Given my obsession with late 60s, early 70s man vs. machine films, I thought I'd use this post to pay homage to one of the lesser known ones, called "Westworld" (based on a Michael Crighton work). Now, technically, it's basically a B-movie with an interesting premise: people have created the ultimate vacation getaway ("Delos"), which is staffed (I guess you'd call them "staff") by robots who, gosh darnit, look just like people, so no one knows for sure who's human and who's mechanical, but that's alright because this is a technological utopia...right? (cue ominous music). I realize that having actors walk around in period costumes to play the robots saved a bundle on any kind of special effects, but I actually think that move is what makes the film much creepier. Still, it plays on that predictable idea of what kind of hell-on-earth ensues when we put too much faith in technology and give far too much of our agency over to it and let it run amok. Completely unlike "The Forbin Project," where the tech is clunky and obvious and loud and terrifying, "Westworld" portrayed the tech as silent, invisible, and trustworthy--until it breaks down (and the breakdowns make for some amusing scenes, such as when a young, attractive female robot "malfunctions" and slaps a rather rotund, balding middle aged male tourist who's trying to make advances on her).
More importantly, though, this was the first film to use any kind of advanced (though primitive by today's standards) CGI techniques--those mainly relate to the parts of the film where you are supposed to be seeing everything through robot-Yul Brynner's eyes and everything gets all pixilated and grainy. So, in that sense, hooray for Westworld.
I can't find an actual clip of what I'm talking about, but here's the trailer:
Hello world!
5 years ago
