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Logan's Run First Watch

That reminds me: How does Logan know, or even suspect, that one of those babies is his son?

He just says "It's not every day they authorize a new Sandman" and immediately assumes that one of the babies is Logan 6. I wonder how he could possibly know that. I mean, the babies don't exactly have I.D.s, do they?
He looked it up on the internet. ;)
 
That reminds me: How does Logan know, or even suspect, that one of those babies is his son?

He just says "It's not every day they authorize a new Sandman" and immediately assumes that one of the babies is Logan 6. I wonder how he could possibly know that. I mean, the babies don't exactly have I.D.s, do they?
Sandman is like an hereditary position?
 
It seems that Logan has been informed by his superiors that Logan-6 has been born, but he's just guessing at which one it is. As Francis says, "He isn't yours anymore."

Then they have a conversation about who the "seed-mother" might have been, and Logan points to a few women as potential candidates, to which Francis replies "Only a few? You're just not trying." So presumably all the promiscuous casual sex is being done without birth control, and the women who get pregnant give up their babies to the state (in order to maintain the population with people constantly being killed at 30), and the machines raise them anonymously with no knowledge of who their biological parents were. And any given woman has enough casual partners that it's always a tossup who the father is.
 
Perhaps names are assigned to children arbitrarily?

Meaning: The child who grows up as Logan 6 may not even BE Logan 5's biological son. In a system like this, what real reason would there be to actually trace family lines? There ARE no families in the city, after all...hell, I'm wondering why people in the city even have names. What's the point?

I'm even starting to suspect that births, such as they are, occur without the mother even knowing about it...the computer may have some way of extracting an embryo from the womb without any conscious effort on the woman's part. (While she sleeps, for example.) So while all this sex is going on, there are no actual pregnancies...

Indeed, when Logan and Jessica meet the old man, they act completely amazed and confused when he says he came from his mother, didn't they? It's like they've never even heard of a pregnancy. So I'm kind of doubting that women actually carry babies to term in this city.
 
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I never said the women carried the babies to term, though admittedly I never said they didn't. But they clearly have a concept of "seed-mothers" and "seed-fathers." And Logan and Francis's dialogue certainly implies that they're aware of a connection between sex and procreation. They just consider the "seed" parents to be mere gene donors rather than family.

Presumably the act of conception is done the old-fashioned and fun way, but then the embryos are extracted and artificially gestated. That seems to be the only way to reconcile Logan and Francis's awareness of how sex makes babies with Logan and Jessica's unfamiliarity with the concept of natural childbirth.
 
Perhaps names are assigned to children arbitrarily?

Meaning: The child who grows up as Logan 6 may not even BE Logan 5's biological son. In a system like this, what real reason would there be to actually trace family lines? There ARE no families in the city, after all...hell, I'm wondering why people in the city even have names. What's the point?

I'm even starting to suspect that births, such as they are, occur without the mother even knowing about it...the computer may have some way of extracting an embryo from the womb without any conscious effort on the woman's part. (While she sleeps, for example.) So while all this sex is going on, there are no actual pregnancies...

Indeed, when Logan and Jessica meet the old man, they act completely amazed and confused when he says he came from his mother, didn't they? It's like they've never even heard of a pregnancy. So I'm kind of doubting that women actually carry babies to term in this city.

Maybe they have maturation chambers - like the Borg.
 
I remember that in the novel, there was a sequence set in a factory-like robotic nursery where the children were raised, but I don't recall if they were gestated artificially too.
 
Now I can't get that line from Life of Brian out of my head.

"I'm not oppressing you, Stan, you haven't got a womb! Where's the foetus going to gestate, you going to keep it in a box?" :guffaw:
 
I remember that in the novel, there was a sequence set in a factory-like robotic nursery where the children were raised, but I don't recall if they were gestated artificially too.
I remember something similar from "Brave New World". Though there was a bit about the 'lower orders' being cloned for maximum service. Something about five per fertilized egg?
 
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Looking at that clip, I'm reminded of something - How big were those enclosures supposed to be; and where were they located?

Judging by the height of some of the buildings, they have to be somewhere around 1000 feet, maybe more; and several miles across. (I wonder if a structure that big would be visible from low orbit?)

As for location, I'm thinking either somewhere near Richmond or Baltimore. When Logan and Jessica leave the confines of the dome, Washington D.C. appears to be only a day or two away walking distance both going to and when they walk back with the old man.
 
Looking at that clip, I'm reminded of something - How big were those enclosures supposed to be; and where were they located?

Unspecified on screen, various versions of the script say the domes do form a large city, with the dome interior supposedly so far up that the citizens are not aware of it (unlike the way one would be in a common geodesic dome like those used for the UK's Eden Project).
 
Unspecified on screen, various versions of the script say the domes do form a large city, with the dome interior supposedly so far up that the citizens are not aware of it (unlike the way one would be in a common geodesic dome like those used for the UK's Eden Project).

Perhaps part of the city is underground, and all of the domes are connected that way?

Either that or the railcars go from dome to dome.
 
As for location, I'm thinking either somewhere near Richmond or Baltimore. When Logan and Jessica leave the confines of the dome, Washington D.C. appears to be only a day or two away walking distance both going to and when they walk back with the old man.

I've often thought about the Maryland shore of Chesapeake Bay. It's a 35 mi straight shot to DC from Annapolis and there's a lot of green space down that way where a city like that could have been built. That would be a couple of days good walk. I know it was all filmed in CA but I tend to think Logan and Jessica are on Rt 50 when they're walking along those crushed stones. (the lizard scene) I think every fan of the film has thought about the city's location when in the DC area.
 
I can't get the Ankh symbol out of my head....

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