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Logan's Run (1976)
Jan. 25th, 2009 10:04 amI saw Logan's Run in the theater on its initial release in 1976. This is the first time I've seen it since. It's safe to say that I hated in in 1976, although it's harder to remember why. (Gosh, surprised to learn just now that I didn't start keeping a journal until 1977, when I was a junior in high school. I thought I'd started it earlier.) I wasn't a particularly sophisticated judge of things at age fifteen (when the movie came out in June), but what I remember disliking were the fake-looking miniatures (which were clearly inferior to the effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey) and the annoying old man (played by Peter Ustinov) that they discover near the end of the movie. In retrospect, I would guess I was most put off by the dystopian story. I've never liked utopias or dystopias much, but back in those days I was a fan of heroic literature (Tolkein, ER Burroughs, Robert Howard), and stories about repressive societies and the people who suffered them were anathema to me. The very next year, Star Wars would rock my world (I saw it ten times in the summer of 1977), but within a few years, Blade Runner and Brazil would become two of my favorite movies evar.
Anyway, Logan's Run is set in a post-apocalypse future in which humans have retreated into domed cities. I don't think we learn the nature of the apocalypse. Because of limited resources within these confined cities, population control is necessary, and it's achieved by killing people off when they turn thirty. This is done in a ceremony, and there is a religious belief that people who go through this ceremony are reborn. There are people who try to escape the city, and they are called Runners. There are police-like people called Sandmen whose job is to hunt down and kill Runners. Our hero, Logan Four, is a Sandman. Since the movie is called Logan's Run, you can kind of see where this is headed.
I liked the movie a lot more 33 years later than I did when I first saw it. I still find some of the production design and costuming pretty ridiculous. It's the future as a mall, with people dressed in ugly pastel colors in a style that looks like ... what? Lingerie and pajamas? I'm not sure how to describe it, or why it seems so laughable to me. Somewhat reminiscent of the Planet of the Southern California Joggers in an early episode of Star Trek: Next Generation. Still, the production design is much better than I remembered over all, and I've become a big fan of obvious miniatures in the meantime. I could also now see the ways in which some of the sillier designs, like the flash-freezing robot they run into, are playing off designs in movies like Barbarella (1968). There's a kind of trashy Euro-chic thing going on here. There are also some designs using mirrors that are really quite beautiful. In fact, maybe the flash-freezing robot incorporates mirrors in interesting ways.
It's also interesting to look at the future viewed from the '70s. One of the fascinating throwaway bits is a scene where Logan Four is seeking a sexual partner for the evening. There's a booth in his house where he can call up people who have assigned themselves as available. At first I thought he was actually creating lifelike sex dolls out of thin air, but it turns out he's materializing real people somehow. This technology is not used in any other way, so it seems kind of a waste. Anyway, the first person he calls up is a man, and he just shakes his head with a smile, and the guy shrugs and disappears. The next one is a woman who refuses his advances. He's confused at first and asks if she's only interested in women. So the movie is ahead of its time in its sexual attitudes. Or perhaps of its time and place, looked at from another angle. It tells you how accepting Hollywood was of pansexual views. There's also a strange scene later in the film where Logan and Jessica (the woman he called up for sex, but who doesn't want to make it with a Sandman) are running in slo mo through what appears to be an orgy room. Ah, the '70s! There's a fair amount of nudity in the film, and it's kind of funny (and revealing?) to realize that this apparently didn't leave much of an impression on me back in the day.
I would say that the movie succeeds in creating its own world, and that the world has some depth to it, both physically and culturally. It's still a rather, hm, pastel view of the world, and this is never going to vie with Blade Runner or Brazil in my affections, but I could see it holding its own with other genre favorites such as Forbidden Planet or This Island Earth. It's ultimately a pretty conservative treatment of human nature, despite its sexual liberalism, and it can easily be viewed as a product of the Cold War. Or perhaps it's more like 1984 with a happy ending. The crazy old man is still kind of an annoying character, but I'm old enough myself now to see the thought put into why he's that way.
Ah well, watching this one makes me curious about other science fiction films of the '70s. Back then I considered the period between 2001 and Star Wars to be a wasteland, but maybe there was more going on than I realized. In looking at the credits on IMDb last night, I discovered that the production designer, Dan Hennesy, also worked on Fantastic Voyage (1966), In Like Flint (1967), Sleeper (1973), Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), Young Frankenstein (1974), and King Kong (1976). Kind of an interesting list of movies. The director, Michael Anderson, whose name I didn't recognize, also has some interesting credits: The Dam Busters (1955) (an influence on Star Wars), a 1956 adaptation of 1984 (hmmmm), Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), The Quiller Memorandum (1966), and Millenium (1989), which I remember as being a pretty awful adaptation of John Varley's great SF short story, "Air Raid". Could that one be better than I remember too?
Anyway, Logan's Run is set in a post-apocalypse future in which humans have retreated into domed cities. I don't think we learn the nature of the apocalypse. Because of limited resources within these confined cities, population control is necessary, and it's achieved by killing people off when they turn thirty. This is done in a ceremony, and there is a religious belief that people who go through this ceremony are reborn. There are people who try to escape the city, and they are called Runners. There are police-like people called Sandmen whose job is to hunt down and kill Runners. Our hero, Logan Four, is a Sandman. Since the movie is called Logan's Run, you can kind of see where this is headed.
I liked the movie a lot more 33 years later than I did when I first saw it. I still find some of the production design and costuming pretty ridiculous. It's the future as a mall, with people dressed in ugly pastel colors in a style that looks like ... what? Lingerie and pajamas? I'm not sure how to describe it, or why it seems so laughable to me. Somewhat reminiscent of the Planet of the Southern California Joggers in an early episode of Star Trek: Next Generation. Still, the production design is much better than I remembered over all, and I've become a big fan of obvious miniatures in the meantime. I could also now see the ways in which some of the sillier designs, like the flash-freezing robot they run into, are playing off designs in movies like Barbarella (1968). There's a kind of trashy Euro-chic thing going on here. There are also some designs using mirrors that are really quite beautiful. In fact, maybe the flash-freezing robot incorporates mirrors in interesting ways.
It's also interesting to look at the future viewed from the '70s. One of the fascinating throwaway bits is a scene where Logan Four is seeking a sexual partner for the evening. There's a booth in his house where he can call up people who have assigned themselves as available. At first I thought he was actually creating lifelike sex dolls out of thin air, but it turns out he's materializing real people somehow. This technology is not used in any other way, so it seems kind of a waste. Anyway, the first person he calls up is a man, and he just shakes his head with a smile, and the guy shrugs and disappears. The next one is a woman who refuses his advances. He's confused at first and asks if she's only interested in women. So the movie is ahead of its time in its sexual attitudes. Or perhaps of its time and place, looked at from another angle. It tells you how accepting Hollywood was of pansexual views. There's also a strange scene later in the film where Logan and Jessica (the woman he called up for sex, but who doesn't want to make it with a Sandman) are running in slo mo through what appears to be an orgy room. Ah, the '70s! There's a fair amount of nudity in the film, and it's kind of funny (and revealing?) to realize that this apparently didn't leave much of an impression on me back in the day.
I would say that the movie succeeds in creating its own world, and that the world has some depth to it, both physically and culturally. It's still a rather, hm, pastel view of the world, and this is never going to vie with Blade Runner or Brazil in my affections, but I could see it holding its own with other genre favorites such as Forbidden Planet or This Island Earth. It's ultimately a pretty conservative treatment of human nature, despite its sexual liberalism, and it can easily be viewed as a product of the Cold War. Or perhaps it's more like 1984 with a happy ending. The crazy old man is still kind of an annoying character, but I'm old enough myself now to see the thought put into why he's that way.
Ah well, watching this one makes me curious about other science fiction films of the '70s. Back then I considered the period between 2001 and Star Wars to be a wasteland, but maybe there was more going on than I realized. In looking at the credits on IMDb last night, I discovered that the production designer, Dan Hennesy, also worked on Fantastic Voyage (1966), In Like Flint (1967), Sleeper (1973), Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), Young Frankenstein (1974), and King Kong (1976). Kind of an interesting list of movies. The director, Michael Anderson, whose name I didn't recognize, also has some interesting credits: The Dam Busters (1955) (an influence on Star Wars), a 1956 adaptation of 1984 (hmmmm), Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), The Quiller Memorandum (1966), and Millenium (1989), which I remember as being a pretty awful adaptation of John Varley's great SF short story, "Air Raid". Could that one be better than I remember too?
