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 Post subject: THX 1138 (1971) [11162]
PostPosted: 21 Apr 2016, 02:45 
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THX 1138 (1971) [11162]

I came at this movie completely blind. I had no idea it existed and I didn't buy it. I bought a LD off a seller on EBAY and it was packed in, the seller said to keep it. Deciding to spin it up, I watched

Apparently George Lucas' first feature film...which I could have sworn would have been American Graffiti, but what ever.

About the movie:
Set in the 25th Century, the film depicts a dystopian future where drug use is mandatory, and love/sex is forbidden...but how do they procreate? Cloning? It's not explained...maybe it's like The Giver where there are people who's job it is to give birth.

The film focuses on a man, the titular THX 1138, played by a very bald Robert Duvall. Who is sick, and who's Roommate, LUH 3417 played by Maggie McOmie, seems to be swapping his drugs around. This gets him in trouble and on the run from the state, especially after LUH and THX have sex.

The film I feel borrows from more popular sci-fi efforts, namely Nineteen-Eighty-Four by George Orwell with it's heavy monitored state society which also bans sex. But the film isn't as subtle. The film moves very quickly, 20 minutes in and it's already in the second act. Unless you are focusing on the movie, you can become lost pretty fast. It moves fast, and then comes to a screeching halt at the end, and leaves the viewer hanging. The ending isn't bad or great, it's just "Ok? What happens next?" Leaving you with an incomplete feeling. The disc says the film is 86 minutes, I feel the film could have benefited from an extra 30 minutes, so the film doesn't have to move fast to say what it needs to, but seeing that George Lucas was an unknown, a nearly 2hr movie may have been a hard sell for a film company. By the time he made Star Wars, Lucas already had notoriety.

On to the release
(Player; Pioneer CLD-D702
3D-Comb Filter; Panasonic DMR-ES10)

The PQ is pretty good, if not a bit grainy at times. Film grain is good. The existence of film grain shows that detail hasn't been rubbed out. Not that detail is a big thing in the movie but whites are whites, and blacks can be inky black...but due to the different shades of whites used, especially in the prison scenes...it is still very easy to tell characters from the background. Colors are dull and dreary, which well reflect the setting.

Sound is meh. Louder scenes run together and peak, and quieter scenes need to be turned up a bit...and almost blows out your speakers when it gets to a loud scene.

Overall, I found the movie to be watchable...maybe it gets better with more viewings...but it feels ultimately forgettable. I'd watch it for the historical aspect, and really nothing else.
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 Post subject: Re: THX 1138 (1971) [11162]
PostPosted: 31 May 2016, 18:16 
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Does the opening on the Laserdisc have same intro opening as with the bluray or was the intro for the bluray yet another tinkering with the original film as I can see the cgi effects in it and it does sort of remove me from the film. I only see the original once on tv decades ago and can't recall the opening if it had that intro start with "Buck Rogers".
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 Post subject: Re: THX 1138 (1971) [11162]
PostPosted: 01 Jun 2016, 01:12 
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laserbite34 wrote:
Does the opening on the Laserdisc have same intro opening as with the bluray or was the intro for the bluray yet another tinkering with the original film as I can see the cgi effects in it and it does sort of remove me from the film. I only see the original once on tv decades ago and can't recall the opening if it had that intro start with "Buck Rogers".


The laserdisc issues (Japanese, US NTSC plus the UK PAL version) & the various worldwide VHS releases from back in the day are the only way now to see the 1977 release of this feature - all TV broadcasts back then were also the '77 "reissue" version.

The original 1971 studio release did not have the BUCK ROGERS opening bumper before the Warner logo at the start & the feature was "cut" by about 4 to 5 minutes by an in house editor at Warner Bros. before release as the studio executives did not like at all the finished product. After a rather limited cinema run in '71 the feature was basically shelved leaving the investment by Warner at a loss. After the release of STAR WARS it was "reissued" with the studio cuts reinstated & the Buck Rogers bumper inserted ahead of the Warner logo at the request of George Lucas. Even with the "George STAR WARS Lucas" promotion around it on the cinema release it again did virtually nothing at the box office with Warner still in the red - it only went into "profit" on the VHS & laserdisc releases some years later. The '71 studio cut version has never been released on any video format & it is highly unlikely ever to be issued but given that the cuts were apparently quite crude & not what the director (or American Zoetrope/Mr Coppola) originally presented there is probably not much point in issuing it & perhaps more to the point Mr Lucas does not want the "studio" version to be seen again - the '77 version is also unlikely to see the light of day again "officially" as the so called directors cut is the only version he wants presented now. The DVD & the blu-ray issues are the later "Lucasized" versions that bring nothing of any note to the feature, some unnecessary (& pretty shoddy) cgi inserts plus soundtrack tweaks & that's about it - they are best avoided in my opinion.

The versions on laserdisc are the best way (in my opinion) to view THX-1138 unless you enjoy the George Lucas played with versions of his features although the early 1986 Japanese LD release is pan&scan with a rather soft picture transfer, the later 1995 Japanese release is perhaps the best LD transfer (& the subtitles do not encroach onto the picture) though the UK PAL Tartan Video release is also a pretty good transfer even though it is a PDO UK pressing.

So after all that the BUCK ROGERS intro bumper is on all versions of THX-1138 issued from the post STAR WARS cinema release to date.
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