Logan's Run

Logan's Run

Logan’s Run, a 1976 film directed by Michael Anderson and based on the novel of the same by William F. Nolan, is a thought-provoking science-fiction film that deals with many themes, such as humanism, ideology, technology, military-control et al. It stars Michael York and Jenny Agutter as the lead characters Logan 5 and Jessica 6, respectively. The film tells the story of a future, post-apocalyptic society that is constrained to a domed city, in which its populace is legislated to live only until their 30th birthday. Anyone who attempts to run away from this fate is tagged as a “runner”, as one who runs wishes to thwart the society and attempts to flee the city (though, only to be killed by the “Sandmen”, the governing law enforcement designed to terminate the runners who flee the ceremony of “renewal” called Carousel (the established date on which those who reach 30 are terminated in an elaborate ceremony). The film was released following the youth revolution of the 1960’s, and the phrase “Never trust anyone over 30” is a key social critique and an obvious driving force for the film (although the novel on which it is based has the populace terminated by age 21, however the film version was raised to age 30 due to the difficulty of finding young enough, established actors ).
The humanist approach is one of the strongest points of the film the fact that the population is ended at age 30 is an homage to the ever-changing American values that the 1960’s and early 1970’s faced. The difference in opinions on the Vietnam War, racial equality, gay rights, the women’s movement, the Nixon administration, etcetera, all were ongoing events that would make the 1960’s what it was, and the original novel from which the film was based attempted to take this young, anti-authoritative generation and make a social critique of American society. As Harry Geduld writes in the novel Return to Méliès: Reflections on the Science Fiction Film (as quoted...