Silver Screen Resolution, Take Two: Futureworld

For my 2018 Resolution Project, I decided to take a page out of Lane’s book and do my own Silver Screen Resolution (hence the Take Two part of the  title). There are a lot of movies out there I haven’t seen but feel like I should have, or movies that I’ve simply wanted to see and have yet to get around to it. With a deadline of some kind, now I’ll have to finally make a point to find them, get them, and watch them. My rules for the resolution are slightly different in that:

1. They must be spec-fic (this has not changed).
2. The movie will not be one that is in theaters or that would be part of a Sound Off!
3. They don’t have to be popular – or even something folks have heard about.

But I’ve decided to take my resolution to the next level as well, since I had more than 12 movies on my list that I wanted to see. And since we’re in “Take Two” mode, I might as well up the ante: I will instead be seeing two spec fic movies per month rather than just one. Because my Editor-in-Chic loved Westworld so much and was so excited at the idea of me checking out Futureworld, I decided to give it a shot. And thus exists the only connected movies in my list o’ speculative movies.

Strap in — I’m spoiling everything.

Futureworld is set a little while after the Westworld debacle. The company that created Westworld, Delos, has sunk billions of dollars into creating a brand-new resort, scrapping every single robot and starting from scratch. While a few worlds remain the same, Westworld is gone and Futureworld has sprung up instead. In their attempt to get back in the public’s good eye (although how you’re going to do that when over 50 people were murdered by robots the last time is beyond me), they’ve invited public dignitaries as well as news media into the park to experience it for themselves. All areas of the park are available to the media, represented by our two protagonists, Chuck and Tracy. But Chuck is the very newspaper reporter that broke the story about Westworld and the Delos failure last time. And he’s already got the feeling something isn’t right…

Okay, so you know something fishy is going on with Delos because 5 minutes into the film a worker for the company tries to contact Chuck about something the company is doing. And then he’s dead from what looks like a gunshot to the back. And throughout the movie, the sketchy-looking head scientist keeps going into a back room where more technicians are working on something completely different than the park’s operations. Something biological in nature. On the surface everything seems okay, and Tracy is continuously annoyed with Chuck’s attempt to dig up what she claims isn’t there (although Chuck didn’t tell her about the dead guy until over an hour into the movie).

Audience, meet this guy. Now he’s dead.

It’s pretty obvious early on that the sketchy scientist is working on making clones of people. Even before they abduct the four main guests (Chuck, Tracy, a Russian general, and a Japanese man named Takaguchi whose role I don’t even remember) for additional samples and testing. So there’s no real mystery for the viewer except wondering why they’re making these clones. Are they trying to make their robots even better? Do they want to replace the real humans with their robot clones? If so, to what end? Are they trying to take over the world?

World domination was my guess since nothing else made sense. Although the “why” portion eluded me. In the end, it turned out to be less than exciting. Humans are going to ruin the planet, so we’re going to replace them, blah blah. Stuff we’ve seen dozens of times, only rather than herd humans up and control them like I, Robot‘s VIKI, I was put in mind of the AI in the animated Batman show, H.A.R.D.A.C, who was replacing humans with robots (and would eventually dispose of the humans). It seemed like a really drastic jump from what Delos did in the previous movie. They made a really fancy amusement park — why would they suddenly switch to giving two hoots about the planet? Sure, they mention human error, and constantly talk about how robots are better and more efficient than humans, but nothing in the first movie even suggested that humans were the problem with why the robots wigged out. It sounded more like a weird evolution hiccup in the program. The ghosts in the machine. And besides, I really don’t believe that the sketchy scientist cares about the planet.

Is there anyone who’s not a robot in this place?

Most of the movie is Chuck running around trying to find proof that Delos is hiding something, Tracy telling him to quit it, and the shots of the evil scientist and his robots droning away. It was entertaining for the most part, and the action near the end was fun. However, there are a few things I could have done without. There’s no reason at all for the extra story line featuring the guy who won a trip to Futureworld. In fact, his little story eventually drops away altogether and we never hear from him again. There’s also a weird dream sequence featuring Tracy and the Gunslinger. Yep. Good ole Yul-bot is back for pretty much no reason at all (I guess they wanted to add his name to the cast list to interest people?). Chuck does a few incredibly stupid things, such as hitting buttons on a massive machine he knows nothing about in an attempt to turn on some lights. When Tracy tells him to stop he actually says, “Don’t bother me, I have an instinct for these things.” Really, Chuck? REALLY? Before that, Tracy asks what he’s looking for, to which he replies, “How should I know?” Gee, Chuck, because you’re literally the one looking for something? And what the hell was with the three Yakuza-type guys that manifest out of nothingness to attack them? Is this a new robot-building technique? Why did they automatically attack? That whole scene had me going, “What the hell is going on?”

Seriously, what the hell am I watching?

In the end, Chuck and Tracy get away and they’re all happy-skippy about surviving and thwarting Delos, but there are a few problems with that. Their doubles, as the scientist claimed, were not robots.  Yet at one point Tracy shoots her doppelganger and is rewarded with a bright flash of sparks. And while Tracy and Chuck saunter away, it’s as though they’ve completely forgotten about the Russian general and Takaguchi. Did their doppelgangers kill them and replace them? That was the goal by the end of the trip, so I’m going to assume it happened. And I’m not sure who’s going to believe them about what Delos is doing, but I’ll go ahead and suspend my disbelief and roll with it.

No consequences whatsoever! Tee hee!

I’m pretty lukewarm about this movie overall. It was okay, but nothing impressive. Ok, except the sets. I will give them that the sets used were pretty great. From the underground area to the giant lock-in door where the faux-rocket to Futureworld takes off. At the very least I can now say I’ve experienced all the worlds of Delos, and now it’s time to move on.