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Inevitably, there are spoilers here, so read with care. Thanks!
What is it? THX 1138, directed by George Lucas, written by George Lucas & Walter Murch, based on the short film Electronic Labyrinth: THX1138 4EB by George Lucas, and starring Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Maggie McOmie, Ian Wolfe, Sid Haig and introducing Don Pedro Colley as SRT 5752.
First viewing? Technically yes; my first viewing (the 1977 restored version) was 11 March 2025, followed by a second viewing (the 2004 director’s cut) on 17 March 2025. I say “technically” because I do recall seeing the final chase on TV when I was a kid, circa 1982. I don’t recall if I saw much before that. I’m not sure if I happened to turn the channel to it at the end, or I just don’t remember the beginning, which no doubt would’ve bored child-me to tears.
What’s it about? In the future, humanity has retreated to underground cities, where everyone keeps their heads shaved, wears white jumpsuits, are force-fed drugs to keep them servile, and are under constant surveillance, among other indignities. When one citizen, THX 1138 (Duvall) is illegally taken off his drugs by his mate LUH 3417 (McOmie), he ends up running afoul of the rules.
What are your thoughts about it? For this thematic series, American Dystopias are what we’re soaking in, and a discussion of them wouldn’t be complete without what might be the first dystopic vision of the ’70s, 1971’s THX 1138.1 THX 1138 is probably best known not for any of its cinematic virtues (or vices), but for being George “I invented Star Wars” Lucas’ first film, as well as sharing its name with Lucas’ theater audio quality assurance system.2 I imagine most people, if they’re even aware of its existence, think of it as “the one where everything’s white and everyone’s bald, oh and robot cops.” Is there anything in the film itself worth considering, or is it ultimately a restaurant Trivia Night question?
This is what I meant by “architecturally-inclined,” the kind of shots you’d see in Alan Paula movies a few years later.
You may have heard that Lucas originally wanted to be an experimental, avant-garde filmmaker; the first thirty minutes of THX 1138 are the best evidence of that. We get a collection of striking, architecturally-inclined images (from cinematographers Albert Kihn and David Meyers) and sound editing (by co-writer Walter Murch) that suggest the contours of an almost-inhospitably dystopic world. It’s underground (although that isn’t fully clear until the end). Physical intimacy is forbidden, even with oneself (male masturbation appears to be mandatory and done with a non-optional machine). Everyone is watched, all the time, including the watchers. Everyone is conditioned to take drugs, which dull the emotions, and apparently are necessary to do the dangerous work that could blow up buildings with the slightest error. Faceless robot cops enforce the rules. The last part is interesting, because most dystopic fiction has some kind of ruling class, but we don’t see much evidence of that here. In fact, the dangerous work is building the robot cops; the implication is that these people are essentially oppressing themselves.3 It’s also very, very white. We’ll come back to that.
Somehow, someway, LUH gets into THX’s cell for a conjugal visit, the very thing that got him thrown in jail in the first place. It doesn’t make sense to me on any level.
There’s a slim thread of narrative that winds through this world building. THX (Duvall) is one of the many, many drones in this world, and his assigned companion, LUH (McOmie) surreptitiously swaps out his emotion-dulling drugs in order to reawaken his libido.4 This leads to him nearly causing a disaster at his job, and he and LUH are subsequently arrested and imprisoned. If it ended there, we’d have a tidy ripoff of 1984. It doesn’t though, and as a result, the narrative starts to slip a bit from Lucas and Murch’s fingers. THX, along with SEN (Pleasence), is thrown into a prison, which turns out to just be an extremely large white room they can leave, if they can find the exit door.5 Once out, and after THX discovers LUH’s fate, he decides to jack a race car and get the hell out of All-White Dodge.
Fellas, is it gay to have sex with a woman?
This is the thing: as a set of themes and ideas and images, THX 1138 is a feast.6 As a story, it’s an hors d’oeuvre at best. It’s not that I’m a “plot over all else” guy;7 it’s simply that a film that’s more interested in arranging themes on a table rather than hitching them to a compelling story is a film that I find unsatisfying. (This is my big gripe with Nope (2022, Jordan Peele), so take it with a grain of salt.) THX is our main character, but until the last thirty minutes or so, he’s not our protagonist. (LUH and later, SEN, take that acive role.) As screenwriter Todd Alcott might say, this is a plotting disaster. (Twenty-eight years later, Lucas would again get tripped up emphasizing themes over plotting.) Yes, thematically, it’s interesting to listen to the one surveillance guy do on-the-job training with a new assistant that ends up unintentionally torturing poor THX. It’s also funny! But it also stops the story dead in its tracks, and tonally doesn’t fit in with the rest of the film.
The prosecutor in THX’s legal case is this kid. It’s not explained why the prosecutor is a kid, but the way he zealously goes after THX’s “perversion” feels right. Also amusing in that he reminded me of the little tree lawyer in that one episde of AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE.
However, there’s one idea in the film that makes sitting through the half-baked story worth it. It’s pretty explosive, ahead of its time (at least for a white filmmaker), and honestly, I’m not 100% sure this idea was even intended in the first place. Here is that idea:
Black people don’t exist in THX 1138.
AM05 + &Y. That might be SRT on the right? I’m not sure.
Okay, that’s not technically true. There are, but at least at the outset, they can only be found in one place: on hologram television. There’s a pair of comedic actors in some kind of sitcom, complete with audience laugh track; there’s a newsreader; then there’s two nude dancers, one female and one male, both are whom are intended as masturbatory images for the white citizenry. All of the Black people have been pushed aside into everything that could be considered entertainment. As horribe and soul-crushing as this society is, it still concluded that Black people have no place in it. That’s pretty dystopic, but considering I live in a country that’s attempting to resegregate while nominally valuing and respecting Black voices and bodies (the NBA Finals are going on as I write this), not that far from fantasy.
The only white person – I’m pretty sure that’s a white person, but if not, holy shit this is way too on the nose – the only white person on TV is getting brutally beaten by a robot cop for an appreciative TV audience. The audio for this scene is used as the intro for Nine Inch Nails’ “Mr. Self Destruct.”
Oh. But it’s actually worse than that.
As THX and SEN walk through the empty white purgatorial nothingness that is their prison, searching for an exit, they come across an actual, physically-real Black man named SRT 5752. SRT, compared to the sardonic SEN and the near-anhedonic THX, is pretty jovial in comparison. He says he’s a hologram actor for the television broadcasts. That sounds like that confirms my idea above of where the Black people are. Here are his exact words:
Don Pedro Colley as SRT. I don’t know if he’s tall or if Duvall and Pleasence are short.
“I’m a hologram. I’m not real. You know, the fantasy bureau, electrically-generated realities and all that. I was stuck in the same circuit for too long. The arm and leg routine, you see that one? I always wanted to be part of the real world. So I left.”
Set aside a moment the technological implications of this, a throwaway line the movie does nothing with, that anticipates The Matrix and Virtuosity, among others. He’s saying he’s not actually a living person. He’s not an actor in hologram shows; he’s a hologram. And if he’s a hologram, then there’s no reason to believe that all the other people we saw on television weren’t also holograms. Why, then, are all the Black people holograms?
I can only conclude that, in this world, all the Black people have been exterminated.
It’s a jaw-dropping revelation the movie just leaves there. Again, I’m not even 100% sure this idea was what was intended, and not simply the end result of different decisions made elsewhere. But then again, lest anyone hypothesize that SRT (and presumably others like him) simply thinks he’s not real, there’s the scene where THX and SRT steal race cars. THX knows exactly how to start it and drive it, but SRT struggles, and when he finally gets it going, immediately crashes. When the robot cops investigate, there’s no evidence of SRT having been there.
What makes the movie odd is that it combines every awful dystopic idea Lucas and Murch could think of, but then Lucas is like, “This thing needs bitchin’ race cars, cuz race cars are rad.” I want to believe Lucas cried when they got this shot of the car crashing into a pillar.
Regardless, the meaning is clear: Black people are intolerable, and yet, mentally and spiritually, absolutely necessary. (The computers in The Matrix determined that humans would reject virtual utopian fantasy worlds; the computers here determined that white people would reject having only white people on TV.) They, the white people, want the Black joy without any bothersome Black people to complicate the issue.
A crazy-ass stunt that somehow didn’t harm the stunt man. (Watch it and you won’t believe that.)
THX 1138 is, ultimately, a pretty middling movie. It can’t offer any real insight to the oppressions on display; again, it’s 1984-lite. Nor can it really offer much in the entertainment category, even with a moderately-rousing chase sequence to end on. But I think on some level, what really bothers me is that the society depicted in THX 1138 is kind of nonsensical, a collection of worst possible outcomes that, in aggregate, are difficult to imagine arising in any “natural” way… yet you can pick nearly any of those outcomes and see, right now, in America, those same ideas in germinal form. Genocidal desegragation, radical Puritanism, devaluation of literacy, people reduced to factory drones, no art to speak of… it’s all here. The Phantom Menace has recently been re-evaluated in light of its premonitory properties, but THX 1138 got there first. Goddamnit, Lucas.
There’s a whole enforced religion angle I didn’t even get into.
How many stars out of five? Two and half red icosahedrons out of five. (Watch the movie.)
Where can I stream it? The only legal public version is the “George Lucas Director’s Cut,” which, as of this writing, is available to rent from Fandango at Home, Amazon, Apple TV, Microsoft, and Spectrum, and can be purchased from the same from the same vendors, sans Spectrum. The 1977 restored version (based on the end credits, sourced from an Italian print) can be found if you know where to look.
What can we take from it? My apologies for being so unimaginative, but I ran out of time to be imaginative. So here are some Cypher System stats for the Police Bots (according to IMDB, they’re called “Chrome Robots.”)
CHROME ROBOT (POLICE BOT)
Level: 3
Description: Chrome Robots are tall, slim human-shaped robots. Their faces are smooth silver surfaces with the barest indication of eyes, nose, and a mouth. They wear black jackets, black pants, and tall boots, with white helmets. Essentially, they look like motorcycle cops from late 20th century America. They are generally unarmed, but have access to electrified stun poles if necessary.
Motive: Enforce the rules of the underground society, which usually means “be here” and “don’t be here.” They are also entrusted to haul off rulebreakers to the courts and prison.
Environment: Typically found solo, in pairs, or occasionally in trios, in dystopic underground societies.
Health: 9
Damage Inflicted: 3 points, plus if using an electrified stun pole, PCs must succeed at a level 3 difficulty Might task or be stunned for one round.
Armor: 1
Movement: Short; long when on motorcycle
Combat: Chrome Robots will attempt to stun or otherwise incapacitate their opponents — they are programmed to refrain from killing.
Interaction: The Chrome Robots will generally not interact with PCs unless they are breaking the rules of the underground society. If approached peacefully, they will attempt to answer any questions in a helpful manner.
Use:: The Chrome Robots are guarding a particularly important computer server the PCs need to access.
Loot: If a character dismantles a Chrome Robot, there is a 1 in 6 chance that a cypher can be found within.
GM Intrusion: A Chrome Robot or Surveillance Agent calls for backup and one to three more Chrome Robots appear.
Is it technically American? It’s not clear where exactly this is taking place, but as it’s an American production (in San Francisco), with American actors (save Donald Pleasence), for my purposes it counts.↩︎
According to Wikipedia, THX the system was named after the initials of its developer, Tomlinson Holman, with the X standing for “experiment” or “crossover.” Uh, sure.↩︎
Here’s where I need to mention that there are three different versions of this movie. The original was released in 1971. It was re-released in 1977 with some extra footage — if you can find it (and it’s out there, I’ve seen it, like a twenty-seven inch Zenith, believe it), this is the only “old” version available. Then in 2004, in an extremely George Lucas move, George Lucas released a “director’s cut” with new CG elements added. I know it’s hard to believe, but these changes really don’t alter the experience for good or ill — I’d even say they help clarify the scene where THX builds a robot while off the drugs.↩︎
While it’s been documented by Tilly Bridges that the Wachowskis were thinking of HRT when they came up with the red pills for The Matrix, I must note that LUH gives THX red pills to “wake” him, and robots police humanity, and there’s world of oppression and world “outside” of that, and people with shaved heads, and and and.↩︎
SEN seems to exist, structurally, as a character for THX to react to, but the narrative reasons for his existence are murky. He appears to suggest that he’s a programmer, and can alter the computers to do things for him, and what he wants is… THX as a roommate? Why, I don’t know. It’s true that Star Wars works because of all the gaps that have to be imaginatively filled in by the audience. “SEN wants THX as a roommate for some reason” is not that kind of gap.↩︎
As I hinted in one of the other footnotes, it seems clear to me that the Wachowski Sisters threw this entire thing into the gumbo of their imaginations to create The Matrix.↩︎
That said, I believe plotting is an art and craft, and take it quite seriously. Forewarned!↩︎
