Two years after reporting about the massacre at he Delos owned amusement park Westworld, reporter Chuck Browning smells another story brewing. Delos has opened a new amusement park, insistent that this time the robot are fail-safe. When a man is murdered trying to get information to him, Chuck realized that not everything is as it seems at Delos.

Forced to work with a professional and personal rival, television reporter/personality Tracy Ballard, Chuck infiltrates the high-tech park Futureworld. Despite their bickering the television report and newspaper man discover this time  that more is at stake than homicidal robots. Uncovering a vast conspiracy that threatens the world, Chuck and Tracy risk more than their lives.

I’ve decided that I would start off my Sunday Night Movie posts with a pitch for the films I watched. The principle reason for this is so that I would get more practice at pitch writing. It is an important aspect of novel selling and an aspect I particularly suck at.

So the Futureworld is the squeal to the 1973 hit, Westworld starring Yul Brynner and Richard Benjamin. In Westerworld at film directed by Michael Crichton from his novel of the same name. The Delos corporation has created an adult theme-park populated with lifelike robots. People can play in artificial environments, engaging in sword fights, sex, gun fights, sex, and debauchery. (Drinking in other words.) The robots malfunction and instead of losing the fights, begin killing the guests. Technology gone awry, as you can see it was never a new theme for Mr. Crichton. Westworld was a hit and made oodles of money, that commanded a sequel.

MGM released Futureworld on 1976, Michael Crichton was not involved in this production so the technology did not go awry. Instead we have a very seventies plot of conspiracies and cynicism. Political and economic leaders from around the world are coming as guests of Delos and of course some nefarious is happening to them. This film was not as well received by either the critics or the public and is generally a forgotten SF film of the seventies. I ended up watching it last night because I was in the mood for something that would not task my brain beyond the most rudimentary concepts.

That said this film in many ways worked better for me than Westworld did. Westworld suffered from severe plot-holes that were required to create the situation that Crichton demanded of his story. For example, when the technology fails in Westworld, the powered doors all locked. Sealing the technicians, who might have resolved the plot before the main characters were in too much danger, in their underground control chambers. There are apparently no overrides, manual or otherwise on these doors. Without power it is simply impossible to open them. Furthermore, the air stops and all the tech die of suffocation. Even as far back as the seventies this is not OSHA compliant. Westworld required this so that Richard Benjamin would have to face the gunslinger alone. Truthfully, this is not very good writing.

Futureworld, by not having the plot revolve around a breakdown of technology escapes this trap. It also got one thing right about the future, the death of Newspapers. Everything else about the future is strangle contemporary to the seventies. Blythe Danner is wasted as the airhead television personality.

In the end this made a perfectly acceptable SF film for a late-night  just kick back and enjoy it viewing, but not one I’d want to own