Robots cannot harm humans with guns, but how about other means of injury?

Why did the scientist/mechanic decide to give the gunslinger infrared vision and enhanced hearing capabilities?

Old Tucson - 201 S. Kinney Road, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Jenny Agutter, Farrah Fawcett, Michael York, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Richard Jordan in Logan's Run (1976)

Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Joseph Cotten, Chuck Connors, Richard Fleischer, Paula Kelly, Brock Peters, Walter Seltzer, Leigh Taylor-Young, and Russell Thacher in Soylent Green (1973)

James Olson and Robert Soto in The Andromeda Strain (1971)

Charlton Heston and Lincoln Kilpatrick in The Omega Man (1971)

Donald Dowd, Dan Anderson, and Ashley Bolding in WestWorld (2006)

Steve McQueen, Yul Brynner, and Eli Wallach in The Magnificent Seven (1960)

William Jordan, Jim McMullan, Connie Sellecca, and James Wainwright in Beyond Westworld (1980)

Fred Astaire, William Holden, Paul Newman, Richard Chamberlain, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, O.J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Blakely, and Jennifer Jones in The Towering Inferno (1974)

James Brolin and Yul Brynner in Westworld (1973)

Yul Brynner

Richard Benjamin

James Brolin

Michael Crichton

A robot malfunction creates havoc and terror for unsuspecting vacationers at a futuristic, adult-themed amusement park.

Westworld

&quot;Boy, have we got a vacation for you...where nothing can go wrong!&quot;

&quot;Boy, have we got a vacation for you...where nothing can go wrong!&quot;

Well, as the old saying goes...&quot;famous last words.&quot;

&quot;Westworld&quot; is supposed to be set in the future (as visualized back in 1973 when the film was made, apparently the computers of the future are really, really big, and the monitors are really, really small, lol), where pampered rich folk can go to a vacation resort named &quot;Delos&quot;, where they choose one of three &quot;worlds&quot; to visit and interact in: Medieval World, Roman World, and Westworld. Our protagonists John Blaine and Peter Martin (played by James Brolin and Richard Benjamin, respectively) choose Westworld. John is a Westworld veteran, having visited many times. Peter is his friend and first-timer at the resort; uttering childlike statements such as &quot;Do we get a real gun? Wow!&quot; In the various &quot;worlds&quot;, the guests interact with each other and with anatomically-correct, extremely realistic robots. They are able to *ahem* interact very closely with the female robots, and also shoot the mean robots for fun (the guns they are supplied with will not work on real people) as they wish. A real &quot;cowboys and indians&quot; scenario for the child in us all. Roman World is promoted as a big sex resort, and Medieval World is geared towards the romantic, it seems.

The film starts out with quite a lot of intentional comedy and satire, and frankly starts out very much like it could have been a 1970&apos;s TV &quot;Movie of the Week&quot;, but once the robots start to go bad...what we have for the rest of the film is a truly creepy western/sci-fi film. It&apos;s a gunfight! Albeit a Sci-Fi one. The last half-hour of the film is essentially a silent movie, as Crichton said he wanted, save for the great soundtrack, which sounds something like a bow being drawn against piano strings, or a cello; anyway it has the same unsettling effect as the out-of-tune piano in another classic, &quot;Wait Until Dark&quot; (1967).

Movies with robots/androids...there have been many I have seen and loved. But for this review I will cite examples of what I consider to be scary robots in film, besides &quot;Westworld&quot;: &quot;The Stepford Wives&quot; (1974), &quot;Alien&quot; (1979), &quot;Blade Runner&quot; (1982), &quot;The Terminator&quot; (1984), &quot;Aliens&quot;, &quot;The Companion&quot; (1995). 

But &quot;Westworld&quot; was the first scary robot film I ever saw. And even after the others that followed, nothing quite equals Yul Brynner in his role as the gunslinger robot gone bad in &quot;Westworld.&quot; His performance is what really makes the movie. Brynner was a good actor, and even (aybe especially) playing a machine, his skill is used to great effect. His performance was anything but wooden (unlike the always wooden Ah-nold in &quot;The Terminator&quot;, for instance). 

When Brynner&apos;s robot gunslinger commands &quot;Draw&quot;, with the slightest twist at the corner of his mouth, he is completely creepy and scary. Even the way he walks when hunting down Richard Benjamin&apos;s character has an element to it that I have never seen again. 

What&apos;s also great about this film is the development of Benjamin&apos;s character of Peter Martin. He starts out as the inexperienced nerdy sidekick to Brolin&apos;s John Blaine, and ends up showing his true mettle as the going gets rough. The nerdy naive Martin quickly learns how to survive. 

This was Sci-Fi writer/director Michael Crichton&apos;s first foray into big-screen film-making. Crichton has said he made the film in thirty days. I would expect that finding pre-made sets were easy at least; there was bound to be at least a western set sitting around the studio lots. And of course, back then there were fewer and less complicated special effects.

If you find a DVD of this to rent, and you&apos;ve never seen the film before, I recommend that you do not watch the trailer first! It&apos;s a real spoiler.

Note: Look for Majel Barrett (of &quot;Star Trek-Generations&quot;, and she is also Gene Roddenberrys&apos; widow) as the whorehouse madam. 

Brynner&apos;s part was a play on his role in the classic western film &quot;The Magnificent Seven.&quot;

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjlkYWZjNjctMjNhMi00MDg2LWI5Y2YtNWYzMTE0NTZhYjIzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzU1NzE3NTg@._V1_.jpg

"Boy, have we got a vacation for you...where nothing can go wrong!"

"Boy, have we got a vacation for you...where nothing can go wrong!"

Well, as the old saying goes..."famous last words."

"Westworld" is supposed to be set in the future (as visualized back in 1973 when the film was made, apparently the computers of the future are really, really big, and the monitors are really, really small, lol), where pampered rich folk can go to a vacation resort named "Delos", where they choose one of three "worlds" to visit and interact in: Medieval World, Roman World, and Westworld. Our protagonists John Blaine and Peter Martin (played by James Brolin and Richard Benjamin, respectively) choose Westworld. John is a Westworld veteran, having visited many times. Peter is his friend and first-timer at the resort; uttering childlike statements such as "Do we get a real gun? Wow!" In the various "worlds", the guests interact with each other and with anatomically-correct, extremely realistic robots. They are able to *ahem* interact very closely with the female robots, and also shoot the mean robots for fun (the guns they are supplied with will not work on real people) as they wish. A real "cowboys and indians" scenario for the child in us all. Roman World is promoted as a big sex resort, and Medieval World is geared towards the romantic, it seems.

The film starts out with quite a lot of intentional comedy and satire, and frankly starts out very much like it could have been a 1970's TV "Movie of the Week", but once the robots start to go bad...what we have for the rest of the film is a truly creepy western/sci-fi film. It's a gunfight! Albeit a Sci-Fi one. The last half-hour of the film is essentially a silent movie, as Crichton said he wanted, save for the great soundtrack, which sounds something like a bow being drawn against piano strings, or a cello; anyway it has the same unsettling effect as the out-of-tune piano in another classic, "Wait Until Dark" (1967).

Movies with robots/androids...there have been many I have seen and loved. But for this review I will cite examples of what I consider to be scary robots in film, besides "Westworld": "The Stepford Wives" (1974), "Alien" (1979), "Blade Runner" (1982), "The Terminator" (1984), "Aliens", "The Companion" (1995). 

But "Westworld" was the first scary robot film I ever saw. And even after the others that followed, nothing quite equals Yul Brynner in his role as the gunslinger robot gone bad in "Westworld." His performance is what really makes the movie. Brynner was a good actor, and even (aybe especially) playing a machine, his skill is used to great effect. His performance was anything but wooden (unlike the always wooden Ah-nold in "The Terminator", for instance). 

When Brynner's robot gunslinger commands "Draw", with the slightest twist at the corner of his mouth, he is completely creepy and scary. Even the way he walks when hunting down Richard Benjamin's character has an element to it that I have never seen again. 

What's also great about this film is the development of Benjamin's character of Peter Martin. He starts out as the inexperienced nerdy sidekick to Brolin's John Blaine, and ends up showing his true mettle as the going gets rough. The nerdy naive Martin quickly learns how to survive. 

This was Sci-Fi writer/director Michael Crichton's first foray into big-screen film-making. Crichton has said he made the film in thirty days. I would expect that finding pre-made sets were easy at least; there was bound to be at least a western set sitting around the studio lots. And of course, back then there were fewer and less complicated special effects.

If you find a DVD of this to rent, and you've never seen the film before, I recommend that you do not watch the trailer first! It's a real spoiler.

Note: Look for Majel Barrett (of "Star Trek-Generations", and she is also Gene Roddenberrys' widow) as the whorehouse madam. 

Brynner's part was a play on his role in the classic western film "The Magnificent Seven."

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