This is one of George Lucas's early films, which
takes place in an underground society where everything is tightly controlled, sex is out lawed, and the citizens are required to take
sedatives.

This was a very disturbing movie indeed. I
haven't watched it in 6 years, but I can
still remember the immpact the movie had on me
well.

(unfortunately, I can't remember anything that might be considered a nit offhand :\

It was based on one of George's UCLA Film course projects.

I'm still impressed by the incredible stuntwork involved in the motorcycle/car chase scene.
NANJAO: Notice the insipid music playing in all the public spaces throughout the city? So close to real life, it's scary!

Apparently Lucas liked the motorbike chase sequence and decided to essentially redo it for Return of the Jedi.

Interesting... As cool as RotJ's speeder bike chase was, I think I prefer the tunnel chase in THX-1138. There's just something about stuntwork done on camera that gives it an edge over effects done in post-production. (A similar example is the lightsaber fight at the end of The Phantom Menace, which I found much more exciting and interesting than the battling armies or the spaceship battle in that film.)

Just found out that a soundtrack CD is available for this film from Film Score Monthly.com, for under $20 US, excluding shipping. (I've ordered from this place before, and have had shipments arrive in as little as one week!) If you visit their website, you can sample some of the tracks from this CD, as well as others. Included on THX-1138 are extended tracks and tracks that didn't make it to the final cut of the film.

Geez, George!! Where does it end?? I got this DVD (special edition double-disc) with the Star Wars Trilogy from Amazon. Just watched it last night. I had not heard much except that it was a "restored" version, and I admit, the colors and sound were extraordinary.

But... I did not know that he pulled a "Star Wars Special Edition" on us, in that he "updated" a few things, added special effects, etc. I've only seen this a few times, and those times it impacted me in a strong way. This time, the additions only served to take me out of the movie. I used to have a real appreciation with what Lucas did with late 1960's technology. Now, the updates are obviously CGI that could not have been done at the time.

It's as "subtle" as an extra little rolling thing after the race car crashes into the scaffolding (along with an added "plink-plink-plink"), or as obvious as the now "Minority Report"-type cityscape, or the replacement of the human shell-dwellers with some kind of CGI-ape thing. Oh, except for the one they had in the prison room...

Some scenes from the movie are eerily prescient -- notably THX watching a cop beat a person on TV.

I'm glad they kept the sound montages -- that was one of the unique things about this movie that I remembered so well. It's very interesting to hear how Sound Designer Walter Murch came up with certain sounds. I'd never have guessed how he created the motorcycle sounds.

Trivia: One of the voice-overs while THX is stopped says "I think I ran over a Wookiee back there." Ostensibly, "wookiee" was the name for the shell-dwellers, but Lucas decided to use it for something else later on...

I could swear I hear the same sound effect at one point as when the Millennium Falcon blasts off from Docking Bay 94 (at least in the original version -- have not re-watched the "new" ones yet).

A word to George Lucas -- Special effects will always be better than they are right now. Just leave well enough alone, please.

Hear! Hear! This is why I shall never own (unless for some mondo bizarro reason someone gives it to me) the new Star Wars Trilogy. Sorry, George, if you don't like the movies that made you a freakin' millionaire the way they were. Did it ever occur to you that you did it right the first time? Why else would they be classics? They may not be perfect. They may not have had the benefits of modern technology and CGI, but by god they were great films - as is. If Lucas should decide to release the original films as they were, I'll shell out my hard earned cash for them. In the meantime, I'm ignoring the Star Wars DVDs. They're not for me.

"I like to watch." - Chauncy Gardner

Here's a link to a list (and some pictures) of some of the changes.

thx-1138.org

I have to admit that some of the changes are improvements, clarifying the story or opening up an area a bit. Much like the small changes in TESB that open up the Cloud City without being too obvious. It's those "Hey, look what we can do now!" bits that bugged me.

I have the same complaint here that I had about the Star Wars releases. DVD technology is simple. Why can't we have an option for watching either version? They did it with T2. They did it with The Abyss.

I'd even be very interested in a technical explanation of the changes made, with a side-by-side comparison.

I thought the DVD came with the updated version AND a recut of the original version...?

If it did, it must be as an Easter Egg somewhere because I don't recall seeing it on the menu.

Perhaps you are thinking of the inclusion of the original 17-minute short film that this one was based on -- yes, that is on there.

Odd... that thx-1138.org board that is referenced above does seem to reference both feature versions being on the disc.

Where? I only looked at the comparison page (I got the link from somewhere else).

Oh I just rechecked it, you're right. My bad.

Possible Nit
When THX-1138 is getting analyzed by something (where he gets probed, scanned) it looks like he had a tooth removed, yet later when he's with his LUH, he's got all his upper teeth.