Westworld (1973) on Netflix
PG19731h 28mActionSci-FiThriller
The Delos resort offers three themed worlds, each filled with lifelike androids, at a thousand dollars a day. Peter Martin arrives in Westworld with John Blane and takes on the Gunslinger.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.9/1068,182 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes84%
Trailer
Plot summary
Delos runs three themed worlds, Western World, Medieval World and Roman World, each inhabited by androids built to seem human and programmed for the era they belong to. A thousand dollars a day buys a guest any adventure on offer, among them sexual encounters and staged fights. Peter Martin is new to the resort and his friend John Blane has been before; the two of them choose Westworld. There Peter faces the Gunslinger in a gunfight, and the firearms in the park are made so that no guest can shoot a living being. In the control complex, the staff see breakdowns spreading through the androids of Roman World and Medieval World.
Cast
- Michael T. Mikleras Black Knight (as Michael Mikler)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Westworld (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- 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 recommended his son John Whitney Jr.
SPOILER
The original script ended with a fight between Martin and the Gunslinger in which the Gunslinger is torn apart by a rack. Crichton said he "had liked the idea of a complex machine being destroyed by a simple machine", but when he attempted it "it seemed stagey and foolish", so the idea was dropped.- The Gunslinger's appearance is based on Chris Adams, Brynner's character from The Magnificent Seven, and the two costumes are nearly identical. According to Lazarus, Yul Brynner agreed to play the role for only $75,000 because he needed the money.
- Michael Crichton later reused Westworld's central premise, a high-tech amusement park that runs amok after its central control is paralyzed by a power failure, as the basis for his novel Jurassic Park.
- Michael Crichton said MGM made pre-production difficult, demanding script changes right up to the first day of shooting, and the lead actors were not even signed until 48 hours before filming began.
- Westworld was shot partly on the MGM backlot, making it one of the last films made there before the studio sold the lot to real estate developers, who demolished it.
- Westworld contains a reference to a computer virus, one of the earliest mentions of them in fiction. The analogy is made by the Chief Supervisor in a staff meeting where the spread of malfunctions across the park is discussed.
