Movie Gadget Friday: Robot Gunslinger from Westworld
posted May 27th 2005 6:25PM
For the last Movie Gadget Friday
Josie Fraser checked out the
reality revealing sunglasses from They Live.
For this week's installment she looks at the Robot Gunslinger from Westworld:Michael 'ER' Crichton wrote and directed 1973's Westworld, a classic example of the ever popular 'technology amok'
Sci-Fi genre. In terms of story and concept, it's a film few can match in originality. Many films owe a huge debt to
the story – including Predator, the Terminator series, and Crichton's own Jurassic Park. The film also had a massive
impact on kids of my generation – Yul providing an iconic vision of the automaton as frightening, sexy, and
relentless.
Set in some unspecified but very seventies looking future, Peter Martin (a luxuriously moustachioed Richard Benjamin)
and John Blane (James Brolin) head off on a thousand-dollar-a-day vacation to adult theme-park Delos. Delos consists of
three self–contained areas, each of which offers guests the opportunity to immerse themselves in historical fantasy:
Roman World (orgies), Medieval World (romantically framed sex and some fighting) and West world (fighting and some
sex). Scientists toil behind the scenes provide the rich holiday makers with an exciting (but actually closely
monitored and regulated) experience, populated by robots that are almost entirely designed for humans to kill and
copulate with.
Every night, when the humans are tucked up in bed, the robots are collected by truck to be cleaned and repaired in
huge labs populated by giant computers and white coated and masked technicians.
Yul Brynner plays a robotic reproduction of Yul Brynner
playing Chris from the Magnificent Seven. If this fantastic simulacra isn’t enough for you, Robot Gunslinger also has
ultrasonic hearing and magnified, infrared vision – demonstrated by the first ever use of computer generated imagery in
a film – Yul’s red tinted point-of-view shots. The script also contains one of the earliest uses of the concept of a
computer virus:
Scientist: I must confess, I find it difficult to believe in a disease of machinery.
Another scientist: We aren’t dealing with ordinary machines here. These are highly complicated pieces of equipment
almost as complicated as living organisms. In some cases, they’ve been designed by other computers. We don’t know
exactly how they work.
That movie made a pretty strong statement when it came out, I remember how "advanced" I thought it all looked at the time. M Chriton has put his mark on several generes with his earlier works
That movie made a pretty strong statement when it came out, I remember how "advanced" I thought it all looked at the time. M Chriton has put his mark on several generes with his earlier works
Why is it that anytime there is trouble with robots they are "designed by other computers" and the humans "don’t know exactly how they work."
Sheesh people in the future are dumb. :P
This movie of the week think from the mighty E is turning out to be better than I woul dhave thought. This film sound interesting...particularly since I am a fan of Michael Chrichton's work...
Launching WinMX...
Most humans don't know how their cell phone works :P
I love this movie, there, it had to be said.
One of my fave sci-fi movies. I'm still waiting for the sequel, "Futureworld" to come out on DVD.
This movie is basically two movies in one. The first half focuses on how the guests interact with the robots. The second half is a run-for-your-life-from-the-terminator plot that is surprisingly well done. It never gets old re-watching it. You can't say that about the endless chase scenes in Terminator or worse, T2.
Bit o' trivia: Majel Barrett-Roddenbury is the hostess in the saloon.
Does anyone care that this movie is actually called "Future World"? What the heck is going on in this world?!?
http://imdb.com/title/tt0074559/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxsbT01MDB8dHQ9b258ZmI9dXxwbj0wfHE9ZnV0dXJlIHdvcmxkfGh0bWw9MXxubT1vbg__;fc=5;ft=20;fm=1
I’m not what you think I am
I’m the king of Siam
I’ve got a bald head, my name is Yule Brenner, and I am a famous movie star
Perhaps you saw me in "West World"
I acted like a robotic cowboy
It was my best role, I can’t deny I feel better deep inside an electronic carcass
-- Stephen Malkmus
omg... whtf that is nice
"Does anyone care that this movie is actually called "Future World"? What the heck is going on in this world?!?"
No, no we don't care about that in the least. We are proud of our stupidity. We trumpet it on web pages for public consumption. For example, I think the film being discussed is actually Dark Victory, (not the one with Bette Davis, but the 1976 TV remake with Elizabeth Montgomery and Anthony Hopkins). That would explain the presence of Yul Brynner, which was Anthony Hopkins' stage name during his early career - before he made a name for himself playing Hannibal Lecter and could get away with using his own name (which is actually John Mellencamp), because that's what making a name for yourself means.
I hope that was helpful. As for what is going on in this world, a gradual decline into savagery and barbarism. Enjoy!
Westworld was the OG; FutureWorld was the sequel... sheesh.
This film FREAKED ME OUT when I was 6 or 7 (1974 or 1975) when it aired on TV. When they took their masks off-man it freaked me...
This bring back so many childhood memories. I remember hiding behind my parents sofa, in our tiny flat in Paris. I was in my really early teens. This movie was on playing on a sunday evening. I was so scared by Yul Brynner. I though he was great, and then under my little horified eyes, he was a nasty "ROBOT"(I didn't have any other word to describe it to my friends at school...). For many years after that, every time I watched him in the "King and I" or in "The Magnificient Seven", I was waiting for him to show some inside "cables"...I still do sometimes. Thank you for bringing back these memories to me by choosing this robot.
"(Do you believe in the) Westworld" by Theatre of Hate. Ah Kirk Brandon the face that launched a thousand haircuts, ex-lover of boy George of course. Hated that song
Pretty good movie though, saying Predator owes a lot to it might be stretching it a tad though, it surely wasn't the first lone stalker movie (Peck/Mitchum Cape Fear?? and probably earlier ones - not sci-fi tho'). I'd have gone to medieval world myself.