Logan's Run

September 3, 2011 12:23 PM

Logan's Run is a 1976 science fiction film... It depicts a dystopian future society in which population and the consumption of resources are managed and maintained in equilibrium by the simple expediency of killing everyone who reaches the age of thirty, preventing overpopulation. (related 2004 post worth clicking through for)

The "landmark" electronic score is by the late great Jerry Goldsmith. Jenny Agutter's memorable costumes are by Bill Thomas.

posted by Trurl (121 comments total)

Carousel! Caaarrooouuuusellll!!!
posted by jadepearl at 12:27 PM on September 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Why haven't they remade this?
posted by PinkMoose at 12:28 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

50 sounds like a much more reasonable cut off to me.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:29 PM on September 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Run, runner!
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:29 PM on September 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Why haven't they remade this?

Not for lack of trying.
posted by Trurl at 12:30 PM on September 3, 2011

Spoiler: Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeere iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis nooooooooooo saaaaaaaaanctuaaaaaaaaaary.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:31 PM on September 3, 2011

The original book is well worth reading.

Jenny and her outfits so strongly imprinted as oh my god yes on my teen mind that to this day I can still hardly sit still during the first reel.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:32 PM on September 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

In college, for some reason, we decided to play a game called 'Logan's Rum'. You watch Logan's Run, and every time a character says the word 'run' or 'runner', you drink rum.

I don't really remember what happens in the movie
posted by saturday_morning at 12:32 PM on September 3, 2011 [72 favorites]

Before the movie, Logan's run was a book with notable differences:

• The cutoff age was 21, not 30
• The society was global, not restricted to a dome
• Sanctuary existed, and was a Mars base

However, the book didn't offer so many compelling views of Jenny Agutter's breasts.
posted by localroger at 12:32 PM on September 3, 2011 [14 favorites]

Or they could just put them in camps.
posted by warbaby at 12:32 PM on September 3, 2011

Coincidentally, I was just reminded of the best line in the film a day or two ago
posted by rollick at 12:33 PM on September 3, 2011 [18 favorites]

Sample alert. Come to think of it the guy kinda looks like doom....check it out 0:45
posted by Jibuzaemon at 12:39 PM on September 3, 2011

There were scenes filmed at the Fort Worth Water Gardens (pretty near where I live). A must-see site for anybody visiting Fort Worth.
posted by kmz at 12:43 PM on September 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

Really!!?? I've never heard of this film.

And yeah, why hasn't hollywood remade this in a shitty way? Not that I want to see that happen, but it seems like this would be an obvious choice for the empty- skulled execs at a studio meeting.
posted by Liquidwolf at 12:43 PM on September 3, 2011

Spoiler

The fucking opening title sequence has a pretty big spoiler. "Peter Ustinov as The Old Man"? I mean come the fuck on, director.
posted by dersins at 12:43 PM on September 3, 2011 [15 favorites]

I just really loved how slowly films progressed to abrupt endings back in the 1970s:

There is no Sanctuary! *DOMED CITY EXPLODES* Hey everyone, look, it's Peter Ustinov! *THE END* roll credits
posted by brownpau at 12:45 PM on September 3, 2011 [15 favorites]

Watching this movie on TV in the 70s was one of the formative experiences of my childhood. I fucking loved that Old Man. And all of his cats!
posted by That's Numberwang! at 12:46 PM on September 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Fuck yeah, Box! Fish, and plankton. And sea greens, and protein from the sea.

Yeah, to say the book is very different is, well, kind of an understatement. I read at least one sequel book, too, as a kid. ("Logan's World", maybe?)
posted by rmd1023 at 12:48 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow, I had almost forgotten about this movie. "Oh, Sandman!"

What's amazing to me is that this was considered a big budget SF film when it came out in 76, and within a year Star Wars came out and made this movie look chintzy (which it was). While we all beat up on Lucas for what he done to his films the last 15 years or so, you only have to contrast the FX in SW & Logan's Run to see how much of a game changer SW was back then.
posted by KingEdRa at 12:49 PM on September 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

> Why haven't they remade this?

It's too old now.
posted by ardgedee at 12:54 PM on September 3, 2011 [32 favorites]

I was named after Logan's Run. Well, not so much named after as the movie made my parents think, "hey, that's a good name".
posted by Plutor at 12:54 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Plutor--No offense to your parents, but I really don't think "Run" is a great name for a kid...
posted by Static Vagabond at 12:59 PM on September 3, 2011 [19 favorites]

I just really loved how slowly films progressed to abrupt endings back in the 1970s

How slowly they progressed, period.

Watch the carousel sequence at the last link. [Sorry about the poor quality.] When the people first file in, there's a static camera shot lasting 11 seconds.

Can you think of the last SF thriller you saw that held a static camera shot for 11 seconds?
posted by Trurl at 12:59 PM on September 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

The guys were hot anyway.
posted by yesster at 12:59 PM on September 3, 2011

Nothing sadder than a dead fish.
posted by picea at 1:01 PM on September 3, 2011

PROTEIN FROM THE SEA!

Love that movie.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:13 PM on September 3, 2011

Does anyone remember the tv series? It was basically The Incredible Hulk. Logan (Banner) being chased and hunted every week by Francis (McGee).
posted by cazoo at 1:18 PM on September 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

I had an opportunity to rewatch this movie a couple months ago (technically, it was probably a first-watch since I don't think I ever saw it end-to-end before).

Considering how iconic the movie is, I was kind of amazed at how shitty it actually is. It starts off pretty good but then goes downhill, and completely falls apart toward the end. I guess it comes on the heels of late-60s freakout movies like The Magic Christian where everything falling apart at the end seems like part of the storytelling form…but I still don't think that excuses it.

And of course there was that lame-ass TV series spun off from it, where they had to kind of ignore that falling-apart ending.
posted by adamrice at 1:20 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ankhs, and those fantastic blaster pistols that shot flames out the muzzle are what I remember as a little kid.
And the TV series that came after with the hovercraft... That hovercraft that when they fixed it, they had to pull out and inspect little circuit boards. Circuit boards in bad 70's design with big chunky blobs on their surface. This messed me up for the longest while. My grandfather had this two foot long piece of 'computer cable' that he kept on his truck's dashboard just in case he needed to whack somebody. It's about an inch in diameter, really thick and flexible, and inside is a couple dozen more insulated and shielded wires with a solid core. It would really hurt to to get whacked with it. He told me that back in the day Ratheon (or maybe Univac) hired the local ladies to solder each individual wire into a circuit board (because they had good eyesight and it was like threading needles). I was amazed that they could solder all those tiny wires into holes on a circuit board so precisely that when you slid it into a slot like in the hovercraft all of those solder joints on each face would line up and make contact with some other tiny contact in the slots. This drove me crazy for many years until those first PCs when I found out that the connectors were on the edge of the circuit board and not the surface.
I still really like those blaster pistols and ankhs.
posted by zengargoyle at 1:21 PM on September 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I was always partial to the quote: "I hate outside! I hate it! I hate it!"
posted by kingfisher, his musclebound cat at 1:27 PM on September 3, 2011 [11 favorites]

There were thirty comments when I made this one...time to carousel! I love this movie. I especially liked the "sex channel" thing, which predicted Chat Roulette pretty handily (only Chat Roulette has more creepy naked dudes and Logan's Run had Jenny Agutter).
posted by biscotti at 1:47 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

As a blossoming queer that only first saw this somewhere in the late nineties I loved it when Logan was offered women and men via that sexsearch thingy and even asked Jenny "Or do you prefer women?" when she didn't immediately jump in the sack with him.
posted by ZeroAmbition at 1:47 PM on September 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

"Coincidentally, I was just reminded of the best line in the film a day or two ago"
posted by rollick at 8:33 PM on September 3 [3 favorites +] [!]

Shome Mishtake Shurely? The best line in the film is after the water floods the building and they end up in the ice caves and the guy says to Jenny Agutter "Quick, lets take off all our wet clothes so we don't catch cold."
posted by marienbad at 1:49 PM on September 3, 2011

I didn't remember the age cutoff plot point, but I thought I'd seen this movie as a kid. Maybe I heard of it and never saw it.

This is just random observations, but I didn't remember that about the age cutoff til this got posted. That's actually the same plot device used in the new scifi movie In Time, directed by Andrew Niccol. Both Logan's Run and In Time visually embed a countdown clock in people's arms/hands telling them how much time til they die, but Logan's Run's world has an exogenous time, whereas In Time's clock is endogenous to the person's wealth, heritage, or something else giving them preferential treatment. Plus, it's not really an age cutoff in In Time - they just stop aging beyond their mid-20s. But that does seem similar.

It seems like Logan's Run is a reflection of the kinds of economic problems that were common at that time, which was more Malthusian worries about population growth (ala Ehrlich's Population Bomb published in 1968, only one year after Logan's Run book publication date.
posted by scunning at 1:53 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Logan's Run is a movie about teenagers hanging out at the mall.

IN THE FUTURE!!!
posted by Sys Rq at 1:54 PM on September 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

"What's amazing to me is that this was considered a big budget SF film when it came out in 76, and within a year Star Wars came out and made this movie look chintzy (which it was). While we all beat up on Lucas for what he done to his films the last 15 years or so, you only have to contrast the FX in SW & Logan's Run to see how much of a game changer SW was back then."

Hmmm... Silent Running came out in 1972. Star Wars is probably still better, but I think it's possible Logan's Run's FX were just crap...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq8y2aYX_8c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkF05D-NJMU
posted by Auz at 1:58 PM on September 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Logan's Run is a movie about teenagers hanging out at the mall.

IN THE FUTURE!!!

In Ft. Worth TX!!!
posted by hippybear at 1:59 PM on September 3, 2011

Logan's Run is a 1967 science fiction novel.
posted by stbalbach at 2:02 PM on September 3, 2011

The imaginary soundtrack to the imaginary sequel recorded by members of The Jellyfish and Air.
posted by sourwookie at 2:02 PM on September 3, 2011

Hmmm... Silent Running came out in 1972. Star Wars is probably still better, but I think it's possible Logan's Run's FX were just crap...

Yeah. 1968 called....
posted by The Bellman at 2:03 PM on September 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

This was on Space - the Canadian SF channel - just this morning.

"Everything made sense... until Box."
posted by never used baby shoes at 2:04 PM on September 3, 2011

Oh my, what a crush I had on Jenny Agutter.
posted by tommasz at 2:07 PM on September 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Yeah. 1968 called...."

An even better example. I am shame.
posted by Auz at 2:09 PM on September 3, 2011

Trurl: Can you think of the last SF thriller you saw that held a static camera shot for 11 seconds?

Moon, perhaps?
posted by bjrn at 2:11 PM on September 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

> Plutor--No offense to your parents, but I really don't think "Run" is a great name for a kid...

What are you talking about? "Run" is a great name.
posted by ardgedee at 2:14 PM on September 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

The did fly 10-12 stuntmen at a time on a rotating stage. Bet it was fun.
posted by sammyo at 2:25 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

"What's amazing to me is that this was considered a big budget SF film when it came out in 76, and within a year Star Wars came out and made this movie look chintzy (which it was).

Yea, this. It's hard to remember now but Star Wars was a huge jump visually past most previous science fiction movies. Logan's Run looked like it was filmed on a science fiction movie set (or a mall), Star Wars looked almost like a documentary shot on site. The sets and locations all looked lived in and worn and real, like the characters had lives in those places outside of the movie scenes.

There was also a big jump in story telling, where Lucas didn't bother to explain much about the worlds or history or situations but just dumped in there and let you figured them out from context. It was written almost as if the viewer actually lived in the same universe and shared cultural knowledge with the characters on the screen. Most sci-fi before that felt like they had to laboriously explain everything for us. Sadly, the prequils have more in common with the story telling in Logan's Run than with Star Wars'.
posted by octothorpe at 2:26 PM on September 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

Oh my, what a crush I had on Jenny Agutter.

Then take a look inside my suitcase!
posted by Liquidwolf at 2:37 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

> Why haven't they remade this?

Andrew Niccol, writer of The Truman Show and director of Gattaca has a new movie in October called In Time when people expire at 25 unless they earn more time, which is the only currency. The trailer's first half holds so much promise — parents no older than their kids, workers scrambling to earn one more minute, the rich with all the time in the world — that you might be able to safely ignore the second half when Justin Timberlake hooks up with Amanda Seyfried and turns into Robin Hood.
posted by kawika at 2:39 PM on September 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Can you think of the last SF thriller you saw that held a static camera shot for 11 seconds?

Shit, I bet the list of recent anything I watched that held a static shot for more than ten seconds is pretty damn short...
posted by nanojath at 2:47 PM on September 3, 2011

This movie's a favorite of mine, even though the effects are incredibly chintzy and the settings are cheap, etc.

Another notable: Farrah Fawcett's few minutes on screen as the very ditY blonde nurse launched her into super stardom. She got the role on Charlie's Angels, put out that iconic poster that sold over 8,000,000 copies and the rest is history.
posted by misha at 2:57 PM on September 3, 2011

Dity = ditzy. ditzy blonde, not do-it-yourself blonde!
posted by misha at 2:58 PM on September 3, 2011

Logan's Run, Silent Running, The Truman Show, The Machine Stops, Total Recall. There is a lot of great science fiction involving utopian life in domes. In fact There's No Place Like Dome.
posted by rongorongo at 3:09 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Lots of praise for Jenny Agutter's amazing (lack of) costumes, but no love for Michael York's amazing caftan? BTW - the DVD commentary features Bill Thomas (costume designer).
posted by cRamsay at 3:19 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

It seems like Logan's Run is a reflection of the kinds of economic problems that were common at that time, which was more Malthusian worries about population growth

Which also gave us that other touchstone of early '70s sci-fi, Soylent Green (also based on a novel.)
posted by Rangeboy at 3:23 PM on September 3, 2011

I actually lived in a utopian dome village for four years until it was shut down by the cruel forces of modern society last month. Now I've run away to Canada to preach anarchism and drink overpriced beer.
posted by kaibutsu at 3:49 PM on September 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I also turn 30 in about two months... Maybe I'm just Running from the inevitable...
posted by kaibutsu at 3:49 PM on September 3, 2011

rollick: "Coincidentally, I was just reminded of the best line in the film a day or two ago"

Try opening that in six tabs at once.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 4:01 PM on September 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

If I'm not mistaken, this is also one of the first movies with a commentary track, when it came out on Laserdisc.
posted by ZeusHumms at 4:06 PM on September 3, 2011

Logan 5, please identify.......
posted by Seymour Zamboni at 4:06 PM on September 3, 2011

I can't believe those YouTube comments about "this is what will happen with Obamacare..." hrm?
posted by sweetkid at 4:20 PM on September 3, 2011

Jenny Agutter's memorable costumes are by Bill Thomas.

Jenny Agutter in this movie was one of the formative influences on what I found beautiful. Trufax. Great sci-fi. Mediocre TV show.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 4:23 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Silent Running, Fuck Yeah!
Directed by Douglas Trumbull, who had been one of the top Visual Effects people on 2001, so it should be no surprise that it's special effects were good, despite not having the kind of budget Hollywood gave Kubrick.
also...
Bruce Dern's best performance, IMO... yeah, he played another guy going batshit crazy, but he was going batshit crazy for a purpose.
A couple of new guys writing the script: Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate) and Stephen Bochco (Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, LA Law, Cop Rock, Doogie Howser MD).
Music by Peter Schickele, who is also the creator of PDQ Bach. (Soundtrack included Joan Baez singing two songs with painfully bad lyrics if you listen too closely).
If Logan's Run leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth, Silent Running is the chaser.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:30 PM on September 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

"this is what will happen with Obamacare..."

More like this was the Private Medical Insurance Industry's wet dream. But "In Time" with its 'buying time' plot will make the point much clearer...
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:34 PM on September 3, 2011

Man, I dunno about Silent Running. I watched it when I was 14, and I was moved. I mean nearly weeping. I watched it again in my mid-20s, and I was so ashamed of my earlier reaction that I nearly suffered a complete breakdown. It was that bad -- insane plot, saccharine acting, and an ending that required every human being to be a mornon to get to its tear-jerker finale. Ugh.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:35 PM on September 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

This movie affected my adolescent brain thusly:
a) it made me aware there were other homosexuals out there (in the future!) I felt I was the vanguard of a new species.
b) that an ankh meant "sanctuary" (in the FUTURE!). I have carried an ankh about my person ever since.
c) That zodiacal computers (IN THE GODDAMN FUTURE!) lie. Like like motherfuckers.


Also, CATS!
Also, Jenny Agutter. Damn, woman!
posted by PapaLobo at 4:41 PM on September 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

The naming of cats is a difficult matter, It's just not one of your holiday games;
posted by rahnefan at 4:48 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ms. Agutter was also alluring in An American Werewolf in London.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:56 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

That movie gave me hope that, someday, I could be an old man with a bunch of cats living in the Capitol building.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 5:03 PM on September 3, 2011 [9 favorites]

The other 70s movie that changed the "scifi" look: Alien. Visually, that affected me way more than Star Wars, even if it was just a bug hunt.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:07 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Alien: even if it was just a bug hunt

IN SOVIET FUTURE BUG HUNT YUO
posted by localroger at 5:14 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

OH my god I'm losing my mind so hard I had to log in and say this.

Everybody: "Why haven't they remade this?"

they haaaaaaaaave

good lord people.
posted by Tennyson D'San at 5:24 PM on September 3, 2011

it's called the Island and it was directed by Michael Bay and stars the two most beautiful humans.
posted by Tennyson D'San at 5:25 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't get how killing 30 year-olds meaningfully limits population. Was this made by Earth-hating conservatives or something?
posted by DU at 5:51 PM on September 3, 2011

"plankton and fish and sea greens and protein from the sea"
posted by clavdivs at 5:52 PM on September 3, 2011

Was this made by Earth-hating conservatives or something?
robots, computers and some pretty evil programmers then some disaster/war along the way.
posted by clavdivs at 5:54 PM on September 3, 2011

Lucas didn't bother to explain much about the worlds or history or situations but just dumped in there and let you figured them out from context

Oh he had plans, evil plans
posted by the noob at 6:16 PM on September 3, 2011

Don't forget that it's the sexiest movie, evar!
sfw - but also Denise Richards
posted by bruzie at 6:21 PM on September 3, 2011

Box! Box!! Booooox!!!
posted by Robin Kestrel at 6:26 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Dity = ditzy. ditzy blonde, not do-it-yourself blonde!"

I read it as "do it to yourself", which also works.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be in my bunk…
posted by Pinback at 6:39 PM on September 3, 2011

I'm ready. And you're ready.
posted by box at 7:10 PM on September 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

This movie gave me hope that, someday, I could be a cat living with Peter Ustinov in the Capitol building.
posted by Mael Oui at 7:18 PM on September 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Clavdivs as Box. It's starting to make sense now.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 7:37 PM on September 3, 2011

Logun's Run was the first sci movie I saw in a theater (drive-in, at that) - at five years old, up later than the parents expected in the back of the station wagon, those out-fits made QUITE the impression on my mind. I think that's when I first got the idea clothing style/modesty level is totally arbitrary and triggered my life-long interest in clothing design.

I loved it so much, I made sure to watch it again after brain damage of '03 (I had a blank slate for books and movies, it was kind of great). I missed a lot at five y.o. I giggled at the SFX, and all the other out-dated bit, but I still enjoyed it. I think I would enjoy the book more.
posted by _paegan_ at 8:25 PM on September 3, 2011

If anyone was going to make a sequel, the soundtrack is already made.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:45 PM on September 3, 2011

I'm ready. And you're ready.
posted by box at 9:10 PM

Overwhelming, are you not?
posted by BitterOldPunk at 8:51 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why haven't they remade this?

Trying to take Jenny Agutter's place is the one thing that no actress has the hubris to attempt.

it's called the Island and it was directed by Michael Bay and stars the two most beautiful humans.

No, no, that was a remake of Parts: The Clonus Horror.
posted by cortex at 9:27 PM on September 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

you can be my teenage Jenny Agutter swimming naked in a pond...
posted by ifjuly at 9:42 PM on September 3, 2011

zengargoyle writes "He told me that back in the day Ratheon (or maybe Univac) hired the local ladies to solder each individual wire into a circuit board (because they had good eyesight and it was like threading needles). I was amazed that they could solder all those tiny wires into holes on a circuit board so precisely that when you slid it into a slot like in the hovercraft all of those solder joints on each face would line up and make contact with some other tiny contact in the slots. This drove me crazy for many years until those first PCs when I found out that the connectors were on the edge of the circuit board and not the surface."

I don't know about soldering circuit boards but the whizzy memory tech of the 50s and 60s was Magnetic Core Memory which consisted of arrays of tiny ferromagnetic ceramic rings strung on three wires each. Core memory for most of the life of the technology was assembled by hand. The cores were so small that the wires were threaded through the cores with the aid of a microscope.
posted by Mitheral at 9:46 PM on September 3, 2011

Whenever I hear or read* some catty talk about how some famous club DJ is too old to be spinning anymore, or some other musician is too old to be putting out pop music, I think of Logan's Run. (Perhaps the original author had some thoughts about this "only the young can be hip" ethos, as a sub-theme to the more obvious Malthusian one.)

(*like this bit from the early aughts, undeniably funny, but dripping with ageism despite the probably well-deserved ridiculing of its particular examples:

"Sir Danny Rampling, 97, announced his retirement earlier this year, closing the chapter on his Scrooge-like scowlings behind the decks... ...at least Rumpers had the dignity and self-respect to retire with grace.

Which is something that can hardly be said for the majority of dance music's wrinkly old-timers. Last issue Bass Monkey lamented upon Madonna's refusal to bow out, despite the fact that she is nudging the Big Five-o, and on a cosmetic par with Sylvester Stallone's 'Yeah, Jwaaacky' mother in the 'granny-pretending-to-be-21-again' sweepstakes.")
posted by Philofacts at 9:52 PM on September 3, 2011

Let me mention another seventies sic fi movie: The Andromeda Strain, from 1971. I first saw this film at something like 2am by accident, and wasn't sure it was a film and not a documentary. And it's not just that I was young, it was that it was about a group of scientists trying to solve a scientific crisis. My father is a scientist, and these guys looked like scientists my father knew. It all seemed so precise, from the care with which they experimented to the equipment they used. I know Michael Creighton hasn't aged well in a lot of ways, but this films really felt like it put the science in science fiction (all except the lasers at the very end). Watching it now, it still holds up, and I also think it looks great -- a quasi-futuistic look that seemed very science-y than and feels very 2001 to me now. And it's got a great score by Gil Mele, a monument of early electronic composing.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 10:14 PM on September 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

Dare I say that Jenny Agutter was alluring in Walkabout, as well?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 10:15 PM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I loved that movie so much as an early teen, when it came out. Of course now, three decades later, it's everyone under 30 I'd prefer to see euthanized.

Joke, joke. I want to see everyone euthanized, of course!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:08 PM on September 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

zengargoyle : I still really like those blaster pistols and ankhs.

Yeah, the Deep Sleep pistols are still one of my favorite props. I very much like the way they developed a muzzle flash in a creative and safe way that didn't involve a modified firearm shooting blanks.

Here is a fairly comprehensive explanation of how the prop worked.
posted by quin at 11:45 PM on September 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

Rangeboy : Soylent Green (also based on a novel.)

Yes, Make Room, Make Room by Harry Harrison. seriously; one of the most depressing books I've read short of The Road. And the part of the move that most irritates me?

*Spoilers*

Soilent-Green isn't people. It's soy, and lentels. It's also very hard to get, which is why everyone is starving.

The book is powerful and harsh, why they decided to adapt it into a movie that turned it into what became a bad joke still rankles me.
posted by quin at 12:20 AM on September 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Soilent Soylent, damnit.
posted by quin at 12:24 AM on September 4, 2011

I've stood next to and talked with Jenny Agutter in a queue for the buffet car on a train from London to Penzance.

There is no point to this anecdote. I just tell everyone, because, y'know, I've stood next to and talked with Jenny Agutter in a queue for the buffet car on a train from London to Penzance.

Did I mention?
posted by Devonian at 2:48 AM on September 4, 2011 [10 favorites]

Logan's Run is completely awesome. If only my local mall had that Love Shop.

The opening sequence with the Last Day Carousel, the crazy flaming unitards and hockey masks, the exploding bodies being renewed - all completely and utterly terrified me as a kid. I fucking had nightmares for weeks. Even now - the crazying chanting and freaky ritual of carousel still is weird for me to watch.
posted by helmutdog at 3:04 AM on September 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

For folks who haven't had the pleasure, here's Logan firing up the Prostitute-O-Matic (the first choice is a half-naked hunk) and his buddy closing the scene with a pink Smoke Orgy bomb. It's great.

It was a surprisingly equal-opportunity sexy movie throughout, which I'm sure is why so many folks remember it fondly. Or fondle-ly. Or something.
posted by mediareport at 4:25 AM on September 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Actually, they're not prostitutes, are they? It's just hookup central.
posted by mediareport at 4:27 AM on September 4, 2011

I just had to Google Jenny Agutter because I don't remember this movie at all and pulled up a shot claimed to be her in Equus. O tempora, o mor....great googlymoogly is that Sascrotch (NSFW)? It's casting a shadow! It seems to have its own gravitational field!
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 5:42 AM on September 4, 2011

Now I love her even more.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:07 AM on September 4, 2011

Yep, she showed what Mum gave her in Equus too.

And seconding the Gil Melle soundtrack for The Andromeda Strain. It would have worked great in Demon Seed - as it has that kind of "evil computer" feel to it.
posted by Trurl at 6:26 AM on September 4, 2011

I don't get how killing 30 year-olds meaningfully limits population.

It limits population not from the Planned Parenthood side of things, but from simply chopping the oldies out of the count. (The cutoff in the book is 21, though.)

(Also, the book is not set in a shopping centre.)
posted by Sys Rq at 8:28 AM on September 4, 2011

runner!
posted by clavdivs at 8:45 AM on September 4, 2011

I love Logan’s Run and wrote a little something on it five years ago (self-link) when I was in the middle of a project about machines and organisms in popular culture.

I also love Box.

Here, Logan 5 and Jessica 6 meet Box, resident and keeper of what Logan 5 and Jessica 6 believe is a “link to Sanctuary.” Box greets his guests with “Welcome, humans! I am ready for you,” a greeting whose conventionality is undercut by the threat that he is “ready for [them]”. Box continues with an apparent non sequitur—“Fish, plankton, seagreens, and protein from the sea, fresh as harvest day!”—that dispels the threat of his greeting because it suggests that the cybernetic Box is either badly malfunctioning or cognitively impaired. It is no accident that Box’s hypnotic recital of pelagic foodstuffs resembles 1970s New Agey ideas regarding ecologically sustainable aquaculture. Indeed, Box’s Ice Cave—with its frozen walrus, penguins, and terns—combines then contemporary fears about the onset of a new ice age with popular mythology regarding the lost city of Atlantis which the world of Logan’s Run, with its domes, partly resembles. Box rounds out his nonsensical patter with psuedo-poetry: “Wait for the winds, then my birds sing! And the deep grottoes whisper my name, ‘Box . . . Box . . Box . . .’.”

Pressed regarding the whereabouts of previous runners seeking Sanctuary, Box reveals his unintentionally diabolical cybernetic genius. This is the crisis point of the scene and the turning point of the movie because it reveals that the machines which serve humans are deranged and dangerous, even when they are not malicious. Box freezes transient humans not out of ill will but because he is following “[r]egular storage procedure, the same as [for] the other food.”

posted by mistersquid at 11:01 AM on September 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've stood next to and talked with Jenny Agutter in a queue for the buffet car on a train from London to Penzance.

I'm on the train from London to Penzance right now, where is my Jenny Agutter? Come to that, where is my buffet car?
posted by biffa at 12:16 PM on September 4, 2011

Yep, she showed what Mum gave her in Equus too.

And American Werewolf in London rounds out the Agutter on display files. Technically she does get her knickers off in The Railway Children, but it's not really the same.
posted by biffa at 12:20 PM on September 4, 2011

That's not a Prostitute-o-matic! It's teleportation meets craigslist casual encounters!
posted by rmd1023 at 12:34 PM on September 4, 2011

Transporters With Benefits.
posted by cortex at 12:44 PM on September 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

I just saw Michael York at brunch. That's all.
posted by sweetkid at 1:21 PM on September 4, 2011

You know, when you question, it slows you down.
posted by Snyder at 2:38 PM on September 4, 2011

That's not a Prostitute-o-matic! It's teleportation meets craigslist casual encounters!

Transporters With Benefits.

"Teen. Girl, gay. Hot."
posted by Sys Rq at 3:22 PM on September 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

Static Vagabond: "Plutor--No offense to your parents, but I really don't think "Run" is a great name for a kid..."

Don't be silly. His name is Logan's.
posted by Splunge at 6:08 PM on September 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Soylent Green is the first movie that actually kinda made me think seriously about global warming
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:54 PM on September 4, 2011

Absolutely true story: the night before my 30th birthday, this silly but semi-great movie showed up as my fella and I were clicking through channels. We were going to go out for a great Chinese dinner, but once we saw it was on- on such an auspicious night! - we ordered in. But I don't think we finished watching it. It's pretty silly.
posted by goofyfoot at 8:36 AM on September 5, 2011

"Teen. Girl, gay. Hot."

I did have to laugh at that a little, especially considering the work Stewart's done outside of the Star Trek franchise.

"Logan's Run" is like an old, familiar friend.
posted by FormlessOne at 10:18 AM on September 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Old family friend arriving for dinner: Welcome Humans! I am ready for you.

Me: Um, actually we're ready for dinner. Oh you brought something how kind of you.

Box: Fish, and plankton. And sea greens, and protein from the sea. It's all here, ready. Fresh as harvest day. Fish and sea greens, plankton and protein from the sea. And then it stopped coming. And they came instead. So I store them here. I'm ready. And you're ready. It's my job. To freeze you. Protein, plankton...

Me: Um... How nice. But we're having meatloaf.

Box: Overwhelming, am I not?

Me: Yeah just a bit. Um, come on in. What are you carrying?

Box: Regular storage procedure. The same as the other food. The other food stopped coming.

Me: Um okay. Uh, would you like to have a glass of wine. Oh and I was going to put on some music. Any suggestions?

Box: [very confused] Why? Why?

Me: It's a dinner party. Don't you like music?

Box: Wait for the winds. Then my birds sing. And the deep grottos whisper my name. Box... Box... Box...

Me: Okay wait outside. I'll be right back.

::slams door::

Me: Honey?

Wife: Yes dear?

Me: We got past Box.

Wife: Why do you keep inviting him?

Me: We went to school together.

Wife: School? What school?

Me: HVAC school.
posted by Splunge at 6:49 PM on September 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

One other thing I forgot to mention. The 70s Marvel Comics adaption of the film featured art from George Perez. While I loved reading my uncle's Justice Society of America comics, it was Perez' art on this series that forever cemented my status as a comic book geek.
posted by PapaLobo at 4:54 AM on September 6, 2011

I went to a talk at an sf con by David West Reynolds on the archaeology of the future. He asserted that the movie's City of the Future had been established by Things to Come in 1936 and was persistently essentially the same city through Logan's Run, where it was finally destroyed.
posted by Zed at 3:15 PM on September 6, 2011

Also, Free Enterprise.

I'll tell you what's bothering me, Beach Blanket Bimbo Fiesta boy... I'm turning thirty in three weeks.

Ah, the fiery ritual of Carousel... perhaps you'll be renewed.

I'll see if you're laughing in six months when your palm is blinking red.

posted by Zed at 3:18 PM on September 6, 2011