Mind the machines.(Now Playing)(Movie Review)

If computers "got" irony, they would likely smirk at the re-release of George Lucas's first film, a dystopian science-fiction tale from 1971 called THX 1138.

In this new director's cut, Lucas hasn't changed the original narrative, a bleak portrait of a future society in thrall to machines; he's added a slew of sleek and modern computer-generated images--an ironic form of improvement for a sci-fi flick about soul-killing computers.

In a sense, Lucas's career has been a gradual refutation of the central theme of THX 1138--the dehumanizing effects of technology. Aside from the character-driven nostalgia piece, American Graffiti (the anomaly in his filmography), Lucas has largely concentrated on his vast Star Wars series, movies that have become more technically wondrous, and technology dependent, with each new installment. Though they still retain much of their adventuresome charm, the latest Star Wars pictures feel less the fruit of a creative mind and more the product of the computer systems at work in THX 1138.

One of those decades-old sci-fi films that feels more prescient with each passing year, THX 1138 centers around a human worker--the title is the serial number that serves as his name--toiling in a cruelly efficient society. Anything that interferes with production, be it emotions, sex, or religion, has been either outlawed or catered to in the most basic of ways. When THX (Robert Duvall) opens his medicine cabinet, a robotic surveillance system inside asks, "What's wrong?" and then prescribes the appropriate combination of sedatives. When THX stops taking his pills and feels true emotions for the first time, he begins an eye opening odyssey toward freedom.

Even before its recent retooling, THX 1138 was a technical marvel. Working with co-screenwriter and sound-design master Walter Murch, Lucas creates much of the sterile, computerized world through simple, off-screen aural effects. Machines bleep, robots whir, and speakers drone emotionless commands like so many HAL 9000s.

The visual design is as arresting as anything in Lucas's Star Wars films. Much of it, in fact, foreshadows the look of his better-known work, from its metallic corridors to its shiny-faced robots. Yet ...