THX 1138

…full-length feature film, the science-fiction THX 1138 (1971), released when he was 26, was a commercial flop. Lucas later recalled that his friend, director Francis Ford Coppola, counseled him, “Don’t be so weird. Try to do something that’s human....make a warm and funny movie.” Coppola also helped Lucas salvage American…

…from Coppola’s fledgling Zoetrope Productions, THX 1138, directed by his friend George Lucas. Disappointed by the box-office results of Coppola’s film and unimpressed by the first cut of Lucas’s, the studio ended the partnership. In the meantime, Coppola won an Academy Award for his collaboration with Franklin Schaffner on the…

…society in the distant future, THX 1138 (1971) was released to respectful reviews, although its obvious debt to George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-four and overly deliberate pace kept it from being embraced too enthusiastically by either critics or audiences. The film also was one of the first made through Coppola’s…