Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967) - film review

In a sterile underground city, there lives a well-organised society that is under constant surveillance.  One man, THX 1138, is unhappy with this status quo and goes on  the run.  Despite being monitored at every stage of his flight, he evades capture.  Finally, he climbs up a duct and emerges on to the surface of a beautiful world...

This short film was made by 22-year-old George Lucas, the future director of Star Wars (1977), as part of his film study course at the University of Southern California.  The film, a bizarre montage of stark visual images that paints a chilling dystopian vision of the future, won several prizes and drew the attention of filmmaker-producer Francis Ford Coppola.  It was Coppola who suggested that Lucas remake the short as the full length commercial film THX 1138.   Whilst the original short may lack the elegance and complexity of the much more expensive remake, its rough-and-ready feel gives it a disturbing reality.  Matthew Robbins, the author of the film’s two-page script, would play the part of THX 1138 in the very last shot of the remake.

© James Travers 2010

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?