Arka Evren

FILM · 1971 · USA

THX 1138

53 archived facts 7 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026

43 Interesting Facts About THX 1138

  1. #001

    George Lucas apparently named the film after the San Francisco telephone number 849-1138; the letters THX correspond to the letters on the 8, 4 and 9 keys.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  2. #002

    To supply the large number of extras required, George Lucas contacted the Synanon drug rehabilitation facility. He found there many recovering drug users whose heads had already been shaved for the drug program. The Synanon facility is mentioned in Philip K. Dick's science fiction novel "Valis".

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  3. #003

    Very little makeup was used, to give the actors and actresses a distinctive look.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  4. #004

    George Lucas adapted the idea for the original short film, and the film was ultimately adapted from a one-and-a-half-page outline titled "Breakout" written by USC student Matthew Robbins about a man escaping from an underground dystopian society.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  5. #005

    The sounds of the police motorcycles are sped-up recordings of women screaming together in a tiled bathroom.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  6. #008

    Most of the electronic sound effects heard throughout the film were derived from telephone dial tones and from sliding and electronically altered sounds.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  7. #010

    The final scene, in which THX escapes and sees the setting sun for the first time, was not a special effect or a timelapse. Uncredited cameraman Caleb Deschanel and Matthew Robbins scouted a location for George Lucas and found a completely clear horizon for the shoot in Port Hueneme, California. Robbins and Deschanel tried to get the shot four times, but the weather made it impossible until the fifth attempt.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  8. #014

    In the scene featuring fetuses in jars and a rotating machine, sound designer Walter Murch quoted, as a tribute, a piece from a Pierre Henry music concert (a creak from a barn door in Normandy). After the film opened in theaters in France, Warner Bros. received a letter from Henry's record company claiming copyright infringement. It was ultimately decided that it did not constitute an infringement, since the creak had been substantially altered and was a very short quotation.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  9. #015

    There are several scenes in the film that violate the "180° rule". This was designed to convey the feeling of disorientation and confusion THX experiences as he comes out of drug-induced sedation.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  10. #016

    Co-writer Walter Murch said in interviews that George Lucas never explained to him the origins of the character names THX, SEN and LUH, but that he believes they are deliberate synonyms for sex, sin and love, the three factors that set them apart from society.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  11. #017

    The underground chase near the end was shot in an unfinished section of the Caldecott Tunnel in Oakland, CA.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  12. #018

    In the DVD commentary, George Lucas claimed that the robot police cannot actually harm people and that the worst they can do is annoy you. The system took care to ensure that the robots would never use excessive violence if they caused an uprising or defied their masters. The hologram of a police robot savagely beating someone to death exists only to instill fear of the police in the public.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  13. #019

    The seemingly endless Control Room, where the android police officer tries to corner THX and SRT after learning that LUH is being consumed for organ repair, was the circuit switch room of the Pacific Bell Telephone Company in San Francisco. Pacific Bell allowed George Lucas to shoot the film there because, as the telephone company was switching to touch-tone technology, the entire room and the hardware in it were about to be dismantled.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  14. #020

    Although it is clear that THX works in a factory that produces the android police officers of his society, the strange levers he stands before at his job and the thickly sealed glass screen should be familiar to workers in nuclear engineering facilities. George Lucas shot THX's scenes while working in front of an operational radiation containment chamber, also known as a "hot cell," of the kind used by those who have to handle radioactive materials.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  15. #021

    In the final shot of THX escaping outside, the person wearing the bald cap is not Robert Duvall but Matthew Robbins.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  16. #022

    In the final scene where THX reaches the surface, this is a simple perspective trick. It is not a staircase but rebar embedded in concrete. The cast members crawl along a horizontal surface. By tilting the camera to the appropriate angles, the characters appear to be climbing upward.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  17. #024

    After the film's editing was completed, Francis Ford Coppola took the film to Warner Bros. Pictures. The executives there disliked the film and insisted that Coppola hand the negative over to an in-house Warner Bros. editor, who cut about four minutes of the film before its release.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  18. #025

    The scene in which THX falls into the trash compactor and fends off a mutated rodent was cut because the creature did not look realistic. It was later reused in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  19. #026

    This film envisioned separate television channels for violence, sex, comedy and news. When the film was shot in 1969, there were no channels dedicated to entertainment genres.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  20. #027

    The studio sequences were shot on stages in Los Angeles, including a white stage 100 feet (30.5 meters) long and 150 feet (46 meters) wide for the "white limbo" sequences.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  21. #028

    All the holograms on television are African American. This includes the character SRT, the hologram who escapes to the "real world," and the voice of OMM.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  22. #029

    Some actresses turned down roles in this film because they refused to shave their heads.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  23. #031

    According to the residents' numbering system, there can be at most 175,760,000 residents, as well as at most 10,000 police officers.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  24. #032

    In Bald: The Making of 'THX 1138' (1971), Maggie McOmie cries before having her head shaved.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  25. #033

    Promotional photos, some foreign posters and video covers include a frame from a scene not in the final film: police robots (previously killed by SEN) approach the lifeless body of the OHM priest and check his pulse.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  26. #034

    The cars used in the chase seen in the film are Lola T-70 Mark IIIs.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  27. #035

    This was the first film of Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  28. #036

    George Lucas insisted on choosing James Wheaton rather than Orson Welles to voice "OMM" in this film.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  29. #037

    David Ogden Stiers's first film (credited as David Ogden Steers).

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  30. #038

    THX sound was named after this film.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  31. #039

    Numerous scenes were inspired by Japanese theater, design and graphics.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  32. #041

    The output that initially flashes on screen is a FORTRAN computer program.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  33. #042

    It was shot between September and November 1969.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  34. #043

    According to a story told on the March 1, 1980 radio program American Top 40 With Casey Kasem, the title of Toto's song "99" was inspired by the use of numbers instead of names for people in this film.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  35. #044

    In the computer room at the end, the word "TILT" can be seen flashing in the lights of one of the computers.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  36. #045

    In the novel adapted from Ben Bova's screenplay, THX introduces himself as: "… I am 1138 THX Magnum manipulator 347 cell 94107 Zone 3 Apartment: Level 6421 Complex 12 Ramp 5. Roommate 3417 LU… H."

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  37. #046

    THX 1138 contains the first instance of A113, a code used among producers, directors and studios that appears in many Pixar films. [link-nm0000380] - It can be found on the "THX" collar.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  38. #047

    The small person in the group's white prison cell is described as a "shell-dweller." When THX reaches the shell, he is surrounded by many creatures. In the original version these were all small people. In the updated version, there is a small person sitting and watching on a perch, but the rest of the creatures shown are monkey-like CGI figures.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  39. #048

    The George Lucas Director's Cut DVD is the only Warner Bros. DVD to feature the THX Cavalcade trailer.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  40. #049

    Near the beginning of the film, a hand selects a computer tape from a shelf. The tape is a TS-11 manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation, and the orange write-protect ring is in place.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  41. #050

    Ian Wolfe (PTO) appeared in Bread and Circuses (1968) (#2.25) and All Our Yesterdays (1969) (#3.23), indirectly linking him to the Star Trek (1966) series.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  42. #051

    Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasence later appeared together in The Eagle Has Landed (1976).

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport
  43. #053

    The license plate of the car Paul Le Mat drives in American Graffiti was THX 138, very close to George Lucas's phone number.

    INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

    ShareReport

Continue through the archive