Imagine a place organized like NASA's Mission Control Center, except, instead of controlling spacecraft, it controls us. Commerce, government, and religion are the same thing and all of it is regulated by computers.

"Be efficient. Be happy."

Happiness is, not surprisingly, the stated goal of this place. We are administered drugs that keep us from feeling much of anything. This must, we reason, be happiness, because nothing upsets us.

"We only want to help."

Computers, holograms, and machines want to keep things running smoothly. They seem like such wonderful additions to our society, partly because they seem so much like us. Or, is it us that seem so much like them?

"Buy and be happy."

After a long day monitoring people and building the machines that help regulate us, we like to go to the shopping mall and buy colorful polyhedrons. These things don't actually do anything, and if you're a responsible consumer, like we all are, you just put them in the garbage disposal so you can buy some more the next day. You're not sure why you like them so much. It must be the colors. They are, after all, the only color you see around this place. You live in a world of white-washed concrete, white plastic, and white aluminum.

"Are you okay?"

It's not that bad. The booth that you pray in tells you so. And so do those public service announcements. They remind you that you and your roommate are doing just fine. Actually, we like to refer to our roommates as 'mates. It's nothing sexual, of course. Sex is a crime. And nobody can really tell whether their roommate is male or female anyhow. Not that it matters; you don't really want to have sex.

Maybe it's the drugs.

And maybe it's George Lucas' first film, _THX 1138._ If you're worried that I might have given away too much of the story, don't be. There's not much story to this film, really. And all of the above is covered in the first few minutes of the movie. _THX 1138_ is mostly about (very bright) light and (slightly distorted) sound and someone who (for reasons that are not his own) starts to notice that he's not as happy as he's been told.

Some people say that movies like these are too far-out to be relevant. But, I don't know. I see a bit of _THX 1138_ around us. At least we haven't painted everything white yet.