The Most Influential Sci-Fi Movie You’ve Never Seen Just Got A 4K Upgrade

Michael Crichton is probably best known for writing Jurassic Park, a cinematic classic that spawned a rapidly deteriorating franchise whose movies make Billy and the Cloneasaurus seem like a good idea. But Crichton was never a one-trick Dilophosaurus, and his fingerprints are all over pop culture. ER reruns will grace our television sets for as long as civilization persists, his posthumous novel Eruption is being turned into a movie about a big ol’ volcano, and Sphere is easily one of the top five movies about a sphere ever made.

1973’s Westworld teeters on the brink between the Crichton yarns we remember (Congo, The Andromeda Strain) and the ones we very much do not (quick, what are Runaway and Looker about?). Long overshadowed by HBO’s ponderous four-season reimagining, and better recalled for its technical achievements than its content, Crichton’s tale of a robo-cowboy gone rogue is getting a second shot at cybernetic life thanks to a new 4K UHD Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

How Was Westworld Received?

With significant praise for its special effects and Yul Brynner’s performance, and more modest applause for the plot wrapped around those features. As a thriller about two men visiting a theme park populated by lifelike robots, Pauline Kale’s “moderately entertaining” sums things up. Kale and other critics observed that Westworld is slow to reach the point where the robots start going haywire, and that time doesn’t reveal enough about our human heroes beyond the fact that they want to brawl and whore with cyborgs. Westworld was Crichton’s first feature as a director, and at times, it shows.

But Brynner, who’d slumped into television and spaghetti westerns, proved memorable as the relentless black-clad Gunslinger, a clear prototype of Arnold’s T-800. It’s surprisingly tricky to play a convincing robot, but no one watching Westworld would want to be caught in Brynner’s cold glare. Also of note are the moments when we see through Brynner’s eyes; as the first film to use computer-processed imagery, animator John Whitney, Jr. needed four months and the world’s most powerful mainframes to give us 151 seconds worth of robo-vision.

Why Is It Important to Watch Westworld Now?

Because it’s a pre-Terminator, pre-Jurassic Park, pre-AI panic slice of sci-fi history. Murderous robots existed before Westworld, but they were so rarely convincing that the mere novelty of their big screen presence was enough to sustain the film (and inspire parodies). It’s like experiencing Tristan and Iseult for the first time, but for killer robots (so, better) — both stories were later surpassed by their imitators, but they’re the ones that have quietly shaped swaths of pop culture.

It can be hard to put yourself in the mindset of ‘70s reviewers who called Westworld thought-provoking given that they were worried about the ramifications of fictional machines powered by magnetic tapes, but some of its questions about how technology warps our approach to entertainment are enjoying renewed relevance. The very premise of Westworld — pay 1,000 bucks a night to murder and whore to your heart’s content — is borderline sociopathic, and were the park to launch today, it’s not hard to imagine Twitch streamers trying to outdo each other’s depravities.

The man raising those questions was hardly unknown in 1973, but Westworld was a major stepping stone on Crichton’s path to pop culture immortality. The bones of Jurassic Park’s “We can, but should we?” dilemma can be seen in Westworld nearly 20 years before Crichton put big questions about science in the dinky little hands of the T. rex, to say nothing of his apparent fixation on theme parks gone awry.

Its imitators are largely superior to the original product, but as an oft-overlooked piece of sci-fi history, Westworld is well worth the scant 88 minutes it asks of you. Kale’s closing thoughts included the remark that “The film is O.K., but it might have been marvellous.” Many of the movies that followed in Westworld’s footsteps were.

What New Features Does the Westworld 4K Blu-Ray Have?

Aside from the fresh 4K restoration, Arrow has recorded new interviews with stars Richard Benjamin and James Brolin, screenwriter Larry Karaszewski, and producer Paul N. Lazarus III, as well as a commentary track from film historian Daniel Kremer and a featurette led by film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. There’s also a variety of archival content, including, most notably, the pilot episode of the short-lived 1980 TV spinoff, Beyond Westworld. Here’s the full list of features:

• Brand new 4K restoration from the original negative by Arrow Films
• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
• Original restored lossless 4-channel stereo, 2.0 stereo, and 1.0 mono audio options
• Optional remixed 5.1 DTS-HD MA surround audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Brand new audio commentary by filmmaker and film historian Daniel Kremer
• Cowboy Dreams, a newly filmed conversation between actor Richard Benjamin and producer/screenwriter Larry Karaszewski
• At Home on the Range, a brand new video interview with actor James Brolin
• HollyWorld: Producing Westworld, a brand new video interview with producer Paul N. Lazarus III
• Sex, Death and Androids, a brand new appreciation of the film by author and film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
• On Location with Westworld, an archival behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film from 1973
• Beyond Westworld, the 48-minute pilot episode of the 1980 follow-up television series
• Theatrical trailer
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Arik Roper
• Collectors' booklet featuring new writing on the film by David Michael Brown, Priscilla Page, Paul Anthony Nelson, and Abbey Bender
• Double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Arik Roper
• Six postcard-sized artcards