Westworld

For the HBO TV series based on the film, see Westworld (TV series). For other uses, see Westworld (disambiguation).
Westworld

Theatrical release poster by Neal Adams
Directed by Michael Crichton
Produced by Paul Lazarus III
Written by Michael Crichton
Starring Yul Brynner
Richard Benjamin
James Brolin
Music by Fred Karlin
Cinematography Gene Polito
Edited by David Bretherton
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates
  • November 21, 1973 (1973-11-21)
Running time
 88 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $1,250,000[1]
Box office $10 million[2]

Westworld is a 1973 science fiction western-thriller film written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton and produced by Paul Lazarus III about amusement park robots that malfunction and begin killing visitors. It stars Yul Brynner as an android in a futuristic Western-themed amusement park, and Richard Benjamin and James Brolin as guests of the park.

Westworld was the first theatrical feature directed by Michael Crichton.[3] It was also the first feature film to use digital image processing, to pixellate photography to simulate an android point of view.[4] The film was nominated for Hugo, Nebula and Golden Scroll (a.k.a. Saturn) awards, and was followed by a sequel film, Futureworld, and a short-lived television series, Beyond Westworld. In August 2013, HBO announced plans for a television series based on the original film.

Plot

Sometime in the near future a high-tech, highly-realistic adult amusement park called Delos features three themed "worlds" — West World (the American Old West), Medieval World (medieval Europe), and Roman World (the pre-Christian city of Pompeii). The resort's three "worlds" are populated with lifelike androids that are practically indistinguishable from human beings, each programmed in character for their assigned historical environment. For $1,000 per day, guests may indulge in any adventure with the android population of the park, including sexual encounters and even a fight to the death, depending on the android model. Delos' tagline in its advertising promises "Boy, have we got a vacation for you!"

Peter Martin (Benjamin), a newly divorced lawyer and first time Delos visitor, and his friend John Blane (Brolin), who has vacationed at the park before, go to West World. One of the attractions in West World is the Gunslinger (Brynner), a robot programmed to instigate gunfights. The firearms issued to the park guests have temperature sensors that prevent them from shooting humans or anything with a high body temperature, but allow them to "kill" the "cold-blooded" androids. The Gunslinger's programming allows guests to outdraw and "kill" it, with the robot always returning the next day for another duel.

The technicians running Delos notice problems beginning to spread like an infection among the androids: the robots in Roman World and Medieval World begin experiencing an increasing number of breakdowns and systemic failures, which are said to have spread to West World. When one of the supervising computer scientists scoffs at the "analogy of an infectious disease," he is told by the Chief Supervisor (Alan Oppenheimer), "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."

The malfunctions become less peripheral and more central when a robotic rattlesnake succeeds in injuring Blane in West World, and, against its programming, an android refuses a guest's sexual advances in Medieval World. The failures escalate until Medieval World's Black Knight robot kills a guest in a swordfight. The resort's supervisors, in increasing desperation, try to regain control by shutting down power to the entire park. However, the shutdown traps them in Central Control when the doors automatically lock, unable to turn the power back on and escape. Meanwhile, the robots in all three worlds run amok, operating on reserve power.

Martin and Blane, passed out drunk after a bar-room brawl, wake up in West World's bordello, unaware of the park's massive breakdown. When the Gunslinger challenges the two men to a showdown, Blane treats the confrontation as an amusement until the robot outdraws, shoots and mortally wounds him. Martin runs for his life and the robot implacably follows, tracking him with its heightened senses, including infrared scanners.

Martin flees to the other areas of the park, but finds only dead guests, damaged robots, and a panicked technician attempting to escape Delos who is shortly thereafter shot by the Gunslinger. Martin climbs down through a manhole in Roman World into the underground control complex and discovers that the resort's computer technicians suffocated in the Control Room when the ventilation system shut down. The Gunslinger stalks him through the underground corridors. Ambushing it, Martin throws acid into its face and flees, returning to the surface inside the Medieval World castle.

With its optical inputs damaged by the acid, the Gunslinger is unable to track him visually and tries to find Martin using its infra-red scanners. Martin stands behind the flaming torches of the Great Hall to mask his presence from the robot, before setting it on fire with one. Hearing weak cries for help, Martin rescues a woman chained up in the dungeon, but he discovers "she" is an android when he tries to give her water and she short-circuits. The burned hulk of the Gunslinger attacks him one last time on the dungeon steps before succumbing to its damage. Martin sits on the dungeon steps in a state of near-exhaustion and shock, as the irony of Delos' slogan resonates: "Boy, have we got a vacation for you!"

Cast

Production

Script

Crichton said he did not wish to make his directorial debut with science fiction but, "That's the only way I could get the studio to let me direct. People think I'm good at it I guess."[2]

The script was written in August 1972 and was offered to all the major studios. They all turned down the project except for MGM, then under head of production Dan Melnick. Crichton:

MGM had a bad reputation among filmmakers; in recent years, directors as diverse as Robert Altman, Blake Edwards, Stanley Kubrick, Fred Zinneman and Sam Peckinpah had complained bitterly about their treatment there. There were too many stories of unreasonable pressure, arbitrary script changes, inadequate post production, and cavalier recutting of the final film. Nobody who had a choice made a picture at Metro, but then we didn't have a choice. Dan Melcnick... assured [us]... that we would not be subjected to the usual MGM treatment. In large part, he made good on that promise.[5]

Crichton said preproduction was difficult. MGM demanded script changes up to the first day of shooting and the leads were not signed until 48 hours before shooting began. Crichton said he had no control over casting[2] and MGM originally would only make the film for under a million dollars but later increased this amount by $250,000.[1] Crichton said that $250,000 of the budget went on the cast, $400,000 on crew and the remainder on everything else (including $75,000 for sets).[6]

Shooting

Westworld was filmed in several locations, including the Mojave Desert, the gardens of the Harold Lloyd Estate, several MGM sound stages and on the MGM backlot, one of the final films to be shot there.[3] It was filmed with Panavision anamorphic lenses by Gene Polito, A.S.C.

Richard Benjamin later said he loved making the film:

It probably was the only way I was ever going to get into a Western, and certainly into a science-fiction Western. It’s that old thing when actors come out here from New York. They say, “Can you ride a horse?” And you say, “Oh, sure,” and then they’ve got to go out quick and learn how to ride a horse. But I did know how to ride a horse! So you get to do stuff that’s like you’re 12 years old. All of the reasons you went to the movies in the first place. You’re out there firing a six-shooter, riding a horse, being chased by a gunman, and all of that. It’s the best! [Laughs.][7]

The Gunslinger's appearance is based on Chris Adams, Brynner's character from The Magnificent Seven. The two characters' costumes are nearly identical.[8]

In the scene when Richard Benjamin's character splashes the Gunslinger in the face with acid, Brynner's face was covered with an oil-based makeup mixed with ground Alka-Seltzer. A splash of water then produced the fizzing effect.

The score for Westworld was composed by American composer Fred Karlin. It combines ersatz western scoring, source cues, and electronic music.[9]

Crichton later wrote that since "most of the situations in the film are cliches; they are incidents out of hundreds of old movies" that the scenes "should be shot as cliches. This dictated a conventional treatment in the choice of lenses and the staging."[10]

The movie was shot in thirty days. In order to save time, Crichton camera-cut.[11]

The original script and original ending of the movie ended in a fight between Martin and the gunslinger which resulted in the gunslinger being torn apart by a rack. Crichton said he "had liked the idea of a complex machine being destroyed by a simple machine" but when attempting it felt "it seemed stagey and foolish" so the idea was dropped.[12] He also wanted to open the film with shots of a hovercraft travelling over the desert, but was unable to get the effect he wanted so this was dropped as well.[12]

Post-production

In the movie's novelization, Crichton explained how he re-edited the first cut of the movie because he was depressed by how long and boring it was. Scenes which were deleted from rough cut include a bank robbery and sales room sequences; an opening with a hovercraft flying above the desert; additional and longer dialogue scenes; more scenes with robots attacking and killing guests, including a scene where one guest is tied down to a rack and is killed when his arms are pulled out; a longer chase scene with the Gunslinger chasing Peter; and one where the Gunslinger cleans his face with water after Peter throws acid on him. Crichton's assembly cut featured a different ending which included a fight between Gunslinger and Peter, and an alternate death scene in which the Gunslinger was killed on a rack.[13]

A Yul Brynner biography mentions that 10 minutes of "adult material" was cut because of the censors (probably for PG rating), but no details about footage that was cut for rating issues were mentioned in Brynner's biography or anywhere else.

Once the film was completed, MGM authorized the shooting of some extra footage. A TV commercial to open the film was added; because there was a writers strike in Hollywood at the time, this was written by Steven Frankfurt, a New York advertising executive.[14]

Digital image processing

Westworld was the first feature film to use digital image processing. Crichton originally went to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, but after learning that two minutes of animation would take nine months and cost $200,000, he contacted John Whitney Sr., who in turn recommended his son John Whitney Jr. The latter went to Information International, Inc., where they could work at night and complete the animation both faster and much cheaper.[15] John Whitney, Jr. digitally processed motion picture photography at Information International, Inc. to appear pixelized in order to portray the Gunslinger android's point of view.[4] The approximately 2 minutes and 31 seconds worth of cinegraphic block portraiture was accomplished by color-separating (three basic color separations plus black mask) each frame of source 70 mm film images, scanning each of these elements to convert into rectangular blocks, then adding basic color according to the tone values developed.[16] The resulting coarse pixel matrix was output back to film.[17] The process was covered in the American Cinematographer article "Behind the scenes of Westworld"[18] and in a 2013 New Yorker online article.[19]

Release

Box office

The film was a financial success, earning $4 million in rentals in the US and Canada rentals by the end of 1973[20] becoming MGM's biggest box office success of that year.[2] After a re-release by 1976 it earned $7,365,000.[21]

Book tie-in

Crichton's original screenplay was released as a mass-market paperback in conjunction with the film.[22]

Critical reception

Variety magazine described the film as excellent and that it "combines solid entertainment, chilling topicality, and superbly intelligent serio-comic story values".[23]

The film has a rating of 86% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 35 reviews.[24] Reviewing the DVD release in September 2008, The Daily Telegraph reviewer Philip Horne described the film as a "richly suggestive, bleakly terrifying fable — and Brynner's performance is chillingly pitch-perfect."[25]

American Film Institute lists

After making the film, Crichton took a year off. "I was intensely fatigued by Westworld," he said later. "I was pleased but intimidated by the audience reaction... The laughs are in the wrong places. There was extreme tension where I hadn't planned it. I felt the reaction, and maybe the picture, was out of control."[2]

For him the picture marked the end of "about five years of science fiction/monster pictures for me".[2] He took a break from the genre and wrote The Great Train Robbery.

Crichton did not make a film for another five years. He did try, and had one set up "but I insisted on a certain way of doing it and as a result it was never made."[29]

Network TV airings

Westworld was first aired on NBC television on 28 February 1976.[30] The network aired a slightly longer version of the film than was shown theatrically or subsequently released on home video. Some of the extra scenes that were added for the US TV version are:

Legacy

A sequel to Westworld, Futureworld, was filmed in 1976, and released by American International Pictures, rather than MGM. Only Yul Brynner returned from the original cast to reprise his Gunslinger character. Four years later, in 1980, the CBS television network aired a short-lived television series, Beyond Westworld, expanding on the concepts and plot of the second film with new characters. Its poor ratings caused it to be canceled after only three of the five episodes aired.

Crichton used similar plot elements - a high-tech amusement park running amok and a central control paralyzed by a power failure - in his bestselling novel Jurassic Park.

Westworld contains one of the earliest references to a computer virus, and the first mention of the concept of a computer virus in a movie. The analogy is made by the Chief Supervisor in a staff meeting where the spread of malfunctions across the park is discussed.[31]

Beginning in 2007, trade publications reported that a Westworld remake starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was in production, and would be written by Terminator 3 screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Bracanto.[32][33][34] Tarsem Singh was originally slated to direct, but has since left the project. Quentin Tarantino was approached, but turned it down.[35] On January 19, 2011, Warner Bros announced that plans for the remake were still active.[36]

In August 2013, it was announced that HBO had ordered a pilot for a Westworld TV series which will be produced by J.J. Abrams, Jonathan Nolan, and Jerry Weintraub. Nolan and his wife Lisa Joy will write and executive produce the series and Nolan will direct the pilot episode.[37] Production is set to begin in Summer 2014 [38] in Los Angeles.[39]

See also


References

  1. 1 2 Crichton p x
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Author of 'Terminal Man' Building Nonterminal Career: CRICHTON GELMIS, JOSEPH. Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File) [Los Angeles, Calif] 04 Jan 1974: d12.
  3. 1 2 "Westworld". Tcm.com. Retrieved 2012-04-29.
  4. 1 2 A Brief, Early History of Computer Graphics in Film, Larry Yaeger, 16 Aug 2002 (last update), retrieved 24 March 2010
  5. ↑ Crichton p ix
  6. ↑ Crichton p x-xi
  7. ↑ "Richard Benjamin on Peter O’Toole, celebrity treasure hunts, and Woody Allen" By Nathan Rabin AC Club Nov 15, 2012 accessed 18 June 2014
  8. ↑ Friedman, Lester D. (2007). American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations. Camden: Rutgers University Press. p. 100. ISBN 0-8135-4023-2.
  9. ↑ "Film Score Monthly CD: Coma/Westworld/The Carey Treatment". Filmscoremonthly.com. Retrieved 2012-04-29.
  10. ↑ Crichton p xiii
  11. ↑ Crichton p xvi
  12. 1 2 Crichton p xix
  13. ↑ http://www.putlearningfirst.com/br/westworldshoot.html
  14. ↑ Crichton p xvii
  15. ↑ The Whitney Family: Pioneers in Computer Animation - Tested
  16. ↑ "Ed Manning BlocPix". Atariarchives.org. Retrieved 2014-02-28.
  17. ↑ Chapter 4: A HISTORY OF COMPUTER ANIMATION 3/20/92 (note that this article is in error about the year the film was made)
  18. ↑ American Cinematographer 54(11):1394-1397, 1420-1421, 1436-1437. November 1973.
  19. ↑ "How Michael Crichton's 'Westworld' Pioneered Modern Special Effects", David A. Price, newyorker.com, May 16, 2013
  20. ↑ "Big Rental Films of 1973", Variety, 9 Jan 1974 p19
  21. ↑ "All-time Film Rental Champs", Variety, 7 January 1976 p 44
  22. ↑ Michael Crichton (Author). "Amazon Listing for Westworld". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2014-02-28.
  23. ↑ Variety staff (1 January 1973). "Westworld". Variety (magazine). Retrieved 14 November 2013.
  24. ↑ "Westworld (1973)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 24 June 2010.
  25. ↑ Philip Horne (20 September 2008). "Westworld: DVD of the week review". The Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved 24 June 2010.
  26. ↑ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-02-28.
  27. ↑ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-02-28.
  28. ↑ American Film Institute. "AFI's 10 Top 10 Ballot" (PDF). Afi.com. Retrieved 2014-02-28.
  29. ↑ "Director Michael Crichton Films a Favorite Novelist" by Michael Owen. The New York Times (1923-Current file) [New York, N.Y] 28 January 1979: D17.
  30. ↑ "TV Tango Saturday Night Movies Broadcast Date for Westworld". Retrieved 2014-06-14.
  31. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070909/synopsis: IMDB synopsis of Westworld. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
  32. ↑ "Westworld Headed Back To Screen". Empire (magazine). 12 August 2005. Retrieved 24 June 2010.
  33. ↑ Michael Fleming (13 March 2002). "Arnold back for 'Westworld,' 'Conan' redos". Variety (magazine). Retrieved 24 June 2010.
  34. ↑ Sci-Fi Wire: Billy Ray Talks Westworld Remake, June 2007
  35. ↑ Hostel: Part II DVD commentary track.
  36. ↑ Kit, Borys. "EXCLUSIVE: 'Lethal Weapon,' 'Wild Bunch' Reboots Revived After Warner Bros. Exec Shuffle". The Hollywood Reporter.
  37. ↑ Hertzfeld, Laura (August 30, 2013). "HBO orders 'Westworld' adaptation from J.J. Abrams". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
  38. ↑ Fienberg, David. "Press Tour: July 2014 HBO Executive Session Live-Blog". Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  39. ↑ Laratonda, Ryanne. "LOS ANGELES FILM & TV PRODUCTION LISTINGS". Retrieved July 2, 2014.

External links

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