Overview: Slipstream is a movie directed by Tron’s Steven Lisberger, who, thankfully, time has mostly forgotten. This movie is supposed to take place in some future time where the continents have all reshuffled themselves due to Earthquakes (yes, you might think this would take hundreds of millions of years, but Lisberger apparently knows better). For the most part, Slipstream is a pretty lousy movie. Especially lousy are the costumes and set designs. The costumes consists of regular 1980s attire, while the set designs, what little there are seem hastily manufactured with little attention to detail.

The plot concerns an escaped android named Byron, who’s apparently killed someone, and has escaped to the fringes of society. The police bounty hunters, played by Mark Hamill and Kitty Aldridge, have just caught him after a 3 month trek, and are on their way back to bringing him in. On a stopover to get some food, they run into Matt, played by Bill Paxton, who sees Byron as his ticket to money and happiness. Without knowing he’s an android, Matt steals Byron from the police, and escapes down the “slipstream,” A river running down a huge gorge that seems to generate its own wind power. The rest of the movie is about Byron’s emergence and his friendship with Matt, while still evading the bounty hunters.

Android Freewill: The only interesting part of this movie concerns a scene where Byron has just been told he’s free, and, experiencing true freewill for the first time, is completely overloaded. He doesn’t know how to handle it and immediately asks for Matt to tell him what to do. This scene is a little too “in your face” but it is the highlight of the movie, and really, pretty much the ONLY aspect of this movie that feels cyberpunk.

The Bottom Line: There really isn’t much here. If you haven’t seen it, you probably won’t feel too bad. I will say that for the most part, the four acting leads give decent performances - this more than anything allows me to give it 5 stars. It’s a shame they had so little to work with. The plot is forced, the sets are aweful and the costumes are basically what the actors wore to the shoot.

Overview: George Lucas’s THX-1138 is one of the many good small-budget films long forgotten that has found new life on DVD. THX-1138 gives us a wonderful commentary on how Lucas, back in 1971, thought society would be if those in power ever really got their way. Everything here is antithetical to the 60s movement. Freedom and in fact most of humanity is squashed in this depiction of a dehumanizing nightmare society. All actions are controlled and securitized to ensure compliance.

The Setting: THX-1138 takes place in an underground facility in some ill-defined future where all aspects of humanity have been squashed. Everyone has all individuality removed, including possessions, hair (everyone has shaved heads). Humanity is controlled by television brainwashing combined with medications that remove human emotions. All citizens have a have a specific role to perform, and must adhere to completely programmed time schedules. Regularly scheduled “confessions” with mind control officers are used to catch any unexpected problems with individual expression. In this setting, Robert Duvall, known as THX-1138, and his room mate “dare” to have affection for one another.

A series of events occur which make THX-1138 disenchanted with society. He begins to cut down on his medication, and convinces his room mate, LUH 3417 to do the same. When emotions return, so does their humanity. They begin to find emotional desire and love for one another, but this is cut short, when a ranking facility member, SEN 5241, decides he would prefer to have THX-1138 for a room mate, and removes LUH 3417. But THX-1138 has gone too far, and instead, seeks out a budging resistance movement. Unfortunately for him, the control group has discovered his deceit.

The Visuals: Like many cyberpunk films, dominating color schemes are used for conveying the moods. In this case, white is used to depict dehumanized society; yellow is used for the controlling machinery, and darkness is used for the unknown innards of the facility’s inner-workings. THX-1138 provides much of the storyline through its visuals. We aren’t told the history of this futuristic dystopia, nor are we given much indication of how this society is run. As an interesting side note, although its never stated, one really gets the feeling in watching this that the powers that be would strongly prefer replacing humans with emotionless robots.

Changes to the Original Release: I have only seen the director’s cut of THX-1138, so I cannot comment on the original cut. However, I notice a similar level of anger to this version as was seen in changes to Star Wars. I probably need to track this down, but not having seen it, I don’t really see many of the problems they list, including poorly integrated CG effects (the shot above is an example of added CG into the background). Many also complain that while the film length is the same, some shots are missing. I don’t notice any complaints about changes to the sound, which seems very well engineered to me. Again though, having come to this movie without seeing the earlier version, I do have a hard time with people stating there is no value to this version, or that it is so far worse than the original that it is not worth watching. These sentiments seem like severe overkill. Still, like Star Wars, one hopes that the original eventually gets released as well.

The Bottom Line: THX-1138 is a very well made low-budget art film where Lucas takes the controlling elements in society to what he sees as their logical conclusion. While this isn’t very realistic in many ways, it certainly sends a powerful message. The pacing is consistent and the themes, while not new, are interesting and well conveyed. As long as you’re not looking for lots of action, you will probably enjoy this.