page_title: Logan's Run (film)
section_title: Themes
hierarchical_section_title: Logan's Run (film) / Themes
caption_attribution_description: English: Roscoe Lee Browne in 1979
context_page_description: Logan's Run is a 1976 American science fiction action film directed by Michael Anderson and starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Roscoe Lee Browne, Farrah Fawcett, and Peter Ustinov. The screenplay by David Zelag Goodman is based on the 1967 novel Logan's Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. It depicts a utopian future society on the surface, revealed as a dystopia where the population and the consumption of resources are maintained in equilibrium by killing everyone who reaches the age of thirty. The story follows the actions of Logan 5, a "Sandman" who has terminated others who have attempted to escape death and is now faced with termination himself.
  Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the film uses only the novel's two basic premises: that everyone must die at a set age, and that Logan and companion Jessica attempt to escape while being chased by another Sandman named Francis. After aborted attempts to adapt the novel, story changes were made including raising the age of "last day" from 21 to 30 and introducing the idea of "Carrousel" [sic] for eliminating 30-year-olds.
context_section_description: Logan's Run explores utopian and dystopian themes, with the idea that characters willingly die instead of reaching advanced ages, reflecting the idea that "Utopias require its participants to give something up in order to create harmony and uniformity". Common dystopian themes include an evil ruling authority, the confiscation of children from parents, life in a city, and the idea of human overpopulation, in this case causing the protagonists to leave the urban environment.
  Prominent concepts in the film are "the dangers of hedonism, youth worship, and, particularly, the dangers of government-sponsored euthanasia". The hedonism is primarily conveyed in the form of sensuality and "images of sexual abandon". Aside from sexual freedom, the pursuit of pleasure is also reflected in how this was envisioned in the 1970s, including miniskirts, little career, relaxed gyms, and Farrah Fawcett's "shag" haircut. Author Barna William Donovan argues this serves to criticize many social developments underway in the 1970s, targeting the "Me generation". Writer Robert Tinnell hypothesizes the design of the city, reminiscent of a shopping mall, is also suggestive of "anticonsumerist sentiment". The film may ultimately serve as a warning against overthrowing older generations, aimed at young viewers following the counterculture movements in the 1960s.
  Another interpretation is that individualism, the "freedom to live and be," is curbed by "social mechanisms" telling citizens to have a good life for only a limited time. Logan, originally part of an "artificial society" centred on "pleasure and spectacle," becomes "re-individualised" and defies a "conformist system". Despite the reflections of the 1970s, Donovan argues the film may also have relevance to the Internet age, with elements evocative of online dating.
  Writers have also examined the film's statements on gender and race. At one point in the film, Logan asks Jessica whether she is a lesbian after she expresses no romantic interest in him. His casual, nonjudgmental tone indicates homosexuality is no longer taboo in the film's futuristic society, a possible side effect of sex no longer being related to child bearing.  Ultimately, author Bonnie Noonan believes the idea of returning to the concept of "beloved wife" is a sign that in the story, women's liberation, and not technology, is at the root of the dystopia.
  The character of Box, being voiced by African-American actor Roscoe Lee Browne, could serve as a precursor to Darth Vader, voiced by African-American actor James Earl Jones in Star Wars (1977), in "racializing cyberphobic primers available to Generation X".
caption: Roscoe Lee Browne played Box and has been the subject of discussion on race in Logan's Run.
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