Westworld
Westworld. Written by Michael Crichton. Directed by Michael Crichton. Paul N. Lazarus III, 1973 [1976].
VIEW CONTEXT: WCKT Channel 7 (Miami) • NBC (plus inside Famous Monsters and other magazines)
VIEW DATE: February 28, 1976 [verified]
AWARD: Best Sci-Fi idea in History. This is such a great idea, just thinking about the idea in a short sentence—just grabbing the crux of the idea—is pleasing.
I’ve probably mentioned this elsewhere but my mom dated Yule Brenner in 1955.
This movie is about an amusement park. Full of really sophisticated animatronic humans. Including (as the poster teases) ones made for sex. Las Vegas-style satisfaction is the suggestion.
But as a kid—can you imagine? Pirate World! Halloween World! God! To hang out with the Universal Classic Monsters a la KISS in Westworld! Can you imagine? So it really is paradise.
The great horror is when Yule’s face drops off and you see the raw computer hardware there. That was terrifying and then, later, exciting, since it points to both immortality and longevity, improved health, limb and organ replacement, and so on. But mostly it was scary.
What makes it less than maximally scary is the fact that we already know that Yule is a robot. Like Mary leaving the room and seeing red for the first time, nothing new is in fact learned.
- CGI.
- The “how the robot sees things” POV shot.
First CGI scene in movie history:
All two of Yule’s “Behind the Face, the Computer” scenes in one video:
Surprisingly sad scene: