THX 1138 - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of THX 1138 or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to THX 1138

[willard]

After completion of photography, Francis Ford Coppola scheduled a year for George Lucas to complete post-production. Lucas edited the film on a German-made K-E-M flatbed editor in his Mill Valley house by day, with Walter Murch editing sound at night. The two would compare notes when they changed over. Murch compiled and synchronized the sound montage, which includes all of the "overhead" voices heard throughout the film, radio chatter, announcements, et cetera. The bulk of the editing was finished by mid 1970.

[ethel]

George Lucas has worked the title of this film, or parts of it, in some of his other films. In American Graffiti (1973), the license plate of one car is "THX 138". In Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), a reference is made to "prison cell 1138". The cinema sound certification his company developed is called "THX". In Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999), one of the battle droid's number is "1138". It is seen when all of the battle droids have been shut down.

[norma]

George Lucas apparently named the film after his San Francisco telephone number, 849-1138, the letters THX correspond to letters found on the buttons 8, 4, and 9.

[javier]

The end shot of THX escaping and seeing the setting sun for the first time wasn't a special effect, or timelapse shot. Uncredited cameraman Caleb Deschanel and Matthew Robbins scouted a location for George Lucas, and found a perfectly clear horizon for the shot in Port Hueneme, California. Robbins and Deschanel tried to get the shot four times, but the weather made it impossible until it was captured on the fifth attempt.

[fred]

George Lucas insisted on casting James Wheaton over Orson Welles to play the voice of "OMM" in this film.

[liam]

Average Shot Length - six seconds.

[lena]

All holograms on the television are African-American. This includes the character of SRT, the hologram who escapes into the "real world", and the voice of OMM.

[clayton]

Studio sequences were shot at stages in Los Angeles, including a white stage one hundred feet (thirty and a half meters) long by one hundred fifty feet (forty-six meters) wide for the "white limbo" sequences.

[sandra]

Many of the electronic sound effects heard throughout the film are derived from telephone dial tones, pitch-shifted, and electronically modified.

[chris]

This film predicted separate television channels for violence, sex, comedy, and news. When the film was made in 1971, there were no dedicated channels for types of entertainment.

[carl]

David Ogden Stiers' film debut.

[christina]

A sample from the film is included in the beginning of the Nine Inch Nails song "Mr. Self Destruct" on the album The Downward Spiral (1994).

[jesus]

In the computer room near the end of the film, the lights on one computer can be seen flashing the word "TILT".

[elmer]

To provide the large number of extras required, George Lucas contacted the Synanon drug rehabilitation facility. He found many recovering drug users who were required to be shaved bald for the drug program anyway. The Synanon Facility is mentioned in Philip K Dick's science fiction novel "Valis".

[ivan]

The seemingly endless Control Room where the android police try to corner THX and SRT, who find out LUH has been consumed for organ reclamation, was the circuit switch room of the San Francisco location of the Pacific Bell Telephone Company. Pacific Bell allowed George Lucas to shoot the film there, because the entire room and the hardware found there were about to be dismantled, as the phone company was switching to touchtone phone technology.

[riley]

In the scene featuring fetuses in jars, and a rotating machine, Sound Designer Walter Murch quoted a piece of musique concrète (a squeak from a barn door in Normandy) by Pierre Henry as an homage. After the film ran theatrically in France, Warner Brothers received a letter from Henry's record company claiming breach of copyright. It was eventually ruled that because the squeak had been extensively modified, and that it was a very brief quotation, it did not constitute an infringement.

[janice]

The underground chase near the end was shot in a not-yet-completed segment of the Caldecott Tunnel in Oakland, Ca.

[tamara]

Some of SEN's dialogue is taken from speeches by Richard Nixon.

[ronnie]

On completion of editing of the film, Francis Ford Coppola took it to Warner Brothers. Executives there disliked the film, and insisted that Coppola turn over the negative to an in-house Warner Brothers editor, who cut approximately four minutes of the film prior to release.