THX 1138

I rented and watched THX 1138. Here is the movie homepage and IMBD page on it. My first gripe is the menu on the DVD. You cannot see any of the options. You press the directional buttons and nothing happens. It is only when you select an option you see what you have selected. Menus like that piss me off. Some of the are just bad design. For example, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle menu's problem was just a product of bad design. THX's problems are of an intentional design and that pisses me off even more.

On the extended features of THX I think I found every thing. There is even a choice where you can choose to go on to the next screen. When you get to that next screen only one direction button does anything. The only way I know of figuring our all of what is on the DVD is by trial and error. That means I choose the longest path to get where I want. If you want a taste of the cryptic crap that I had to go through to watch this movie, just go to the website.

The entire menu thing really soured my entire experience of the movie, but here is the rundown of what the movie was about, the coolest thing about the making the movie, and why this movie is important.

The movie was made in 1971, it was George Lucas's first feature film. Robert. Duvall played "THX 1138" a man who lived in the future. This future was a lot like ours, except it was not as cool. Everyone was bald, and they made you take drugs to make you happy, where as here they try to keep you from getting you hands on them. The basic plot of the movie is that THX gets off the drugs, falls in love, and rebels. The craziness continues from there. The idea came from one of George's student films while he was in film school. The movie was made only a little while after he got out.

The coolest historical fact about the movie is where they found all the extras to shave their heads (remember this was the early 70's and even the guys looked like girls). They went to a drug rehab and paid them 25 (or something like that) dollars a day to be in the movie. The got their heads shaved for free. It happened to work out really well, because those people look like the live in an underground city from the future.

The most interesting thing about this movie is that it was the first American Zoetrope movie, from what I could tell. The biggest names that were apart of this group when THX was made were George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola. I do not know much about what Zoetrope did after its early years, but you can read the website if you want (they did some huge movies). The extra features which came along with THX explained the beginning of Zoetrope is actually worth watching. Once you get past the cryptic crap.

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