The History of THX 1138: How Hollywood Ruined George Lucas’s First Film

THX1138 really is under-rated. Sure, it's difficult to name a stranger movie but just the last few decades have seen extremely influential "weird" movies like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "The Truman Show", "Fight Club", "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once".

Whatever I think of Lucas today, he really deserves to be proud of this movie.

I have paint your wagon. It is funny

VERY GOOD DETAILED BEHIND THE SCENES HISTORICAL INFORMATION FOR ANY ASPIRING FILM MAKER, CREATOR AND FAN! -BRAVO! AND THANKS! ": )

Pasolini should have directed it.
Lucas made sure that every executive involved in tampering with THX1138 died of loneliness.

I saw the movie in 1971 and liked it. The masses are very simple people and easily controlled. e.g. Donald Trump

I will always support a filmmaker, or an artist of any kind, to go back and change their own work. I don't have to agree with it, I don't have to like it, but I feel it is an artist's right to do as they wish with their work. That said, I do think the changes Lucas made to both THX 1138, and Star Wars, were overall improvements to the films.

This kinda explains why Lucas' next feature-length film was "American Graffiti"... an homage to his final youthful days of innocence in Modesto in '62. While THX 1138 didn't really break any ground as a feature film from a big production company--due to it's somewhat confusing, non-self-explanatory complexity--American Graffiti started an enduring style of entertainment that still lives to this day in the form of movies & television which many can appreciate... and will continue to endure for many generations to come: Nostalgia.

When are you making more videos. This is so 🤬 good!!!!!🎬🎥📽️🎞️

Much like Pinewood Studios ruined Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil!

The Director's Cut of THX is Lucas making revisions (a la Special Edition Star Wars) that will end up looking dated and unnecessary. He should've just added in the 5 minutes and left it alone but these Godless goofs can't help themselves.

Hearing all this only to remember the crime against cinema Disney did to Star Wars is honestly heart breaking 💔 they basically made him relive his most tragic moment in directing, by scrapping what he wrote and doing something terrible and cheap most people hate, all over again.

At least we got the OT and PT, now we all stand by George and see how studio interference results in nothing but misery...

Thanks for telling this story.

And HE ruined his own film with that horrible 2004 "Director's Cut".

Just like adding CGI to A New HOpe -- it just...ruined it.

Just leave it alone. Or put the original cut footage in but DON'T add NEW footage and CGI -- it just takes you out of the film.

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It's crazy you only maybe one video then left. The quality of this video is right on par with any of the other Cinema channels, Idk why you wouldn't continue. :(

The Director's Cut is much worse than the original. There may be a bit added here and there in the editing that improves it, but the added special effects detract from the original. The ape-like creatures so close to human workers make no sense (why aren't the robo-cops eliminating them?) and, worst of all, the signs of a bustling underground civilization with vehicles moving around in an open (although subterranean) environment detracts from the extreme isolation and limited scope of the world being depicted. In the original, it's fascinating to find a car at all (some suspension of belief is required to buy into Duvall's character being able to drive, when his co-escapee clearly could not...and in the DC he suddenly drives like a stunt-driver!) and it's journey through miles of tunnels makes the audience wonder, like the driver, where it could possibly lead (which is spoiled in the DC...it's just a tunnel leaving a subterranean bustling economy!). Like Lucas' other Director's Cuts, it's a shame his co-creators that made his original movies so good were not around to tell him "no".

Bro was that a dig on Paint Your Wagon….. that was a great movie tho

Thanks for this

THX 1138 is like watching the Gensis of Adam & Eve.. my favorite film and I cant stand the star wars franchise.....

Merry Christmas

My metal construction was that THX was made as a student project It's his 1st film I thought he worked out before But apparently we're going to get the truth

Okay so I had some truth.. The prototype a short of 15 minutes was made.

It's so weird to think that this may have lead to the later Michael Jackson / George Lucas / Coppola / Disney collaboration... CAPTAIN EO

Sodium isn't that bad for ya.
There's plenty of reputable videos that proves it.
It was a propaghanda campain by the sugar industry.

😏Ever considered the fact that your eating "yellow" food under a blue light?
Of cousre it's going to look like vomit.😘

THX 1138 was a mid film there wasnt much to ruin

I honestly don’t understand why this film isn’t a bigger cult classic. Forget the Delorean, I want a T70 replica on my shelf!

THX 1138 WAS my favorite movie of all time. It was the first movie I PURCHASED on VHS tape. It was one of the first movies I PURCHASED on LaserDisc. When the DVD was released it was NOT the theatrical cut but was labeled as a "directors" cut.
It was not a "directors" cut. It was a directors "redo cut." If the DVD release had scenes that were excluded from the theatrical cut I might have been satisfied, but it had NEW scenes that were never made during the original production. Many of the NEWLY REDONE scenes ruined some parts of the visual story.
I would like to PURCHASE a HD (1080 or UHD) copy of the theatrical cut. I would not mind a "directors" cut that reintegrated what the studio foolishly deleted. Give ME the choice as to which version I want to see.
Of course no one, especially George Lucas, will give a damn what I want. When I saw the "Final Cut" of Blade Runner I was satisfied because most of the changes were simply improvements to the visual story.

Who's idea was it to put the budget in the script?

what´s amazing is that even with the cuts this is the most important movie in the history of cinema. Just imagine how good this movie was as the true director´s cut.

This generation of filmmakers Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Scorsese, DePalma, etc. were the best.

It’s too bad that you clips of THX are the special edition littered with new CGI and not the actual film. It inadvertently makes your narrative misleading. I’m sure the cost of the digital enhancements made in the early 2000’s far eclipse the film’s original budget.

I ssaw some Brice Conner films in the late 1970s in NYC. One I remember was Symphony for a Sinner.

I don’t know, Man; I love American Graffiti, as well as the first version of THX1138, but when I saw the director’s cut, the only thing that stood out was he had added CGI lizards and shit. I really loathe this habit of goes back and adding and moving things around, like Han Solo’s head. Coppola seems to have kept his “director’s compass”, but Lucas seems to be adrift. Another director that seems to have a very vision of his films and finds ways to tell those stories would be David Lynch.

My Dad did the sound and had a cameo on this film. RIP Daddy ❤

It was a shitty film to begin with. Hollywood ruined nothing.

the 1977 directors cut of THX 1138 and the 1978 directors cut of American Graffiti along with their gritty techniscope look both should be on blu-ray and 4k. No cgi, no remix audio. They ruined Graffiti on 4K i'm sure Thx isn't far behind.

This video blew me away. It was so good and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I didn't want it to end. So damn interesting. Hollywood needs to let you make a feature film. p,s I want to know why this the only video on the channel

It is a great film, Hollywood did not ruin it.

THX is still my favorite Lucas film, but that doesn't come close to saying how much Walter Murch shaped it! Francis Ford Coppola's movie, The Conversation, confirms what a genius Murch was as a sound designer, editor, and just plain artistic creator, that was part of their American Zoetrope era! That being said, the "Director's cut" of THX is full of the post-tinkering Lucas revisions / CGI inserts, so I personally prefer the 1971 release, if you can find it.

I think THX 1138 is a minor masterpiece.

Have to watch this one day , I rented the movie from the library and bought it from eBay yesterday. Still appreciated the film .

Thank you all for watching and I hope you enjoyed the video! Please subscribe to be notified about future film history video essays. In the meantime, feel free to continue the discussion on THX 1138 and George Lucas below. Here are some jumping-off points to get started:

1. How different would the New Hollywood movement have been if Warner Bros. liked THX 1138 and didn't cancel their financing deal with American Zoetrope? Considering two of the films that were in this deal were The Conversation and Apocalypse Now and that Coppola only decided to make the Godfather in order to pay off the debt he incurred after Warner Bros. pulled their financing, at minimum his career would have been drastically impacted. Not to mention, since Star Wars is seen as the start of the blockbuster era that was responsible for ending the New Hollywood movement, there's an argument to be made Star Wars wouldn't have existed had Warner Bros. not reacted the way they did.

2. What are your opinions on directors releasing different cuts of their films? Not to tie this all back to Star Wars, but obviously, the largest criticism Lucas has received has been his decision to reddit the original Trilogy, but by understanding what happened to him with THX 1138, one can’t help but see his continuous changes to his films as a consequence of Warner Bros. taking his film away.

3. Even though Lucas’s creative vision was hijacked by Warner Bros. in 1971, the rest of the seventies are largely viewed as the time in American Cinema where filmmakers were given the most artistic freedom. As mentioned in the last question this quickly dissipated once the blockbuster was conceived and the studios realized they could make exuberant amounts of money regardless of the artistry, but do you think there is any chance of Hollywood returning to a period that is more like the seventies and friendly to filmmakers? Coincidently, in present-day, Warner Bros. has shown to be more creative friendly in allowing, for better or worse, Zack Snyder to release his version of Justice League, but then again just recently the studio blindsided its creatives by moving their 2021 slate of films to streaming without consulting with the filmmakers.