As we look in on the strange ritual of carousel, we now seem to be transported into the Middle Ages, with victims who wear death masks and monk-like robes. Here we see them just before they will float into the air and die. ______________________________________________ |
Carousel
is the ultimate rite of despair and hope. As the ritual begins, the 30 year-old victims
stand in the center of a giant auditorium-in-the-round, wearing white death masks, robes,
and hoods, that make this ordered world look like a high-tech version of something out of
the dark ages. They are then spun around on a circular moving floor until they float into
the air. Still circling, but now suspended in mid-air, they move their limbs in a death
ballet as they explode one at a time. Meanwhile, an audience of those who are not-yet 30
are packed into the stands, cheering and screaming with excitement "Renew!
Renew!" But not everything is so perfectly controlled. The city also has its version of a slum and a prison, in a dark and dilapidated section isolated from the rest, where violent and rebellious children live lives of barbarism, and kill anyone of their kind older than 15. In addition, the city has a rebel movement, which has created an underground railroad for "runners" -- 30 year-olds who choose to flee rather than putting their faith in the false promise that they will be reborn in carousel. The rebel movement supposedly gives runners a way out of the city, so they can escape to a place of safety referred to as sanctuary, although no one has ever actually come back from sanctuary to tell about it. Unfortunately, most runners never get that far; instead, they are stalked and killed by the computer's police force, a privileged elite of human enforcers referred to as sandmen. Even if the reader hasn't seen Logan's Run, he or she will probably have already surmised that this false paradise will not endure, after the plot has had a chance to thicken. The snake in this case turns out to be the computer itself, which decides it will have to send a sandman out into the world beyond the city to find and destroy sanctuary, to end what it sees as a threat to its existence. To do so, it speeds up the "life clock" of the sandman Logan Five (played by Michael York), until he prematurely reaches the age of 30, and instructs him to run so the rebels will direct him to sanctuary. Once there, he is to destroy it. Perhaps in an effort to motivate Logan to run for his life, instead of staying in the hope that he can be reborn, the computer also reveals a truth to him that he had wondered about but never really believed: no one had ever been renewed in carousel. With a female companion named Jessica, who is a member of the rebel movement, Logan, the runner, will now go on a journey in which he will overcome a series of physical threats and challenges. He will also go through an internal change in which everything he once saw as positive will become abhorrent to him, and realities the computer had kept hidden will come into clear view. Complicating his journey will be another sandman and former friend -- Francis Seven -- who will follow him with the intent of executing him for being a runner.
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