LOGAN’S RUN (1976)

HENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

I’ve not read any of the three novels written about Logan and his world by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, but I wouldn’t have any trouble believing the statement that the movie doesn’t borrow much from them but the bare situation. In every way, the film LOGAN’S RUN seems like a bad imitation of the better dystopian novels found in prose science fiction.

RUN puts forth an idea that was well-traveled even in 1976. Following a nuclear catastrophe, a group of human beings take refuge in a city where their entire destiny is controlled by a computer. In order to maintain the city’s fragile ecosystem, the computer or its long-deceased programmers have engineered a “Big Lie” to prevent overpopulation. At the age of thirty, all citizens must participate in “Carousel,” in which their bodies are destroyed but their souls are later reincarnated. The other citizens watch the spectacle and cheer as if witnessing arena-fights, possibly because the old bodies of Carousel-victims appear to get blown up. Nevertheless, most citizens believe that their fellows will come back renewed—though there are a few unbelievers.

Said apostates, called “Runners,” seek to evade their fate in the ritual by escaping the borders of the city. While one might think the city-computer would welcome such desertions to get rid of surplus population, apparently the machine has been programmed to persecute such dissidents by sending enforcers called “Sandmen” to execute the Runners. Two such enforcers are Logan (Michael York) and his buddy Francis (Richard Jordan). In addition to genuinely believing in their mission, the two city-cops enjoy all the privileges of sybaritic life, which includes swanky living-quarters and getting hooked up with potential temporary mates, actual marriage being unknown. Logan makes an attempt to hook up with a young woman named Jessica (Jenny Agutter). When she doesn’t come across like most city-women, Logan is mildly intrigued by Jessica’s refusal.

Not only does the computer not want any dissidents escaping its reach, it keeps tabs on the beliefs of the Runners. The computer enlists Logan for a special assignment, to find the place called Sanctuary, to which refuge many escapees have supposedly migrated. To sell the idea that Logan wants to be a Runner, the hapless Sandman’s own life-cycle is cut short, so that he can infiltrate the dissidents and locate Sanctuary. The Runner-ranks just happen to include Jessica, who despite her earlier refusal is quite taken with Logan and helps him make contact with the “underground.”

Sadly, the script’s idea of the Runner-underground is even more poorly worked out than the rationale behind Carousel. Logan and Jessica experience an assortment of disjointed adventures—one of which includes Farrah Fawcett, prior to her star-making breakout on CHARLIE’S ANGELS—and eventually, with no real help from other Runners, the two fugitives succeed in escaping the city. However, Logan’s comrade Francis hasn’t been let in on the deception, and he relentlessly pursues the escapees, intending to terminate both of them. Passing over some of the more pretentious experiences of the fleeing couple, eventually the two of them return to the city and liberate all of the gullible citizens from the computer’s control.

To misquote John Lennon, LOGAN’S RUN sports enough plot-holes to fill up Albert Hall. Such inconsistencies don’t automatically doom a film, though, and I can find various plot-problems with the 1968 PLANET OF THE APES. Yet in RUN’s case, the only thing the movie has going for it is its (rather minor) ability to conjure with the audience’s fears of such fantastic eugenics-programs, and that appeal is cancelled out by the script’s artless coincidences and dramatic posturing. Actors York, Jordan and Agutter all project utter sincerity in their thinly-drawn roles, but none of them are able to infuse life into the ramshackle structure.

Arguably, though RUN was not quite the last of the “didactic sci-fi problem films” that proved popular in the sixties and seventies, the movie may represent a temporary culmination of the form for that time-period—or maybe a burnout case, since RUN is in no way equal to the best of that tradition. By the next year, STAR WARS temporarily became a major, if not exclusive, model for big-budget science fiction films. Perhaps coincidentally, STAR WARS’ careful attention to physical detail—whether with respect to space battles or comical robots—makes LOGAN’S RUN seem even more hackneyed, especially when the post-STAR WARS viewer gets a look at “Box,” RUN’s extremely cheesy version of a mouthy robot.