cyborg notes:
I recently saw Logan's Run again for the first time since I was a teenager. It's a curious film. I remembered it as a tight little dystopic narrative, a neat, discrete vision of the future to stack up with Andromeda Strain and Planet of the Apes. The first third fits this model, but as the protagonists approach and breach the boundaries of the city, the story becomes more and more surreal. Eventually Peter Ustinov shows up, talking in cryptic verse. There are serveral highly choreographed modern dance type scenes, such as the carousel, where costumed folks in tights are hauled upward on not-so-invisible wires.There is also a truly strange A.I. moment in which the computer at a security checkpoint grills Michael York about consorting with lefties (Runners) while at the same time re-assigning him to a top secret mission, and changing the colour of his palm crystal (or life clock), thereby significantly shortening his life. The computer, passive/aggressive and omniscient, says very little while Logan stumbles and staggers through a series of "questions" that seems far too evocative for effective communication with a machine. I've excerpted this discussion below. The entire transcript has been made available online by Joe Rauner. There is a pretty thorough synopsis of the film (with images) here, at transparencynow.com.
C: Logan 5, approach and identify. (APPROACH AND IDENTIFY) Sit facing the screen, Logan 5. (IDENTIFY) Identify. (IDENTITY AFFIRMED: PROCEDURE: 033-03). Logan 5, do you identify this object?
L: Negative. Question, what is it?
C: That is the name of the object, "ankh". (ANKH, SANCTUARY) Do you identify this word, "Sanctuary"?
L: Negative.
C: “Sanctuary” is a pre-catastrophe code word used for a place of immunity.
L: I don’t understand.
C: The object “ankh” has been identified with the code word “Sanctuary”. The object and the word both relate to runners who have not been accounted for.
L: Question.
C: Hold. (UNACCOUNTED RUNNERS: 1056) Unaccounted runners 1056. You may state your question.
L: 1056 unaccounted for?
C: The number is correct.
L: That’s impossible. Question, maybe they weren’t all runners. Maybe most of them reached life renewal on Carousel. (UNACCOUNTED RUNNERS: 1056) Question, nobody reached renewal? But, everybody believes that, that some ...
C: The question has been answered, Logan 5. (PROCEDURE: 03303)
L: You mean, nobody’s ever been renewed?
C: The question has been answered. You are authorized to penetrate City seals and search outside the Dome. (PROCEDURE: 033-03)
L: Umm, seals? Question, what seals? Outside? Well, there’s, there’s nothing outside.
C: You will find Sanctuary, and destroy. (PROCEDURE: 033-03)
L: Question, what if I need help from another Sandman?
C: Negative. You will begin assignment by becoming a runner seeking Sanctuary.
L: Question. I’m only a Red 6 now. How can I pretend that I’m approaching Lastday?
C: Identify. (PROCEDURE: RETROGRAM) [Red crystal below Logan glows. He is age-progressed. His life clock now blinks]
L: My life clock. Question. My life clock!
C: (RETROGRAM COMPLETE) Retrogram complete. Proceed 033 03.
L: But am I still Red 6? But I had 4 more years! I will get them back, won't I?
C: You will take the object "ankh" with you for identification.
L: Question. Do I get my 4 years back? [computer falls silent]
Sally, did you ever see the film Zardoz? In that film people are also aged as punishment for their transgressions
I have not seen Zardoz. There is a pretty funny plot summary here that might suffice.
Enjoyable as is is, I would say the scene in the transcript is what happens when a team of Hollywood scriptwriters get together and try to compress as much plot motivatlon as they can into one scene, no matter how contradictory it all is. In the book Logan's Run, written in 1967, people died at age 21, rather than 30. In '67 the median age of the US population was 17; the computer-mandated, insanely short lifespan was a means of population control but also a dig by the authors at the idea that "youth culture" could run the world. The global infrastructure of transportation and communication is literally collapsing because too many core functions have been entrusted to the computer while the young folks party and have sex. Logan-3 (not -5) is a sandman; his crystal starts blinking and he decides he doesn't want to die. He becomes a runner and seeks the legendary Sanctuary where people can grow old naturally. The book describes his Lastday, which is spent zizzing all over a decadent, collapsing Earth in fast tube-trains that take him from the poles to the depths of the ocean. Sandman Francis chases him, and "Sanctuary" turns out to be a ship that takes him to a Mars colony. (amazon readers refreshed my memory on a lot of this.)
The AI moment in the film doesn't happen in the book. Logan already knows about Sanctuary, as an urban legend. He "runs" on his own out of the pure selfish desire to live. There is no Sandman mission to find Sanctuary. Even if there were, it makes no sense that the computer would shorten his lifespan before sending him on the mission, thus almost certainly radicalizing him. The movie was post-'60s idealism and post-Watergate and Vietnam. By lengthening the lifespan, the emphasis on hedonism made less sense, also the sheer desperation of running. The computer's contradictory behavior is chalked up as "the government's just fucked, man."
I'm not saying the book was great (I suspect I'd find it dated and pulpy now) but the movie was a compromise effort, notable now for being "so '70s" and having a lot of classic scifi kitsch design (and some memorable moments). I'm sure I'd feel differently if I'd encountered it a younger age than I did. When they got to Peter Ustinov I was groaning. (I also haven't seen it start to finish in years.)
Logan, in the film, is a thoroughly unlikeable character: smug, superior, bossy, and ethically duplicitous. It could be an interesting tension, but it's actually just kind of irritating and unpleasant. He does not finally resolve from Sandman to free citizen til he leaves the city and goes swimming naked, at which point he and Jessica6 declare each other to be 'husband' and 'wife' ...which is also unpleasant. Maybe it all made more sense back in the day. It certainly made an impression on me, but our TV had really bad reception.
The Carousel where dancers evaporate when they reach the ceiling packs a visual wallop; there's no equivalent in the book. On Lastday you report to the nearest annihilation chamber and that's it. I'd forgotten about the swimming naked part (what's wrong with me?). I really think it was a case of a bunch of screenwriters starting with a fairly cohesive but hard-to-film book, whittling out one scene after another, and then just winging a plot.
... and eating pot brownies.
I say Zardoz rules. & I have friends with excellent aesthetic sensitivity who disagree violently with me on this issue.
Zardoz is a Boorman film; Accept the fact that it is extravagent and somewhat over th' top, & go with it. Tons more fun than most 70's dystopian SF cinema. Right up there with 'ZPG'.
Uh... would I be distressed by pointy sticks if I dared to suggest I liked the newer version of Solaris... more than the original...?
Rumour mill: Spielberg version of 'Fifth Futurological Congress'...?
I haven't seen the original Solaris, but I've faced some pointy sticks because I liked this one quite a bit. Goodlooking zone-out movie. Lem is interesting on the subject though (noted ages ago on this blog), saying that Tarkofsky turned the subject of a thinking planet into a "love story in space". I can't imaging a film version of Futurological Congress being anything but disastrous, but if they could pull it off, the narrative mind-f88k would be better than Matrix or even Blade Runner.
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cyborg notes:
I recently saw Logan's Run again for the first time since I was a teenager. It's a curious film. I remembered it as a tight little dystopic narrative, a neat, discrete vision of the future to stack up with Andromeda Strain and Planet of the Apes. The first third fits this model, but as the protagonists approach and breach the boundaries of the city, the story becomes more and more surreal. Eventually Peter Ustinov shows up, talking in cryptic verse. There are serveral highly choreographed modern dance type scenes, such as the carousel, where costumed folks in tights are hauled upward on not-so-invisible wires.There is also a truly strange A.I. moment in which the computer at a security checkpoint grills Michael York about consorting with lefties (Runners) while at the same time re-assigning him to a top secret mission, and changing the colour of his palm crystal (or life clock), thereby significantly shortening his life. The computer, passive/aggressive and omniscient, says very little while Logan stumbles and staggers through a series of "questions" that seems far too evocative for effective communication with a machine. I've excerpted this discussion below. The entire transcript has been made available online by Joe Rauner. There is a pretty thorough synopsis of the film (with images) here, at transparencynow.com.
- sally mckay 5-10-2004 4:05 am
Sally, did you ever see the film Zardoz? In that film people are also aged as punishment for their transgressions
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 5-10-2004 4:48 am
I have not seen Zardoz. There is a pretty funny plot summary here that might suffice.
- sally mckay 5-10-2004 5:44 pm
Enjoyable as is is, I would say the scene in the transcript is what happens when a team of Hollywood scriptwriters get together and try to compress as much plot motivatlon as they can into one scene, no matter how contradictory it all is. In the book Logan's Run, written in 1967, people died at age 21, rather than 30. In '67 the median age of the US population was 17; the computer-mandated, insanely short lifespan was a means of population control but also a dig by the authors at the idea that "youth culture" could run the world. The global infrastructure of transportation and communication is literally collapsing because too many core functions have been entrusted to the computer while the young folks party and have sex. Logan-3 (not -5) is a sandman; his crystal starts blinking and he decides he doesn't want to die. He becomes a runner and seeks the legendary Sanctuary where people can grow old naturally. The book describes his Lastday, which is spent zizzing all over a decadent, collapsing Earth in fast tube-trains that take him from the poles to the depths of the ocean. Sandman Francis chases him, and "Sanctuary" turns out to be a ship that takes him to a Mars colony. (amazon readers refreshed my memory on a lot of this.)
The AI moment in the film doesn't happen in the book. Logan already knows about Sanctuary, as an urban legend. He "runs" on his own out of the pure selfish desire to live. There is no Sandman mission to find Sanctuary. Even if there were, it makes no sense that the computer would shorten his lifespan before sending him on the mission, thus almost certainly radicalizing him. The movie was post-'60s idealism and post-Watergate and Vietnam. By lengthening the lifespan, the emphasis on hedonism made less sense, also the sheer desperation of running. The computer's contradictory behavior is chalked up as "the government's just fucked, man."
I'm not saying the book was great (I suspect I'd find it dated and pulpy now) but the movie was a compromise effort, notable now for being "so '70s" and having a lot of classic scifi kitsch design (and some memorable moments). I'm sure I'd feel differently if I'd encountered it a younger age than I did. When they got to Peter Ustinov I was groaning. (I also haven't seen it start to finish in years.)
- tom moody 5-10-2004 6:32 pm
Logan, in the film, is a thoroughly unlikeable character: smug, superior, bossy, and ethically duplicitous. It could be an interesting tension, but it's actually just kind of irritating and unpleasant. He does not finally resolve from Sandman to free citizen til he leaves the city and goes swimming naked, at which point he and Jessica6 declare each other to be 'husband' and 'wife' ...which is also unpleasant. Maybe it all made more sense back in the day. It certainly made an impression on me, but our TV had really bad reception.
- sally mckay 5-10-2004 7:45 pm
The Carousel where dancers evaporate when they reach the ceiling packs a visual wallop; there's no equivalent in the book. On Lastday you report to the nearest annihilation chamber and that's it. I'd forgotten about the swimming naked part (what's wrong with me?). I really think it was a case of a bunch of screenwriters starting with a fairly cohesive but hard-to-film book, whittling out one scene after another, and then just winging a plot.
- tom moody 5-10-2004 7:54 pm
... and eating pot brownies.
- sally mckay 5-10-2004 8:02 pm
I say Zardoz rules. & I have friends with excellent aesthetic sensitivity who disagree violently with me on this issue.
Zardoz is a Boorman film; Accept the fact that it is extravagent and somewhat over th' top, & go with it. Tons more fun than most 70's dystopian SF cinema. Right up there with 'ZPG'.
Uh... would I be distressed by pointy sticks if I dared to suggest I liked the newer version of Solaris... more than the original...?
Rumour mill: Spielberg version of 'Fifth Futurological Congress'...?
- Von Bark (guest) 5-14-2004 7:45 am
I haven't seen the original Solaris, but I've faced some pointy sticks because I liked this one quite a bit. Goodlooking zone-out movie. Lem is interesting on the subject though (noted ages ago on this blog), saying that Tarkofsky turned the subject of a thinking planet into a "love story in space". I can't imaging a film version of Futurological Congress being anything but disastrous, but if they could pull it off, the narrative mind-f88k would be better than Matrix or even Blade Runner.
- sally mckay 5-14-2004 5:15 pm