Despite the onesie vibe of silver age sci-fi and promotional artwork that looks like the box for an Atari video game, Logan’s Run is very much a philosophical expression of the hippie movement.

Protagonist Logan 5 is a cop. A futuristic cop with a black sweatshirt for a uniform, but a cop nonetheless. He lives in the kind of dystopian hellscape only the 1960s-70s could conceive. Luxury, prosperity, and casual sex everywhere, the only thing that could ruin this paradise would be if the government was lying about Carrousel.

Oh.

They were?

Darn.

You see, Carrousel (yeah, there are two Rs for some reason) is the ceremony where 30-year-olds are taken to be reincarnated to live their blissful next life without having to be “old.” Of course, they’re actually just being killed, and anyone who tries to avoid this fate are branded “Runners” to be hunted down by “Sandmen,” who are actually just cops.

Of course, this being 2024 and you reading emails from a guy who writes books, you know right away that Logan is going to end up falling in love with a beautiful Runner, discovering some dark secret about Carrousel, and joining a tribe of primitive freedom-lovers farming outside the walls of the utopia.

I warned you this was the hippie era, right? Of course the dystopia was a short life of ease and pleasure and casual sex, while the utopia was subsistence farming and monogamy and probably not much in the way of healthcare.

It must have been a crazy time to be a fan of dystopian fiction. Despite being rather comfortably north of 30 myself (and some other, even less flattering numbers), I can’t imagine choosing to live as a medieval peasant outside the walls of a glittering paradise.

I’d take my 30 and enjoy them. Plus, let’s be honest here, between the backbreaking labor, no social safety nets, no communication, no internet, no … basically anything, I’d be lucky to make it to 30 living outside.

Anyway, I digress. The movie looks very 60s/70s, and the dialogue is stilted, but something about the half-century old movie still feels compelling. I’ve heard rumors that Hollywood has tried, and failed, to remake Logan’s Run for decades. Somehow I think it’s better for only existing in its original form, despite showing its age. If you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend checking it out.