Logan's Run (1976)
Directed by Michael Anderson
In the 23rd century, inhabitants of a domed city freely experience all of life's pleasures — but no one is allowed to live past 30. Citizens can try for a chance at being "renewed" in a civic ceremony on their 30th birthday. Escape is the only other option.
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What critics compared Logan's Run to
Another car chase, surely, or another grisly scene of medical malfeasance, whether in the form of implanting tiny crawling robotic critters under someone's eyelid or some unsavory business involving a bone saw, or yet one more reference to (or rip-off from) "Blade Runner" or "Logan's Run" or "Gattaca" or "Minority Report" or "The Island of Dr. Moreau" or "Austin Powers" (unintentional, but there are scenes featuring McGregor's character and his nemesis, played by Sean Bean, that can't help but conjure Dr. Evil).
The film's three screenwriters borrow heavily from such post-apocalyptic adventures as "Logan's Run," and, of course, Orwell's "1984."
Obviously, the concept of having naive humans escape from a seemingly perfect utopian society has "Logan's Run" written all over it.
The resultant motion picture is sort of a combination "THX-1138," "Logan's Run," "Blade Runner," and "The Matrix."
Playing out somewhat like “Logan’s Run” meets “Total Recall”, the tale unfolds along predictable but enjoyable lines with the odd flash of creativity (eg. the holographic shield) and an impressively picturesque opening nightmare sequence.
The plot and theme of the film is in many ways similar to a personal favourite of mine, Logan’s Run .
Although it could be accused of being stitched together from parts of lots of movies – “Logan’s Run,” “Timer,” “The 39 Steps” and even this year’s “The Adjustment Bureau” – its concept feels like a fresh attempt to combine pulpy storytelling with a socially conscious theme.
Set in an unspecified future where people are genetically programmed to time out at the age of 25, the film echoes Michael Anderson's 1976 hoot Logan's Run, whose characters were catapulted into the sky at 30 unless they did a runner.
Borrowing a dash from Logan's Run and a dollop from Bonnie and Clyde, the concept is that in the near future, time has become the most precious commodity.
The movie, which initially sounded like a rip-off of Logan’s Run, turns out to be a diatribe against the widely loathed 1 percent, who, even in this pop fantasy, still control the large majority of the world’s wealth.
Nothing remarkable about this futuristic adventure that reminds me a bit of “Logan’s Run.” Grade: D+…
) Niccol was almost certainly thinking more about the ’70s and ’80s dystopian tradition of “Logan’s Run,” “Soylent Green” and “The Running Man” than about contemporary politics.
Today it just looks like a low-rent mishmash of Divergent and The Hunger Games , recycling riffs from Logan’s Run with sets and costumes lifted from Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey .
There are also echoes of everything from “Logan’s Run” to “The Lego Movie.”
I get the attractiveness of the theme of wanting to be different from everyone else (thus the likely draw of this work to those who already felt that way upon reading the novel), and certainly have no issues with dystopian-related movie storylines (one of my all-time favorites is "Logan's Run").
Seriously, if Hollywood serves up one more spotless jump-suited crypto-fascist future where only a “Chosen One” can make us remember the humanity we have lost, I’m screaming “Logan’s RUN” and fleeing the theater.
Ok, sure, the whole planet is in black and white and nobody falls in love or kisses or dances, but there is calm and order, a Logan's Run-style Carousel-like ceremony for the geriatrics, a crazy perma-death sleep injection for genetically inferior babies, and it all happens without an annual Purge.
An agreeable YA riff on Orwell — via Logan's Run — topped with the kind of magic-transformative baloney that passes for an ending in too many otherwise-fine Hollywood adventures, Phillip Noyce's The Giver greets a man-made Utopia with the eternal question: "If you can't feel, what's the point?"
It’s higher quality fare than many other recent tentpole franchise offerings thanks to the class struggles, Dystopian outlook, and the brutality of the concept but there’s nothing here than elevates the film from being more than a smash-up of The Handmaid’s Tale, Logan’s Run, and The Running Man skewed to the teen marketplace.
“Truman Show’’ and “Wizard of Oz’’ are joined by “Logan’s Run,’’ “The Running Man,’’ “The Most Dangerous Game,’’ “The 10th Victim,’’ “1984,’’ “Big Brother,’’ “Red Dawn,’’ and countless other influences, and there’s an angry online contingent of “Battle Royale’’ fans that want their 2000 drive-in Japanese classic left in peace.
There's also some "Lord of the Flies," "The Deadliest Game" and "Logan's Run" thrown into a blender along with a young romance tale designated as bait for teen girls who often turn the likes of "Titanic" and the "Twilight" flicks into huge box office numbers.
Back in the freshet of the Hunger Games phenomenon in 2009, our Lev Grossman called the first two books “a killer cocktail of Logan’s Run, Lord of the Flies, The Running Man, reality TV and the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.”
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You can see the film’s nods to “Brazil” and other similar, less mobile dystopias — the secret of the food supply for the back-of-the-train passengers evokes “The Matrix,” while the need for the young to serve the state touches on everything from “Logan’s Run” to the tale of Minos of Crete.
"Never Let Me Go" isn't all that original in plot, sharing a great deal with George Clayton Johnson's "Logan's Run" and 2005's " The Island ," but its treatment as a frighteningly skewed existential tale set in the real world makes it rather novel.
While that city never feels particularly lived-in, it's interesting to look at: The cold white surfaces and tacky pop-art interiors evoke dystopian predecessors such as Logan's Run.
Sci-fi geeks of a certain age will get a special kick out of seeing “Logan’s Run” ingenue Jenny Agutter reprising her brief “Avengers” role as a member of the U.N.-ish “World Security Council,” and busting out some highly impressive karate moves to boot.
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I mention all of this because there will come a moment where Shaw (and this is not much of a spoiler, but, hey, spoiler alert) becomes pregnant with something and climbs into the medi-pod to have it removed in the best girl-attacked-by-lasers scene since Michael York faced off against the plastic-surgery bot in Logan's Run .
In this regard, Catching Fire is Logan’s Runny.
Think THX 1138 instead of Logan’s Run.
In cinematic form, the series roils eerily with the grand cheesiness of “The Running Man,” “Logan’s Run” and even “Battlestar Galactica,” but where those vehicles could be tongue in cheek, “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” continues to be either dead-on serious or wholly over-the-top spectacle.
In fact, its dark, satirical action is what the sci-fi of the ’70s — “Rollerball,” “A Boy and His Dog,” “Logan’s Run” — did best.