The movie Westworld is a film adaptation of the book Westworld, written by Michael Crichton. Michael Crichton was later chosen to direct the movie based on his book. Crichton really emphasized the interactions between humans and robots [1]. He believed that robots would play a significant role in the future and was motivated to write a book about what he believed the future would look and be like. Crichton, like a lot of sci-fi fanatics, also emphasized the possibility of a robot uprising. When comparing Westworld to some of his other books, for example Jurassic Park, Crichton also seems to focus on the human’s response to a system failing.
[1] M. Crichton. (2015). Westworld [Online]. Available: http://www.michaelcrichton.com/westworld/ |
Director’s Intent |
Westworld (1973) vs Westworld (2016) |
An interesting difference between the 1973 Westworld and HBO Reboot this year in 2016, is that the HBO reboot puts the robots as the protagonist. The 1973 Westworld only followed the perspective of the two guests, John and Peter. Whereas the reboot goes into the life of the female robot protagonist, Dolores Abernathy. This is an example of how the 1973 movie treats its robots as props, props following pre-programmed algorithms. As terrifying as the Gunslinger is, he has no free will. He was build to kill and terrorize, but only once the safeguards fail he is able to kill humans and subsequently hunts down Peter through the last act of the movie. The HBO Series however, inspects a park where artificial intelligence in the robots is so advanced that free will becomes indistinguishable. It asks the viewer what it means to be human, and whether or not robots can be human. These differences are to be expected as 1973 was completely different era. The idea of personal computers was not fully realised until two years later with The Altair [1].
The movie treats its robots as props because they are props, following pre-programmed algorithms. The Gunslinger may be terrifying, but he has no will of his own; he has simply been designed to act like a ruthless killer, and the problems only start when the safeguards fail and he actually becomes capable of killing. The robots in the HBO series, by contrast, seem to be moving toward a kind of artificial intelligence so advanced that it's essentially indistinguishable from free will. It's a very different foundation on which to build an ostensibly similar story—and perfectly suited to the longform weekly structure of a TV series, as opposed to the closed-ended structure of a film. references [1] Jason Robert Carey Patterson, The History of Computers During My Lifetime. From Lighterra, http://www.lighterra.com/articles/historyofcomputers/1970s.html January 2011 |
The movie portrayed various existing technologies:
The movie also shows a variety of emerging technologies:
The movie also shows futuristic technologies:
References:
|
Computing Technologies Present in the Movie |