With the news that the long-anticipated remake of the 1976 movie Logan’s Run (itself adapted from the 1967 novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson) is back on the fast-track, we think it’s a good time to ask: what made the original so great?
1. A Really, Really, Really Cool Premise
It’s all explained right after the opening credits:
Sometime in the 23rd century…the survivors of war, overpopulation and pollution are living in a great domed city, sealed away from the forgotten world outside. Here, in an ecologically balanced world, mankind lives only for pleasure, freed by the servo-mechanisms which provide everything. There’s just one catch: Life must end at thirty unless reborn in the fiery ritual of Carousel.
2. The Red Light Inset in the Palm of Their Hands
How do people know when they’re 30 years old and their time is up and they must be “reborn” in Carousel (and how do “Sandmen” know how to find the “Runners” who don’t agree to go voluntarily?). A light goes off in the palm of their hand!
Classic.
3. A Young and Beautiful Farrah Fawcett
Take a look at her, right before her break-out fame in Charlie’s Angels, in this classic scene where Logan 5 and Jessica 6 visit A New You:
4. An Accurate Prediction of Internet Hook-ups.
What do people do when they’re bored in the world of the domed city? Why, they have recreational sex with someone they pick from The Circuit — what appears to be a combination of holography and Craig’s List.
Man, talk about predicting the future!
5. Jenny Agutter (And For That Matter, Michael York!)
Agutter and York, the two stars of the movie, are almost breathtakingly beautiful. Better still, they are frequently at least semi-naked.
"It's my JOB to freeze you!"
6. Box
It’s impossible to overstate the impact of Box, the shiny metal robot who feeds the domed city by freezing “fish and plankton and sea greens and protein from the sea!” From his first appearance in the ice cavern under the city, Box’s voice and overall look are both comic … and also a little scary. Needless to say, it’s both inevitable and somehow completely unexpected (and genuinely frightening!) when he turns on Logan 5 and Jessica 6, saying those immortal words, “It’s my job to freeze you!”
7. Peter Ustinov
The guy won two Academy Awards for roles in other movies, but he was never better than he was in this one: needy, childlike, and more than a little unbalanced. Isn’t this exactly what any of us would be like after living in isolation for so long?
It’s also a great detail that he lives inside the Senate Chamber.
8. “There Is No Sanctuary!”
In a movie filled with classic lines (and images), this may be the most classic line of them all. When the computer that controls the city forces Logan 5 to tell it what he knows, he is forced to comply — but it’s a very inconvenient truth, contrary to everything that computer is programmed to think, so it destroys not only the computer, but the city it controls.
What a great metaphor for any society that refuses to assimilate new ideas and is unable to change!
It’s also a wonderfully ironic line, because, of course, Sanctuary does exist — it’s all around them, if only they’re willing to give up their old ways and think outside the, well, box.
God, what a great movie this is. Kinda makes you wonder why they have to screw it up by remaking it.
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A few years back I went to the water fountain in a park in Fort Worth, Texas, where the “escape” scene was shot. You can walk down this cool waterfall with cement platforms all the way to the bottom (where the “door” was).
I believe the interior is a shopping mall or something?
The thing that really struck me first from the movie was just the cityscape itself. I really wanted to build a working model of it in my backyard, but had to settle for a stupid train set instead. But it was someplace I certainly wanted to visit. It was like cities of the future from the World Fair or the original model of the Epcot Center from Disney. (Which hadn’t been built yet)
Also, a big moment in the movie, (at least for me) was that this was the first time I had every seen any gay sexual subtext in a sci-fi movie. The Internet hook-up didn’t work as a hologram, rather it was a teleporter. That is how Jessica arrives at Logan’s apartment the first time. But if you saw the movie in the theater, there was a scene where the person that Logan beamed into his apartment prior to Jessica was a guy, who looked at Logan questioningly (although not with hostility) before Logan beamed him out. This was cut out of all the subsequent TV showings of the movie. I was 12 when it came out, and that scene stayed with me for a long time, although it took a few years to figure out why.
Also outstanding (and visionary, for its time) was the music soundtrack, by Jerry Goldsmith. We would probably call large parts of it Electronica today, with orchestral moments. The scenes on the Renewal Carousel and the when Logan and Jessica see the sun rise for the first time in their lives were exceptional. The electronic Carousel music was cold, yet hypnotic, and becomes increasingly jarring and violent as bodies start exploding. By contrast, the orchestral sunrise scene was grand, beautiful and a bit terrifying, just as the moment would have seemed to Logan and Jessica.
Also, Box was played by Emmy award winning actor Roscoe Lee Browne, a very familiar face and voice if you grew up watching TV during that era.
All very interesting. You’re right about the “gay subtext” scene.
It’s been years since I’ve seen Logan’s Run, and after reading your look back at it, I’m a bit surprised to find myself getting nostalgic about it and wanting to see it again. (I just went ahead and added it to my Netflix queue.)
One scene that’s stuck with me all these is years from when when Logan and Jessica meet the Ustinov character and Jessica, never having seen anyone older than 30, asks if it hurts to have wrinkles and gray hair. I don’t know why that made an impression on me, but it did.
I’ll wait and see what the remake brings. If it’s a close copy of the original movie, I’ll skip it. I guess that’s my way of supporting the original classic.
Arg! There’s no edit option! Obviously, in the second paragraph, I meant “years is” and not “is years”.
:-)
I like the original movie a lot, but I was quite surprised when I read the books to see how very different they are. If the remake follows the books closer, it will be a completely different movie.
Good point. (But I suspect they’ll have to include all the major elements of the first movie, as sort of an “homage,” or people will be disappointed.)