George Lucas’ THX 1138, which is considered one of the seminal sci fi works of the ’70s has got a face lift and will be released in theaters this September. The 1970 movie, which stars Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall as a worker drone living in a 25th century totalitarian state, has been digitally revised by Lucas, according to a story in Daily Variety.
The new director’s cut of the film will premiere at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City on September 9. Warner Home Video will re-release the film in digital theaters in 20 cities the next day.
A two-disc collectors edition DVD of the remastered film will be released on September 14. Digitally enhanced backgrounds, cityscapes and crowds will add to the general feel of the futuristic movie.
"THX 1138 is how I saw 1970," Lucas says in the story. "It was designed as a metaphor for the way we were living at the time. The world has taken a strange twist from there, but I think the ideas that we examined are still valid in the 21st century."
Other DVD extras will include a documentary about Zoetrope Studio, interviews with Lucas, Duvall and Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, John Milius and others, as well as Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB, the original Lucas USC student short on which the movie is based. Interestingly enough, the THX 1138 DVD will come out only two weeks before the much-anticipated Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy DVD.
