Westworld

"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 have been designed by other computers. We don't know exactly how they work." - chief supervisor

release year: 1973
genre: science fiction
viewing setting: home Bluray 12/13/22 and 2/9/18

synopsis: In the near-future, a super-realistic amusement park lets guests do whatever they want, thanks to sophisticated robots...until something goes wrong.

impressions: This was part fun drama, part science-fiction, and part action movie. All is well until glitches cause the robots to become homidical (for reasons that aren't ever really explained, other than that it was apparently inevitable) and then all hell breaks loose. This movie (written and directed by Michael Crichton, who was also responsible for the novel that became Jurassic Park as well as several others) shares that same basic theme: technology gone wrong.

acting: James Brolin is one of the pair of main characters, friends who come to the park for some recreation. He's the tough, aggressive one. Richard Benjamin is the wimpier of the two, who must learn to be tough pretty quickly. Yul Brynner is the robot gunslinger, and is pretty creepy at times. A few minor roles with familiar faces: Alan Oppenheimer (who played Rudy Wells for most of The Six Million Dollar Man is the lead technician here, and Majel Barrett (who played Nurse Chapel in the original Star Trek series) is a robotic bordello madam here.

final word: Interesting old-school sci-fi.

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