dMYD DVD
Starring Robert Duvall
M
George Lucas has selective obsessive compulsive disorder. SOCD. He’s a tinkerer and tosser where he used to be a dreamer and scrapbook enthusiast, and he’s let a lot of things go to his head. He’s not really a film-maker in the traditional sense andTHX 1138 isn’t his masterpiece, Star Wars is, a cobbled together mishmash of Flash Gordon, lasers and youthful defiance that still pops and burns even when you strip away the continent of plastic crap that’s risen in its wake. Both films tell the same story of individualism against conformity, but there the similarities end, THX 1138preferring to cast itself as art while Star Wars delves into a vat of popcorn and wisecracks. The differences in success are startling, and Lucas’ later years reveal the bizarre crossover of fiction and fact that the two films would lead to; it’s humanity that sets the original Star Wars apart, whilst THX, by necessity, leaves most of it out. It’s easy to feel sorry for Robert Duvall, but you wouldn’t want to spend time in a cantina with him, or get crushed to death in a trash compactor whilst he flicks his non-existent hair. Audiences respond to characters they can be friends with, and that’s where the money lay; by the time the first Star Wars was done with the box-office the movies would never be the same again, beginning the slow slide to monetary domination that’s punctuated the summer’s output for the past decade.
Then those god-awful prequels took the conformity and coldness of THX’s police state and applied it to filmmaking, replacing humanity with a machine mentality that methodically barfed out all the insane details sat in an old man’s head that nobody else cared about, details designed to sell articulated figures and phones and cups andslippers and balls and CDs and lighters and bags and notebooks and statues andglasses and duvets and towels and cupcakes and pens and dog clothes and platesand toasters and ducks and chopsticks and air fresheners and charms and jars andboxes and swimsuits and shelves and bathmats and radios and headphones andmasks and trainers and Lego and baby clothes and DVDs and styluses and cuddly toys and fish tanks and coffee and perfume and umbrellas and chairs and burgers andforks and T-shirts and chess sets and bobbleheads and cookbooks and cereal andpaper and coins and TVs and bookends and postcards and educational software andremote controls and dressing gowns and oven mitts and sleeping bags and hot dog holders and badges and magnets and gloves and stickers and phone alarms andbooks and underwear and watches and flash drives and carpets and tins andsandwiches and guns and phone cases and clocks and keyrings and locks andpatches and wallpaper and shorts and funk and posters and sensor bar holders andhats and belt buckles and sellotape holders and games and bottles and toothpasteand soft drinks and bikes and roller skates and toothbrushes and flannels and pillowsand curtains and lamps and dresses and cars and pizza.
THX II38 is a good film, a quiet film and an interesting film. It’s a shame that nearly everything its director did next ensured that these types of movies would be hugely difficult to make again.
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