THX 1138 "preservations" + the 'THX 1138 Italian Cut' project (Released) — Page 40

msycamore said:

You guys did great with the translation. Love that pic of the DVD. :) It also makes me happy to see that you own Dark Star, love Carpenter's early work, after The Thing it went downhill.

The Italian DVD is still seeded on MySpleen last time I checked.

Edit: And what did you say Leo? ;)

Oh that's just the first line of DVDs, I also have The Thing and you can just make the ending of the title "Escape from New York".

I do like Carpenter and I also like several of his films after The Thing: Prince of Darkness (which feels very much like Precinct 13), They Live! (one of my favourites), Big Trouble in Little China and Vampires.

Leo was just telling me that he just found out how the DVD subtitles work, much more complicated than he imagined (as you already found out when you worked on the Italian subs)

You have a valid point. It is my understanding that these projects stay within legality as long as we preserve only the works that are "out of print". Although it's nice to have a "definitive edition" with all the featurettes perhaps it's best to aim for legal safety and stick to the unavailable material only.

Concerning the Italian disc, owning it is as legal as owning a copy of the film taped off the TV (which is what this is). I'm no legal expert but I doubt anyone in the World has ever been incriminated for having a copy of a movie taped off TV.

SEN footage in English, re-release trailer and radio spots are a must. I don't care about the stuff I already have in the DVD to be honest.

I'm currently reading Ben Bova novelization and it's almost like a different story. I don't know if Bova based it on an early script or if Lucas changed the story a lot in the shooting/editing but the dynamics are often much different (and some stuff makes much more sense).

Oh and we get to know what happened to LUH while THX was in the limbo... although I wish we didn't. She ends up on the TV broadcast where the police robots beat up people (until then she believed those shows only featured holograms) and right after the beating (if you want spoilers keep reading...) she gets raped by three custody guards while an operator watches it on screen (apparently custody guards were considered worse than the prisoners but a "necessary evil"). It was very depressing I have to say. Probably it was best to be left untold.

The rest of the book is quite entertaining for a fan like me. In the book it's actually THX's fault if they get caught because after the first sexual interactions he goes to a psychiatrist to talk about it, telling him that it's something that happened to a friend but the doctor understands the situation and alerts the authorities. Monitoring was infact random and they only had a very small chance of getting caught... if it wasn't for THX.

Msycamore are you curious to know where is the trial placed in the novelization? The book was written in '71 so it should reflect the first cut of the movie don't you think?

THX is still the father. The rape happens after she goes in the limbo to "visit" THX and tells him that she's pregnant.

Sure.

About the white limbo, in the book they make it as if it's some mind trick possibly due to the drugged food. In fact in a first attempt to escape THX  reaches a place with some coloured lights. An assistant robot tells him that he's not in the prison area anymore but in a hospital area where bodies of people that cannot be cured are kept in stasis for organ transplants. All he can see of this area though is only still white limbo, only with some coloured lights and the robot... the assistant robot explains that it's because of the drugged food and asks him to go back to the prison area.

Another thing is that in the white limbo there are only 10 beds and any time someone is brought in, someone else is carried away (to be "consumed", meaning they kill him for organ transplant). This adds to the paranoia and explains why people there are out of their minds, not knowing when they will be carried away. Food is delivered to them inconsistently as to torture them psychologically.

Finished the book today. Wow I didn't know about the ending... Ok Silver, here we go

SPOILER AHEAD

Ok before the very end I must say the final sequences are in slightly a different order. First the robots stop the chase because overbudget, then THX reaches the super-structure where furry "cavemen" attack him... and finally he goes up the ladder leading out (not before breaking through a rusty grid though).

After THX emerges from the shaft he basically sees a paradise, grass on the ground, birds in the sky, a river nearby, warm sun. From the river eight people wave at him inviting him to come closer. THX looks back and thinks they are all mad to live in there and promise himself never to go back... except once to save LUH (his child).

The very happy ending kinda relieves from the depression of LUH's tragic destiny. It would have been much worse if it ended the way Lucas initially thought (with a radiation wasteland awaiting THX)... thank God for that bird passing in the shot!

Now we wonder... were those people at the river other escapees from the underground city? Or have they always lived there and no nuclear holocaust ever happened? Open questions always make sci-fi books more interesting.

PS on a different note, I find incredible that even from the book it's not clear whether SRT is a real hologram or is an actor from the holoshow. The words they used were as ambiguous as in the movie.

Seems weird for holograms to have full name (3 letters and 4 numbers). In the book he even had an access card. Honestly I don't know what to believe. Lucas is often not the most reliable source of information but I guess we have to stick to his answer.

Lol about the Eloi

Have you guys already seen this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VHS-Pelicula-THX-1138-George-Lucas-Edicion-1989-cine-VHS-THX-1138-/180736843036?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_186&hash=item2a14c15d1c

It says 1989 with a run-time of approximately 88 minutes.

Oh, and have you guys checked out this:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/thx-1138/oclc/56520465/editions?start_edition=1&sd=desc&referer=di&se=yr&editionsView=true&fq=

It's database of all the formats and editions of THX-1138.

One last thing. I figured this might be of interest since it's related to THX-1138 and could be used an extra bonus material.

It is 1971, THX 1138 was released on March 11, American Zoetrope is spiraling towards certain doom, Lucas has become even more disillusioned with Hollywood than he was during his stint on McKenna’s Gold, and where exactly things go from here for the upstart and its members is all up in the air. And while American Zoetrope and Coppola had slowly started to cause waves — mostly due to THX’s failure as it were, though also because Coppola wasn’t afraid of touting American Zoetrope a state-of-the-art facility which could outmatch Hollywood, and that the company (and thus himself) was the future of filmmaking — Lucas was little more than a promising student who had made an obscure sci-fi film which opened small and died fast.

During the summer of ’71, as all of this is happening, Gene Youngblood interviewed the then 27-year-old Lucas for a Los Angeles-based educational TV station, KCET in an hour-long program called George Lucas: Maker of Films.

This was taken from an article found here:

http://binarybonsai.com/2009/06/20/george-lucas-maker-of-films-1971/

Here is a direct download-link to the video of the interview:

http://binarybonsai.com/files/georgelucas-makeroffilm.mp4