In anticipation for HBO's new sci-fi show of the same name, I decided to rewatch the original Westworld from 1973 to see if it holds up after time. And I'm happy to say that it really does.
The plot is pretty simple. There is a company called Talos that offers theme parks to the super rich to indulge all their fantasies and pleasures. The three parks are Romanworld, Medievalworld and Westernworld, the final of which our two heroes (Richard Benjamin and James Brolin) have come attend. The idea is simple: the parks are time-based themed areas (Roman, Medieval and the Wild West) that are as real as possible, staffed by ultra-intelligent robots. The robots can't hurt the guests, so the guests can indulge every dark passion. This movie was one of author/director Michael Crichton's (Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain) first movies. It follows the Crichton template that what initially seems to be one of the coolest things imaginable will inevitably break down with disastrous results. In this case, the park engineers are noticing the robots are all malfunctioning. At first the issues are annoying, robots falling down, acting erratically and such. But their erratic behavior gradually grows in intensity, such as a snake actually biting somebody or a robot refusing amorous advances from a guest. These glitches, growing in number and intensity, appear to be spreading like a disease (A...virus? This was 1973, after all, and malicious code wasn't really a thing yet). Eventually, the robots start killing the guests and park employees until our heroes end up running for their lives chased by a particularly psychotic gunslinger, played by Yul Brynner.
The only reason this movie doesn't get a four-star rating from me is that, in the end, the plot is a tad clunky and heavy-handed. This was one of the few, but great, sci-fi movies films that came out between 1969's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which moved sci-fi out of the campy 1950's, until Star Wars in 1977, when sci-fi's game was upped forever into the stratosphere. In that 8-year time frame, sci-fi was finding a new respectability as storytelling goes because of its metaphorical capacity to comment on society and trends, much as the original Star Trek did in the mid-1960's. The 1970's are full of great sci-fi: some amazing (A Clockwork Orange, Sleeper, Logan's Run, The Omega Man, Rollerball, Soylent Green), some campy but still relevant (Death Race 2000, Damnation Alley, any of The Planet of the Apes sequels) and some just downright "what the hell were they thinking" types (Zardoz). But the best thing thing about 1970's sci-fi is that it usually had something to say. Star Wars, as wonderful as it is, signaled the end of thinking sci-fi and ushered in an age of movie spectacle that we are now in, very flashy with little substance. With that said, the plot of Westworld is fairly by-the-numbers and clunky, but this was one of the movies that set the template for technology going amok and turning against us. A little clunkiness can be forgiven when you are the original.
But there is a lot to like about this film as well. The story is interesting and showed that Michael Crichton was not a fluke with his first effort, The Andromeda Strain. Westworld is thought-provoking and genuinely entertaining. Another thing I absolutely loved was that Yul Brynner essentially reprised his iconic western role from The Magnificent Seven from seven years before, down to the exact same costume. I don't know if it as meant to be or not, but it is a sly undermining of the western myth, nineteen years before Clint Eastwood would masterfully skewer his own persona in Unforgiven. And while I think Yul Brynner was miscast in The Magnificent Seven, he's perfect in this role. He is so unforgettable in his intensity and relentlessness at the end of the flick, that he would be mirrored by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger eleven years later in The Terminator, almost shot-for-shot. The other thing that makes this movie so great is its obvious impact on future designs of movies from Blade Runner, to The Terminator, to Total Recall and Robocop, to Ex Machina and HBO's new show of the same name. We have now come full circle, back to where we began, and it promises to be a fun ride.
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