There’s a bit in George Lucas‘s THX-1138 that makes me chuckle every time. A group of social undesirables — shaved-head baldies, dressed in white — have been put into an asylum of some sort, and while one of them (Donald Pleasance) rants on about some political or philosophical issue, a fellow misfit a few feet away begins assaulting a droid robocop, and then beats his skull in.
Pleasance turns around, notices, stops talking for three or four seconds, doesn’t know how to process it (“Oh…someone is destroying a droid”) and continues to rant as if very little has just happened.
DVD Beaver‘s Gary W. Tooze says the following about Warner Home Video’s THX 1138 Blu-ray, which comes out early next week: “The film has a grandness of scale that is never overwhelming, but I often felt like I was in a ‘cinema’ as I progressed through my viewing. This 1080p transfer exports the film’s incredible visual power, and seems to get the absolute most out of antiseptic aura of snow-driven, impersonal whiteness.
“Despite the early 70’s stock, the film is clean, precise and the HD rendering still retains the underlying depressed ‘feel’. It has grain and some infrequent noise, but this Bluray has captured so much of what makes this a great viewing experience. Lucas digitally restored THX 1138 at his own Industrial Light & Magic facility and he also included the roughly five minutes of footage that Warner removed for its brief, initial theatrical run.”
