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Westworld (1974)

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 12, 2015 10:28 pm    Post subject: Westworld (1974) Reply with quote

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Westworld, Romanworld, and Medievalworld are three sections of a hi-tech theme park in a future age when robots can be made to look exactly like real people (right down to the working sexual organs).

Park visitors can indulge their fantasies by pretending to be cowboys, Roman citizens, royalty in Olde England, etc. James Brolin and Richard Benjamin are two guest who chose the Westworld section and experience realistic bar room brawls, sex with lovely (robot) saloon girls, and fake shoot-outs with gun??fighter robots.

Yul Brynner plays a black-clad gunfighter who dutifully challenges Brolin and Benjamin to several showdowns in the street. Unbeknowst to the park's technical staff, a computer virus has infected the master computer. The computer causes the robots to go berserk and murder the quests.

Benjamin survives and flees to Medieval??world, but Brynner doggedly pursues him, tracking Benjamin with his infrared vision, eventually corner the man.

"Westworld" is based on a fine concept, but it isn't given the treatment it deserves. The sets, props, and general appearance provided by writer-director Michael Crichton makes it look just a bit to much like a made-for-TV movie.

On the flip side, the casting of Yul Brynner (star of "The Magnificent Seven") was a masterful touch. Brynner even wears the same outfit he had in "The Magnificent Seven".

Just think: if a theme park like Westworld ever becomes a reality, the designers will probably build a "Yul Brynner" robot to go with it!

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Last edited by Bud Brewster on Tue Sep 20, 2022 12:44 pm; edited 7 times in total
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Krel
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 12, 2015 11:06 pm    Post subject: Re: Westworld (1974) Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
"Westworld" is based on a fine concept, but it isn't given the treatment it deserves. The sets, props, and general appearance provided by writer-director Michael Crichton makes it look just a bit to much like a made-for-TV movie.

MGM only gave Michael Crichton a budget of... ONE MILLION DOLLARS! I think back then, some tv movies had a higher budget. I think he did pretty good, with what they gave him. I wonder how much the digitized image of the robot vision cost?

They keep threatening to remake this movie, and I believe they are doing a new cable tv series based on it.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 9:28 pm    Post subject: Re: Westworld (1974) Reply with quote

Krel wrote:
MGM only gave Michael Crichton a budget of... ONE MILLION DOLLARS! I think back then, some tv movies had a higher budget.

Another case of the Hollywood suits wanting to put a nickle into the movie-making slot machine and hit the jackpot.

Morons must grow on trees out there on the West Coast.

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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 9:49 pm    Post subject: Re: Westworld (1974) Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
Morons must grow on trees out there on the West Coast.

Hey!
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Bogmeister
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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_____________________ Westworld (1973)

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From the prolific Michael Crichton, an early look at how technology — the advancement of such — may have detrimental effects on society, the paradox to the supposed benefits. The new technology simply empowers the populace to new levels of decadence. Crichton's The Andromeda Strain was made into a film a couple of years earlier; for this, Crichton was able to write & direct it himself, as his first film.

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The story focuses on two typical citizens (played by Richard Benjamin & James Brolin) who arrive at the adult amusement park of the future. The park, Delos, is divided into 3 sections or themes: Roman World, Medieval World and . . . Westworld. Each section recreates these past eras, using human-looking robots to interact with the guests.

The two main characters have selected Westworld to romp in. Benjamin is the newbie; Brolin has been there before. Their first moment of real excitement is a confrontation with a sinister gunslinger (Yul Brynner). Of course, there's no real danger for the guests. Well . . . until now. Technology — a two-edged sword?

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I have the original paperback novelization of Westworld from the same year it was released. Of course, it's not really a novelization, just the screenplay in paperback format. Michael Crichton, the writer & director, found that he couldn't work out an actual novel of the story. He includes a preface, titled "Shooting Westworld," in which he explains, in one paragraph, the 'Made-for-TV' look which some find pedestrian.


Quote:
In all our planning, my overriding concern was to avoid a bizarre, science fiction appearance to the film. The story was strange and certainly suggested a strange treatment; I could easily imagine using wide-angle lenses, eccentric compositions, and disorienting cutting patterns. I decided to shoot the film straight, playing against the strangeness instead of emphasizing it.



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Krel
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 8:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tried watching this yesterday. I say tried, because TCM in my area was very glitchy. The image would freeze, then resume two or three seconds later. This was for all the movies.

But I did notice something. Leaving the hovercraft, they board an elevator. The panel in the elevator was the elevator panel in U.N.C.L.E. HQ from "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."! They just added HOVERCRAFT over the top floor. It is a very simple, but distinctive design.

All the times I've seen the movie, and I never noticed it before.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 03, 2020 9:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Krel wrote:
Tried watching this yesterday. I say tried, because TCM in my area was very glitchy. The image would freeze, then resume two or three seconds later. This was for all the movies.

Hey, I had that problem a few times, too, while watching the first four movies in the marathon. I was wondering if it was DISH. Is that your provider?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Eadie
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 03, 2020 11:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It happened to us too. making Beyond the Time Barrier totally unwatchable.

We use DirecTV. They said it was due to storms at the up-link sites and/or through the clouds over the reception areas. (They couldn't be specific!) [It even happened during The Time Machine (2 times) and Forbidden Planet (4 times)!]

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 03, 2020 1:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I guess I was lucky. My glitches were relatively minor and apparently fewer than yours.

They were just minor distractions in my case, and I was able to enjoy the marathon. Cool

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Tue Mar 23, 2021 7:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Krel
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 03, 2020 2:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud, we have Cox Cable, and the glitches would happen every few minutes. I'd say that it didn't go five minutes without a glitch.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
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Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Fri Jan 03, 2020 3:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Krel wrote:
Bud, we have Cox Cable, and the glitches would happen every few minutes. I'd say that it didn't go five minutes without a glitch.

Holy crap, what is going on! Shocked

The common element here is Turner Classic Movies. Maybe that's just a coincidence, but since some of us use satellite systems and some use cable systems, I'm inclined to think that TCM was the cause of the glitches.

And yet . . . I had just a few, Eadie had more than a few, and David was besieged by the damn things! If TCM was having problems, we'd ALL have suffered the same problems during the 12 hour marathon.

Folks, I'm stumped. I don't know what to think.

By the way, I kept my promise to keep All Sci-Fi's Chatzy room open during the marathon so that members could drop in and share this wonderful experience, as least for a while.

You can click on the link above and see all the cheerful messages I left during the day, hoping a few members would join me.

And you can even see the cheerful New Year's greeting one friendly member posted after I'd left the chat room, just to let me know he appreciated my gesture! Very Happy

Oh well . . . guys, it would have been a glorious occasion. I'm sorry it didn't work out. Sad

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 7:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Based on the past discuss from a while back, we need to have another synchro-cinema with this movie in the near future. Very Happy

I anybody interested?

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~ The Space Children (1958)
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Krel
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 9:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The hovercraft model from the film.


"Westworld was Michael Crichton's second directing job, the first was the TV movie "Pursuit" (1972), which was made from a novel of his. He was untested, so they gave him a low budget.

The "Westworld" budget was so tight that they only made half of the hovercraft interior. For the scenes in the other half of the hovercraft, they flipped the image. For the underground Delos sets, they made three walls that were used for all of the underground areas. They would change color of the wall lights and change th distance between them. Most of the other sets were standing sets, or set pieces in storage, or ones they could rent cheaply. Roman world was filmed in the gardens of the Harold Lloyd estate.

David.
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