Love for Life

Movie: Logans Run - 119 Minutes

Logan's Run
A pre-planned utopia where the religion makes everyone believe they move on into another world at the age of 25. This is actually a population control program in a science fiction scenario.
Comment From Alan Watt

FULL SYNOPSIS

The Earth has been ruined by something in the distant past-- war, plague, ecological disaster, it is never revealed. The remains of humanity have lived within a sealed, domed city, unaware of the condition of the outside or the origin of their own living conditions; to them, the city is and always has been the entire world.

To maintain the internal balance of the city, both reproduction and death are carefully controlled by a monolithic master computer. The only sex is loveless and nymphomaniacal; there are no relationships, no wives or husbands, only "the circuit" where you can obtain a temporary sex partner, as well as orgy rooms, filled with clouds of narcotic gas. Babies are born in glass boxes; the palm of their hand is implanted with a "life clock," a penny-sized lamp that looks like a crystal. At age 30, the life clock flashes red, and the bearer must report for a ceremony where he is told he is "renewed" but is in fact incinerated. Those who wish to avoid the 30-year-limit must become what is called a "runner." Runners are considered criminals, and hunted by policemen known as "sandmen."

Logan (Peter York) is a sandman who meets a young woman named Jessica (Jenny Agutter). Jessica seems strange to Logan. She refuses his typical sexual advances, and seems to harbor hidden beliefs that something is terribly wrong with the way the city is run and the way that the people live together and relate to one another. Later, we learn she belongs to a secret heretical society that believes in a place known as "Sanctuary" where people can live beyond the 30-year limit and engage in meaningful, monogamous relationships. The key to accessing Sanctuary is a small device known as an Ankh; Jessica wears one around her neck, unaware of its purpose.

One day Logan kills a runner who is in possession of an Ankh. When Logan checks in at the end of his patrol, the master computer recognizes the significance of the Ankh and instructs Logan to go undercover, find Sanctuary, and kill all the runners he finds there. To go undercover, the computer overrides Logan's life clock so that it begins to flash red immediately, and he is forced to become a runner himself.

Remembering the Ankh around Jessica's neck, Logan attempts to convince Jessica that he wishes to find Sanctuary, and she agrees to help him. Logan and Jessica then flee the city, pursued by a sandman named Francis (Richard Jordan), who is unaware of his colleague's undercover mission. After a close call with a homicidal robot named Box (who captures runners and recycles them as food to feed the population of the city), Logan and Jessica find a way to exit the domed city, and discover the Earth outside. Francis follows at a distance.

The Earth has healed since the disaster. Once outside the city, they find animals, rivers, and see the sun for the very first time. The crystals in their hands stop functioning and turn clear; Jessica and Logan interpret this as indicating they are no longer bound by the rules of the city and its 30-year limit. They fall in love, and Logan abandons his secret mission. But there are no other people, not even other runners.

They explore, and find their way to the overgrown ruins of Washington D.C. (shown on screen with award-winning post-apocalyptic special effects). When they discover the Lincoln Memorial, they are confused by Lincoln's appearance; "That must be what it looks like to grow old," Logan says. Searching for signs of life, they find only a single white-bearded old man (Peter Ustinov) and his many cats. The old man has no crystal in his hand whatsoever, not even a clear one.

Logan decides that the master computer has made a terrible mistake, and the inhabitants of the domed city are living a lie. He determines to tell them. Before they can act, however, they are discovered by Francis. Francis will not listen to them. They fight to the death; Logan kills him by bludgeoning him with an American flag.

They then set out for the domed city, bringing the old man with them. They leave the old man waiting outside while they infiltrate the city once more, planning to bring the populations back out to see him for themselves. They fail; not only do the people ignore the news, but sandmen come and arrest them.

The city's master computer attempts to interrogate Logan using some kind of memory probe and becomes confused and overloaded by the memories it finds. Seeing his chance, Logan escapes and destroys the computer, causing a chain reaction that wreaks havoc thoughout the entire city. The populations flee the explosions and come outside, where they finally see the sun and encounter the old man. They will now grow old, and mankind is freed from its illusory idyllic existence.

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SUMMARY OF LOGAN'S RUN

Logan, a Sandman (police assassin), is forced to search for "Sanctuary" - a place to which people have apparently escaped from the sealed city of the future in which he lives. Jessica is caught up along the way and becomes his companion fugitive as they are both pursued by Francis, a fellow Sandman. Sanctuary is not what they expect. Written by A.M.Putnam

In the 23rd century, the survivors of a holocaust now lives within a domed city that is sealed off from the outside world. In the domed city, men and women live in a society where you can only live until you are 30-years old (due to population control and limited resources), the people have two choices: They can either take part in a extermination ceremony called "Carousel" where they are promised of being reborn or they can go on the run and escape to outside the domed city. Logan 5 is a Sandman, a elite policeman whose job is terminate all "Runners" who refuse to be exterminated on Carousel and escape to outside the city. When Logan finds a symbol, the computer that controls all life in the city, gives Logan a undercover assignment to find and destroy a mysterious place called Sanctuary by posing as a runner, by removing the last four years of his life from his life crystal. Now on the run himself, and hunted by his partner and best friend Francis 7, Logan and a woman named Jessica 6 working for a underground resistance group that are helping all Runners search for Sanctuary escapes from the domed city and find themselves in a devastated Washington D.C, where Logan and Jessica discover another world and find there is much to live for and Logan begins to question the system. Written by Daniel Williamson

It is 2274. Some type of holocaust has decimated the earth, and the survivors sealed themselves into a domed city near Washington, D.C. To maintain the population balance, the computers that run the city have decreed that all people must die at 30. This system is enforced by "sandmen" : black-clad police operatives who terminate (kill) "runners" (those who attempt to live beyond 30). Logan, a sandman, is sent on a mission to find "sanctuary," which is a code- word used by the master computer to describe what it believes is a place to which runners have been escaping. Logan begins to question the system he serves and after seeing for himself that there is life beyond the dome, he returns to destroy the computer. Written by Anonymous

In the year 2274, after the world has been decimated by a holocaust, a new society is built and resides in a domed city. However, it is forbidden for humans to live beyond 30 and you are given two choices, either to go through a ritual called Carousel with the promise of being "renewed", or go on the run and risk being hunted down by an elite police force known as Sandmen. Logan 5 is just such a man, and when he and his partner Francis 7 find and kill a runner, Logan takes an ankh symbol which identifies a person as a runner. When the computers of the city find out that Logan is in possession of the amulet, they order him to go undercover and find Sanctuary, the place where all the runners go to live out the rest of their lives. To ensure this, the computer adds four years to the time crystal on his palm to make it appear that he is on the verge of turning 30. Logan then meets up with Jessica 6, a member of the underground group that helps runners escape to Sanctuary. Logan then begins to run, but in the process realizes that there is much to live for and that he is just entering the prime of his life.

Written by Brian Washington: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/plotsummary

Link to video: http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-5569269231227780624