This month for my blind spot pick we are diving back into the mind of George Lucas. After watching Attack of the Clones and Indy 4 I lost faith in the guy to tell a good story. So this month I decided to check his debut film THX 1138 off of my list. Who knows maybe I’d like young George better than old George?

You know what I think I do! THX 1138 isn’t a perfect sci-film but it is solidly entertaining and very unique.

THX 1138 is set in a black and white dystopian world. (It feels a little bit like Tron but more stark). Every part of the people’s lives is controlled including mating and emotions. They all kind of work in these giant factories and have brief names like SEN and LUH. By changing out his drug, LUH is able to convince THX to have sex with her.

The couple is then chased by an agent named SEN and the entire corporation that runs the world and forced to separate. I don’t want to give any more of the story away for those that are spoiler sensitive.

The acting is pretty great especially for a George Lucas movie (who is notoriously bad at working with actors). I particularly liked Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasance and Maggie McOmie as the 3 main leads.

Visually the movie is stark, glaring and always interesting ot look at. That is probably it’s greatest strength.

There are some problems, however, with THX 1138. I found the story to be kind of hard to understand at first. It does not take any time to give backstories or explain the world or the character motivations at all. The dialogue is also very simple.  It’s really a movie all about the visuals and the overall broad mess.

For those sensitive there is also a fair amount of nudity in the film, so be aware of that. It is only 95 minutes but it felt longer than that.

But problems aside, if you want to watch something that is different, that a million people could all get different interpretations on give THX 1138 a shot. I think you will really enjoy it.

Overall Grade- B