{"id":2009,"date":"2010-05-28T01:23:51","date_gmt":"2010-05-28T05:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/?p=2009"},"modified":"2022-10-23T12:27:49","modified_gmt":"2022-10-23T16:27:49","slug":"westworld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/westworld\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vacation of the Future, Today: Westworld"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The late Michael Crichton<\/a> is primarily known as a bestselling novelist, but somewhat less so as a screenwriter, feature film director, and television producer (he was one of the co-creators of the blockbuster series E.R.<\/em>). Characteristic novels Jurassic Park<\/em> and The Andromeda Strain<\/em> are built upon fascinating speculative science with thrilling story potential, spoiled by wafer-thin characters and simplistic plots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His 1973 thriller Westworld<\/em> suffers from the same syndrome. Despite its high-minded origins in speculative science, the movie is simple in structure and theme. It’s not unusual for science fiction films to be overtly based on Western tropes (the best example that comes to mind is Outland<\/em>), but Westworld<\/em> is a hybrid with equal parts of each. The second half is basically an extended chase sequence, punctuated by a few classic horror movie tropes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Yul
There’s a face off in the corner.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Westworld<\/em> posits a future in which robotics and artificial intelligence have advanced enough to enable a new market for entertainment and leisure. The futuristic vacation resort Delos is a forerunner to Jurassic Park: an experience adventure for the affluent, powered by untested advanced technology. Imagine Disney World-like animatronics taken to the next level: semiautonomous robots roam an immersive environment to serve as interactive servants, sex toys, and target practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crichton skips over the entire issue of how these machines achieve consciousness, making the common movie fallacy that robots = artificial intelligence. If they are basically animatronic machines, how did they evolve an instinct for self-preservation? If these droids are not feeling actual rebellion and murderous vindictiveness, is it a virus or malfunction? On a more practical level, there appears to be a plot hole in how all robots but The Gunslinger (Yul Brynner) appear to completely vanish after murdering the Delos’ staff and visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Richard
James Brolin & Richard Benjamin take the vacation of the future, today.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Brynner may wear the same costume as in The Magnificent Seven<\/em><\/a>, but The Gunslinger’s true analog is closer to Jaws<\/em> and Moby Dick<\/em>. He pops up again and again, seemingly unkillable, possessed of an unexpressed, inexplicable motivation to hunt one single man. He fixates on tourist John Blane (James Brolin) and remorselessly pursues him to the death, not unlike the implacable demons that haunt Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men<\/em>, All the Pretty Horses<\/em>, and Blood Meridian<\/em>. Brynner isn’t given much in the way of dialog or character, but you can see he worked very hard on his physical performance. His bearing, posture, gait, and gaze are all unsettling. Far from a cartoonish robot figure, The Gunslinger is really inhuman, weird, and creepy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Westworld<\/em>, like Jurassic Park<\/em>, seems to be a vague cautionary tale against toying with advanced science. The famously science-minded Crichton (an M.D.) is not simply demonizing science itself, but rather its arrogant misuse. If the first mistake is to build machines more complex than the human mind can understand, the second is to bet our lives upon them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delos is a fantasy world where people can kill or fuck anything they want. In other words, a recipe for disaster. Later science fiction stories like Tron<\/em>, The Matrix<\/em>, and Caprica<\/em><\/a> would typically stage similar morality plays in virtual reality. But I don’t get the sense that Westworld<\/em> is criticizing the indulgence of humanity’s worst tendencies. Is it instead focusing on the mistreatment of semi-sentient beings as slaves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the park is in working condition, the robots are prostituted and murdered over and over for humans’ entertainment. After they become conscious, we see one “female” robot reject a human’s sexual advances, while another is cruelly chained up in a dungeon. Neither seems to be expressing much in the way of grief or resentment. Instead, we are perhaps meant to see them as innocents that are simply seeking a little dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stray observations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n