After HBO’s mind-blowing adaptation, revisiting the original Westworld is simpler fun. Michael Crichton imagines robotics as a theme park and the robots inevitably run amok. It limits the scope to a contained environment, where The Terminator would speculate that A.I. will actually destroy all of humanity. Crichton seemed to know that we’d more likely use A.I. to entertain ourselves, like making clips of Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt.
Where HBO took four seasons to explore the world in and beyond Westworld, the film gets in and out in a lean 90 minutes. The 4K UHD captures the ‘70s aesthetic, with the beige arrival from the modern world muted compared to the lavish old western town more akin to The Magnificent Seven (also starring Yul Brynner) or The Searchers, then recent entries in the genre.
Like those movies, the night shrouds the town in deep night darkness only this time it’s silhouettes of the cleanup crews gathering “dead” robots to reboot the next day. The western town also contrasts with the Delos control rooms, full of old computers spinning reel-to-reel tape and monitors with green text. Glimpses of Medieval World brings color to the 4K.
Stars James Brolin and Richard Benjamin give new interviews, but producer Paul N. Lazarus III has the reel dirt. Lazarus tells us about Crichton cutting in camera to effectively give himself final cut, Brynner’s desperation and taste in $400 wine, and Crichton was apparently into goth girls.
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’s video essay really delves into political and sexual politics of Westworld. I wouldn’t have connected it to Death Wish but it makes sense.
It’s nice to have the pilot but Beyond Westworld is more convoluted than the HBO show if you can believe that. It looks good as an 80s drama shot on film, but I won’t be seeking the rest of the series.
The new commentary by Daniel Kremer explains the roller coaster history of MGM by the time they made Westworld. Having lived through the ‘90s through ’05 and now the Amazon era, it only got crazier.