Book-To-Movie: ‘Logan’s Run’

Credit: Pixabay.com

Well, it’s been more than six months since the last Book-To-Movie article. So I’m glad to present another, finally, after all this time. I’m planning to have a Book-To-Movie here at the Fantastic Site on the third Saturday of each month and so am planning to make it a regularly occurring series. In this series, I review, or in some cases preview, book to movie adaptations. In each installment, I discuss the book and the movie that’s based on it, showing how faithful the latter is to the former. Because this is a science fiction/fantasy blog, most of the book to movie adaptations will be sci fi, horror, or some other type of fantasy. 

This time, I’m reviewing William Nolan and George Clayton Johnson’s 1967 novel Logan’s Run and the movie adaptation that released in 1976. As with most book to movie adaptations, Logan’s Run the film lacks the details of the novel and so scenes are either condensed or cut entirely. However, the style of filming makes up for these omitted details.

Synopsis Of the Book and Movie

Logan’s Run the movie stays true to the overall story of the novel. The story is set in a distant future when overpopulation of the past has caused society to make a law that prohibits any person to live beyond a certain age. In the novel, that age limit is 21, whereas in the movie it’s 30. This slight change that the movie made was probably inspired by the late 1960s/early ‘70s famous anti-establishment slogan, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.”

The story’s main protagonist is Logan, a member of a special police force consisting of officers called Sandmen. The Sandmen chase down and kill people who do not turn themselves in for their life termination when they reach the legal mortality age. These refugees of the mortality law are called “Runners”. The people who turn themselves in on the last day of their legal lives are institutionally killed. But being the “humane” people that this society is, the killing is not called such or even referred to as execution. Instead it’s referred to as “Deep Sleep” (DS) in the book and “Renewal” in the movie.

Logan is soon required to turn himself in for his life termination. But he decides to turn “Runner” with the woman he eventually falls in love with, Jessica. The two flee the glass-encased city they have lived in all their lives to search for a rumoured place called Sanctuary where people can freely live out their natural lifespans. 

The Two Legal Mortality Ages

The specific cause of Logan turning Runner is one of the major points that the movie diverts from the book. In the book, he reaches his 21st year. In the movie, he does not reach the legal mortality age of 30. So why does he go “Runner” in the film? The ruling computer system, which is referred to as The Thinker in the book but does not go by a name in the movie, takes four years off Logan’s legal lifespan so he can find and destroy Sanctuary undercover as a Runner. However, he immediately learns that the computer will not give him his four years back when he is to return from his assignment. So he turns into a real Runner. 

Condensed Scenes

So, the basic story is the same in the movie as in the book. However, the book contains more scenes. Whereas the majority of the scenes take place either in the multi-domed city or outside in the Washington D.C. region in the film, the book covers more settings during Logan and Jessica’s escape. The settings in the book range from an underwater city called Molly, to an Arctic wasteland called Hell, to the Crazy Horse monument of the Dakotas, and then finally to the jungles of Washington D.C.

In the film, many of these settings have been condensed and more localised, as I like to say, to the region of the multi-domed city. There’s no separate underwater city in the movie, only a portion of the domed metropolitan which is the sewage system that runs under the ocean where the heroes face a similar danger to what they face in Molly in the novel. The Arctic Hell is limited to an ice cavern they pass through that is adjunct to the city rather than expanded into an entire region. However, in this scene they still encounter the killer cyborg known as Box like they do in the novel’s arctic scene. These segments were condensed probably for reasons of screen time, limitations on special effects for that era, and budget.

Toning Down the Realism

The book is much more brutal in the conflicts and challenges the heroes face. The movie glosses over these and tones the violence down to maintain it’s PG Rating. Logan’s former best friend and colleague, Francis, is the main antagonist in both the book and movie, but there are more enemies in the book that the heroes have to deal with. The the novel’s ending is more realistic than the movie’s, which has more of an ideal, fairy tale quality to it. While the novel has it’s optimistic message, as does the movie, it is more believable in the events.

The Movie’s Style

So what about the filming of Logan’s Run makes up for the omitted details found in the book? For one it’s the psychedelic imagery that was characteristic of the 1970s. Multiple black-lighted colours are used especially in the sex and drug trip segments giving a dark, twisted, surreal style to the film. This style enhances the utopian world the movie is set in, a world where everybody can take part in luxurious pleasure regardless of class (if there is even a class structure there). Yet, it is a world that implies a dark underlying institution of death.

Another element that makes up for the missing elements from the novel and is unique to the movie is the death ritual scene. This ritual, referred to as “Carousel”, is for people who are on their “Last Day” of their lives. It’s performed in an arena where the 30 year olds appear wearing ceremonial robes and death’s head masks and then disrobe to float in acrobatic and ballet motion up towards a huge crystal device. As they approach the device, it zaps them dead, or, rather, “renews” them. This ritual reflects another characteristic of the decade the movie was made in: the religious cult movement that many young people took part in. 

The Movie’s Success

The movie was no Star Wars blockbuster (which came out the following year) and so it is not well-known beyond the sci fi crowd (as is the case with the book). But it must’ve done well enough temporarily, because the following year CBS came out with a TV series based on it. However, it only lasted one season. The series basically told the story that the movie did only it spread it out more through the episodes, perhaps including scenes that were in the book but not in the film. This manner of story interpretation is used by many of today’s sci fi TV series based on novels.



If I had to choose between Logan’s Run the novel and Logan’s Run the movie, I would choose the former. As much as I’m a nerd for the psychedelic ‘70s, the book of the ‘60s (when psychedelia actually started) portrayed the characters and events more convincingly. Yet the book, as with the movie, contains the basic humanitarian message, a somewhat egalitarian one, which says that everyone has the right to live out their natural lives to the fullest possibility regardless of age. Still, the movie was made really good and is one of my favourites among films.

Have you read Logan’s Run or seen the movie?

Until next time . . .