The Worst Film Ever

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

In this extremely grim, but in some ways prophetic movie set in a dystopian future where people have no names, live underground and are kept drugged by the government, the totalitarian big brother keeps an eye on everyone, while keeping total control of their lives. A really dark, humorless, depressing movie, it's also intelligent and well worth seeing.

A big part of what makes Rogue One so great is the return of a long-missing element of human desperation and sacrifice. We haven't seen or felt this since specific scenes in Empire, and certain finale's as in Jedi. Rogue one feels hurried, almost panicked, dramatic, and violent from the start, and builds that rhythm all the way to the end. Its taken a very long time to get back to this kind of stark story telling that you can see in its most coarse, maybe unrefined, but piercing form in THX1138.I think Lucas entered cinema on a high note with THX1138, had all his best, most potent ideas lined up an delivered them without apology...or explanation, and has spent the rest of his career trying to sell his ideas where he once just beat the audience with them. Maybe it has something to do with film in the late 70s, or maybe just being young behind the camera, but you feel the frailty of human life and the ability of one man to stop the motor of the world at the same time, which are tough ideas to get into commercial film.I would argue that the limitations of the times made THX1138 and Star Wars so great, and pushed the crew to come up with ideas and visual translations that had incredible legs. I hope forthcoming Star Wars films and their creators keep looking for that uneasy chord and hit it hard, and I think anyone going into one of these projects on any level - from production to acting, should consider Luca's film-school project carefully.

NOTE: This film was recommended to me by Dennis Brian for "Steve Pulaski Sees It." George Lucas's directorial debut THX 1138 proves one major thing in its concise, eighty-eight minute runtime, and that is that a science-fiction film doesn't need to extend past two hours in order to be thoughtful or contemplative. It's all about what a writer/director is willing to convey during its runtime, and whether or not he or she wants to leave the audience with a rich interpretation or a rather lean one. THX 1138 manages to eek out ideas of what it want kind of ideas and themes it wants to leave with its audience, and those ideas question how elaborate and unforeseen the consequences will be for a futuristic dystopia where any emotions that aren't computerized are prohibited, leaving humans and humanoids incapable, or worse, strictly forbidden, from thinking and feeling.THX 1138 takes place in an undetermined time in the future where sex of any kind is prohibited, and a drug that alters the mind in ways that try to prevent sexual urges is distributed amongst society and made mandatory by the government. Emotions of any kind, as well as family identification are all taboos in this world, and everyone looks the same, boasting an all-white uniform with shaved heads. People are kept in line by a series of police humanoids that come cloaked in black and silver and unafraid to use blunt force on its people.Social norms and conformity are enforced by two individuals, SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence) and LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie), who monitor a series of surveillance cameras on the city. LUH lives with a male roommate, THX 1138 (Robert Duvall), who works in a factory that creates the same police androids that are watching over the land. THX learns that his workplace is celebrating a record low 195 worker deaths in the last period, which is significantly lower than another factory's 242. It is then that we see what this world is really about: high productivity, few accidents, and a faux idea of happiness so the two former features can commence uninterrupted or with few snags.Things start taking a turn for the worse for this futuristic land when THX and LUH become romantically involved, specifically when THX's drug dosage gets mixed up and his ability to feel aroused, empathetic, and passion are all restored in his mind. The two wind up carrying out a forbidden relationship that sends this society into a complete meltdown; as a result, the hunt is on for THX to force him to either comply with the lack of emotional tolerance in his community or simply be tried and eventually executed for his so-called crimes.I'll be blunt and say that I had to thoroughly read the synopsis of THX 1138 upon finishing it. This is one of the few films that I can remember that had me almost completely and totally lost throughout the entire runtime that I needed secondary sources to inform me what was going on and what I had just witnessed. In the case of films by subversive directors, like Orson Welles, or in a modern sense, Christopher Nolan, that kind of narrative ambiguity is expected and welcomed. For Lucas's directorial debut, it comes off as murky and unclear, not necessarily because THX 1138 finds itself functioning largely as a stylistic exercise, but because it is so void of style and color.Lucas favors backdrops that are whiter than porcelain, with characters in all-white jumpsuits that practically melt into the background, leaving only what appear to be scalps floating in the foreground. Dialog is written in a jumbled, jargon-heavy manner, making conversations between characters unclear and confusing most of the time, and characters are as bland and as non-existent as they come. Obviously, these were conscious decisions made on part of Lucas, who wanted to create this very broad, basic environment where everything we've come to know and accept as people was subtracted and replaced with eternal nothingness. This is an admirable concept, but the execution here leaves a lot to be desired and feels self-defeating.When characters, thoughtful conversations, and major events are substituted for a lost of aimless wandering and conversing, regardless of the themes the picture is trying to convey, the act of watching such a thing inherently promotes a disconnect amongst the audience. When audiences feel disconnected or alienated, they generally lose interest or don't pay attention, and that is precisely what happened to me during most of THX 1138. I can admire the ambition in scope and idealism from a young Lucas, who would go and craft Star Wars just six years later and start another beast that was just waiting to be dissected and embraced by similar fans of THX 1138, but this is a film that almost entirely escaped me from start to finish.Starring: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, and Maggic McOmie. Directed by: George Lucas.

In a dystopian future, people are controlled in every aspect of their lives with the use of drugs and technology. THX 1138 (Robert Duvall) is paired with LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie). LUH replaces their drugs and they start to feel for each other. SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence) takes LUH away from him. THX turns SEN in for his illegal shifting. THX is struggling at work and they place a mindblock on him. THX is sent to holding. LUH tells THX that she got pregnant. THX is joined by SEN while imprisoned. They escape with the help of SRT who turns out to be a hologram.The version I saw was remastered by George Lucas. The obvious CGI does take away from the sense of 70s sci-fi. It's got interesting style and a compelling premise. The story is a little muddled and it needs to be more of a driven thriller. Duvall and Pleasence should stick together. When they split up, some of the tension is lost. The premise works but the story needs a little bit more work.