Logan’s Run
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Hey, I was watching this film earlier and quite enjoyed it. But while I went out of the room to make some tea… I came back and saw Logan and Jessica talking to this robot fella, and he showed them loads of frozen bodies and started talking about plankton and sea plants. Then it just decided to attack them…
I was just watching thinking “what the hell is going on, have I missed something?” and I watched to the end of the film and still didn’t understand what went on in that scene.
Was the robot part of the city’s security, or did it have it’s own agenda or something? Will someone please clear this up for me. Thanks. 😀
You only “quite” enjoyed it? 🙁 😯 It’s one of my fave films. Oh, and Box rox!
I don’t believe the robot “Box” was part of Dome security, its function had been to harvest food from the sea (Box wasn’t aware of the idea of Sanctuary). Before meeting Box, Logan and Jessica pass by aquatic breeding pens. Logan says that he’d heard that people used to breed animals and fish for food. When they meet Box in the ice cavern (i.e. giant freezer), he tells them that when the fish, plankton etc. stopped coming, people started coming. So Box by trying to freeze them, as he did other people who were trying to get to “Sanctuary”, is trying to follow the old storage procedure for food. I’m sure the people aren’t used for food, and Box wasn’t intended to freeze people (long, long ago when he was given the job), but he is trying to fulfil his old function with the only organic product available to him. Time probably corruped his circuits somewhat.
I actually wonder what the Dome people do eat? I suppose it’s manufactured somehow… Jessica finds the idea barbaric that people used to eat animals.
Ah, right… thanks for that. But it’s still a bit odd, maybe the robot was working for the Dome and he was the one that supplied the food? That’s the only explanation I can think of…
Yes, I’m positive he was the one, or one of them, that had stored/harvested food for the Dome (there may be other similar robots about the Dome periphery).
Box had worked for the Dome to harvest and store food (food from the sea which presumably stopped coming due to eco-disaster) and in freezing people he is till trying to store food, but while he still believes that he is fulfilling “his function”, I think he’s no longer providing food (a la Soylent Green) — that’s my interpretation. He’s the only left there in operations, and the area looks largely abandoned.
I don’t know how many runners got that far, but there are a lot of people stored as people-pops. If the people were being used for food, you wouldn’t expect so many to be left there (they’d be taken away to the “kitchens”), and it would take a lot of people to feed the Dome inhabitants. Also, most people are disposed of completely when they reach Carousel age (either dissolved after being shot as runners or totally destroyed in Carousel — so not a good method for an unwittingly cannibalistic society).
I imagine they found new ways to provide food, and his services are no longer used (he’d been there for a very long time and the sea-life well dried up)… In trying to freeze them he’s still just trying to fulfil his old function (programming to harvest food, and hey, being there must get pretty boring for him — gotta have some fun!). I imagine that the Dome computer (it’s a highly automated society), if it’s aware that Box is still operational, would also “like” (bad word choice) that it’s taking care of Runners (pop. control), but personally, I think it’s really cut off out from Dome operations and went a bit batty.
Maybe because people were dying so young, at 30, then one generation just probably forgot to inform the others about this arrangement with the robot? Or maybe they found a more convenient way of getting food…
I was thinking “Why would there be a sanctuary key, if there is no sanctuary?”. Maybe the people that arranged for the robot to freeze livestock, made up the whole “Sanctuary” story as an illusion, so that whoever defied the authorities and went looking for sanctuary, would be frozen, so yeah I think you are right when you mention that it’s there to take out any runners. Sanctuary was just a cleverly laid trap for them.
How convenient too that once through the door with the key there is no turning back. Otherwise the people in the basement who help the Runners would have learned that there is no Sanctuary since a psychotic robot is putting them on ice. The one-way key makes it look like more of a set-up to me.
One thing though, the Dome computer which pretty much controls society must still think there is a Sanctuary since it sent Logan out to find it, but a computer only knows as much as it’s told. Those people who set up the computer might have been the same ones who created the Sanctuary myth — the computer may have been programmed with limited knowledge. It does lead me to believe at the very least that the computer is not aware of what Box is doing or what’s happening to the Runners. However, Logan unwittingly leads the other Sandmen to the nest of dissidents where they are killed — maybe that was the main plan. Erm, but then again, the computer can’t accept or understand that there is no real Sanctuary when it questions Logan.
An aside: I wonder what Ustinov’s lone character is doing on the outside? And what about his cats. Maybe his ancestors escaped from the dome, perhaps there are more domes, or perhaps they somehow survived the events in the outside world (nuclear fallout or whatever) that forced people to move into domes and forced society to develop a renewal belief system so that people would better accept the extreme population control that was necessary when the outside world was, presumably, unliveable. Maybe others escaped before, and therefore, although Logan doesn’t realise it, there really is/are Sanctuary (the world’s a big place to explore).
Yeah, I thought it was a bit odd that there was only one person left in the outside, and why of all creatures there were cats. That just baffled me… maybe it’s because cats are the only animals with 9 lives 😉
As for the whole Box thing, I’m willing to believe that it’s just a set-up for the runners, that seems the most logical explanation.
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