9) It’s An Ingenious Update Of The Original
You may well be familiar with the previously mentioned Westworld movie. Starring Yul Bryner, Richard Benjamin and James Brolin, it took place in a Wild West-themed amusement park that was populated by androids. As androids tend to do in movies, they broke out of the conditioning and ran amok. This basic premise of technology going haywire is carried over for the new TV show, but it’s suitably updated and morphed into a very different beast.
Firstly, similar to Jurassic World’s relationship to Jurassic Park, there is the implication that this is the same establishment from the original film, just moved on a few decades later. As the methods have become more sophisticated, the apparent dangers of any malfunctions have gone down. Naturally, it soon becomes clear that people – even cybernetic ones – can’t ever be fully controlled.
Rather than focus on robotics and the theme park angle, the modern Westworld also skewers the story to focus more on the cutting-edge technology of today – specifically, artificial intelligence and virtual reality. The core element is still there, but this switch in focus allows for a deeper discussion of philosophy, morals and existentialism rather than the sci-fi thriller angle of the original movie.
