"How shall the new environment be programmed? It all happened so slowly that most men failed to realize that anything happened at all." quote from George Lucas' movie THX 1138
THX 1138 is a motion picture made in 1969 about two residents of a dystopian future-state where a high level of control is exerted upon the residents through the ever-presence of faceless, android police-officers and the mandatory, regulated use of special drugs that eliminate emotion and sexual desire.
The film consists of three acts. In the first, we are introduced to daily life in the underground dystopia through the central character, THX 1138 (Robert Duvall), a nuclear-production-line worker. All emotions are suppressed in THX’s world through the compulsory use of (soma-like) drugs. However, THX’s female roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) has stopped taking her drugs, and secretly substitutes inactive pills for THX’s medications. As the drug’s effects wear off, THX finds himself experiencing emotions and sexual desire for the first time. He and LUH begin a loving relationship, and plan to escape to the “superstructure”, where they hope to be able to live in freedom. Before they can attempt this escape they are arrested and charged with “sex crimes” and “drug violations.”
The second act sees THX incarcerated for his crimes in a white limbo world along with a collection of other prisoners, including Donald Pleasence as SEN 5241 – a sinister technician who has been using his programming skills to try and replace LUH as THX’s roommate and who is, himself a ‘prisoner’ of the limbo because THX reported him for said programming violations. Most of the prisoners seem uninterested in escape, but eventually THX and SEN decide to find an exit. They encounter SRT (Don Pedro Colley), a (tangible) hologram who has become disenchanted with his role in the society and is making an attempt to escape. Upon exiting the limbo, THX attempts to find LUH and learns that her identity has been reassigned to a fetus in a growth chamber. This indicates that she has been considered “incurable” and killed. Separated from the other two fugitives, SEN makes a tentative exploration of the limits of the city’s underground network. Cowed by what he sees, he returns to the city and is captured by the authorities.
The third act is an extended escape sequence, featuring a futuristic and often-copied car-chase sequence through a tunnel network. THX and SRT steal two cars, but the latter immediately crashes. It is uncertain whether SRT survives the impact, although the film’s script indicates he does not. THX flees to the limits of the city’s underground road network while being chased by android police, and eventually locates an access tunnel that leads up to the surface. The police pursue THX up the ladder, but the expense of his capture exceeds its budget, compelling the police to retreat, leaving THX to climb out and stand, for the first time, in the harsh surface sunlight. As THX stands before the setting sun, birds intermittently fly overhead, indicating that life is possible on the surface. (taken from wikipedia)
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