Written and directed by Michael Crichton, this science-fiction/horror film holds up extremely well over time, considering it's forty years old. The premise is that an adult theme park has been created, called Delos. There's three sections--Medieval World, Roman World and Western World. You can live the part of a king or a gunslinger, have sex whenever you want and kill people without consequences. This is all possible because of the incredibly life-like robots. The only way to tell if someone is a robot or not is their hands, which do not have fingerprints. Although we are shown what happens to characters in Medieval World, the main focus is on two friends in West World, Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin of QUARK!) and John Blane (James Brolin). Peter has recently gone through a divorce and is uptight while this is John's second trip. They have a few shoot-outs with "The Gunslinger" (Yul Brynner), who keeps on coming back to confront them. When all the robots malfunction this villain shoots and kills John and pursues Peter throughout the entire theme park, from Roman World to the underground control center, where all the technicians had suffocated when the power shut down and locked them in an airtight room. This entire pursuit scene undeniably inspired Cameron's TERMINATOR. If there's one movie that would lend itself to an excellent remake it would be this film.
Two sequels were made--the theatrical FUTUREWORLD (1976) and the television series BEYOND WESTWORLD (1980).
Written and directed by Michael Crichton, this science-fiction/horror film holds up extremely well over time, considering it's forty years old. The premise is that an adult theme park has been created, called Delos. There's three sections--Medieval World, Roman World and Western World. You can live the part of a king or a gunslinger, have sex whenever you want and kill people without consequences. This is all possible because of the incredibly life-like robots. The only way to tell if someone is a robot or not is their hands, which do not have fingerprints. Although we are shown what happens to characters in Medieval World, the main focus is on two friends in West World, Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin of QUARK!) and John Blane (James Brolin). Peter has recently gone through a divorce and is uptight while this is John's second trip. They have a few shoot-outs with "The Gunslinger" (Yul Brynner), who keeps on coming back to confront them. When all the robots malfunction this villain shoots and kills John and pursues Peter throughout the entire theme park, from Roman World to the underground control center, where all the technicians had suffocated when the power shut down and locked them in an airtight room. This entire pursuit scene undeniably inspired Cameron's TERMINATOR. If there's one movie that would lend itself to an excellent remake it would be this film.
