arty it seems compared to his later movies."
Jonathan Rosenbaum in Chicago Reader September 10, 2004
  • “THX 1138 is a disturbing sci-fi drama that stimulates the viewer to reflect on the right or wrong of our society. It draws a vision that is becoming more and more a reality. Because the dependence of mankind on technological achievements is increasing, while the critical questioning of things and the understanding of them fall by the wayside. THX 1138 criticizes this irresponsible use of science. Coupled with the disturbing-looking backdrops, the coolness of the images and the booming noises, the film achieves a brilliance that conveys a shocking but realistic prophecy. "
Joss Friedrich Kurz (film), Der Linke Berliner, May 23, 2005
  • "George Lucas' first film is a complex and very original, admittedly not easy to grasp science fiction adventure and at the same time a moving warning of the dangers of a mechanized world."
Lexicon of international film
  • " THX 1138 is less a vision of the future than a grim expansion of the present ... Lucas has built his system so tightly that you can hardly accept Duvall's escape on such a simple adventure level, but that's just a small caveat to being extremely professional made first film. "
Paul D. Zimmerman in the news magazine Newsweek , quoted here from: Hahn / Jansen, p. 499

Others

In 1983 George Lucas founded the company THX Ltd., which originally served to establish a standard for sound systems in cinema halls.

The mentions in contemporary culture, especially the number, are diverse:

  • The 1138 appears in almost all films in the Star Wars series, with the exception of Episode VI , as well as in many other works by George Lucas. For example in Episode I on the back of the battle droid, which Jar Jar Binks knocks down shortly after its deactivation. In the first episode of the third season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars , clone cadets , the maneuver "THX" is carried out with the variable "1138". In Episode IV , Luke Skywalker mentions the "cell block 11-38" on the first Death Star . There are also hidden references to the film in many Star Wars computer games. For example, stormtroopers often report in games with the exclamation "THX one one three eight reports on the spot" or certain targets are in "Section 11/38".
  • In the movie American Graffiti , one of the license plates is “THX-138” (because California license plates were six digits back then).
  • Another allusion can be found, for example, in the opening credits of the television series Pinky and the Brain , where Brain solves the equation of the “theory of everything”, which results in “THX = 1138”.
  • During the chase towards the end of THX 1138 , someone notices "... I think I ran over a Wookiee".
  • The sound of the beating scene from the TV hologram is used by the group Nine Inch Nails as the beginning of the play Mr. Self Destruct .
  • The optics of the film was z. B. 1982 by the rock band Queen for the video of their song Calling All Girls (from the album Hot Space ).

literature

  • Ben Bova : THX 1138 - The drug paradise. Goldmann, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-442-23307-0 .
  • Ronald M. Hahn, Volker Jansen: Lexicon of Science Fiction Films. 720 films from 1902 to 1983. Original edition, Heyne, Munich 1983 (Heyne-Buch; 01/7236), ISBN 3-453-01901-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ THX 1138 (ARD synchro from 1977) in the German dubbing index
  2. ↑ THX 1138 (Director's-Cut-Synchro from 2004) in the German dubbing index
  3. ↑ http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944339,00.html
  4. ^ Roger Ebert: THX 1138 (2004). In: RogerEbert.com. September 10, 2004, accessed November 20, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Jonathan Rosenbaum: Thx 1138: The George Lucas Director's Cut. In: JonathanRosenbaum.net. September 10, 2004, accessed November 20, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Buy - and be happy! A film review of THX 1138. ( Memento from July 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ THX 1138. In: Lexicon of international films . Film service , accessed November 20, 2016 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used