Everybody Loves Box!

In the 23rd century, everyone lives inside a dazzling domed city; nobody worries about growing old, and life is an endless parade of pleasure, color, and questionable shower-curtain fashion. There’s only one catch: when your crystal starts blinking, you report to Carousel and explode in front of a cheering crowd. Vincent Charles, Ordy Packard, Jeff, and Janelle Woz revisit the 1976 dystopian science-fiction classic ‘Logan’s Run.’ The panel examines the film’s pleasure-obsessed society, its Sandmen and runners, the spectacularly bureaucratic death carnival known as Carousel, and the surprisingly flimsy logic holding the entire civilization together. They compare the movie with William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson’s darker novel, discuss Michael York’s already-overdue expiration date, Richard Jordan’s relentless shouting, Jenny Agutter’s gravity-defying wardrobe, and Peter Ustinov’s cat-filled life as the last old man anyone has ever seen. Then there’s Box—the frozen-food robot whose strange delivery, cheerful personality, and brief appearance somehow make him the most memorable character in the entire movie. Everybody loves Box, and this panel is no exception. It’s disco astronauts, exploding citizens, dangerous prop weapons, gratuitous nudity, questionable special effects, and a society that destroys its entire infrastructure before asking what anyone will eat tomorrow—The Vincent Charles Projekt style.