Hollywood Utopia

Logan’s Run
Directed by Michael Anderson, Logan’s Run (1976) is a sentimental yet fascinating
pre-sequel to the preoccupations of Blade Runner (see final chapter), which also
explores a new type of spaceman. The dystopic universe is controlled by a series of
computers which enforce human recycling at the age of 30 - an extremely dystopic
system of population control. Logan ‘5' (Michael York) is first introduced
observing a baby behind a hermetically sealed environment. A colleague interrupts
the expositional discussion which follows to affirm that the child may be his but
that he has no idea who the ‘seed mother’ is. In this hedonistic, post-nuclear family
society, sex is freely available but, as in many other utopian societies, there is a large
price to pay for such apparent freedom. Logan’s job is to hunt the fugitives who
refuse to accept their fate within the controlled eco-system of the city. Like
Deckard in the seminal Blade Runner, initially he is the compliant servant of the
system, eliminating, for the good of his society, dissenters who seek selfishly to
avoid their fate in the short cycle of life by escaping to an alternative eco-system.
Natural cycles of birth and death cannot be allowed in this dystopian system,
probably because the master computers would be unable to control such a chaotic
environment, as in Jurassic Park, which also perpetuates ordered artificial
harmony. Logan, like all of his fellow inhabitants, has little consciousness of the
outside world, except what is mediated through central computer terminals.
The artificial society is controlled by pleasure and spectacle, with its inhabitants
not required to make personal decisions. Time controls their destiny, which is
artificially predetermined. Reminiscent of Roman circuses, the lucky survivors
(pre-30-year-olds) periodically observe the spectacle of the chosen ones being
‘renewed’ on the electrified (Disneyesque) carousel. The digital masters assign
Logan the ultimate hunter quest to find sanctuary -the place escapees seek to avoid
their conformist destiny on the carousel.
But by unfairly reducing Logan’s life span, the re-individualised hero becomes a
potentially subversive pawn, opposed to the conformist system. The unnatural
symbiotic harmony between the inhabitants and the system has been broken, with
Logan at last realising the inequality of his artificially modified life span. He can
now become a rebel and acquire the contingent attributes of modern paranoia.
Finding a suitable accomplice, played by Jenny Agutter, who earlier refused to have
sex on demand (unlike all the other girls in the circuit), they escape up into the
‘real’ natural eco-system after first encountering the liminal/semi-natural, polar
environment controlled by the computer. Like similar mythic quests, the heroes
have to overcome various obstacles before they can come into the benevolent light
of nature.
Outside they experience a sublime moment of ecological co-existence in time and
space, through the nurturing powers of sunlight and its natural warmth and energy.
4 Conspiracy Thrillers and Science Fiction 171