THX 1138 > STAR WARS.

Curious, the arc of George Lucas. Both THX 1138 and STAR WARS are ultimately about transcending the antiseptic world of high-tech cleanliness and finding the earthy, human, emotional, and psychic underpinnings hidden within.

THX is more openly critical and cynical about tech, though, and depicts sexuality as one of the few escapes from machine control. STAR WARS kind of shrugs off the tech as commonplace and banal, and sexuality kinda doesn't exist.

But STAR WARS was so successful, and so technologically forward unto itself, it laid out an entertainment map that resembles the dark consumer-only rituals from THX 1138. STAR WARS - and this is said often - became the system it sought to buck.

More time passes, and STAR WARS films became rather specifically about how tech begins to overwhelm filmmaking. Indeed, ATTACK OF THE CLONES was used specifically to push the then-new digital projection technologies into the mainstream.

And, of course: Would STAR WARS even have had the legs it did if there weren't toys and other ancillary souvenirs to consume?

What happened to the George Lucas that made THX 1138? Is he at least a little saddened by what STAR WARS became?

Is the THX 1138 George Lucas aware of the irony that his high-tech sound company is named after his most satirical, anti-technology work?

THX 1138 is a weird, bold, angry film with an odd aesthetic and definite philosophy. It's still a little dull and off-putting, but it's confident. I'll have to live with it a while, but it might be my favorite Lucas film.