THX 1138 (1970; d. George Lucas, w. GL & Walter Murch)

Opens w/ Buck Rogers trailer (possibility for heroism even in sterile future: Lucas’s 1st-film vision of doing well in stifling Hollywood system), bkwds title scroll suggesting film itself in reverse, tracking from sedated elderly back to hopeful (re-)birth.

Removed, mechanical "What’s wrong?" transmission from unconscious (emanating from sedative med cabinet) dawning realization there is something wrong, eponymous figure (name composed of symbols: symbol himself, as others) working on robocop (repairing own sense of psychic authority) via mechanical arms (dir manipulating the artificial, remote-control sentinels aka actors) while fellow SEN 5421 observes sexual infraction (at video remove, vs THX’s hands-"on" relation to material: SEN dp to T’s dir, voyeurism à la bald, white-clad sperm cell intuiting imminent ejaculation into new world), telegraphic snapshots of future life dream-images flashing thru sleeping mind; confesses (to robopriest, religion another program to anaesthetize masses à la Marx) to procedural accident (own programming breaking down: lizard in works organicism invading mechanics) + mate LUH’s strange behavior (own othered sensitivities piquing him).

Tells her "I think I’m dying" (film chronicle of both this + rebirth, Lucas abandoning old self on leaving comforting womb of academe for wider world in original short, here prophesying liberation from Studio à la producer Copetrope) then barfs (catharsis), her comforting leading to forbidden coitus (enforced preadolescent dependence on System, their earnest dialog ["I was so afraid. So alone"] cfg piped-in palliatives ["Buy. And be happy" (cf George W’s September 12 declaration "They’re tryin’ to stop us from baaah’in’ things")]: defusing programming thru instincts) + his "They know" (Self aware of innate shift, knowledge of which will pull him to realization of desire); SEN tells him own (unseen) roommate "destroyed" (as tho consequence of T+L’s union: reality obliviating fantasy "other" – further reflecting T’s own labyrinthine interior landscape) + he’s arranged for T to replace him/her (desire for similar revolution in self: conviction spreading thru psyche).

At work, T handling sensitive material ("T – you are entering a critical phase" timorous inner voice reacting to motives/actions) resulting in radioactive overload (techies enforcing mindblock dream-censor inhibiting release of concepts threatening to peaceful sleep/status quo) + his arrest for drug evasion (mvmt twd consciousness; revolt, also, against feel-good entertainments served up by narcotizing culture) + sexual perversion (depiction of sex at all contemporary cinematic innovation curiously shied away from in most Zoe Tropes); "reconditioned" in infinity-room taser assault (precursor to Star Wars light sabers, cops à la stormtroopers etc, or meddling studio drones who can barely keep from walking into walls), LUH entering (room womb of continuity w/t female, emphasized by their ensuing intercourse) to tell him she’s pregnant (his fecundating organicism developing life of own), broken up by droids (conscious agents thwarting Self from union w/ regenerative other) he fights to no avail (they also à la Cocteau’s Orphic bikers from hell separating him from his underworld Eurydice).

In infinity-room detention (both chambers endless existential torture + isolation), SEN ("set up" by THX for undisclosed infraction: desire 2B roomies because psychically conjoined – inseparable THinking + SENses) foments rebellion (increasingly un-anaesthetized self coming into own) while Sid Haig rapes fellow inmate + trashes guard (ditto, in futuristic Cuckoo’s Nest), before T announces "I’m leaving" on introduction of hairy-dwarf Shell Dweller (intuition of re-evolution/rebirth from inhabitant of embryo-cusp); simply wanders out of lockup (psychic, self-confinement) w/ SEN to infinity-sunset, where they meet Don Pedro Colley (hologram come to life: Lucas’s graduation to interaction w/ film-life on escaping Ivory Tower, tall African American vs Shell Dwarf T’s spirit-vision compromise/steppingstone btwn sterile + neoprimitive rebirth), who tells them escape route behind them (gone in circles à la original student short "Electronic Labyrinth": personalities similarly folding in on selves, he also indicating next step in progress is regression – socially, personally + technologically) thru door into human rapids (blood-stream, or ejaculate /sperm) to room housing fetuses (womb; "circles" also life-into-death-into-life-etc), where DPC trips alarm (à la clock, mind gone as far as possible into unreal, now preparing to awake).

While SEN off on own (dreamer/deceased’s disconnection from SENses), T + DPC (mind + soul in communion) end up in morgue (à la fetus-room) where tagged as corpses (while bean-counters tally T’s pursuit account to track viability of continuing: waning value of life/consciousness, mind rationalizing Letting Go) + SEN kills monk (saying he wants to start over/go back: eliminating reclusive representative of Establishment 1st step); T finds LUH in repro center ("consumed" + "reassigned" to embryo: own sensitivities preparing for regeneration) while SEN reattaches kid’s I.V. (rejoining main stream, having met + killed Buddha/Christ, receiving wish to restart) + tells them back-in-my-day stories before cops cart him off (character resolved).

D+T steal cars (acquiring, or fertilizing, eggs), holographic D smashing his (film itself, having "taken over"/shown way, yielding lead back to ego) while over-budget T reaches dead end (pun alert) + takes foot thru Shellers (ready to hatch, himself) up thru shaft (birth canal) + out to surface world (sunset, from which emerged DPC: birth into film Here-I-Am-Hollywood style, à la short).