YMMV / THX 1138

• Cult Classic: It didn't find an audience upon its first release. It slowly became Vindicated by History after A New Hope hit theaters, and it later lent its name to George Lucas' sound company.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: A bit of background chatter in the climax refers to a "wookie" on the highway, which of course George Lucas would later make much more use of.
• One-Scene Wonder: The two offscreen technicians who hilariously bicker over forcibly contorting THX into various odd positions.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Then-obscure San Francisco actor David Ogden Stiers supplies his voice. He was so new that they misspelled his surname "Steers" in the credits.
  • Sid Haig, future exploitation and horror film stalwart, makes an early appearance as NCH, the pugnacious prisoner.
  • The whole film is pretty much this for George Lucas.
• Special Effect Failure: A lot of the CGI additions in the George Lucas Altered Version not only have aged poorly since 2004, but don't match the aesthetic of the rest of the 1971 film. Much of the blame can be put on the budget for these changes being extremely low compared to the Star Wars special editions, combined with the technological limitations of early 2000s CGI.
• Values Resonance: The themes about consumerism being so widespread that people are only valued as workers and police brutality also being prevalent don't feel out of place 50 years later.
• Vindicated by History: While the film still owes most of the attention it receives to the novelty of being George Lucas's first film, the fact that people still pay attention to it has allowed it to pick up a lot more fans than it probably otherwise would have after its initial tepid reception.

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