People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.
Lucas described THX as 'an artifact from the future,' and we're supposed to struggle for understanding. That's part of its hypnotic undertow.
– Leighton Walter Kille,
Boston Globe,
13 Sep 2004
fresh:
I have a good many reservations about the film's ideas, but they are greatly outweighed by my admiration for a technical virtuosity that by fair means and foul achieves exceptional emotional intensity at the same time.
– Roger Greenspun,
New York Times,
9 May 2005
fresh:
Visually it is often extraordinary, with Lucas playing on perspectives and dislocations throughout, nowhere more brilliantly than in the 'prison' represented by a limbo of whiteness that seems to stretch as far as the eye can see.
– Geoff Andrew,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
fresh:
With political paternalism rampant at both extremes of the spectrum, Lucas is onto something. In any case, we'll know for sure in about a generation.
– A.D. Murphy,
Variety,
5 Jun 2007
fresh:
The empty space surrounding the vulnerable man emphasizes the exertion involved rather than the goal of escape: like the hologram who came to life because he wanted to, THX finally achieves his humanity by an assertion of will.