“They already made a follow-up to Blade Runner,” proclaimed a popular tweet earlier this year. “It is called Every sci-fi movie since Blade Runner.” It the same vein, it was a bit hard to watch THX 1138 for the first time in 2011, since I felt I already saw it many times before. Although, technically, after. Eh, you know what I mean.

It is all unfair, of course, but not nearly as much as you’d think, since THX 1138 actually does seem a bit like a movie equivalent of a tech demo – something that’ll inspire future works of art, but perhaps doesn’t quite stand on its own. It seems that Lucas, bless his soul (yes, cheap shot, but you know what I mean too) was more interested in trying out some ideas rather than putting together a full-fletched movie. To his credit, some of those ideas are fascinating and thought-provoking, but my attention flagged in the second half, and the ending seemed more of an afterthought.

Or, maybe, it was all deliberate: The dehumanization omnipresent in the movie breaking the fourth wall and extending itself to such humane requirements as narrative and closure. Would you remember how to tell a story in a future no one tells stories anymore?

Side note: Funny that in our dystopian future everything’s white and we all find comfort in talking to ELIZA-like devices. (He said looking at his iPhone 4S.)