Random
drunk post: does anyone want Logan’s Run on DVD?
So it’s been an uneventful Memorial Weekend Sunday of drinking and doing laundry here in Houston. I finally got around to watching Logan’s Run, a sci-fi film based on the novel of the same name by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. I’ve owned this movie for a few years, but never got around to watching it.
Until now.
I would never have picked up this movie, except I fell in love with Super Flat Times by Matthew Derby several years ago, and I went through a fanatic phase, during which I tracked down every single interview he gave about the book. In his interview at Identity Theory, Derby speaks about the film’s influence on his dystopian stories, saying:
i did look at the film Logan’s Run a great deal while writing the book, and not enough people are comparing SFT to that (hint: more people should do this). I tried to study some depictions of the future that seem dated and outmoded from a contemporary perspective, because i wanted to investigate the space in which our idea of the future (which is a thing that, by definition, doesn’t actually exist – it is nothing more than a conceptual repository for the narrative arcs we make for ourselves) comes up against our actual experience of the future as it crystallizes into the present. i think we deal with the relentless disappointment we experience as the illusion of the future becomes the reality of the present by guffawing at our past illusions, when in fact those depictions are the only real-world evidence we have of our past aspirations. there’s something very heartbreaking and true about these artifacts.
I don’t feel up to reviewing/describing the book (I imagine most readers are familiar with it?), except to say that I really do like it and often reread it. I’d rather comment on the movie Logan’s Run, which, according to what I’ve read online, was pretty much panned by critics upon its release in 1976. According to Wikipedia, The New York Times said:
Just why and for what particular purpose Logan makes his run is anything but clear after you’ve sat through nearly two hours of this stuff. Logan’s Run is less interested in logic than in gadgets and spectacle, but these are sometimes jazzily effective and even poetic. Had more attention been paid to the screenplay, the movie might have been a stunner.
And critic Gene Siskel called Logan’s Run “the worst major motion picture in seven years of reviewing films.”
Yes, the film is pretty bad, but in a good way(?); I mean, I enjoyed watching it for the most part. I was bored during the last thirty minutes and wished it ended sooner than it did; at the same time, I loved the various miniature city models used during filming, the seventies idea of 2274 fashion, the acting of Michael York, and Farrah Fawcett-Major’s small part as secretary to a futuristic plastic surgeon. I loved, as Derby says, the version of the future that the movie suggests: people in synthetic clothing, monorail-type transporation, a city beneath some sort of geodisic dome, a teleportation circuit that citizens of the city can put themselves on whenever they want sex. The basic premise of the story is that in this futuristic city, citizens must willfully die at age thirty to make room for new generations. It’s very patriotic. And it’s hard to ignore the history at the time of the movie’s filming. For example, the death penalty was patriotically reinstated in 1977. Wow!
Perhaps my appreciation for the film was ruined by my having come of age in a ‘post 9/11’ world or something? I watched people beheaded on the internet, which is much different than watching someone ‘renew’ in the world of Logan’s Run. Maybe this isn’t a big deal. Perhaps a post-Star Wars world ruined my appreciation for the film? The first film to be released in the Star War‘s story, Episode IV, came out a year after Logan’s Run. Maybe this had something to do with Logan’s Run‘s falling in popularity? Wikipedia tells me so, so it must be true.
Whatever. The point of this post is to say that I have a copy of Logan’s Run on DVD that I’m happy to send to anyone who’d like to take a look at it. Email htmlgiant [at] gmail [dot] com if you’d like the DVD to be mailed to you. Whoever emails first will get the DVD.
If my post can’t convince you to watch the movie, then maybe these memorable quotes can:
Logan 5: Killed? Why do you use that word?
Jessica 6: Isn’t that what you do? Kill?
Logan 5: I’ve never killed anyone in my life. Sandmen terminate runners. What’s your name?
Jessica 6: Jessica.
Logan 5: You’re sad enough. You’re beautiful. Let’s have sex.
Jessica 6: No.
Logan 5: Then why are you wasting my time, hmmm? Why did you put yourself on the circuit?
Jessica 6: I thought I had to do something. I told you it was a mistake. And I’ve changed my mind.
Logan 5: Because I’m a Sandman? Am I your first?
Jessica 6: Yes.
Tags: Logan's Run, matthew derby, super flat times
one of my favorite movies ever
one of my favorite movies ever
Logan’s Run was deep. I saw it in the theater when it came out, if it was 77 I must have been 9. BTW Star Wars was out in 76 I believe so plllrbbb, LR – the whole carousel thing is deeply fucked up – nothing follows from “people over 30 have to sacrifice themselves for the good of the population bc we all live in a bubble bc the world is irradiated” to “they do it by floating around in the air and getting blown up up dudes in tights whilst wearing creepy masks”. This alone was so weird I still think about it. Plus, the little disks on people’s hands was a weird touch, and kind of like, “oh shit what’s that spot on my arm?”
Next, the whole “step into the teleportation sex tube” thing is just out there, and prefigured the whole internet dating phenomena?? And the murderous future plastic surgery thing is a brilliant exampke of Hollywood navel-gazing, and of course, deply prescient.
Then, there’s the killer robot who is repsonsible for the frozen food, and tries to freeze our heroes – who briefly get naked whilst putting on some like bear furs the find. Early titty peek for 9 year old me. Hi!
Then, when they finally escape, the old dude and the cats! Just weird. Old dude fetush moment.
In essence, we are talking vintage 70’s deep thought – reflection on the youth obsessed disco era, projected into sci fi form, with a touch of codl war paranoia and crazy warped disco spectacle, and decidely POST star wars low budget special effetcs. A brilliant dead end of cinematic scifi social commenary – basiicaly the movie version of Hotel Calirofnia, with robots.
If you did(n’t) like Logan’s Run, check out Zardoz, with Sean Connery playing a cave man in a world of women who run a post apocolytic society, flying around in giant stone heads and occasionally “mating” with the stone-age men, etc.
BTW Logan’s Run also became a thoroughly incomprehensible TV show…
Cheers! Pr’s husband
i was with you until i realized I wasn’t thinking of Logan’s Run, I was thinking of Jacob’s ladder… which I then lost interest….
i was with you until i realized I wasn’t thinking of Logan’s Run, I was thinking of Jacob’s ladder… which I then lost interest….
I love you.
I can netflix the movie. send me the meat in the photograph.
I can netflix the movie. send me the meat in the photograph.
Hi Justin! I will cook you pork chops.
Jacob’s Ladder is awesome. Haven’t seen Logan’s Run…or The Running Man for that matter.
Jacob’s Ladder is awesome. Haven’t seen Logan’s Run…or The Running Man for that matter.
drunk response: what in the hell are we supposed to do with those quotes? they are dead. completely dead.
*disappointed smile*
drunk response: what in the hell are we supposed to do with those quotes? they are dead. completely dead.
*disappointed smile*
meat en route
meat en route
yeah i have no idea what to do with them. i think i probably thought they were funny at the time of this post.
yeah i have no idea what to do with them. i think i probably thought they were funny at the time of this post.
after reading your post and pr’s husband’s (double possessive, that’s right, right?) comment i now want to watch this movie. has someone already won/emailed for/ it?
after reading your post and pr’s husband’s (double possessive, that’s right, right?) comment i now want to watch this movie. has someone already won/emailed for/ it?
i think it’s kind of weird that i think drinking and doing laundry is in no way uneventful. what has my life come to? how did it get to this point?
i think it’s kind of weird that i think drinking and doing laundry is in no way uneventful. what has my life come to? how did it get to this point?
it’s all yours keith
it’s all yours keith
thanks for this comment, prs husband
thanks for this comment, prs husband
wooo-hoooo!!
wooo-hoooo!!
wow, need to rent this movie. i’m still finding it hard to concentrate after the image of the goblin with the pierced cock implanted itself in my brain. still rehabing from that…
wow, need to rent this movie. i’m still finding it hard to concentrate after the image of the goblin with the pierced cock implanted itself in my brain. still rehabing from that…
stay away from running man. It is tripe. Logan’s Run is workable satire, and quite entertaining. Jacob’s Ladder is beautiful.
stay away from running man. It is tripe. Logan’s Run is workable satire, and quite entertaining. Jacob’s Ladder is beautiful.
What a great summary of this movie. I remember seeing it at only a slightly more advanced age than you did. I actually made a board game (on poster board, later laminated) based on it when in sixth grade. I remember little of the game, except one space that read only, “Cats! Lose 3 turns!”
What a great summary of this movie. I remember seeing it at only a slightly more advanced age than you did. I actually made a board game (on poster board, later laminated) based on it when in sixth grade. I remember little of the game, except one space that read only, “Cats! Lose 3 turns!”
that is funny
that is funny
I love it. You and my husband have to get together and play the game. I’ll play too. I loved that movie. Not as much as my husband. But still.
I love it. You and my husband have to get together and play the game. I’ll play too. I loved that movie. Not as much as my husband. But still.
Alas, that game, if it exists at all anymore, is in a closet in an elementary school a couple thousand miles away from me.
Alas, that game, if it exists at all anymore, is in a closet in an elementary school a couple thousand miles away from me.
Oh, too bad. Still, we are laughing and having fun about “cats, lose three turns”. Fucking great.
Oh, too bad. Still, we are laughing and having fun about “cats, lose three turns”. Fucking great.
[…] come to Earth and help the residents of an apartment block scheduled for property development. 69. Logan’s Run – In the future, everyone must be executed when they reach a certain age. 70. 2001: A Space Odyssey […]
The meat in the beginning of this post is too distracting ..it was hard for my brain to get past that. I guess you are trying to scare vegetarians away from your post? Logan’s Run is stupid. Plain and simple. But great to make fun of!