From an Indian Lodge

On viewing the first 20 minutes or so of Logan's Run

Logan's Run (Michael Anderson, 1976)

1. Thank God George Lucas came along and lifted movie sf out of doom and gloom. Before this, TCM showed Watch the Skies, a Richard Schickel documentary in which Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, and Ridley Scott discussed the sf films of the 1950s. (Spielberg could give Scorsese a run for his money in the film doc department.) Of course, everyone knows about the bomb and McCarthyism as the context for Them! and Invaders from Mars. But in this and other movies (sf and non-sf) all around the world in the early to mid 1970s, I feel that these are films made by people living in the ruins, but in the ruins of what? An examination of 70s sf would be very complicated.

2. It's interesting that after the youthful 1960's, this and Zardoz showed that societies that denied aging would be unhealthy.

3. You probably can't get more 1970s than Michael York.

4. On seeing the horrible stucco walls of the atrium where Logan kills the runner, I thought of Crow T. Robot saying "Filmed at the Student Union of the University of Minnesota, Duluth."

posted by Erik Gregersen @ 7/26/2005