Futureworld

Plot synopsis:
Two years after the Westworld tragedy (the date June 20, 1985, is seen on the check presented to the game show winner in the opening scene), the Delos corporation owners have reopened the park after spending $1.5 billion in safety improvements. For publicity purposes, newspaper reporter Chuck Browning and TV reporter Tracy Ballard are invited to review the park. Just before the junket is announced, Browning arranges to meet with a Delos employee who promises he has dirt on the corporation. During the meeting, the tipster is shot in the back and dies after giving Browning an envelope.
At the resort, guests choose from a range of theme parks: Spaworld ("where old age and pain have been eliminated"), Medievalworld, Ancient Romanworld, and Futureworld; Westworld is abandoned. Browning and Ballard choose Futureworld, which simulates an orbiting space station. Robots are available for sex as well as amusements like boxing. They are guided through the resort by Dr. Duffy, who shows them the marvels of Delos, demonstrating that all the problems have been fixed.
The reporters are stunned to find that the Control Center is staffed entirely by robots. That night, their dinners are drugged. While they sleep, medical tests are conducted so Delos can make clones of them. A visiting Russian General and a Japanese politician are also tested for cloning. Back in her room a few hours later, Ballard wakes in a fright, remembering the experience as a nightmare.
Ballard and Browning sneak out to explore the resort's underground areas. They end up triggering a cloning machine, which generates three samurai. Just as they are about to be captured by the samurai, a mechanic named Harry saves them. He takes them back to his quarters, where he cohabits with a mechanic robot he has named Clark after Superman's alter-ego. The reporters interview Harry, but they are interrupted and returned to their rooms.
The following day, while Ballard is testing out a Delos dream-recording device, Browning slips out to see Harry. Harry takes Browning to a locked door that he has never been able to enter, although robots routinely enter. Realizing the key is in the robot's eyes, Harry destroys a robot and steals its face. They return with Ballard and open the door. Inside, they find clones of themselves, as well as clones of the Russian and Japanese leaders. The clones are being programmed through subliminal messages; they are instructed to always work for the good of Delos and to destroy their originals. Browning explains that his tipster's envelope was filled with clippings about leaders from around the world, realizing that Delos must be cloning the rich and powerful.
The trio decides to flee the resort on the next plane. The reporters return to their apartment where Duffy is waiting for them; he explains that, by cloning world leaders, they can ensure that nothing harms Delos' interests, and that without "proper" guidance, humans will eventually destroy the planet. Cloning the reporters would ensure favorable coverage, letting people forget about the Westworld tragedy. Browning attacks Duffy but is easily overpowered with unnatural strength. Ballard shoots the doctor twice, and Browning peels back Duffy's face to reveal that he is a robot. As Harry races to meet up with the reporters, he runs into Browning's clone, who kills him. Ballard and Browning are then chased by their own duplicates, all the while taunting them with details about their lives. Eventually, one of each pair is killed, though which one is left unclear. When they find each other, Browning seizes and kisses Ballard.
In the end, as they leave the resort with the other guests, Dr. Schneider meets them to make sure they are the clones. The reporters confirm that they will be writing positive reviews for Delos; but, just as they reach the exit, Ballard's badly injured clone stumbles towards him and Schneider realizes too late that he has been fooled. On the jetway, Browning tells Ballard that his editor is running the exposé on Delos, that the whole world will know what they are up to, and that kissing her was his idea to figure out whether or not she was a duplicate.

Tags: comedy, murder, cult, violence, sci-fi, prank

Review:
Instead the filmmakers produced something entirely original that stands on its own with no prior knowledge of the first film necessary to the average viewer.The film begins two years after the disaster at Westworld, with the newly improved theme park Delos ready to open its doors again to the rich and influential public.
One even quips "Once you've had sex with a robot, you'll never go back!" If Futureworld was a real place, the implications would be scary indeed.This film seems to have attracted a lot of negative reviews which surprises me, as I felt it was a well paced science fiction thriller.
Series note: As Futureworld is a "later chapter" to the story begun in Michael Crichton's Westworld, it is imperative that you watch Westworld before this film.Set a number of years after the events of Westworld (1973), Futureworld concerns two competitive reporters, Chuck Browning (Peter Fonda) and Tracy Ballard (Blythe Danner), who have been invited to cover the reopening of Delos, the "virtual reality" amusement park that went haywire in Westworld.
Delos is a satire of Disney World and similar theme parks, where we can spend leisure time playing roles, fantasizing that we're someone else, in some other time.Whereas Westworld presented its satire of Disney-like escapism on a more surface level, Futureworld is concerned with the reality under the public façade.
Rest assured that the plot is fairly transparent and easy to follow --this is a good script, and Heffron did a fine job directing it so that it brings up serious issues at the same time it provides more than a fair amount of suspense and touches of humor.A lot of the film succeeds because of good performances from Fonda, Danner and a few others.
It differed from the first movie in that while Westworld could be genuinely scary, with the gunslinger marching down on everyone, (Almost like an early seventies Terminator) this movie is more like a detetctive story, as Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner try to figure out what sinister things are going on in Futureworld.Peter Fonda was acceptable, but Blythe Danner's scratchy voice begins to grate on your nerves after a while.
Looking for dirt under the surface, Browning and colleague Ballard join the elite group selected for the opening few days at the park and begin to investigate a world where nothing is what it seems  nothing.Having enjoyed the Jurassic Park rehearsal that was Westworld, I tuned in to this sequel hoping for, at very least, more of same stuff with a clever new slant on it.
It tries to repeat the formula from the first film while opening it out into its own plot but it fails in a big way.The first hour is empty, unspectacular that was meant to be spectacle but wasn't and a second half that has a potentially good plot which is just wasted by a delivery that is so lacking in excitement and tension that you'd think there was no conspiracy or danger whatsoever!
An inferior sequel to ¨Michael Chricton's Westworld¨ sci-fi starred by Richard Benjamin and James Brolin , here two reporters (Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner) enter to the new ¨Futureworld¨ theme park (like a futuristic Disneyland) for adult vacation , a pleasure palace resort called ¨Delos¨ which offers the opportunity to live in several fantasy worlds .
It's run by powerful people (Arthur Hill and John P.Ryan) and serviced by lifelike robots that are turning against their creators and planning to take over the world .The film gets stimulating in parts , action , chilling twists , thriller , suspense and results to be quite entertaining .
In this infamously unnecessary (and inferior) sequel to "Westworld", Fonda and Danner play hotshot reporters invited to Delos, a fantastic (and fantastically expensive) amusement park.
They are brought there, ostensibly, to relay to the public the vast changes made to the park since an unfortunate mishap a few years earlier (in which 50 people were killed!) In actuality, Fonda is there to look into the murder of a man who warned him about evil doings there, but there's still another reason that the duo was invited.
However, Fonda and Danner aren't really there long enough to enjoy much more of it (and only fleeting - and boring - shots are ever shown of the other worlds.)  The reporters wind up staying in a sort of dormitory, sneaking out and around whenever possible to find the real story behind the place.
Coming a couple years after its predecessor "Westworld", the rebooted sequel "Futureworld" is a grade up with a better budget and larger scale production that's just as inventive, if not as clunky as the original.
Newspaper reporter Chuck Browning and TV presenter Tracy Ballard, along with some other important guests are invited by the Delos' corporation to attend their re-opening of their theme parks, which is larger and better run to hopefully rid the air of the disaster that occurred years ago at Westworld.
However Chuck questions what's really going on and decides to nose around digging up anything that doesn't seem quite right.Quite a solid, if mechanical follow up, which has a committed cast (Peter Fonda, Blyth Danner, Arthur Hill, Stuart Margolin and a glassy John Ryan in a villain role) and very well executed special effects and implemented set-designs.
When you see Yul Brynner's name tagged to the project, you might just be disappointed as the gunslinger appears in one sequence involving quite an odd dream inclusion which in the end is rather pointless, but a neat credit for the original film.
As "Futureworld" opens, the Delos Corporation is determined to make up for all of the bad publicity they received when the robots of their Westworld environment malfunctioned.
Overlong, unimaginative, boring sequel to Westworld has reporters Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner visiting the re-opened Delos amusement park to see if the new management has gotten all the murder out of its androids.
Peter Fonda & Blythe Danner play two reporters who attend the re-opening of Delos, the amusement park that went haywire in the first film, resulting in many deaths.
Once inside, everything looks impressive and safe, but soon they discover that there are indeed sinister things going on, and with the help of a technician(played sympathetically by Stuart Margolin) are determined to expose a far-ranging conspiracy that threatens the country...Yul Brynner also returns(sort of) as the gunslinger.Quite interesting and entertaining sequel has some good ideas and nice direction by Richard T.
Although "Futureworld" is considered by many to be a poor excuse for a sequel,it has its own cult followers.After the tragic deaths of several guests at the hands of robots in "Westworld," Delos decides to invite reporters Tracy and Chuck to the rebuilt resort.
Peter Fonda is great as a chauvinistic wisecracking 1970's reporter that could never get away with his treatment of Danner's character in modern times."Futureworld" is a fun and nostalgic journey back into the 1970s.
Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner play reporters who go to a place called Demos where a new breed of robots run there.
The attempts to tie futureworld back to Westworld are poorly structured.Wooden performances abound, not just from the 'robots' either.Watch Westworld and skip the sequel.Another reasonable pick for an odd Yul Brenner movie is an odd post-apocalyptic knife fighter flick.Aardvaark.
Futureworld (1976) *** (out of 4) Sequel to WESTWORLD picks up a couple years after the events in that film as Delos plans on opening Futureworld.
A pair of reporters (Peter Fonda, Blythe Danner) are invited into the new theme park but soon they discover that the owners have plans to replace various government officials with lookalikes.
With that said, I think the film takes way too long for this story to take place as it really doesn't start to happen until around the 70-minute mark or so and so much of that early running time has us sitting there just waiting for something to eventually take off.
It seems that the first half of the film spends a bit too much time with the reporters looking at how good everything in the place is and it just takes too long to get going.
Follow-up to 1973's "Westworld" (with only a slightly bigger budget) has Delos, that expensive fantasy resort for adults, reopening after the robots went awry and began killing people; this time, two intrepid reporters covering the story quickly find the new scenario also becoming sinister.
Fans of "Westworld" might initially be intrigued to revisit Delos, but the art direction never achieves the gleaming, futuristic look one hopes for--and bringing back gunslinger robot Yul Brynner in a dream-sequence (he's Blythe Danner's fantasy lover!) was a mistake.
As in the original, the entire idea of Delos  essentially a fantasy world without consequence - is still an engaging idea worth exploring.But here lay more problems with "Futureworld." In "Westworld," half of the fun was following Richard Benjamin & James Brolin as they experienced the fantasy.
While the oaf visiting Medivalworld in the original served to humanize the tragic fate of this first victim, the Japanese businessmen in "Futureworld" are developed straight into a dead end (a subplot involving their smuggling of a camera into the resort is remarkably forgotten).An earlier poster imaginatively suggested that Clark, Harry's faceless robot servant, could have been used to revive the Gunslinger by revealing his true identity towards the film's third act.
Now in the sequel Futureworld the place has been opened again for the rich and famous to indulge their fantasies.Like Jurassic Park you'd think after the disaster they had in the first film the idea behind this would be dead and buried.
But no Arthur Hill the new head of the corporation that runs Delos and the place is back better than ever just that the Westworld old west section of the resort is now shut down.A dying man gives reporter Peter Fonda a tip that something is terribly amiss at Delos.
Let's just say that Hill has found a new use for the robots at Delos, a combination of Frankenstein and The Pod people.Yul Brynner makes a return as the robot gunslinger who seems to be back in working order after being demolished in Westworld.
Although he had no apparent involvement here.Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner make great competing Newspaper/TV reporters.In Westworld it is mentioned that some of the Robots are made by other Robots, and that the techs don't know exactly how they were built.
"Dellos" bound reporters Peter Fonda and Blyth Danner encounter deep, dark secrets and creepy, clandestine plot devices in this rousing sequel to its more well-connected cousin, Westworld.
The opening credits promise the return of the gunslinger Yul Brynner, but he only shows up briefly in this one in a bizarre dream sequence featuring one of the most obscenely hideous dance numbers ever put on film (Yul lassos Blythe and they spin around in a circle...yeah, I did drink some Pepto after, thanks for asking).Quick question: Why is Blythe dreaming about the gunslinger anyway?Anyway, FUTUREWORLD also lacks the hammy-but-enjoyable presence of Richard Benjamin, who made WESTWORLD so much fun.
Several years after the breakdown of Westworld, the Delos adult theme park populated by life-like robots has been rebuilt and perfected.
However, this sequel is an unworthy followup, with two dull leads in Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner, as well as a God-Awful wasted cameo by Yul Brynner...
Despite the Guest appearance of the great Yul Brynner, this film was a poor followup to the classic WESTWORLD.It is actually a real shame as the overall story is very good.The film featured many firsts for films and should always get credit for that...
It was obviously made to capitalize on the (deserved)success of "Mondwest "(1973):Yul Brynner has a cameo in this sequel.But ,although the movie borrows from other works (notably " invasion of the body snatchers" (1956,1978,and another remake in the nineties) for the last sequences ,it's quite entertaining.The two leads are dynamic and show a sense of humor ,even if it sometimes ponderous as in the scene when the journalist tries to seduce a robot (she thought he was a human,mind you,probably gay).Harry and his buddy- robot are endearing characters.Like this ?
Anyway, the movie happens a few years after the debacle portrayed in "Westworld", and the Delos company is reopening the theme park as Futureworld.
If nothing else, this movie is notable as Yul Brynner's final film appearance: he reprises his role as the Gunslinger from the original.
Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner play reporters investigating the unseemly goings-on in Futureworld.
So the ideas are all here but not much is really made of them, as the focus is ultimately on the two journalists trying to get to the bottom of what bad things are going on behind the scenes.Peter Fonda plays the main character here, yet the film's original posters seemed to have promoted the idea that the most iconic character from the first film, Yul Brynner's gunslinger, was a significant presence here.
Futureworld is the sequel to Michael Crichton's 1973 Westworld, which is the better of the two film by a considerable degree.
Chuck Browning(Peter Fonda), and Tracey Ballard(Blythe Danner) are investigative reporters who get a tip that something seriously amiss at Futureworld, their source being killed before he can fully deliver his goods to them.Taking a "vacation" there themselves, the two enjoy some of the park's attractions while investigating, including holographic chess, as well as a device Danner uses which is able to record one's dream.
These duplicates would appear to be closer to genuine androids than more-simple robots with biological elements in their design.I did find the handguns used unusual, as they seem to fire something closer to an "energy bullet) than normal bullets.Of course, our pair finally escapes, and reveals this plot at the end.I wouldn't call Futureworld one of the best 1970s science fiction films, but it is certainly a good one which raises some other points I haven't mentioned here, and issues as well.
Ultimately, Westworld, for it's "robot-goes-mad-and-kills-people-in-theme-park" is good science fiction.
It's rather surprising that "Westworld" got a sequel - these days we're used to thinking of the late Michael Crichton (the director/writer of the original) as a name that guarantees gold but such wasn't always the case and the first film didn't exactly set the box office on fire.
Plus it had a rather apocalyptic and cynical ending - the high priced adult amusement park run by the DELOS corporation is effectively destroyed by humanoid robots run amok - not exactly fodder for sequels back at a time when they were a little less common, especially for genre fare like this.But a sequel was made anyway, and "Futureworld" though no really great shakes is better than it could have been.
For another it's got a lot of goofy, fun stuff like robot-boxing and holographic chess (a year before "Star Wars" mind you), and for a third it's got terrific character actor Stuart Margolin as the geeky tech guy who leads our intrepid reporter-heroes (Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner) towards the terrifying discovery that the robots of DELOS are not all just playthings.The reporters, you see, have been invited by the board of DELOS to get a backstage view of the revamped and re-opened theme park, with the "world of the future" segment that gives the film its title replacing the abandoned WesternWorld.
There are some decent action scenes, a weird fantasy sequence that is notable only as an excuse to have a few moments of Yul Brynner returning as the Gunslinger, and the effects seem a step up from the original; and I for one always like chase sequences set in steam tunnels and big underground piles of machinery, which are pretty much the last third of the film, so I was kept going and could overall recommend this.The biggest problem for me was Peter Fonda, an actor who has developed somewhat interestingly over the years but who sometimes seems like little more than a dull pretty-boy in his early films - a less-talented Robert Redford perhaps.
Despite the robots going crazy and killing the guests last time, and apparently every trial lawyer in the world drinking Roofies, this apparently doesn't bug anyone.We find out the robots have taken over, and are cleverly replacing real people with robots.There are a few scenes that defy logic, like the magically generated samurai and the dream sequence to get Yul Brenner (who played the killer robot in the last film that made sense) into the film.You have Peter Fonda, who obviously didn't get the thespian gene in his family, trying to stretch out 30 minutes of plot into a 90 minute feature..
'Futureworld' is the sequel to 'Westworld' this time around we have Two reporters, played by Blythe Danner and Peter Fonda visit Futureworld for an inside scoop,to find out what he knew.
Blythe Danner has little to do but be the damsel in distress Danner looks just like her daughter Gweneth Paltrow, Fonda and Danner both uncover a conspiracy that involves the Corportion making robot doubles of world leaders those who enjoyed Yul Brynner's role as the cold blooded gunslinger in Westworld will be disappointed as he just has a cameo appearance in a dream sequence!
FUTUREWORLD is a bland, uninteresting sequel to one of my favourite science fiction films of all time – Michael Crichton's WESTWORLD, a movie I can watch over and over again without ever getting bored.
Many sequels rehash the plots of the original movies, but this one evades that in favour of a more complex and layered storyline about an evil corporation's plan to replace the world's leaders with robot versions of themselves.Unfortunately, the execution of this film is diabolical, making it near unwatchable.
The story seems muddled and never really goes anywhere, with the focus being on two of the dullest leads I've seen in a film, a pair of reporters played by Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner.
A sequel to ¨Michael Chricton's "Westworld" which sees two reporters (Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner) enter to the new "Futureworld" theme park for adult holidays.