Westworld
Encyclopedia
Westworld is a 1973 science fiction
-thriller film written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton
and produced by Paul Lazarus III. It stars Yul Brynner
as a lifelike robot in a futuristic Western
-themed amusement park, and Richard Benjamin
and James Brolin
as guests of the park.
Westworld was the last movie MGM produced before dissolving its releasing company, and was the first theatrical feature directed by Crichton. It was also the first feature film to use digital image processing to pixellate photography to simulate an android point of view. The film was nominated for Hugo
, Nebula
and Golden Scroll (a.k.a. Saturn) awards, and was followed by a sequel film, Futureworld
, and a short-lived television series, Beyond Westworld
.
called Delos
features androids that are almost indistinguishable from human beings. For $1,000 per day, guests may indulge in any fantasy, including killing or having sex with the androids. Delos' tagline in its advertising promises "Have we got a vacation for you!" The androids are programmed to act in character for each of the park's three themed "worlds" — WestWorld (the American Old West
), MedievalWorld (medieval Europe), and RomanWorld (pre-Christian Rome
). One of the attractions in WestWorld is the Gunslinger
(Brynner), a robot programmed to start duels. Thanks to its programming, humans can always outdraw the Gunslinger and kill it. The guns issued to the guests also have temperature sensors that prevent them from shooting each other or anything else living, but allow them to "kill" the room-temperature androids.
Peter Martin (Benjamin), a first-timer, and his friend John Blane (Brolin), who has visited previously, visit WestWorld. Gradually, the technicians running Delos begin to notice problems spreading like an infection among the androids
: the robots in MedievalWorld begin suffering an inexplicable number of systemic failures, a robot rattlesnake bites Blane, and against its programming, an android refuses a guest's sexual advances. The failures increase until the robotic Black Knight
kills a guest in a sword fight in MedievalWorld. The resort's supervisors, in increasing desperation, try to regain control by shutting down power to the entire park, but this traps them in the control rooms, unable to turn the power back on while the robots run amok on stored power.
Martin and Blane, passed out drunk after a bar-room brawl, wake up in the WestWorld bordello, unaware of the breakdown. When the Gunslinger challenges the two men to a showdown, Blane treats the confrontation as a typical amusement until the robot shoots and kills him. Martin runs for his life as the robot implacably follows him.
Martin flees to the other areas of the park, but finds only a panicky fleeing technician, dead guests and damaged robots. He climbs down through a manhole to the underground control area, where the resort's technicians have suffocated since the ventilation shut down. As the Gunslinger stalks Martin through the corridors, he throws acid into its face and sets fire to it with a torch. He also finds a woman chained up in the dungeon
, but she turns out to be an android. Finally, the burned hulk of the Gunslinger attacks him one last time before succumbing to its damage. The film ends as Martin, apparently the sole human survivor, sits down on the dungeon steps in a state of near-exhaustion and shock, as the irony of Delos' slogan resonates: "Have we got a vacation for you!"
, the gardens of the Harold Lloyd Estate
, and several sound stage
s at MGM. It was shot with Panavision
anamorphic lenses by Gene Polito
, A.S.C.
The Gunslinger's appearance is based on Chris Adams, Brynner's character from The Magnificent Seven
. The two characters' costumes are nearly identical.
In the scene when Richard Benjamin's character splashes The Gunslinger in the face with acid, Brynner's face was covered with an oil-based makeup mixed with ground Alka-Seltzer
. A splash of water then produced the fizzing effect.
The score for Westworld was composed by American composer Fred Karlin
. It combines ersatz
western scoring, source cues, and electronic music
.
. John Whitney, Jr. and Gary Demos at Information International, Inc.
digitally processed motion picture photography to appear pixelized
in order to portray the Gunslinger android's point of view
. The approximately 2 minutes and 31 seconds worth of cinegraphic block portraiture was accomplished by color-separating (three basic color separations plus black mask) each frame of source 70 mm film images, scanning each of these elements to convert into rectangular blocks, then adding basic color according to the tone values developed. The resulting coarse pixel matrix was output back to film. The process was covered in the American Cinematographer
article Behind the scenes of Westworld.
television in 1975. The network aired a slightly longer version of the film than was shown theatrically or subsequently released on home video. One added scene shows a brief fly-by shot of the hovercraft zooming just a few feet above the desert floor. Previously, all scenes involving the hovercraft were interior shots only. Another additional scene later in the film features a guest in MedievalWorld being subjected to a torture rack.
described the film as excellent and that it "combines solid entertainment, chilling topicality, and superbly intelligent serio-comic story values".
The film has a rating of 87% at Rotten Tomatoes
. Reviewing the DVD release in September 2008, The Daily Telegraph
reviewer Philip Horne described the film as a "richly suggestive, bleakly terrifying fable — and Brynner's performance is chillingly pitch-perfect."
American Film Institute
Lists
, was filmed in 1976, with only Brynner returning from the original cast to reprise his Gunslinger character. Four years later, in 1980, the CBS
television network aired a short-lived television series, Beyond Westworld
, expanding on the concepts and plot of the first film with new characters. Its poor ratings caused it to be canceled after only three of the five episodes aired.
, with Tarsem Singh
directing and Terminator 3 screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Bracanto to write the script.
The remake was still in development as of 2007, but a director was not attached to the film. Quentin Tarantino
was approached, but turned it down.
On January 19, 2011, Warner Bros announced that a Westworld remake was still happening.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
-thriller film written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton
John Michael Crichton , best known as Michael Crichton, was an American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...
and produced by Paul Lazarus III. It stars Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...
as a lifelike robot in a futuristic Western
American Old West
The American Old West, or the Wild West, comprises the history, geography, people, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century...
-themed amusement park, and Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of productions, including Goodbye, Columbus , based on the novella by Philip Roth, and Westworld .-Life and career:...
and James Brolin
James Brolin
James Brolin is an American actor, producer and director, best known for his roles in soap operas, movies, sitcoms, and television. He is the father of actor Josh Brolin and husband of singer/actress Barbra Streisand.-Early life:...
as guests of the park.
Westworld was the last movie MGM produced before dissolving its releasing company, and was the first theatrical feature directed by Crichton. It was also the first feature film to use digital image processing to pixellate photography to simulate an android point of view. The film was nominated for Hugo
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
, Nebula
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
and Golden Scroll (a.k.a. Saturn) awards, and was followed by a sequel film, Futureworld
Futureworld
Futureworld is a 1976 sequel to the 1973 science fiction film Westworld. It was written by George Schenk and Mayo Simon, and directed by Richard T. Heffron. The cast included Peter Fonda, Blythe Danner, and Arthur Hill. There is also a cameo appearance by Yul Brynner in a dream sequence...
, and a short-lived television series, Beyond Westworld
Beyond Westworld
Beyond Westworld is a short-lived 1980 television series that carried on the stories of the two feature films, Westworld and Futureworld. It features Jim McMullan as Security Chief John Moore of the Delos Corporation. The story revolves around John Moore having to stop the evil scientist, Quaid, as...
.
Plot
Sometime in the near future a high-tech, highly realistic adult amusement parkAmusement park
thumb|Cinderella Castle in [[Magic Kingdom]], [[Disney World]]Amusement and theme parks are terms for a group of entertainment attractions and rides and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people...
called Delos
Delos
The island of Delos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece...
features androids that are almost indistinguishable from human beings. For $1,000 per day, guests may indulge in any fantasy, including killing or having sex with the androids. Delos' tagline in its advertising promises "Have we got a vacation for you!" The androids are programmed to act in character for each of the park's three themed "worlds" — WestWorld (the American Old West
American Old West
The American Old West, or the Wild West, comprises the history, geography, people, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century...
), MedievalWorld (medieval Europe), and RomanWorld (pre-Christian Rome
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
). One of the attractions in WestWorld is the Gunslinger
Gunslinger
Gunfighter, also gunslinger , is a 20th century word, used in cinema or literature, referring to men in the American Old West who had gained a reputation as being dangerous with a gun...
(Brynner), a robot programmed to start duels. Thanks to its programming, humans can always outdraw the Gunslinger and kill it. The guns issued to the guests also have temperature sensors that prevent them from shooting each other or anything else living, but allow them to "kill" the room-temperature androids.
Peter Martin (Benjamin), a first-timer, and his friend John Blane (Brolin), who has visited previously, visit WestWorld. Gradually, the technicians running Delos begin to notice problems spreading like an infection among the androids
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...
: the robots in MedievalWorld begin suffering an inexplicable number of systemic failures, a robot rattlesnake bites Blane, and against its programming, an android refuses a guest's sexual advances. The failures increase until the robotic Black Knight
Black Knight
The black knight is a literary stock character, often contrasted with the white knight. The character famously appeared in Arthurian literature and has been adapted and adopted by various authors, in cinema and popular culture...
kills a guest in a sword fight in MedievalWorld. The resort's supervisors, in increasing desperation, try to regain control by shutting down power to the entire park, but this traps them in the control rooms, unable to turn the power back on while the robots run amok on stored power.
Martin and Blane, passed out drunk after a bar-room brawl, wake up in the WestWorld bordello, unaware of the breakdown. When the Gunslinger challenges the two men to a showdown, Blane treats the confrontation as a typical amusement until the robot shoots and kills him. Martin runs for his life as the robot implacably follows him.
Martin flees to the other areas of the park, but finds only a panicky fleeing technician, dead guests and damaged robots. He climbs down through a manhole to the underground control area, where the resort's technicians have suffocated since the ventilation shut down. As the Gunslinger stalks Martin through the corridors, he throws acid into its face and sets fire to it with a torch. He also finds a woman chained up in the dungeon
Dungeon
A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period...
, but she turns out to be an android. Finally, the burned hulk of the Gunslinger attacks him one last time before succumbing to its damage. The film ends as Martin, apparently the sole human survivor, sits down on the dungeon steps in a state of near-exhaustion and shock, as the irony of Delos' slogan resonates: "Have we got a vacation for you!"
Production
Westworld was filmed in several locations, including the Mojave DesertMojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
, the gardens of the Harold Lloyd Estate
Harold Lloyd Estate
The Harold Lloyd Estate, also known as Greenacres, is a large mansion and landscaped estate located in the Benedict Canyon section of Beverly Hills, California. Built in the latter 1920s by silent film star Harold Lloyd, it remained Lloyd's home until his death in 1971. The estate originally...
, and several sound stage
Sound stage
In common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
s at MGM. It was shot with Panavision
Panavision
Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product...
anamorphic lenses by Gene Polito
Gene Polito
Eugene "Gene" Emmanuel Polito was an American cinematographer, mechanical engineer and academic. His numerous of film and television credits included Futureworld, Up in Smoke and Lost in Space....
, A.S.C.
American Society of Cinematographers
The American Society of Cinematographers is an educational, cultural, and professional organization. It is not a labor union, and it is not a guild. Membership is by invitation and is extended only to directors of photography and special effects experts with distinguished credits in the film...
The Gunslinger's appearance is based on Chris Adams, Brynner's character from The Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven is an American Western film directed by John Sturges, and released in 1960. It is a fictional tale of a group of seven American gunmen who are hired to protect a small agricultural village in Mexico from a group of marauding Mexican bandits...
. The two characters' costumes are nearly identical.
In the scene when Richard Benjamin's character splashes The Gunslinger in the face with acid, Brynner's face was covered with an oil-based makeup mixed with ground Alka-Seltzer
Alka-Seltzer
Alka-Seltzer is an effervescent antacid and pain reliever first marketed by the Dr. Miles Medicine Company. It was developed by Treneer in Elkhart Indiana. Alka-Seltzer is marketed for relief of minor aches, pains, inflammation, fever, headache, heartburn, sour stomach, indigestion, and hangovers,...
. A splash of water then produced the fizzing effect.
The score for Westworld was composed by American composer Fred Karlin
Fred Karlin
Fred Karlin was an American composer of more than one hundred scores for feature films and television movies. He also was an accomplished trumpeter adept at playing jazz, blues, classical, rock, and medieval music....
. It combines ersatz
Ersatz
Ersatz means 'substituting for, and typically inferior in quality to', e.g. 'chicory is ersatz coffee'. It is a German word literally meaning substitute or replacement...
western scoring, source cues, and electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
.
Digital image processing
Westworld was the first feature film to use digital image processingDigital image processing
Digital image processing is the use of computer algorithms to perform image processing on digital images. As a subcategory or field of digital signal processing, digital image processing has many advantages over analog image processing...
. John Whitney, Jr. and Gary Demos at Information International, Inc.
Information International, Inc.
Information International, Inc., commonly referred to as Triple-I or III, was an early computer technology company; Founded by Edward Fredkin in 1962 in Maynard, Massachusetts. It then moved to Santa Monica, Culver City, and Los Angeles California. Triple-I merged with Autologic, Inc. in 1996...
digitally processed motion picture photography to appear pixelized
Pixelization
Pixelization is a video- and image-editing technique in which an image is blurred by displaying part or all of it at a markedly lower resolution. It is primarily used for censorship...
in order to portray the Gunslinger android's point of view
Perspective (cognitive)
Perspective in theory of cognition is the choice of a context or a reference from which to sense, categorize, measure or codify experience, cohesively forming a coherent belief, typically for comparing with another...
. The approximately 2 minutes and 31 seconds worth of cinegraphic block portraiture was accomplished by color-separating (three basic color separations plus black mask) each frame of source 70 mm film images, scanning each of these elements to convert into rectangular blocks, then adding basic color according to the tone values developed. The resulting coarse pixel matrix was output back to film. The process was covered in the American Cinematographer
American Cinematographer
American Cinematographer is a monthly magazine published by the American Society of Cinematographers.American Cinematographer focuses on the art and craft of cinematography, going behind the scenes on domestic and international productions of all shapes and sizes...
article Behind the scenes of Westworld.
Distribution
Crichton's original screenplay was released as a mass-market paperback in conjunction with the film.Network airings
Westworld was first aired on NBCNBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
television in 1975. The network aired a slightly longer version of the film than was shown theatrically or subsequently released on home video. One added scene shows a brief fly-by shot of the hovercraft zooming just a few feet above the desert floor. Previously, all scenes involving the hovercraft were interior shots only. Another additional scene later in the film features a guest in MedievalWorld being subjected to a torture rack.
Reception
Variety magazineVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
described the film as excellent and that it "combines solid entertainment, chilling topicality, and superbly intelligent serio-comic story values".
The film has a rating of 87% at Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Reviewing the DVD release in September 2008, The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
reviewer Philip Horne described the film as a "richly suggestive, bleakly terrifying fable — and Brynner's performance is chillingly pitch-perfect."
American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
Lists
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills - Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
- Robot Gunslinger - Nominated Villain
- AFI's 10 Top 10AFI's 10 Top 10AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
- Nominated Science Fiction Film
Sequel
A sequel to Westworld, FutureworldFutureworld
Futureworld is a 1976 sequel to the 1973 science fiction film Westworld. It was written by George Schenk and Mayo Simon, and directed by Richard T. Heffron. The cast included Peter Fonda, Blythe Danner, and Arthur Hill. There is also a cameo appearance by Yul Brynner in a dream sequence...
, was filmed in 1976, with only Brynner returning from the original cast to reprise his Gunslinger character. Four years later, in 1980, the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
television network aired a short-lived television series, Beyond Westworld
Beyond Westworld
Beyond Westworld is a short-lived 1980 television series that carried on the stories of the two feature films, Westworld and Futureworld. It features Jim McMullan as Security Chief John Moore of the Delos Corporation. The story revolves around John Moore having to stop the evil scientist, Quaid, as...
, expanding on the concepts and plot of the first film with new characters. Its poor ratings caused it to be canceled after only three of the five episodes aired.
Remake
A remake was speculated to star Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
, with Tarsem Singh
Tarsem Singh
Tarsem Dhandwar Singh , known professionally as Tarsem, is an Indian director who has worked on films, music videos, and commercials.- Life and career :...
directing and Terminator 3 screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Bracanto to write the script.
The remake was still in development as of 2007, but a director was not attached to the film. Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
was approached, but turned it down.
On January 19, 2011, Warner Bros announced that a Westworld remake was still happening.