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If computers "got" irony, they would likely smirk at the re-release of George Lucas's first film, a dystopian science-fiction tale from 1971 called THX 1138.

In this new director's cut, Lucas hasn't changed the original narrative, a bleak portrait of a future society in thrall to machines; he's added a slew of sleek and modern computer-generated images--an ironic form of improvement for a sci-fi flick about soul-killing computers.

In a sense, Lucas's career has been a gradual refutation of the central theme of THX 1138--the dehumanizing effects of technology. Aside from the character-driven nostalgia piece, American Graffiti (the anomaly in his filmography), Lucas has largely concentrated on his vast Star Wars series, movies that have become more technically wondrous, and technology dependent, with each new installment. Though they still retain much of their adventuresome charm, the latest Star Wars pictures feel less the fruit of a creative mind and more the product of the computer systems at work in THX 1138.

One of those decades-old sci-fi films that feels more prescient with each passing year, THX 1138 centers around a human worker--the title is the serial number that serves as his name--toiling in a cruelly efficient society. Anything that interferes with production, be it emotions, sex, or religion, has been either outlawed or catered to in the most basic of ways. When THX (Robert Duvall) opens his medicine cabinet, a robotic surveillance system inside asks, "What's wrong?" and then prescribes the appropriate combination of sedatives. When THX stops taking his pills and feels true emotions for the first time, he begins an eye opening odyssey toward freedom.

Even before its recent retooling, THX 1138 was a technical marvel. Working with co-screenwriter and sound-design master Walter Murch, Lucas creates much of the sterile, computerized world through simple, off-screen aural effects. Machines bleep, robots whir, and speakers drone emotionless commands like so many HAL 9000s.

The visual design is as arresting as anything in Lucas's Star Wars films. Much of it, in fact, foreshadows the look of his better-known work, from its metallic corridors to its shiny-faced robots. Yet there are also images that are far more surreal and unsettling, often making THX 1138 feel like a sadist's version of the Star Wars universe. When THX is captured, he and a group of detainees are abandoned in an endless and undefined white space, where the foreground and background can hardly be distinguished from each other--infinite expanse as the ultimate prison.

After THX breaks free from this computer-monitored--maybe even computer-generated--holding area, each step he takes towards freedom leads him further and further from technology. From the sleek, metallic corridors of the underground city, he makes his way to the surface, where the barren landscape reveals a burning sunset--and hardly any manmade objects at all.

Lucas's filmmaking, unlike THX, has been chasing after the latest technology ever since. Aesthetically, this has all been for the good. There is no doubt that the computer-generated images added to the director's cut of THX 1138 (new robot effects and background scenery) make for a more fully realized vision. What previously looked like a shoestring production, as it largely was, now bustles with the busyness of an actual world.

But does this necessarily make for a better movie? What's disturbing about Lucas's increasing reliance on technology isn't so much the results, but the philosophy behind them. He no longer sees computers as aids--just another cinematic tool--but as correctives, ways of "fixing" past movies. Thankfully both the original and the director's cut of THX 1138 are available on DVD. Fans of the first three Star Wars films haven't been so lucky. Recently only the "special edition" versions, full of even more drastic computer-generated tinkering, have been released on DVD.

There is significance here beyond the legitimate complaints of purists who want to own the films as they were originally released. What Lucas is ushering in, aside from new technology, is a new way of approaching movie history. By reworking his past films without making their original formats available, he is in effect replacing, rather than building upon, our shared movie culture. It may be inevitable that the future belongs to computers; must they also take over the past?