I'm curious. In 1973, was this considered a good movie? Did people love it? Either way, this movie does not stand the test of time, and frankly, it's just not a good movie. The dialogue is minimal and uninspired. The characters are very underdeveloped. The movie is trying to sell you on the idea of Westworld as if the park itself is the main character. The movie fails on all fronts.
With the recent HBO show as my only point of reference, I know the general idea of Westworld. If you don't, that's okay as the movie begins with a commercial to introduce you to the land, kind of. It's more of advertisement than anything - "only $1,000 a day!". Once that is complete, the movie focuses on two friends - Peter and John. John is played by a young James Brolin (who looks a lot like a Christian Bale). John has been there before and literally smiles the whole time and that's about it. Peter, as the newcomer, plays the part of audience member as he asks questions, is skeptical of who is and isn't a robot, and is in constant disbelief on what you can or can't do, which is supposedly nothing. So what do they do? - the bare minimum.
Plot-wise, the friends enter a saloon and the Gunslinger (Yul Brynner) insults Peter. Peter shoots him and the Gunslinger is taken away. Then the two friends have sex with two prostitutes. The next morning, the Gunslinger is back and Peter shoots him again to "save" John. This time Peter is sent to prison for it. John breaks him out and they ride away. They sit in the desert to do nothing, but they have to move the plot along. For reasons unexplained, a robot snake attacks John which is the first sign that Delos, the company running the park, is losing control of the robots. The Black Knight robot kills some random guest in Medieval World that we haven't been following this whole time so why would we care about him? The Gunslinger is back again and is some how able to shoot and kill John. It's explained earlier in the film that the guns don't work on warm blooded guests, but only work on the cold/no blooded robots, so I guess the guns have also malfunctioned along with the robots?!
The rest of the movie plays like the Terminator where the Gunslinger chases after Peter. The music consists of what sounds like someone jumping on a diving board for the entire final act in an attempt to create tension and maybe give the Gunslinger a theme when he was on screen. Peter makes his way into the Delos lab and tries acid on the Gunslinger's face. It slows the Gunslinger down for a little bit, but he keeps going. Peter makes his way to Medieval World and is able to use a torch to set the Gunslinger on fire and the movie ends. Everyone else appears to be dead. The other robots that revolted? MIA. So yeah, this movie is pretty bad.
