THX 1138 · reception & legacy

1971 · George Lucas

How THX 1138 has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A box-office flop in 1971 that Warner Bros. recut against Lucas's wishes — it's since been reclaimed as one of the boldest studio debuts of the New Hollywood era, and the proof that Lucas was an experimental filmmaker before he was an empire.

What's debated

The perennial fight: is this cold, sterile art-film Lucas the 'real' Lucas we lost to Star Wars — and did his 2004 director's cut, with its added CGI, improve the film or vandalise it?

Its footprint

Lucas named his THX sound company after it, and '1138' became cinema's most famous easter egg — hidden in Star Wars, American Graffiti's license plate, and countless other films; the endless white-void prison remains one of sci-fi's most referenced images.

Where it stands

A cult object and canon climber — the arthouse Lucas film cinephiles cite to say 'he could have been our Kubrick.'

★ Did you know? It was expanded from Lucas's award-winning USC student short 'Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB' and became the very first film produced by Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope — Warner Bros. was so unhappy with it that the fallout helped sink the studio's whole deal with Zoetrope.

Named by the director

Influences George Lucas has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

21-87 (1963) — Lucas repeatedly cited Arthur Lipsett's experimental collage short as a formative influence on THX 1138's fragmented sound-and-image style.
Arthur Lipsett — Lucas has named the Canadian avant-garde filmmaker as a key inspiration for his early experimental approach to sound design and montage.